It's that time again to look back at what I read the previous month, and since my child is still not crawling or spending most of his time awake, I continue to do a fairly solid job in getting books read. Progress! The one link is to my one review, though in this case the review is more of a re-read commentary than it is a review. So, we're sort of making progress there but not really.
1. White Trash Zombie Apocalypse, by Diana Rowland
2. Maelstrom, by Peter Watts
3. Silence Once Begun, by Jesse Ball
4. Honor's Knight, by Rachel Bach
5. NW, by Zadie Smith (unfinished)
6. Get In Trouble, by Kelly Link
7. We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart
8. Razor's Edge, by Martha Wells
9. Kenobi, by John Jackson Miller
10. Stronghold, by Melanie Rawn
Best Book of the Month: Rachel Bach is killing it with her Paradox trilogy. Honor's Knight is book 2, and it has me itching for the conclusion (Heaven's Queen). I don't know quite where's she going with the series, but I love the setting, the battles, and the obstinate morality of Devi Morris. It's good stuff, nice ass kicking space opera and very much worth seeking out to read. Highly recommended.
Disappointment of the Month: I last read Zadie Smith ten years ago when On Beauty was published, and I very briefly noted then that it was the novel I had hoped Smith would write, given that I had admired her work but not fully appreciated it until then. So, even though it took three years after publication for me to attempt NW, I had very high hopes that were sadly not met. Something about the style of the novel just did not work for me, it was borderline stream of consciousness and was so jumpy and not quite pulled together in a narrative format that I could engage with or follow. Not to be too simplistic, but I suspect that if NW was written in a more conventional prose format, I would have found it much more to my taste. It just wasn't for me, and this makes me a little sad.
Discovery of the Month: None, unless discovering / rediscovering that Kelly Link's short fiction generally isn't for me counts. If I wasn't so disappointed by NW, I'd have slid Get In Trouble into that slot.
Worth Noting: So, years ago I read Yoda: Dark Rendezvous thinking that we were finally going to get a good novel focusing on Yoda. Maybe we would get some background or just some general ass kickery of the muppet flipping around with his lightsaber spitting backwards sounding wisdom. Instead, most of the novel focused on the Padawan Scout, which wouldn't have been a problem if the book was titled Scout: Dark Rendezvous. Where I'm going with this is that Kenobi is almost entirely the book I wanted Yoda to be - significantly focused on Obi Wan as he was settling onto Tatooine with the intent to watch over Luke. There is a side focus on Anileen Calwell and on a particular Tusken Raider, but unlike with the Yoda novel here it seems to build and enrich the story of Obi Wan in hiding. Here we get the struggle of Obi Wan to truly be in hiding with the greater purpose of protecting Luke while not abandoning the other principles of the Jedi Order when he could help in other ways. Kenobi is one of the stronger Star Wars novels I've read in a while. Maybe not top shelf Star Wars, but worth checking out if that sort of thing interests you.
Gender Breakdown: This month seven out of the ten books I read were written by women. This brings me to 21 out of 34 so far for the year, or 61.76%. Given that every other year in my life would have been drastically skewed in favor or significantly more men, I'm more than okay with my plan and goal to read more books written by women in 2015 than by men. So far I'm holding very well to this goal.
Previous Months:
January
February
Friday, April 03, 2015
Thursday, April 02, 2015
A Look Back at 2014: Or, Reading and Gender
This is a long overdue article, and one which I meant to write in early to mid January. Of course, my son was born three weeks early and he has sapped all sorts of mental energy. You'll note that I continue to use him as an excuse for things. I'm not sure exactly how long I can pull that off, but I'll keep trying.
In July I wrote an article about gender, and what I read. I read, on average, perhaps 120 books each year. Even with the kid, I'm on track to at least do that again this year (though, my video game playing has significantly decreased). As mentioned in the previous article, over the last six years the percentage of books I have read in a given year which were written by women ranged from 26% and 45%. I noted at the time that the 45% was my progress so far in 2014 and that most years I was somewhere in the 30% bracket.
So, for all the years I have paid attention to the issue of gender, and what I read, I have done a rather crappy job at changing my personal status quo.
Let's actually look at what I did in 2014. The first number represents the count of books written by women, the second is the total books read during that month.
January: 4/14
February: 8/13
March: 7/14
April: 3/6
May: 6/16
June: 3/9
July: 5/10
August: 3/10
September: 4/8
October: 4/9
November: 8/14
December: 7/12
2014: 62/135 (45.92%)
In the end, I stuck right around the same 45% I was at in July, though had I not tanked August I could have been a lot closer to a 50/50 balance. So, given my history of really only reading female authored books three out of every ten times, it's a huge improvement. It's not perfect, but there is no perfect number.
There is no perfect number. The reason I'm tracking this is that a number of years ago I ran across several conversations people about what they were reading, and what does it say if you are only reading books written by men? Hopefully, it means that most of those books you are reading are damn awesome and entertaining and you get full value out of them. As you should.
I noted in July that
That's an important point that still stands. I'm not trying to hit a quota, but I've had a goodly number of women on my "to read" list for a decade without ever picking their books up. Same with those by men (sorry, Peter Hamilton and Alastair Reynolds, I just keep not picking your books up even though I want to). This is about broadening and about discovering awesome writers I really should have been reading all along. C. J. Cherryh? Yeah, she's friggin fantastic but I never read her until 2009 after more than a decade of her being on my radar.
I'm still looking for new shiny things to read, and while I said that I'm not trying to hit a quota, I am consciously trying to read more women. Not because I think doing so is somehow "good for me" or that I'm going to score points with people whose opinions I value, but because there are a wealth of awesome stories out there and if I'm only reading men, I'm missing out on a lot. I'm going to read more of everything. Scott Lynch, Peter Brett, Brian McClellan: I'm reading all of you this year. Kate Elliott, Katherine Kerr, Robin Hobb: I'm also reading all of you this year.
As a side note for where I'm at in 2015 so far, for the first time ever I have read more women than men. I remark on it because of all those years the percentage swung dramatically the other way. This year, it swings in a different direction. Because reading is a conscious choice and there are plenty of books and authors who I know are going to be my favorites and that I'm going to love with a passion. I just have to read them.
As a further side point: I remember being in high school and my father telling me that he made the town librarian fairly mad because she would recommend him books and he told her that he didn't like books written by women. I was shocked and a little upset at the time. Our librarian, who happened to be a woman, was an awesome lady and the best librarian a fledgling geek could have - and she recommended fantastic books written by both men and women. But I never understood cutting off half the population just like that. I also didn't understand how he could tell the difference, except by a name on the cover. Still don't. I didn't get into the fight with him because it wasn't worth it, but it was something that I've remember with a "nope, not going to be like that" firmly planted in my head. I'm going to read it all.
In July I wrote an article about gender, and what I read. I read, on average, perhaps 120 books each year. Even with the kid, I'm on track to at least do that again this year (though, my video game playing has significantly decreased). As mentioned in the previous article, over the last six years the percentage of books I have read in a given year which were written by women ranged from 26% and 45%. I noted at the time that the 45% was my progress so far in 2014 and that most years I was somewhere in the 30% bracket.
So, for all the years I have paid attention to the issue of gender, and what I read, I have done a rather crappy job at changing my personal status quo.
Let's actually look at what I did in 2014. The first number represents the count of books written by women, the second is the total books read during that month.
January: 4/14
February: 8/13
March: 7/14
April: 3/6
May: 6/16
June: 3/9
July: 5/10
August: 3/10
September: 4/8
October: 4/9
November: 8/14
December: 7/12
2014: 62/135 (45.92%)
In the end, I stuck right around the same 45% I was at in July, though had I not tanked August I could have been a lot closer to a 50/50 balance. So, given my history of really only reading female authored books three out of every ten times, it's a huge improvement. It's not perfect, but there is no perfect number.
There is no perfect number. The reason I'm tracking this is that a number of years ago I ran across several conversations people about what they were reading, and what does it say if you are only reading books written by men? Hopefully, it means that most of those books you are reading are damn awesome and entertaining and you get full value out of them. As you should.
I noted in July that
I only know about what I know about. Until I had read Elizabeth Bear, I never knew just how much I would love her writing and how she consistently writes novels that blow me away. Until I just read Katherine Addison after years of being aware of Sarah Monette (her real name) but never reading Monette's books, I would never have known just how good The Goblin Emperor was. Insert any writer you want there. Until I read Carrie Vaughn, I turned away from the thought of the modern urban fantasy / paranormal romance with werewolves and vampires. The list can go on (and on) with any number of writers in any genre, male or female, because so often you just don't know until you give a book a go.
That's an important point that still stands. I'm not trying to hit a quota, but I've had a goodly number of women on my "to read" list for a decade without ever picking their books up. Same with those by men (sorry, Peter Hamilton and Alastair Reynolds, I just keep not picking your books up even though I want to). This is about broadening and about discovering awesome writers I really should have been reading all along. C. J. Cherryh? Yeah, she's friggin fantastic but I never read her until 2009 after more than a decade of her being on my radar.
I'm still looking for new shiny things to read, and while I said that I'm not trying to hit a quota, I am consciously trying to read more women. Not because I think doing so is somehow "good for me" or that I'm going to score points with people whose opinions I value, but because there are a wealth of awesome stories out there and if I'm only reading men, I'm missing out on a lot. I'm going to read more of everything. Scott Lynch, Peter Brett, Brian McClellan: I'm reading all of you this year. Kate Elliott, Katherine Kerr, Robin Hobb: I'm also reading all of you this year.
As a side note for where I'm at in 2015 so far, for the first time ever I have read more women than men. I remark on it because of all those years the percentage swung dramatically the other way. This year, it swings in a different direction. Because reading is a conscious choice and there are plenty of books and authors who I know are going to be my favorites and that I'm going to love with a passion. I just have to read them.
As a further side point: I remember being in high school and my father telling me that he made the town librarian fairly mad because she would recommend him books and he told her that he didn't like books written by women. I was shocked and a little upset at the time. Our librarian, who happened to be a woman, was an awesome lady and the best librarian a fledgling geek could have - and she recommended fantastic books written by both men and women. But I never understood cutting off half the population just like that. I also didn't understand how he could tell the difference, except by a name on the cover. Still don't. I didn't get into the fight with him because it wasn't worth it, but it was something that I've remember with a "nope, not going to be like that" firmly planted in my head. I'm going to read it all.
Wednesday, April 01, 2015
Stronghold, by Melanie Rawn
Stronghold
Melanie Rawn
DAW: 1991
Welcome back to my Melanie Rawn re-read! When we last left off, in March of last year, we had concluded Rawn's Dragon Prince trilogy (Dragon Prince, The Star Scroll, Sunrunner's Fire) and I suggested that I would resume the re-read in a timely manner. This was obviously untrue and I clearly cannot be trusted when I say when a certain article is going live, but here we are again at the start of a new trilogy.
