(too many) books
I'm going to post this now, even though commentary on the books in question is incoherent to nonexistent in many cases, because I'm only going to fall further behind on writing commentary (and really, the commentary thing would be much easier if I wrote it just after reading the books, rather than waiting until I've forgotten everything I meant to say and have a long list to deal with).
In case you didn't know, I read a lot. I've often thought of making a list of what I read during the year, to find out exactly how many books I end up reading, but I usually forget to keep track sometime in January.
This is a list of what I read in the month after my birthday, minus internet sites, math papers, the first fifty pages of Les Misérables, and assorted short things I may have forgotten. In a world where I did a better job of saying useful things on the internet, there'd be some sort of commentary about all of the books, but this time I've only talked about some of them. If you're really paranoid about spoilers, skip the commentary, but I think I've been sufficiently vague.
*This is at least an aesthetic problem, unlike in Regenesis, where the miscounting rather overlaps the entire climax.
In case you didn't know, I read a lot. I've often thought of making a list of what I read during the year, to find out exactly how many books I end up reading, but I usually forget to keep track sometime in January.
This is a list of what I read in the month after my birthday, minus internet sites, math papers, the first fifty pages of Les Misérables, and assorted short things I may have forgotten. In a world where I did a better job of saying useful things on the internet, there'd be some sort of commentary about all of the books, but this time I've only talked about some of them. If you're really paranoid about spoilers, skip the commentary, but I think I've been sufficiently vague.
- Fair Game-Patricia Briggs
I was not expecting world-changing political consequences from an Alpha and Omega novel. And I've yet to find anyone else who's read it to talk about it with.
Also, the cover is really pretty, and Special Agent Fisher is awesome.
- Code Name Verity-Elizabeth Wein
- Murder with Peacocks-Donna Andrews
My brother recommended this with the information that the protagonist is a blacksmith. It is a charmingly amusing mystery, but the blacksmithing is almost entirely irrelevant -- she's too busy organizing three weddings and solving a murder to do any blacksmithing whatsoever.
- Deliverer-CJ Cherryh
This a book in the Foreigner series, and it sort of seems to get forgotten in universe. The aiji's son gets kidnapped, everyone rushes off to rescue him, Bren's brother comes way inland to help with all this business . . . and in the next book, it seems like no one's talked to Bren's brother since he dropped them off when they'd only just gotten back from space. (That's not the only bit, but it's the easiest to say.)
- The Time Traders-Andre Norton
- The Defiant Agents-Andre Norton
- Key out of Time-Andre Norton
- A Thousand Words for Stranger-Julie E. Czerneda
- Noise-Hal Clement
- Chess with a Dragon-David Gerrold
- Murder with Puffins-Donna Andrews
I preferred Peacocks, but I don't know that there's anything in particular I can point to. Also, still no blacksmithing.
- Conspirator-CJ Cherryh
- Deceiver-CJ Cherryh
- Down these Strange Streets-George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (eds.)
I got this book from the library because there is a Patricia Briggs story in it about Warren solving a mystery.
- The Black Moth-Georgette Heyer
Distinctly not my favorite Heyer.
- Betrayer-CJ Cherryh
The continuity errors are getting to me. Pairuti has six children from four marriages. Further down the page, these are enumerated, but there are suddenly only five of them. Later in the book, it's a plot point that Pairuti has no children.
Also, once upon a time there were four Marid clans, and a fifth that had died out, who claimed to resolve the infelicity by having one of them in charge. Now there are five*. This may be an argument for not rereading the series every year in preparation for the new one.
- Intruder-CJ Cherryh
This is the new one. And I mostly forgot the continuity snarls once I got into it, and some of the ones I noticed anyway were resolved/explained in the text (people on the internet have pointed out a few I didn't notice, but . . .). Basically, whatever the tangles, I really enjoyed this book.
- The Future of Us-Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler
Two high school kids find themselves on their future Facebook accounts fifteen years before Facebook exists, and start trying to ensure that their futures are ones they actually want.
- We'll Always Have Parrots-Donna Andrews
I've missed Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos and Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon thanks to library availability. This one has no actual blacksmithing, but it does have Meg-the-blacksmith selling the results of her blacksmithing at a TV-show-fandom convention. A convention that has for some reason decided that it would be a good idea to have monkeys and parrots running around the hotel it's at (for the record, it's not).
- Owls Well that Ends Well-Donna Andrews
Meg-the-blacksmith is still not blacksmithing! Now she's running a yard sale. (To be fair, she does think about blacksmithing sometimes. And intend to do it once the yard sale is over.)
- You've Got Murder-Donna Andrews
An AI investigates the disappearance of her programmer.
- The Postmortal-Drew Magary
The people in this book are stuck with an incredibly flawed immortality drug -- it stops aging, but does not stop or prevent cancer or heart attacks or horrible plagues . . . Nevertheless, everyone rushes out and gets it, causing major overpopulation and social upheaval. Also creepy things like the woman who gives it to her baby so she'll always be a perfect baby. It's told as a series of blog entries, or something similar, which works pretty well.
- Soulless-Gail Carringer
- Changeless-Gail Carringer
- Blameless-Gail Carringer
- Heartless-Gail Carringer
I'll be honest, I would probably have stopped after the first book if I'd had to go to any effort whatsoever to get the others -- but the first three were all together. They're reasonably fun once you get past the voice (I think it was aiming for the sort of detached you get in some historical novels, but the writing wasn't pretty enough for detached to work for me, and thus I mostly felt disconnected from the characters) and the world-building (this is totally Victorian England, guys, because we said so. Now watch us show you how it's not), which happened for me somewhere in the second book. It might have helped that protagonist and the guy she was obviously obsessed with got married around that point.
- The Chronoliths-Robert Charles Wilson
*This is at least an aesthetic problem, unlike in Regenesis, where the miscounting rather overlaps the entire climax.