January 2008 Reading

1. Dreamsongs: Volume 1 - George R. R. Martin
2. New Amsterdam - Elizabeth Bear
3. Black Projects, White Knights - Kage Baker
4. Jokers Wild - George R. R. Martin (editor)
5. Wastelands - John Joseph Adams (editor)
6. The Naked God: Faith - Peter F. Hamilton
7. Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key - Kage Baker
8. Blade of Tyshalle - Matthew Stover
9. The Widowmaker - Mike Resnick
10. Laughing Boy - Oliver La Farge
11. Force Heretic: Remnant - Sean Williams and Shane Dix

(above links are to the reviews)

Because I counted Dreamsongs as part of my Best of 2007 lists, I will not count it here in a “Best of the Month”, but suffice it to say that George Martin’s career retrospective is something special, and something worth reading for all fans of the genre.


Book of the Month:
Blade of Tyshalle. Stover really twisted things up because the incredible physical presence of Caine was taken away and at the end of the last book he was left crippled, and yet, the change of how Caine *can* respond and has to respond to the new issues in his life and both the regular world as well as the Overworld...it is compelling. Caine is bad a—even as a broken man.

Worst Book of the Month:
None. I did not read anything “bad” in January. The closest to “Worst Book” is my choice for “Disappointment”, but it really isn’t a Worst Book.

Pleasant Surprise of the Month:
None. Nothing here exceeded my expectations

Disappointment of the Month:
Black Projects, White Knights. The collection isn’t bad, per se, but my expectations were high and they were not met. The Company stories did not live up the pedigree of the Company novels

Collection / Anthology of the Month:
Wastelands. I really dug this anthology of humans surviving in the ashes of society’s collapse.

Pulitzer Prize Winning Novel of the Month:
Laughing Boy. This is the sort of early Pulitzer novel I want to read. It’s about Native American culture and has nothing to do with “class” and “society” and the “cultural elite” in the sense of those novels about the wealthy are about those things. I have this deep seated disgust with “society” novels, so the agrarian and Native themed novels from the early Pulitzer winners are the ones I key into...like this one.