In my write up of Sunrunner's Fire I suggested that if you consider story arcs across the series, the six books really comprise a single trilogy that looks like this:
1. Dragon Prince (1 book)
2. Star Scroll / Sunrunner's Fire (2 books)
3. Dragon Star (3 books)
I still think that works. Where Dragon Prince was a standalone that set up future stories, The Star Scross and Sunrunner's Fire had distinct story arcs that were as much in service of setting up a larger story as they were concluding the proper story arc of dealing with the fallout from Roelstra. Dragon Star is three books comprising one war.
As before, this is less of a proper review and more of a re-read. There
is an excellent chance of book and previous trilogy spoilers, though I will
attempt to limit (but not necessarily eliminate) those that touch on the
remainder of the Dragon Star trilogy. You have been warned. The quick answer is that I
am a huge fan of these novels from Melanie Rawn and very highly
recommend them. Go read, I'll still be here. One way that I keep describing both Stronghold and the Dragon Star trilogy is: Melanie Rawn kills everyone and burns the whole thing to the ground. I mean this in the best possible way, but everything that Rawn spent so much time and emotional energy building in the Dragon Prince trilogy with Rohan and his dreams of peace is completely shattered with the invasion of the Vellant'im. We know nothing about these people, except that they are bearded, targeting faradh'im (the Sunrunners) and are destroying and burning their way across the continent, seemingly towards the desert.
Rawn was likely planning this from the start, given that she published Dragon Prince in 1988, published the next two in 1989 and 1990, and immediately published Stronghold in 1991. But, more than publishing one trilogy and and then working on the next one, Rawn seeded The Star Scroll and Sunrunner's Fire with hints of the Dragon Star novels. It was the war with the sorcerer's, but also the continuing hints of Andry's vision of his world in flames and his family destroyed. Andry knew this war was coming, though he didn't know when or how. Stronghold shows how. Or, at least, the beginning of how.
The build to war is slow. There are several more hints at the invasion to come, the first coastal cities are hit but they are hit during cloud cover so it takes longer for word to spread to Stronghold and Dragon's Rest than it otherwise might. Scattered reports are getting through, and what to believe? Except that the invaders are burning and gutting cities / castles and then moving farther inland.
Stronghold is where Rawn starts killing minor (and major) characters. This invasion is for real, and nobody is safe. This is made clear as the invasion begins to hit the Desert. But, besides the invasion, there are two other primary conflicts. The first is the inevitable conflict of Pol vs Andry. At this point Andry is well established as Lord of Goddess Keep with fully established power. Pol is the next High Prince and is starting to step into that role, but he's still a step behind Rohan because Pol doesn't fully inherit so long as Rohan is around. But, a central conflict of the series is the battling influences and ideas of Pol vs Andry. It doesn't get any better here.
The other conflict is, sadly, Pol vs Rohan. Despite being lord of Princemarch and the next High Prince, Pol still lives in the shadow of his father. As one does, especially when one's father is such a prominent and vital man in that particular world. Pol chafes, and he has the inexperience of youth that his ideas of how to behave and what the appropriate response should be is in conflict with what Rohan knows based on his years of experience and what he has spent his life trying to build (unified rule of law, general peace). But as the invasion deepens, Pol begins to no longer trust his father's decisions. He wants desperately to believe in Rohan like he did as a child, but each step chafes.
Which is the point that I start bringing in my own personal situation into the book and I think about my relationship with my father and the relationship I hope to have with my (now) three month old son, and the struggles of fatherhood and growing in different directions but still being family. I think of Andry's relationship with Chay (his father) and with Rohan and Pol (uncle and cousin), and of my extended families and my hopes. This has nothing to do with the book itself, but it part of my introspection around it. It's the stuff that I think about when I think about the book. Getting older changes how you think about stuff, and that's even when you don't have a near nameless murderous invasion destroying your land and you see your father just not doing anything to stop it and that's all you want is for him to act.
So, Stronghold. It's a brutal novel, filled with death and disappointment. Of course I like it
Unlike the Dragon Prince trilogy, which I've read many times, I've only read Dragon Star once. And of that once, I'm not sure I've ever read the second volume Dragon Token. I know I've read Stronghold once before and I know I've read Skybowl, but I vaguely remember never being able to find a copy of the middle book when I was younger. Now I have it. So, we'll see if my Melanie Rawn reread proceeds with a book I don't remember at all.
This time, I make no promises as to how quickly the next article will go up. Just know that it will.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Forthcoming Books: April - May - June 2015
Each quarter I typically look forward at some of the interesting books coming out in the next three months. I started to put together my typical writeup using the Locus Forthcoming list as my primary source, as I have been doing for years. But, as I looked forward, I found myself mostly disinterested in what Locus was listing.
This caused me to pause. Was it just my mood at the time of writing? Was it the books? I noticed, for the first time, that the Locus list is a curated "Selected Books By Author" pulled from the magazine, so what they post online is only a fraction of what they list in the magazine. I'd consider subscribing, but the price seems a little high based on how useful / interesting I think I'd find the magazine.
So, I wonder what I'm missing. Is this a quiet period for new books I'm interested in or is the selected list from Locus hiding some really good stuff I'd love, but I need to subscribe to find it? Is there a better way to do these searches? Do I need to retire these posts and figure out some other way to work through interesting books that haven't been published yet?
Regardless, with perhaps less fanfare than usual because I feel dissatisfied with the process, here's a small stack of books I'd like to read one day.
The Skull Throne, by Peter V Brett (April)
The Rebirths of Tao, by Wesley Chu (April)
Corsair, by James Cambais (May)
The Unlicensed Magician, by Kelly Barnhill (June)
Nemesis Game, by James S. A. Corey (June)
Finders Keepers, by Stephen King (June)
This caused me to pause. Was it just my mood at the time of writing? Was it the books? I noticed, for the first time, that the Locus list is a curated "Selected Books By Author" pulled from the magazine, so what they post online is only a fraction of what they list in the magazine. I'd consider subscribing, but the price seems a little high based on how useful / interesting I think I'd find the magazine.
So, I wonder what I'm missing. Is this a quiet period for new books I'm interested in or is the selected list from Locus hiding some really good stuff I'd love, but I need to subscribe to find it? Is there a better way to do these searches? Do I need to retire these posts and figure out some other way to work through interesting books that haven't been published yet?
Regardless, with perhaps less fanfare than usual because I feel dissatisfied with the process, here's a small stack of books I'd like to read one day.
The Skull Throne, by Peter V Brett (April)
The Rebirths of Tao, by Wesley Chu (April)
Corsair, by James Cambais (May)
The Unlicensed Magician, by Kelly Barnhill (June)
Nemesis Game, by James S. A. Corey (June)
Finders Keepers, by Stephen King (June)
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Thoughts on the Nebula Award Nominees: Novellas
We Are All Completely Fine, Daryl Gregory (Tachyon)
Yesterday’s Kin, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
“The Regular,” Ken Liu (Upgraded)
“The Mothers of Voorhisville,” Mary Rickert (Tor.com 4/30/14)
Calendrical Regression, Lawrence Schoen (NobleFusion)
“Grand Jeté (The Great Leap),” Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’14)
In a weird turn of events, this is the first year I've finished the reading all of the Nebula Award nominated novellas this far before the awards are to be announced. Part of the reason for this is that there was just enough time in between the Nebula announcement and when I needed to get in my Hugo nominations that I could quick push through the novellas to consider these novellas for my ballot.
Previously, I would schedule up my Nebula posts to all go up the week leading up to the awards. This year I'm going to wrap up each category as I finish it. There will likely be a fairly decent gap between this article and my next Nebula article.
As I have done in the past, my comments on the novellas will be in reverse order of how I would rank them.
Calendrical Regression: Lawrence Schoen has thrice been nominated for a Nebula Award, each one for one his novellas and also in each of the last three years. Calendrical Regression fits into his buffalito series of stories and I constantly marvel at the concept of a miniature buffalo named Reggie. They are charming and fun and generally funny. Calendrical Regression is no different, and while I'm always happy to read a buffalito story, I'm not sure I would have nominated it for an award.
Yesterday's Kin: If we're talking about awards, Nancy Kress has won five Nebula Awards and has been nominated for many more. This is also the last time we're going to talk about the number of previous wins or nominations for the rest of the category. Nobody here has more than Kress. Yesterday's Kin is a story of what happens after the first contact with aliens and also of genetics. It's fascinating, though as with many of Kress's shorter works, I wanted to dig more into the stuff she built the story on. I want to get more into the genetics - or less into the genetics and more into the implications of the genetics, to get to different aspects of how this would all play out. What really happens next. Yesterday's Kin is complete, but I want more - or different.
"The Regular": At this point my rankings get a bit murky, as I might flip the next three stories around on any given day. The distance between them is not great. Ken Liu is a fantastic storyteller and "The Regular features a detective working a case the police closed without a deeper investigation. Liu deals with the intersections of race, class, expectation, and melds it together in a wonderful (if occasionally awful, because the details are not always pleasant) stew.
"The Mothers of Voorhisville": What if one man managed to get nearly every woman in a small town pregnant, except that the man might be supernatural in some way and all of the babies aren't exactly normal? As told in an oral history of the event / events. The result is Mary Rickert's "The Mothers of Voorhisville", a story I couldn't look away from though sometimes I wanted to cover my eyes. It's not a nasty story in the sense of covering my eyes, but it gets exceedingly uncomfortable. Well done.
"Grand Jete": It is no secret that I have enjoyed Rachel Swirsky's fiction of the years and "Grand Jete" is as worthy of admiration as so many of her other stories. It is a story of a dying young girl, a father building a simulacrum of his daughter, and the heaviness of loss, grief, and fear. It is beautiful, bitter and somewhat sweet.
We Are All Completely Fine: I am constantly surprised by how little Daryl Gregory I have actually read. I read his first novel and somehow managed to not read the rest, but We Are All Completely Fine was so good that I am for sure going to read the novel Harrison Squared, which is something of a prequel to this, a novel set in what seems like an AA group meeting, except that all of the members are survivors of some sort of serial killer level trauma - but there's even more going on with each of their stories than that. It's fantastic, and I immediately started trying to describe the book to my wife, with little success except to say "This was excellent, you should read it."
Yesterday’s Kin, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
“The Regular,” Ken Liu (Upgraded)
“The Mothers of Voorhisville,” Mary Rickert (Tor.com 4/30/14)
Calendrical Regression, Lawrence Schoen (NobleFusion)
“Grand Jeté (The Great Leap),” Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’14)
In a weird turn of events, this is the first year I've finished the reading all of the Nebula Award nominated novellas this far before the awards are to be announced. Part of the reason for this is that there was just enough time in between the Nebula announcement and when I needed to get in my Hugo nominations that I could quick push through the novellas to consider these novellas for my ballot.
Previously, I would schedule up my Nebula posts to all go up the week leading up to the awards. This year I'm going to wrap up each category as I finish it. There will likely be a fairly decent gap between this article and my next Nebula article.
As I have done in the past, my comments on the novellas will be in reverse order of how I would rank them.
Calendrical Regression: Lawrence Schoen has thrice been nominated for a Nebula Award, each one for one his novellas and also in each of the last three years. Calendrical Regression fits into his buffalito series of stories and I constantly marvel at the concept of a miniature buffalo named Reggie. They are charming and fun and generally funny. Calendrical Regression is no different, and while I'm always happy to read a buffalito story, I'm not sure I would have nominated it for an award.
Yesterday's Kin: If we're talking about awards, Nancy Kress has won five Nebula Awards and has been nominated for many more. This is also the last time we're going to talk about the number of previous wins or nominations for the rest of the category. Nobody here has more than Kress. Yesterday's Kin is a story of what happens after the first contact with aliens and also of genetics. It's fascinating, though as with many of Kress's shorter works, I wanted to dig more into the stuff she built the story on. I want to get more into the genetics - or less into the genetics and more into the implications of the genetics, to get to different aspects of how this would all play out. What really happens next. Yesterday's Kin is complete, but I want more - or different.
"The Regular": At this point my rankings get a bit murky, as I might flip the next three stories around on any given day. The distance between them is not great. Ken Liu is a fantastic storyteller and "The Regular features a detective working a case the police closed without a deeper investigation. Liu deals with the intersections of race, class, expectation, and melds it together in a wonderful (if occasionally awful, because the details are not always pleasant) stew.
"The Mothers of Voorhisville": What if one man managed to get nearly every woman in a small town pregnant, except that the man might be supernatural in some way and all of the babies aren't exactly normal? As told in an oral history of the event / events. The result is Mary Rickert's "The Mothers of Voorhisville", a story I couldn't look away from though sometimes I wanted to cover my eyes. It's not a nasty story in the sense of covering my eyes, but it gets exceedingly uncomfortable. Well done.
"Grand Jete": It is no secret that I have enjoyed Rachel Swirsky's fiction of the years and "Grand Jete" is as worthy of admiration as so many of her other stories. It is a story of a dying young girl, a father building a simulacrum of his daughter, and the heaviness of loss, grief, and fear. It is beautiful, bitter and somewhat sweet.
We Are All Completely Fine: I am constantly surprised by how little Daryl Gregory I have actually read. I read his first novel and somehow managed to not read the rest, but We Are All Completely Fine was so good that I am for sure going to read the novel Harrison Squared, which is something of a prequel to this, a novel set in what seems like an AA group meeting, except that all of the members are survivors of some sort of serial killer level trauma - but there's even more going on with each of their stories than that. It's fantastic, and I immediately started trying to describe the book to my wife, with little success except to say "This was excellent, you should read it."
Friday, March 06, 2015
Final Hugo Ballot
That's it, I'm done. I know I have a weekend coming up, but I've just run out of time and I know that I'm not going to have the opportunity to do deeper research on some of the categories farther down the ballot and I'm not going to get to read any more of the short fiction before it's time to submit. So, I sent in the nomination ballot this morning and don't plan to make any changes. This is it. This ballot is very similar to the last one I posted, with only a couple of changes / additions.
We'll see how close this comes to the actual short list when it is announced.
Novel
City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett
We'll see how close this comes to the actual short list when it is announced.
Novel
City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett
Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie
The Mirror Empire, by Kameron Hurley
The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
The Mirror Empire, by Kameron Hurley
The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer
Novella
“The Mothers of Voorhisville”, by Mary Rickert (Tor.com)
“Grand Jete”, by Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean)
We Are All Completely Fine, by Daryl Gregory
We Are All Completely Fine, by Daryl Gregory
Yesterday’s Kin, by Nancy Kress
Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden’s Syndrome, by John Scalzi
Novelette
“A Fire in the Heavens”, by Mary Robinette Kowal (Shadows Beneath)
Short Story
”The Color of Paradox”, by A. M. Dellamonica (Tor.com)
“Mrs Sorensen and the Sasquatch”, by Kelly Barnhill (Tor.com)
“A Cup of Salt Tears”, by Isabel
Yap (Tor.com)
“As Good as New”, by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com)
“Spores”, by Seanan McGuire (The End is Nigh)
Graphic Story
Saga, Vol 3
Locke and Key: Alpha and Omega
Related Work
Rocket Talk Podcast
What Makes This Book So Great, by Jo Walton
Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Interstellar
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Interstellar
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy
Mockingjay: Part I
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Mockingjay: Part I
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Dramatic Presentation, Short
Form
Editor, Short Form
William Schafer
Ann VanderMeer
Editor, Long Form
Professional Artist
John Picacio
Julie Dillon
Stephan Martiniere
Magali Villeneuve
Milan Jaram
Fan Artist
Elizabeth Legget
Wenqing Yan
Semiprozine
Fanzine
Chaos Horizon
Fanzine
Chaos Horizon
A Dribble of Ink
Lady Business
SF Mistressworks
The Wertzone
Lady Business
SF Mistressworks
The Wertzone
Fan Writer
Brandon Kempner
Renay Williams
Justin Landon
Abigail Nussbaum
Adam Whitehead
Abigail Nussbaum
Adam Whitehead
Fancast
No Nominations
John W. Campbell Award
Wesley Chu
Helene Wecker
Brian McClellan
Henry Lien
Isabel Yap
Isabel Yap
Wednesday, March 04, 2015
On White Trash Zombies
I am constantly fighting a battle with my personal biases, most of which have formed around an idea that I don't or won't like something. Let's use food as an example. I don't like coconut, especially when it comes to candy. Most every experience I've had with coconut has been unpleasant. But, I've never had coconut milk. Would a different delivery system make coconut more palatable? I don't know, because I've had enough coconut to not want to try it. Likewise, I do not enjoy pineapple or pineapple juice. My wife made a jerk chicken in the slow cooker the other night and the recipe called for pineapple. I was skeptical. I don't like pineapple.The dish was delicious.
For years I avoided avocado and guacamole. I refused to eat it. It looked gross, it just felt like something I would hate. So I didn't try it.
Guacamole is one of my favorite things to eat and if you can sneak some avocado on a sandwich or salad, you'll make me very happy. That bias kept me from trying one of my new favorite food items for years, if not decades. What a loss.
Yesterday I wrote that I had a seldom examined bias against the modern day version of urban fantasy, which these days I mostly think of as paranormal romance. To a significant point, I am being unfair right from the start in considering so many of the "vampire and werewolf" novels to be romance novels gilded with the supernatural. Actually, I am being further unfair in denigrating romance novels given that Romance is just as diverse a category as Science Fiction or Fantasy is. I want to acknowledge my bias runs a bit deeper without actually unpacking that bias / disinterest with the romance genre. The thing is, I'm not quite sure where this bias against urban fantasy has come from. Is it because if we're talking in general terms, I don't have a strong interest in reading another werewolf or vampire novel? Is it because if you look at the two covers I've included from Carrie Vaughn's Kitty Norville series, it doesn't look like something I would like to read? I think it is more the second, though I'd still argue that if you say "werewolf novel" I'm going to be disinclined to pay attention in the same way that other fantasy tropes will shut down my wife.
Carrie Vaughn is vital to this conversation because years ago I entered a contest to win some free books. I was happy when I found out I won right up until the point that I realized I won the first two novels in Carrie Vaughn's Kitty Norville series (Kitty and the Midnight Hour, Kitty Goes to Washington). At that point, I couldn't figure out why I even entered the contest because these books were not for me. Look at the covers. I am not the audience for those books. I don't know who the audience is, but it wasn't me. If cover art is marketing and is designed to get a reader to pick up a book and buy it, Grand Central Publishing was not selling me the book. But, the books were being sent to me so I might as well read them, right? You see where this is going?
Of course I loved them. Carrie Vaughn is one hell of a writer, I just didn't know it yet. I devoured those two books and waited impatiently for each subsequent book to come out.
The mistake I made then was in convincing myself that the urban fantasy genre was still not my thing, that Carrie Vaughn rose above the rest of the urban fantasy being written. That it's still paranormal romance dreck, but her stuff isn't. It's easy to do, easy to categorize the stuff we like as being better than the stuff we think we don't like. It allows us to keep a morally superior position which if we examined it at all we would recognize that it is nothing more than shame and bullshit keeping us in place.Each time I would read a different urban fantasy novel that I liked, I would elevate it out of the ghetto of my mind's making and hold it up as being better than the others. Maybe they are better, because I would sure as hell recommend Carrie Vaughn's Kitty Norville novels to anyone. I don't want to take away from those books I love, but I'm sick and tired of taking away from the books I haven't read yet either.
I don't remember what my trigger was last month, but this has been a long time coming. I decided to pick up Diana Rowland's My Life as a White Trash Zombie. I've haven't been aware of the series for long, but I've heard some solid buzz on Rowland, enough so that in my ongoing effort to read more books written by women this year, I wanted to add Diana Rowland to that number. I was also beginning to recognize a certain level of hypocrisy that I've been living with in how I view certain subgenres, urban fantasy being the one we're talking about right now and My Life as a White Trash Zombie fits solidly in that subgenre. So, it was a choice to read this book. It's a choice to read any book, but not all choices are solidly examined. This one was.
I've now read three of the four published White Trash Zombie novels and it is probably a good thing that I only have one more to go because I may risk burning out on a good thing - and these White Trash Zombie novels are definitely a good thing. They feature a life-going-nowhere young woman with a felony on her record who gets a second chance at life only after she's died and been turned into a zombie. I'm not sure there I have a good way to describe the book without it sounding hokey, but the execution is killer. Pun intended. Angel Crawford has a distinctive voice and her characterization and character transformation is outstanding. Because she is new at this whole zombie thing, any expository info dumps are as much for the character as they are for the reader. We're both discovering how Rowland's zombie America works. One small corner of it, anyway.
One reason why I keep trying to read new (to me) authors is that you never know what is going to stick and often it is something that you didn't expect you would like. Sometimes you read a lauded novel and it isn't for you, no matter how many awards it is nominated for. But sometimes you avoid a particular type of book for way too long only to discover that some of it is guacamole and whoops, you really like guacamole and you wish you didn't wait so long to try the guac.
What I think I'm saying is that I think urban fantasy is like dip. Some writers are putting out some delicious guacamole. Others may be a little bit too spicy, perhaps they've put in too much jalapeno and left the seeds and membranes. Those books might not be my thing, but just because they aren't doesn't mean that I shouldn't eat dip with my chips. Dip can be delicious and there are all sorts of different flavors. Maybe I should try some more.
Is anyone else hungry right now?
Tuesday, March 03, 2015
Books Read: February 2015
February marks my first month back at work after the birth of my son, and I'm fairly pleased with my ability to keep reading. I'm sure as he gets a bit older and more active, this will change a little bit and my 10+ books per month will drop to 5-7. February also marks the first month I have read more books electronically than in paper copy. I love holding books in my hand, but if my son is sleeping in my arms it is far easier to read on my nook than it is to try to hold a book in my hands - even more so if it is a hardback like Promise of Blood was.
Below are the eleven books I read during the month of February. As has been the case recently, there are no reviews to link to.
1. My Life as a White Trash Zombie, by Diana Rowland
2. Yesterday's Kin, by Nancy Kress
3. The Three, by Sarah Lotz
4. The Litigators, by John Grisham
5. The Complete Peanuts: 1993-1994, by Charles M. Schulz
6. Promise of Blood, by Brian McClellan
7. Fortune's Pawn, by Rachel Bach
8. Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues, by Diana Rowland
9. Time of the Dark, by Barbara Hambly
10. Redeployment, by Phil Klay
11. We Are All Completely Fine, by Daryl Gregory
Best Book of the Month: Phil Klay's collection Redeployment may one day hit the essential reading list much as Tim O'Brien's The Things We Carried did for the Vietnam War, though it is difficult to truly say what will resonate of the years and generations and what will just fade away despite the acclaim. Regardless, it is powerful fiction.
Disappointment of the Month: I'm not sure this is a disappointment, per se, but I guess I expected more out of Time of the Dark. I've previously read her two Star Wars novels, but I also read one of her books when I was a teenager. I want to tell you it was Dragonsbane, but I really couldn't say if it was that or The Silent Tower or The Walls of Air being read out of sequence. I remember nothing, except that I enjoyed it enough I wanted to read something else by her and then didn't for over twenty years. Time of the Dark was fine, it just didn't grip me. Also, I'm not sure how interested I still am in the concept of people from our world crossing over to a fantasy world. There's a term for this, I just can't remember it. Portal fantasy? I've enjoyed some of it in the past (Christopher Stasheff's Her Majesty's Wizard, others) and hated some of it (Lord Foul's Bane). But do I still want to read much more of it? I don't know.
Discovery of the Month: I have a bias which I seldom examine. Well, I probably have many biases, but the one in particular is against the modern idea of "urban fantasy", which I often think of as "paranormal romance" with werewolves and vampires. The bias is bullshit, of course. Years ago I won the first two Kitty Norville novels written by Carrie Vaughn in a contest that I don't think I meant to enter because look at those covers, man. They're clearly not for me. Except that I love the Kitty Norville novels and have been reading them faithfully ever since. I've read the Sookie Stackhouse books, intrigued at first by their popularity and then by how enjoyable most of them were to read (except the last one). But then I rationalized it by saying that I still don't like modern urban fantasy / paranormal romance, I just liked those books. They're "better". But that's bullshit, because it's exactly the same as saying that you don't like science fiction and fantasy but you really like Neil Gaiman and Margaret Atwood and The Time Traveler's Wife, but those aren't really SFF, they rise above genre. Bullshit, right? I was doing the same damn thing, so I picked up one of the more intriguing covers for a book that had been getting some good press. Surprise - I thought it was fantastic and immediately wanted to read more.
My discovery of the month is the White Trash Zombie series from Diana Rowland. It's fantastic. Period. I'm near the end of the third book. I might write a bit more about the White Trash Zombie series in a separate article because it's worth unpacking my thoughts on the books and what is wrong my thinking.
Worth Noting: I loved Promise of Blood from Brian McClellan. It's one of the first pieces of "flintlock fantasy" I'm conscious of reading, which is a fancy and concise way of saying that it is during the era of gunpowder rifles combined with magic and a fantasy setting. It's a change of setting that is nice, though I''m not at all claiming it was the first piece of that sort of fantasy written by a long shot. Also, I don't want to work too much with "flintlock fantasy" lest I start ghettoizing that, too. But it's good. Lots of action and kick-assery. I'm going to read more from McClellan.
Gender Breakdown: This month 6 out of the 11 books I read were written by women. This brings me to 14 out of 24 on the year. One of my reading goals for the year is to read more books written by women than by men. As much as I have been focusing on this over the years, it is taking a very conscious choice to accomplish. I'll have more to say about that in an article I still plan to write when I evaluate what I read last year.
Previous Months:
January
Below are the eleven books I read during the month of February. As has been the case recently, there are no reviews to link to.
1. My Life as a White Trash Zombie, by Diana Rowland
2. Yesterday's Kin, by Nancy Kress
3. The Three, by Sarah Lotz
4. The Litigators, by John Grisham
5. The Complete Peanuts: 1993-1994, by Charles M. Schulz
6. Promise of Blood, by Brian McClellan
7. Fortune's Pawn, by Rachel Bach
8. Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues, by Diana Rowland
9. Time of the Dark, by Barbara Hambly
10. Redeployment, by Phil Klay
11. We Are All Completely Fine, by Daryl Gregory
Best Book of the Month: Phil Klay's collection Redeployment may one day hit the essential reading list much as Tim O'Brien's The Things We Carried did for the Vietnam War, though it is difficult to truly say what will resonate of the years and generations and what will just fade away despite the acclaim. Regardless, it is powerful fiction.
Disappointment of the Month: I'm not sure this is a disappointment, per se, but I guess I expected more out of Time of the Dark. I've previously read her two Star Wars novels, but I also read one of her books when I was a teenager. I want to tell you it was Dragonsbane, but I really couldn't say if it was that or The Silent Tower or The Walls of Air being read out of sequence. I remember nothing, except that I enjoyed it enough I wanted to read something else by her and then didn't for over twenty years. Time of the Dark was fine, it just didn't grip me. Also, I'm not sure how interested I still am in the concept of people from our world crossing over to a fantasy world. There's a term for this, I just can't remember it. Portal fantasy? I've enjoyed some of it in the past (Christopher Stasheff's Her Majesty's Wizard, others) and hated some of it (Lord Foul's Bane). But do I still want to read much more of it? I don't know.
Discovery of the Month: I have a bias which I seldom examine. Well, I probably have many biases, but the one in particular is against the modern idea of "urban fantasy", which I often think of as "paranormal romance" with werewolves and vampires. The bias is bullshit, of course. Years ago I won the first two Kitty Norville novels written by Carrie Vaughn in a contest that I don't think I meant to enter because look at those covers, man. They're clearly not for me. Except that I love the Kitty Norville novels and have been reading them faithfully ever since. I've read the Sookie Stackhouse books, intrigued at first by their popularity and then by how enjoyable most of them were to read (except the last one). But then I rationalized it by saying that I still don't like modern urban fantasy / paranormal romance, I just liked those books. They're "better". But that's bullshit, because it's exactly the same as saying that you don't like science fiction and fantasy but you really like Neil Gaiman and Margaret Atwood and The Time Traveler's Wife, but those aren't really SFF, they rise above genre. Bullshit, right? I was doing the same damn thing, so I picked up one of the more intriguing covers for a book that had been getting some good press. Surprise - I thought it was fantastic and immediately wanted to read more.
My discovery of the month is the White Trash Zombie series from Diana Rowland. It's fantastic. Period. I'm near the end of the third book. I might write a bit more about the White Trash Zombie series in a separate article because it's worth unpacking my thoughts on the books and what is wrong my thinking.
Worth Noting: I loved Promise of Blood from Brian McClellan. It's one of the first pieces of "flintlock fantasy" I'm conscious of reading, which is a fancy and concise way of saying that it is during the era of gunpowder rifles combined with magic and a fantasy setting. It's a change of setting that is nice, though I''m not at all claiming it was the first piece of that sort of fantasy written by a long shot. Also, I don't want to work too much with "flintlock fantasy" lest I start ghettoizing that, too. But it's good. Lots of action and kick-assery. I'm going to read more from McClellan.
Gender Breakdown: This month 6 out of the 11 books I read were written by women. This brings me to 14 out of 24 on the year. One of my reading goals for the year is to read more books written by women than by men. As much as I have been focusing on this over the years, it is taking a very conscious choice to accomplish. I'll have more to say about that in an article I still plan to write when I evaluate what I read last year.
Previous Months:
January
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Preliminary Thoughts on the Nebula Nominees
The Nebula Award nominees were announced on Friday and I wanted to wait a few days to think about what was nominated before posting. Now that I've waited, I'm not sure my thoughts are any different. Overall, this appears to be a very solid list of nominees, though I have read very few of the shorter works so I may change my mind on that. I hope not.
Novel
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Tor)
Trial by Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit)
The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu (Tor)
Coming Home, Jack McDevitt (Ace)
Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (FSG Originals)
I have read three of the six nominated novels and they are all likely going to make my Hugo ballot. The Goblin Emperor, Ancillary Sword, and Annihilation are all outstanding works of fiction and area all more than worthy of a nomination. I have a copy of The Three Body-Problem at home and had been looking forward to reading it regardless of any nomination it may garner. The Nebula nomination just pushed it farther up my to-read pile. Charles Gannon was nominated last year for his novel Fire by Fire. I was a bit put off by the protagonist's dismissive sexism, but thought it was a well enough written novel that was easy enough to read and kept me just entertained enough to keep going. Assuming the level of writing and storytelling in Trial by Fire is consistent with Gannon's first novel, it seems a little out of place on this ballot.
On the other hand, the SFWA is an organization with over 1800 members and as much as I think that my tastes should be much more widely shared, people enjoy and appreciate different things and they love what they love no less passionately than I do. For them, Charles Gannon wrote outstanding novels two years in a row. And while I haven't read Jack McDevitt before despite his frequent Nebula nominations, I understand that he writes a similar sort of science fiction. The audience of Gannon and McDevitt are likely fairly similar. I'll give McDevitt a shot this year. I'm long over due.
Novella
We Are All Completely Fine, Daryl Gregory (Tachyon)
Yesterday’s Kin, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
“The Regular,” Ken Liu (Upgraded)
“The Mothers of Voorhisville,” Mary Rickert (Tor.com 4/30/14)
Calendrical Regression, Lawrence Schoen (NobleFusion)
“Grand Jeté (The Great Leap),” Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’14)
I have read three of the nominated novellas and the Mary Rickert and Rachel Swirsky stories are both consistently excellent, which is what one has come to expect from those two. They will both be on my Hugo ballot. Nancy Kress's story is a worthy addition, though it gave me less of the knock out punch that Rickert and Swirsky delivered.
Novelette
“Sleep Walking Now and Then,” Richard Bowes (Tor.com 7/9/14)
“The Magician and Laplace’s Demon,” Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld 12/14)
“A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i,” Alaya Dawn Johnson (F&SF 7-8/14)
“The Husband Stitch,” Carmen Maria Machado (Granta #129)
“We Are the Cloud,” Sam J. Miller (Lightspeed 9/14)
“The Devil in America,” Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com 4/2/14)
I have not read any of the Novelettes and am not overly familiar with any of the authors, which means that there is a whole lot of discovery here for me.
Short Story
“The Breath of War,” Aliette de Bodard (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 3/6/14)
“When It Ends, He Catches Her,” Eugie Foster (Daily Science Fiction 9/26/14)
“The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye,” Matthew Kressel (Clarkesworld 5/14)
“The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family,” Usman T. Malik (Qualia Nous)
“A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide,” Sarah Pinsker (F&SF 3-4/14)
“Jackalope Wives,” Ursula Vernon (Apex 1/7/14)
“The Fisher Queen,” Alyssa Wong (F&SF 5/14)
Likewise, I have not read any of the Short Stories, though last year I very much enjoyed Sarah Pinsker's "In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind". I tend to enjoy Aliette de Bodard's fiction, whether it is a novel or short story. The one thing that really struck me about this category, though, is that Eugie Foster's nominated story was her last story, published the day before she died. Foster had previously won a Nebula Award in 2009.
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Edge of Tomorrow
Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar
The Lego Movie
When it comes to the Nebula Award, I tend to focus on the Nebula "Proper" and less on the Bradbury and Norton Awards. With that said, while I haven't seen Birdman I am surprised to see a nomination here as I was not aware there were any genre elements beyond being about an actor who once played a superhero. But maybe that's enough. I still don't understand the raw love for The Lego Movie.
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy
Unmade, Sarah Rees Brennan (Random House)
Salvage, Alexandra Duncan (Greenwillow)
Love Is the Drug, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Levine)
Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future, A.S. King (Little, Brown)
Dirty Wings, Sarah McCarry (St. Martin’s Griffin)
Greenglass House, Kate Milford (Clarion)
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, Leslye Walton (Candlewick)
I have not read any of these novels.
Novel
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Tor)
Trial by Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit)
The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu (Tor)
Coming Home, Jack McDevitt (Ace)
Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (FSG Originals)
I have read three of the six nominated novels and they are all likely going to make my Hugo ballot. The Goblin Emperor, Ancillary Sword, and Annihilation are all outstanding works of fiction and area all more than worthy of a nomination. I have a copy of The Three Body-Problem at home and had been looking forward to reading it regardless of any nomination it may garner. The Nebula nomination just pushed it farther up my to-read pile. Charles Gannon was nominated last year for his novel Fire by Fire. I was a bit put off by the protagonist's dismissive sexism, but thought it was a well enough written novel that was easy enough to read and kept me just entertained enough to keep going. Assuming the level of writing and storytelling in Trial by Fire is consistent with Gannon's first novel, it seems a little out of place on this ballot.
On the other hand, the SFWA is an organization with over 1800 members and as much as I think that my tastes should be much more widely shared, people enjoy and appreciate different things and they love what they love no less passionately than I do. For them, Charles Gannon wrote outstanding novels two years in a row. And while I haven't read Jack McDevitt before despite his frequent Nebula nominations, I understand that he writes a similar sort of science fiction. The audience of Gannon and McDevitt are likely fairly similar. I'll give McDevitt a shot this year. I'm long over due.
Novella
We Are All Completely Fine, Daryl Gregory (Tachyon)
Yesterday’s Kin, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
“The Regular,” Ken Liu (Upgraded)
“The Mothers of Voorhisville,” Mary Rickert (Tor.com 4/30/14)
Calendrical Regression, Lawrence Schoen (NobleFusion)
“Grand Jeté (The Great Leap),” Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’14)
I have read three of the nominated novellas and the Mary Rickert and Rachel Swirsky stories are both consistently excellent, which is what one has come to expect from those two. They will both be on my Hugo ballot. Nancy Kress's story is a worthy addition, though it gave me less of the knock out punch that Rickert and Swirsky delivered.
Novelette
“Sleep Walking Now and Then,” Richard Bowes (Tor.com 7/9/14)
“The Magician and Laplace’s Demon,” Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld 12/14)
“A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i,” Alaya Dawn Johnson (F&SF 7-8/14)
“The Husband Stitch,” Carmen Maria Machado (Granta #129)
“We Are the Cloud,” Sam J. Miller (Lightspeed 9/14)
“The Devil in America,” Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com 4/2/14)
I have not read any of the Novelettes and am not overly familiar with any of the authors, which means that there is a whole lot of discovery here for me.
Short Story
“The Breath of War,” Aliette de Bodard (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 3/6/14)
“When It Ends, He Catches Her,” Eugie Foster (Daily Science Fiction 9/26/14)
“The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye,” Matthew Kressel (Clarkesworld 5/14)
“The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family,” Usman T. Malik (Qualia Nous)
“A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide,” Sarah Pinsker (F&SF 3-4/14)
“Jackalope Wives,” Ursula Vernon (Apex 1/7/14)
“The Fisher Queen,” Alyssa Wong (F&SF 5/14)
Likewise, I have not read any of the Short Stories, though last year I very much enjoyed Sarah Pinsker's "In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind". I tend to enjoy Aliette de Bodard's fiction, whether it is a novel or short story. The one thing that really struck me about this category, though, is that Eugie Foster's nominated story was her last story, published the day before she died. Foster had previously won a Nebula Award in 2009.
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Edge of Tomorrow
Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar
The Lego Movie
When it comes to the Nebula Award, I tend to focus on the Nebula "Proper" and less on the Bradbury and Norton Awards. With that said, while I haven't seen Birdman I am surprised to see a nomination here as I was not aware there were any genre elements beyond being about an actor who once played a superhero. But maybe that's enough. I still don't understand the raw love for The Lego Movie.
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy
Unmade, Sarah Rees Brennan (Random House)
Salvage, Alexandra Duncan (Greenwillow)
Love Is the Drug, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Levine)
Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future, A.S. King (Little, Brown)
Dirty Wings, Sarah McCarry (St. Martin’s Griffin)
Greenglass House, Kate Milford (Clarion)
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, Leslye Walton (Candlewick)
I have not read any of these novels.
Monday, February 23, 2015
A Draft Hugo Ballot
This still needs a lot of work, or - as much work as I can do in the next two weeks, but this is where I'm at with my ballot for the Hugo Awards. A star represents works that are a near lock to make my final ballot. Anything else is a very inconsistent mark that means something specific to me for that category, but isn't quite enough to be put into words.
Graphic Story
*Saga, Vol 3
*Locke and Key: Alpha and Omega
Related Work
*Rocket Talk Podcast
Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
*Interstellar
*Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Fan Writer
*Brandon Kempner
Novel
*City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett
*City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett
*Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie
*The Mirror Empire, by Kameron Hurley
*The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
*The Mirror Empire, by Kameron Hurley
*The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer
Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel
The Eternal Sky Trilogy, by Elizabeth Bear
Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel
The Eternal Sky Trilogy, by Elizabeth Bear
This is it for the novels, I won't be getting to anything else new before the nomination period closes. I have thoughts as to what my fifth slot will be, and it is very conflicted between excellent novels and reward a great achievement in the Eternal Sky trilogy (which is more than a worthy nominee - and much more so than The Wheel of Time was last year, I think in terms of raw quality)
Novella
*“The Mothers of Voorhisville”, by Mary Rickert (Tor.com)
*“Grand Jete”, by Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean)
Yesterday’s Kin, by Nancy Kress
Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden’s Syndrome, by John Scalzi
I have three more novellas on my Nook right now, plus another I have copied over to a word doc - so if I am very productive, this category could look very different if I get through Daryl Gregory, Kat Howard, Ken Liu, and Lawrence Shoen. Two of those will be read for the Nebula Awards, but if I get them fast enough I can consider them for the Hugos.
Novelette
“A Fire in the Heavens”, by Mary Robinette Kowal (Shadows Beneath)
I need to do work.
Short Story
-*”The Color of Paradox”, by A. M. Dellamonica (Tor.com)
--“Mrs Sorensen and the Sasquatch”, by Kelly Barnhill (Tor.com)
--“A Cup of Salt Tears”, by Isabel
Yap (Tor.com)
--“As Good as New”, by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com)
-“Spores”, by Seanan McGuire (The End is Nigh)
Last year was not a strong year for reading short fiction (for me), so I'm very behind. I've used Some of the Best of Tor.com as a resource just to get ideas for what to consider, though Kelly Barnhill's story has been on my list all year and she's still holding on. The trouble is, if I push to read more novelettes, I'm going to miss out on more short stories and my time is quite limited right now. So - if there are any strong recommendations for something I just have to read now, I'll take it.
Graphic Story
*Saga, Vol 3
*Locke and Key: Alpha and Omega
Related Work
*Rocket Talk Podcast
What Makes This Book So Great, by Jo Walton
There is an argument to be had regarding whether or not Rocket Talk is a Fancast or a Related Work. On the one hand, it is published on Tor.com, a professional publication - and I expect that Landon is compensated for each episode in the same way that all contributors to Tor.com are compensated. On the other hand, I believe that Tor.com does not pay for the production of Rocket Talk. I think, and this is obvious based on what category I'm commenting on, that Rocket Talk is a professional podcast and is much more suited to be a Related Work. I love Rocket Talk, it is the one podcast I actually listen to on a semi-regular basis. But it's association with Tor.com eliminates it from being a fancast.
Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
*Interstellar
*Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy
Mockingjay: Part I
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Mockingjay: Part I
X-Men: Days of Future Past
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Dramatic Presentation, Short
Form
Editor, Short Form
William Schafer
Ann VanderMeer
Editor, Long Form
Professional Artist
-John Picacio
-Julie Dillon
Stephan Martiniere
Magali Villeneuve
Milan Jaram
Joey Hi-Fi
Fan Artist
*Elizabeth Leggett (she has professional work, but I love the fan work)
Wenqing Yan
Semiprozine
Fanzine
*Chaos Horizon
Fanzine
*Chaos Horizon
A Dribble of Ink
Lady Business
SF Mistressworks
The Wertzone
Lady Business
SF Mistressworks
The Wertzone
Chaos Horizon is easily my favorite blog / fanzine this year. I love the analysis Kempner is doing in trying to figure out, based on past history, what works are likely to garner nominations for the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
Fan Writer
*Brandon Kempner
*Renay Williams
Justin Landon
Abigail Nussbaum
Adam Whitehead
Abigail Nussbaum
Adam Whitehead
Niall Alexander
Paul Weimer
Liz Bourke
See above. Also, Renay at Lady Business (and on Twitter) has been making me think this year, so I'd love to see her recognized.
Fancast
No Nominations
John W. Campbell Award
*Wesley Chu
*Helene Wecker
*Brian McClellan
Henry Lien
Friday, February 20, 2015
2014 Nebula Award Nominees
Picked this up first from John Scalzi, below are the nominees for the 2014 Nebula Awards (presented in 2015. I should have some initial thoughts on the nominees next week.
Congratulations to all the nominees.
Novel
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Tor)
Trial by Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu (Tor)
Coming Home, Jack McDevitt (Ace)
Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (FSG Originals)
Novella
We Are All Completely Fine, Daryl Gregory (Tachyon)
Yesterday’s Kin, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
“The Regular,” Ken Liu (Upgraded)
“The Mothers of Voorhisville,” Mary Rickert (Tor.com 4/30/14)
Calendrical Regression, Lawrence Schoen (NobleFusion)
“Grand Jeté (The Great Leap),” Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’14)
Novelette
“Sleep Walking Now and Then,” Richard Bowes (Tor.com 7/9/14)
“The Magician and Laplace’s Demon,” Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld 12/14)
“A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i,” Alaya Dawn Johnson (F&SF 7-8/14)
“The Husband Stitch,” Carmen Maria Machado (Granta #129)
“We Are the Cloud,” Sam J. Miller (Lightspeed 9/14)
“The Devil in America,” Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com 4/2/14)
Short Story
“The Breath of War,” Aliette de Bodard (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 3/6/14)
“When It Ends, He Catches Her,” Eugie Foster (Daily Science Fiction 9/26/14)
“The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye,” Matthew Kressel (Clarkesworld 5/14)
“The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family,” Usman T. Malik (Qualia Nous)
“A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide,” Sarah Pinsker (F&SF 3-4/14)
“Jackalope Wives,” Ursula Vernon (Apex 1/7/14)
“The Fisher Queen,” Alyssa Wong (F&SF 5/14)
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Edge of Tomorrow
Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar
The Lego Movie
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy
Unmade, Sarah Rees Brennan (Random House)
Salvage, Alexandra Duncan (Greenwillow)
Love Is the Drug, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Levine)
Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future, A.S. King (Little, Brown)
Dirty Wings, Sarah McCarry (St. Martin’s Griffin)
Greenglass House, Kate Milford (Clarion)
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, Leslye Walton (Candlewick)
Congratulations to all the nominees.
Novel
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Tor)
Trial by Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu (Tor)
Coming Home, Jack McDevitt (Ace)
Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (FSG Originals)
Novella
We Are All Completely Fine, Daryl Gregory (Tachyon)
Yesterday’s Kin, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
“The Regular,” Ken Liu (Upgraded)
“The Mothers of Voorhisville,” Mary Rickert (Tor.com 4/30/14)
Calendrical Regression, Lawrence Schoen (NobleFusion)
“Grand Jeté (The Great Leap),” Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’14)
Novelette
“Sleep Walking Now and Then,” Richard Bowes (Tor.com 7/9/14)
“The Magician and Laplace’s Demon,” Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld 12/14)
“A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i,” Alaya Dawn Johnson (F&SF 7-8/14)
“The Husband Stitch,” Carmen Maria Machado (Granta #129)
“We Are the Cloud,” Sam J. Miller (Lightspeed 9/14)
“The Devil in America,” Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com 4/2/14)
Short Story
“The Breath of War,” Aliette de Bodard (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 3/6/14)
“When It Ends, He Catches Her,” Eugie Foster (Daily Science Fiction 9/26/14)
“The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye,” Matthew Kressel (Clarkesworld 5/14)
“The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family,” Usman T. Malik (Qualia Nous)
“A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide,” Sarah Pinsker (F&SF 3-4/14)
“Jackalope Wives,” Ursula Vernon (Apex 1/7/14)
“The Fisher Queen,” Alyssa Wong (F&SF 5/14)
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Edge of Tomorrow
Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar
The Lego Movie
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy
Unmade, Sarah Rees Brennan (Random House)
Salvage, Alexandra Duncan (Greenwillow)
Love Is the Drug, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Levine)
Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future, A.S. King (Little, Brown)
Dirty Wings, Sarah McCarry (St. Martin’s Griffin)
Greenglass House, Kate Milford (Clarion)
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, Leslye Walton (Candlewick)
Thursday, February 05, 2015
Books Read: January 2015
My son was born on January 6 and I was able to take a month off from work. Because his three primary activities are eating, pooping, and sleeping I was able to read more books than I had expected in January. Well, I expected him to be born closer to January 23, but I didn't expect to read much immediately following his birth. With a slight slow down this last week, I was reading at a fairly decent clip. Everything after Oath of Gold was read following his birth.
I don't know how confident I feel about what the next couple of months will be like. Or, more specifically, what happens when he is awake more often and trying to crawl down the stairs. But for now, I'm keeping up.
1. Oath of Gold, by Elizabeth Moon
2. Symbiont, by Mira Grant
3. An Untamed State, by Roxane Gay
4. City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett
5. Abaddon's Gate, by James S. A. Corey
6. The World of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin
7. Down to the Bone, by Justina Robson
8. Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel
9. Low Midnight, by Carrie Vaughn
10. My Real Children, by Jo Walton
11. The Martian, by Andy Weir
12. The King's Deryni, by Katherine Kurtz
13. Engineering Infinity, by Jonathan Strahan (editor)
Best Book of the Month: If I waited to do a Best Of list several months (or years) after the end of the year, rather than at the very end of that calendar year, that year's list would look very different. For example, City of Stairs would / should be near the top of my most recent list, except that I put the list together in December and I read City of Stairs in January. Regardless, this is a most impressive fantasy novel and it has me very excited to read whatever Bennett does next. Also, read Renay's review of City of Stairs to get another perspective and to pick up on something that I completely missed but should not have.
Disappointment of the Month: I adore Katherine Kurtz's Deryni novels. More specifically, I adore Kurtz's Deryni novels set a bit farther back in the past - the Camber era stuff that deals with the Haldanes regaining the throne and Camber's children. I've been less excited by the Kelson era work, and have been overall been disappointed by the Childe Morgan trilogy. It had been 8 years since Childe Morgan was published (the second in the trilogy) and 11 since In the King's Service (book one). This is more than my issue with the era Kurtz is writing in, though, which is immediately prior to Kelson. The King's Deryni comes across more as a travelogue hitting some notable points over a ten year (approximately) period in Alaric Morgan's life - with his training, friendships, Duncan entering the priesthood, the poor priest caught being a Deryni, the battle against the Marluk, etc. Much of that is richer because of prior knowledge of the series, not because of how well The King's Deryni was written. I still hope for the Year 948 novel that has been long rumored. If you look at earlier Deryni novels, there are genealogies and a LOT of people died in 948. I'd like to know why and how. The other novel I've been waiting for / hoping for is an Orin and Jodotha novel, which are the legendary Deryni Evaine was just discovering more about before her death.
Discovery of the Month: Robert Jackson Bennett really isn't an unknown quantity at this point, but despite being well aware of The Troupe and American Elsewhere, I never picked up one of his books. Until City of Stairs. And I realized just how wrong I was for not reading him sooner.
Worth Noting: If The Martian had not been previously self published, I would be considering it for a Hugo nomination. It might not make my final ballot because slots are really tight right now and it would take something to really knock me off my feet in the next three weeks for anything not currently under consideration to grab a slot. But I would at least be thinking about it. Now, please write another book, Mr. Weir.
Gender Breakdown: To start out the year, I have 8 of the13 books I read were written by women, which breaks out to 61.54%. This marks three consecutive months I have read more female authored books than male authored, and quite possible, the only three months this has happened in my life - though there may have been isolated months more than fifteen years ago when I would read all the Anne McCaffrey or Katherine Kurtz I could get my hands on.
I don't know how confident I feel about what the next couple of months will be like. Or, more specifically, what happens when he is awake more often and trying to crawl down the stairs. But for now, I'm keeping up.
1. Oath of Gold, by Elizabeth Moon
2. Symbiont, by Mira Grant
3. An Untamed State, by Roxane Gay
4. City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett
5. Abaddon's Gate, by James S. A. Corey
6. The World of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin
7. Down to the Bone, by Justina Robson
8. Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel
9. Low Midnight, by Carrie Vaughn
10. My Real Children, by Jo Walton
11. The Martian, by Andy Weir
12. The King's Deryni, by Katherine Kurtz
13. Engineering Infinity, by Jonathan Strahan (editor)
Best Book of the Month: If I waited to do a Best Of list several months (or years) after the end of the year, rather than at the very end of that calendar year, that year's list would look very different. For example, City of Stairs would / should be near the top of my most recent list, except that I put the list together in December and I read City of Stairs in January. Regardless, this is a most impressive fantasy novel and it has me very excited to read whatever Bennett does next. Also, read Renay's review of City of Stairs to get another perspective and to pick up on something that I completely missed but should not have.
Disappointment of the Month: I adore Katherine Kurtz's Deryni novels. More specifically, I adore Kurtz's Deryni novels set a bit farther back in the past - the Camber era stuff that deals with the Haldanes regaining the throne and Camber's children. I've been less excited by the Kelson era work, and have been overall been disappointed by the Childe Morgan trilogy. It had been 8 years since Childe Morgan was published (the second in the trilogy) and 11 since In the King's Service (book one). This is more than my issue with the era Kurtz is writing in, though, which is immediately prior to Kelson. The King's Deryni comes across more as a travelogue hitting some notable points over a ten year (approximately) period in Alaric Morgan's life - with his training, friendships, Duncan entering the priesthood, the poor priest caught being a Deryni, the battle against the Marluk, etc. Much of that is richer because of prior knowledge of the series, not because of how well The King's Deryni was written. I still hope for the Year 948 novel that has been long rumored. If you look at earlier Deryni novels, there are genealogies and a LOT of people died in 948. I'd like to know why and how. The other novel I've been waiting for / hoping for is an Orin and Jodotha novel, which are the legendary Deryni Evaine was just discovering more about before her death.
Discovery of the Month: Robert Jackson Bennett really isn't an unknown quantity at this point, but despite being well aware of The Troupe and American Elsewhere, I never picked up one of his books. Until City of Stairs. And I realized just how wrong I was for not reading him sooner.
Worth Noting: If The Martian had not been previously self published, I would be considering it for a Hugo nomination. It might not make my final ballot because slots are really tight right now and it would take something to really knock me off my feet in the next three weeks for anything not currently under consideration to grab a slot. But I would at least be thinking about it. Now, please write another book, Mr. Weir.
Gender Breakdown: To start out the year, I have 8 of the13 books I read were written by women, which breaks out to 61.54%. This marks three consecutive months I have read more female authored books than male authored, and quite possible, the only three months this has happened in my life - though there may have been isolated months more than fifteen years ago when I would read all the Anne McCaffrey or Katherine Kurtz I could get my hands on.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Incredibly Preliminary 2015 Hugo Award Nomination Ballot
After taking a year or so off, I am going to participate in the Hugo Awards again this year. So, this post is the first of several which will allow me to publicly work through my thoughts on who I would like to nominate for a Hugo Award. Unlike previous years I have nominated, I have been much less involved in the short fiction scene, so I'm going to actively seek out recommendations for the short fiction categories.
This is a start and is currently in no particular order. My next post on this will start to narrow. This is just what I am thinking about right now before doing more serious work to narrow down the categories.
Novel
City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Mirror Empire, by Kameron Hurley
The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie
Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel
Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer
The Eternal Sky Trilogy, by Elizabeth Bear
Graphic Story
Saga, Vol 3
Locke and Key: Alpha and Omega
Related Work
Rocket Talk Podcast
Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Mockingjay: Part I
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Fanzine
A Dribble of Ink
Lady Business
SF Mistressworks
Chaos Horizon
The Wertzone
Fan Writer
Justin Landon
Abigail Nussbaum
Brandon Kempner
Adam Whitehead
Categories I just have no idea about yet but will do research to feel good about.
Novella / Novelette / Short Story
Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
Semiprozine
Fancast
Professional Artist (there is a great Hugo Eligible Artists blog to help me out)
Editor: Short Form / Long Form
Fan Artist
John W. Campbell Award
This is a start and is currently in no particular order. My next post on this will start to narrow. This is just what I am thinking about right now before doing more serious work to narrow down the categories.
Novel
City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Mirror Empire, by Kameron Hurley
The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie
Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel
Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer
The Eternal Sky Trilogy, by Elizabeth Bear
Graphic Story
Saga, Vol 3
Locke and Key: Alpha and Omega
Related Work
Rocket Talk Podcast
Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Mockingjay: Part I
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Fanzine
A Dribble of Ink
Lady Business
SF Mistressworks
Chaos Horizon
The Wertzone
Fan Writer
Justin Landon
Abigail Nussbaum
Brandon Kempner
Adam Whitehead
Categories I just have no idea about yet but will do research to feel good about.
Novella / Novelette / Short Story
Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
Semiprozine
Fancast
Professional Artist (there is a great Hugo Eligible Artists blog to help me out)
Editor: Short Form / Long Form
Fan Artist
John W. Campbell Award
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Books Read: December 2014
My intention was to get this post up immediately following all of my Year's Best and Looking Forward posts, which led to a good run of posting at very end of December and four posts in the first six days of January. That final post was scheduled for and posted on January 6.
The reason we didn't get this post up on January 7 was that on January 6, my very pregnant wife's water broke in the wee hours of the morning and we spent the rest of the day in the hospital waiting for the arrival of our son. Our first child. Andrew decided to make an appearance at 11:49 pm. He's doing great, and so is my wife. But what this has meant in terms of posting is that we spent a couple of days in the hospital and then have been working on figuring this parenting thing out for the last 8 days. By no means do we have it figured out, but I have some spare time while the rest of my family is napping. You could argue that I should be, too.
There are no reviews to link to.
1. Grace's Guide, by Grace Helbig
2. Night Film, by Marisha Pessl
3. Prince of Dogs, by Kate Elliott
4. Hawk, by Steven Brust
5. Revival, by Stephen King
6. Allana, by Tamora Pierce
7. The Art of Asking, by Amanda Palmer
8. The Last Man, by Vince Flynn
9. Unexpected Stories, by Octavia Butler
10. The Deaths of Tao, by Wesley Chu
11. The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances, by Matthew Inman
12. Steles of the Sky, by Elizabeth Bear
Best Book of the Month: Based on how I listed stuff on my list of the Top Nine Books Published in 2014, I have to go with Hawk. This was Steven Brust in full form and completely delivering a top notch Vlad Taltos novel.
Disappointment of the Month: You generally know what you're getting with a Vince Flynn novel (action, a touch of jingoism, and a lot of ass kicking of terrorists and those who obstruct the safety of the United States). You get an angry Mitch Rapp, which has generally been a solid if flawed ride. The Last Man was Vince Flynn's last published novel and it was written while he was battling the cancer which ultimately took his life. Unfortunately, it wasn't up to the standard of the rest of the series. I have some thoughts on that, but in the end, it doesn't matter. A husband and a father lost his life, and I feel so much more for his family than I care about how this particular novel turned out. I've enjoyed Flynn's work in the past and we have a couple of his books up at the cabin if we need to quickly dive in to something. As a side note, it was recently announced that Kyle Mills will be continuing the Mitch Rapp series. The Survivor (a book Flynn started) may come out in 2015.
Discovery of the Month: I have mentioned this elsewhere, but I really wish I had discovered Tamora Pierce when I was twelve. I liked it at 35, I would have loved it then and would have devoured everything Pierce wrote back then. Allana was fantastic.
Worth Noting: With Steles of the Sky, Elizabeth Bear concluded her superb Eternal Sky trilogy, a "silk road" fantasy with far more eastern than western influences. It is a beautiful and brutal novel and series, and it should be held up as one of the top fantasy series in recent years.
Gender Breakdown: Of the twelve books I read last month, seven were written by women. This marks two consecutive months which I have read more books written by women than by men. This brings my total to 62/135 for the year (45.92%), which is the greatest percentage of female authored books I have ever read in a given year as long as I have been keeping track of this sort of thing. So, that's good, right? It's a start. I have a different and longer post in mind to talk about my year in reading as it relates to gender (a sequel to this one), so I won't bury it all here, but this is nothing more than a start.
Previous Months
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
The reason we didn't get this post up on January 7 was that on January 6, my very pregnant wife's water broke in the wee hours of the morning and we spent the rest of the day in the hospital waiting for the arrival of our son. Our first child. Andrew decided to make an appearance at 11:49 pm. He's doing great, and so is my wife. But what this has meant in terms of posting is that we spent a couple of days in the hospital and then have been working on figuring this parenting thing out for the last 8 days. By no means do we have it figured out, but I have some spare time while the rest of my family is napping. You could argue that I should be, too.
There are no reviews to link to.
1. Grace's Guide, by Grace Helbig
2. Night Film, by Marisha Pessl
3. Prince of Dogs, by Kate Elliott
4. Hawk, by Steven Brust
5. Revival, by Stephen King
6. Allana, by Tamora Pierce
7. The Art of Asking, by Amanda Palmer
8. The Last Man, by Vince Flynn
9. Unexpected Stories, by Octavia Butler
10. The Deaths of Tao, by Wesley Chu
11. The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances, by Matthew Inman
12. Steles of the Sky, by Elizabeth Bear
Best Book of the Month: Based on how I listed stuff on my list of the Top Nine Books Published in 2014, I have to go with Hawk. This was Steven Brust in full form and completely delivering a top notch Vlad Taltos novel.
Disappointment of the Month: You generally know what you're getting with a Vince Flynn novel (action, a touch of jingoism, and a lot of ass kicking of terrorists and those who obstruct the safety of the United States). You get an angry Mitch Rapp, which has generally been a solid if flawed ride. The Last Man was Vince Flynn's last published novel and it was written while he was battling the cancer which ultimately took his life. Unfortunately, it wasn't up to the standard of the rest of the series. I have some thoughts on that, but in the end, it doesn't matter. A husband and a father lost his life, and I feel so much more for his family than I care about how this particular novel turned out. I've enjoyed Flynn's work in the past and we have a couple of his books up at the cabin if we need to quickly dive in to something. As a side note, it was recently announced that Kyle Mills will be continuing the Mitch Rapp series. The Survivor (a book Flynn started) may come out in 2015.
Discovery of the Month: I have mentioned this elsewhere, but I really wish I had discovered Tamora Pierce when I was twelve. I liked it at 35, I would have loved it then and would have devoured everything Pierce wrote back then. Allana was fantastic.
Worth Noting: With Steles of the Sky, Elizabeth Bear concluded her superb Eternal Sky trilogy, a "silk road" fantasy with far more eastern than western influences. It is a beautiful and brutal novel and series, and it should be held up as one of the top fantasy series in recent years.
Gender Breakdown: Of the twelve books I read last month, seven were written by women. This marks two consecutive months which I have read more books written by women than by men. This brings my total to 62/135 for the year (45.92%), which is the greatest percentage of female authored books I have ever read in a given year as long as I have been keeping track of this sort of thing. So, that's good, right? It's a start. I have a different and longer post in mind to talk about my year in reading as it relates to gender (a sequel to this one), so I won't bury it all here, but this is nothing more than a start.
Previous Months
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
Tuesday, January 06, 2015
Less New Books I'm Looking Forward to Maybe Reading in 2015
Besides my most anticipated 2015 books I'm also anticipating the books from 2014, 2013, 2012 etc that I haven't gotten around to reading yet
— Kate Elliott (@KateElliottSFF) January 4, 2015
Inspired by Kate Elliott, I would like to consider some books published in the last several years which I would like to read. I'm putting this together with a quick scan of the Locus Forthcoming Lists. Some of these will be later books in a series where I haven't read all of the earlier books, but they do hold some interest for me.
I am also quite certain that there are many more books than these for any given year that I'd like to read, these are just the ones jumping out at me today.
2013
MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood
American Elsewhere, by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Daylight War, by Peter V. Brett
The Incrementalists, by Steven Brust and Skyler White
The Bitter Kingdom, by Rae Carson
Abaddon's Gate, by James S. A. Corey
Blood of Dragons, by Robin Hobb
Without a Summer, by Mary Robinette Kowal
The Best of All Possible Worlds, by Karen Lord
Republic of Thieves, by Scott Lynch
Limits of Power, by Elizabeth Moon
A Matter of Blood, by Sarah Pinborough
Fiddlehead, by Cherie Priest
Necessary Evil, by Ian Tregillis
2012
Throne of the Crescent Moon, by Saladin Ahmed
Iron Hearted Violet, by Kelly Barnhill
Shoggoths in Bloom, by Elizabeth Bear
Rapture, by Kameron Hurley
The Shadowed Sun, by N. K. Jemisin
Crucible of Gold, by Naomi Novik
The Serpent Sea, by Martha Wells
Worldsoul, by Liz Williams
2011
Cold Fire, by Kate Elliott
Raising Stony Mayhall, by Daryl Gregory
Infidel, by Kameron Hurley
The Diviner, by Melanie Rawn
The Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss
City of Ruins, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
And also some random books from earlier years but which are on my "read sooner rather than later list":
Stretto, by L. Timmel Duchamp
The Burning Stone, by Kate Elliott
The Temporal Void, by Peter F. Hamilton
Fool's Fate, by Robin Hobb
Darkspell, by Katherine Kerr
The Speed of Dark, by Elizabeth Moon
Surrender None, by Elizabeth Moon
Maelstrom, by Peter Watts
The Killing of Worlds, by Scott Westerfeld
Monday, January 05, 2015
14 Books I Want to Read to in 2015
So, I gave a quick look through the LocusForthcoming List, a quick search on stuff I have saved on Goodreads, and voila!
We have list!
As such, this isn’t exhaustive or authoritative. This is just a list of 14 books, in presumed
publication order, that I’d like to read this year. I’m sure I missed something awesome. Maybe many somethings awesome.
1. The Just City, by Jo Walton (Jan): I haven’t read much
from Jo Walton, but after reading Among Others a couple years back, I am
sold. Doesn’t matter what this is, I
want to read it.
2. Karen Memory, by Elizabeth Bear (Feb): New Elizabeth Bear. Does it matter what this is about? It does not.
3. Wastelands II: More Stories of the Apocalypse, by John Joseph Adams (editor) (Feb): I adored JJA's previous Wastelands anthology (my review), so what can possibly be wrong with Wastelands II? Nothing, I tell you, nothing.
4. Persona, by Genevieve Valentine (Mar): Political thriller with celebrity culture. Also, written by Genevieve Valentine.
5. The Rebirths of Tao, by Wesley Chu (Apr): Oh, Tao, how I enjoy reading about thee.
6. The Black Wolves, by Kate Elliott (Jul): Now that I'm digging into her Crown of Stars series, I want to read all of the Kate Elliott
3. Wastelands II: More Stories of the Apocalypse, by John Joseph Adams (editor) (Feb): I adored JJA's previous Wastelands anthology (my review), so what can possibly be wrong with Wastelands II? Nothing, I tell you, nothing.
4. Persona, by Genevieve Valentine (Mar): Political thriller with celebrity culture. Also, written by Genevieve Valentine.
5. The Rebirths of Tao, by Wesley Chu (Apr): Oh, Tao, how I enjoy reading about thee.
6. The Black Wolves, by Kate Elliott (Jul): Now that I'm digging into her Crown of Stars series, I want to read all of the Kate Elliott
7. The End of All Things, by John Scalzi (Aug): New Scalzi, set in the Old Man's War universe. It's another linked story collection like The Human Division. Good stuff.
8. Radiance, by Catherynne M. Valente (Aug): I'm really not sure what this means: "Radiance is a decopunk pulp SF alt-history space opera mystery set in a Hollywood—and solar system—very different from our own"
8. Radiance, by Catherynne M. Valente (Aug): I'm really not sure what this means: "Radiance is a decopunk pulp SF alt-history space opera mystery set in a Hollywood—and solar system—very different from our own"
9. Fool's Quest, by Robin Hobb (Aug): I expect to finish the Tawny Man trilogy in the next couple of months, but since I know that I would then want to read the Rain Wilds books before starting this, I don't expect to hit this series until 2016 at best. But, because I continue to be impressed by each book I read of Hobb's, this should be acknowleded.
10. The Thorn of Emberlain, by Scott Lynch (Sep): Gentleman
Bastards Book 4. I still need to read
Republic of Thieves, but this is must read fantasy for me.
11. The Empire Ascendent, by Kameron Hurley (Oct): The Mirror Empire was one of my top books of 2014. I expect The Empire Ascendent to be one of my top books of 2015.
12. Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie (Oct): If you like science fiction and you're not reading Ann Leckie's novels, you're doing it wrong.
13: Mistborn: Shadows of Self, by Brandon Sanderson (Oct): More Mistborn, following up on Alloy of Law.
11. The Empire Ascendent, by Kameron Hurley (Oct): The Mirror Empire was one of my top books of 2014. I expect The Empire Ascendent to be one of my top books of 2015.
12. Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie (Oct): If you like science fiction and you're not reading Ann Leckie's novels, you're doing it wrong.
13: Mistborn: Shadows of Self, by Brandon Sanderson (Oct): More Mistborn, following up on Alloy of Law.
14. The Winds of Winter, by George R. R. Martin (???): I'm not sure I really expect this to come out in 2015, but it's the annual GRRM watch, so let's keep on hoping.
Friday, January 02, 2015
Final Catch Up with the 2014 To-Read List
Back in February I posted a list of 19 books
I wanted to read this year, the list ordered by presumed publication
date. I ran an update to that post back in September, and now that we're into 2015 it is time to run the final update.
I have read 12 of the 19 books from the list. This probably one of the better results from making a to-read list at the beginning of the year. Things happen, publication dates get pushed back. Feist's King of Ashes and Lynch's Thorn of Emberlain were pushed to 2015, so I'm really at 12 of 17 books published in 2014.
If I'm being completely honest, I haven't read Symbiont yet, but I have a copy from the library and I'm going to start it this weekend. So, it's a preemptive count. On the other hand, I own a copy of One-Eyed Jack, but I know I'm not going to start it in the next couple of days, so I'm not counting it as read. I'm nothing if not inconsistent.
There is no reason why I didn't get to One-Eyed Jack or My Real Children.
I'm behind on the Glamourist Histories series from Mary Robinette Kowal, so I was never getting to Valour and Vanity this year. Same with Cibola Burn, though I will be getting Abaddon's Gate from the library in the next week, so I'll have a chance to catch up to the series before Nemesis Games is published.
Finally, Going Gray was self published by Karen Traviss and since my book buying budget is limited these days, I don't expect to be able to purchase it anytime soon and my library may not get it. There is a listing for the book, but I think it is back to when Going Gray had a traditional publisher and I'm not convinced the library will pull the trigger on it as a self published novel. So, one day. I hope Traviss has enormous success with the book, though. Her Wess'har Wars were fantastic, and she has easily been my favorite Star Wars author when she was writing in that universe. I haven't read her Gears of War or Halo novels, but that's entirely due to lack of universe familiarity.
12 out of 19, with two books not published. That's not bad.
I have read 12 of the 19 books from the list. This probably one of the better results from making a to-read list at the beginning of the year. Things happen, publication dates get pushed back. Feist's King of Ashes and Lynch's Thorn of Emberlain were pushed to 2015, so I'm really at 12 of 17 books published in 2014.
If I'm being completely honest, I haven't read Symbiont yet, but I have a copy from the library and I'm going to start it this weekend. So, it's a preemptive count. On the other hand, I own a copy of One-Eyed Jack, but I know I'm not going to start it in the next couple of days, so I'm not counting it as read. I'm nothing if not inconsistent.
There is no reason why I didn't get to One-Eyed Jack or My Real Children.
I'm behind on the Glamourist Histories series from Mary Robinette Kowal, so I was never getting to Valour and Vanity this year. Same with Cibola Burn, though I will be getting Abaddon's Gate from the library in the next week, so I'll have a chance to catch up to the series before Nemesis Games is published.
Finally, Going Gray was self published by Karen Traviss and since my book buying budget is limited these days, I don't expect to be able to purchase it anytime soon and my library may not get it. There is a listing for the book, but I think it is back to when Going Gray had a traditional publisher and I'm not convinced the library will pull the trigger on it as a self published novel. So, one day. I hope Traviss has enormous success with the book, though. Her Wess'har Wars were fantastic, and she has easily been my favorite Star Wars author when she was writing in that universe. I haven't read her Gears of War or Halo novels, but that's entirely due to lack of universe familiarity.
12 out of 19, with two books not published. That's not bad.
1. Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer (Feb)
2. Locke and Key: Alpha and Omega, by Joe Hill (Feb)
3. Words of Radiance, by Brandon Sanderson (Mar)
4. Steles of the Sky, by Elizabeth Bear (Apr)
5. Valour and Vanity, by Mary Robinette Kowal (Apr)
6. King of Ashes, by Raymond E. Feist (May)
7. Cyador’s Heirs, by L. E. Modesitt, Jr (May)
8. Defenders, by Will McIntosh (May)
9. My Real Children, by Jo Walton (May)
10. Cibola Burn, by James S. A. Corey (Jun)
11. Mr. Mercedes, by Stephen King (Jun)
12. The Girls at the Kingfisher Club, by Genevieve Valentine
(Jun)
13. One-Eyed Jack, by Elizabeth Bear (Aug)
14. Lock In, by John Scalzi (Aug)
15. Hawk, by Steven Brust (Sep)
16. Maplecroft, by Cherie Priest (Sep)
17. The Thorn of Emberlain, by Scott Lynch (Nov)
18. Symbiont, by Mira Grant (Nov)
19. Going Gray, by Karen Traviss (Dec)
Thursday, January 01, 2015
The Missing: 2014
I posted a similar list in the past,
and I think it is worth posting a number of the books I didn't read in
2011. Now, the actual list is absurdly long, but this is a decent
representation of books I would have liked to have read and, for various
reasons, never did.
For the sake of keeping this list manageable, I limited it to genre books. If I browsed through listings of LitFic and Nonfiction, well, the list would be absurd. Even strictly genre, I could probably grow triple this list with ease. Let's just say that reading 135 books in a year doesn't get you as far as you might think, even if all you read were books published that year (which I didn't)
Half a King, by Joe Abercrombie
The Widow's House, by Daniel Abraham
Dead Man's Hand, by John Joseph Adams
One-Eyed Jack, by Elizabeth Bear
City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett
Cibola Burn, by James S. A. Corey
Afterparty, by Daryl Gregory
We Are All Completely Fine, by Daryl Gregory
The Magician's Land, by Lev Grossman
Fool's Assassin, by Robin Hobb
Valour and Vanity, by Mary Robinette Kowal
The King's Deryni, by Katherine Kurtz
Prince of Fools, by Mark Lawrence
The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu
The Galaxy Game, by Karen Lord
The Three, by Sarah Lotz
Station Eleven, by Emily Mandel
Crown of Renewal, by Elizabeth Moon
The Adjacent, by Christopher Priest
The Causal Angel, by Hannu Rajaniemi
On the Steel Breeze, by Alastair Reynolds
The Memory Garden, by Mary Rickert
The Emperor's Blades, by Brian Staveley
Fish Tales, by Sheri Tepper
My Real Children, by Jo Walton
Echopraxia, by Peter Watts
The Martian, by Andy Weir
For the sake of keeping this list manageable, I limited it to genre books. If I browsed through listings of LitFic and Nonfiction, well, the list would be absurd. Even strictly genre, I could probably grow triple this list with ease. Let's just say that reading 135 books in a year doesn't get you as far as you might think, even if all you read were books published that year (which I didn't)
Half a King, by Joe Abercrombie
The Widow's House, by Daniel Abraham
Dead Man's Hand, by John Joseph Adams
One-Eyed Jack, by Elizabeth Bear
City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett
Cibola Burn, by James S. A. Corey
Afterparty, by Daryl Gregory
We Are All Completely Fine, by Daryl Gregory
The Magician's Land, by Lev Grossman
Fool's Assassin, by Robin Hobb
Valour and Vanity, by Mary Robinette Kowal
The King's Deryni, by Katherine Kurtz
Prince of Fools, by Mark Lawrence
The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu
The Galaxy Game, by Karen Lord
The Three, by Sarah Lotz
Station Eleven, by Emily Mandel
Crown of Renewal, by Elizabeth Moon
The Adjacent, by Christopher Priest
The Causal Angel, by Hannu Rajaniemi
On the Steel Breeze, by Alastair Reynolds
The Memory Garden, by Mary Rickert
The Emperor's Blades, by Brian Staveley
Fish Tales, by Sheri Tepper
My Real Children, by Jo Walton
Echopraxia, by Peter Watts
The Martian, by Andy Weir
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