I kept trying and failing to post here, so this is a round-up of everything I can remember reading over the past year. The last two series in the list I first came across due to them being mentioned here, and they did not disappoint.
The Warmaster and Anarch by Dan Abnett. I finally got around to finishing the final two books in the Warhammer 40k series Gaunt’s Ghosts, a series whose first book was published in 1999 and that probably I started reading around 2001. I don’t think I can give an unbiased review due to the nostalgia factor that comes from characters who transport me back to my school days. With that said, I found The Warmaster to be lackluster but Anarch provided a strong and satisfying end to the series, with plenty of tension over who would survive in the finale of a series by an author who has no qualms about killing any of his characters.
The Age of Madness trilogy by Joe Abercrombie (A Little Hatred, The Trouble with Peace, The Wisdom of Crowds). As expected from his previous works, I found these both gripping and exhausting to read, knowing that any time things look like they might be getting better one or more characters would inevitably do something depressingly daft but entirely believable in the pursuit of more personal power or glory.
The Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson (The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages). While I didn’t think the plot was any more than serviceable, it didn’t take me long to fall in love with the world and the characters. I’m not sure what it is about Sanderson’s writing style, it certainly felt less unique than the previous and next entries on this list, but something about it compelled me to keep reading. I wonder if it just that he (or his editor) is good at avoiding the writing getting bloated by unnecessary text. I’ve almost started reading Sanderson so many times, I’m slightly sad it took me until now to get around to it!
Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (the start of The Locked Tomb series). Were it not for reading about them here, I would never have picked these up. Certainly the back cover text for the first book is like the poorly described plot game that used to run here and would have left me with zero interest in reading its contents. This would have been a phenomenal shame because I loved these books. Great characters, fantastic writing style, unusual setting and compelling mysteries for the first two books.
The Teixcalaan Duology by Arkady Martine (A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace). I enjoyed these books and I’m happy I read them, but I liked them much less than the previous three entries on the list. I’ve been trying to figure out why. Compelling characters, a fascinating world and an engaging plot for both books. I can only conclude that it was something about the writing style which didn’t click for me. Perhaps the way the sentences were constructed or the exact words used made it flow less well and seem much less interesting to read than Abercrombie, Sanderson or Muir.
I think that is it besides some Marvel comics, mostly X-Men, from the early and mid-nineties on Marvel Unlimited. Next up is more by authors above, namely The Alloy of Law and Nona the Ninth.
I think he is just so very good at world-building. And making interesting characters. But world building. And maybe he has megalomaniac tendencies with the Cosmere but I appreciate the scope.
I don’t really read/watch for plot of the 3 big axis of stories (characters, world, story) it’s the one I can most easily live with a mediocre implementation. For me it’s characters > world > story. If I cannot root for the characters to succeed, wish for the redemption of the baddy, wait for a couple to finally find each other… I am not interested.
There was a copy in the company library at my last job, which was a resource scheduler. Calendar calculations were a constant source of bugs, and customization, but i don’t think I ever actually looked at it seriously. (Even basic things like “ check this out for a year” turn out to be remarkably tricky, and there are a lot of answers that can be reasonable. That’s ignoring time zones and daylight saving time, which are also a minefield.)
I think some of the problem is underspecification in natural language: if you say “this should happen a week from now”, maybe you mean 168 hours, maybe you mean now o’clock next Wednesday, and those could be different times if there’s a DST change.
I got out of my reading funk, spurred by Marysey who gave herself a 50 pages a day objective. Decided to join her, so I finished Cibola Burn, the fourth book of The Expanse. It re-ignited my interest enough that I immediately ordered the five books I didn’t have yet.
I then finished Mossflower, the second (publishing order, not chronological) Redwall book. Quite the different experience, LOL.
Now I’ve started Lovecraft Country. Only 25 pages in, so too early to form an opinion, but I liked the two episodes I saw of the series (I want to finish it, but it’s a hard, uncomfortable watch).
After, I’ll have its sequel, Destroyer of Worlds, along with Alastair Reynolds’ Revenger trilogy (those were my Christmas parents from my parents). The rest of The Expanse should arrive next week.
And looking at my bookshelf, looks like I’m missing a book or two in the Revelation Space series, so I might get on that too.
I reread or filled in all of Revelation Space in 2023, although he has added another Prefect book since. I really like Reynolds and am delighted I still have the Revenger books to read.
Right now I am struggling with Against A Dark Background by Iain M Banks, which is a sentence I never expected. It’s non Culture and early in his writing career and it’s it’s not very good… However I have committed to reread all his SF and quite possibly all his non SF, so I was at first very pleased to find this book I had never read. Should have looked at Goodreads first… sigh.
I seem to recall struggling with that one too, but that’s about all I remember about it. I’ve only read it once, and that was a very long time ago. Looking at Goodreads just now makes me kinda curious to re-read it. I enjoyed this review quote: “Imagine the novel equivalent of a film that begins like Star Wars and ends like Reservoir Dogs and you’ll have some idea of the tonal shift I’m talking about.”
I’m currently reading The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. It’s a sort of historical romance novel, in which people from the past, who were on the brink of death in their own time, have been extracted and transported to the future, and assigned “bridge” companions to study the effects of time-travel on the subjects, and ease their transition into the modern world.
As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.”
I read it a couple times about 25 years ago. I’ve forgotten a whole lot of details, but that’s a fair description, but it leaves out a bunch of the pure weirdness. I’ll have to see if I can find it, I’ve seen it in this house…
Goodreads ratings are so uncorrelated with what I think of a book that I don’t even look at them any more. But reading a positive and a negative review will often calibrate my expectations, and if the negative one is something like “there are women in this space military, which is obviously woke pandering” I may well enjoy it.
Made me look out my version from publication in 1993.
Can’t remember anything about it though!
Must have been the second Banks hardback I got after getting in to him around Use of Weapons. The first was the Crow Road. Every other thing I got was in hardback, many signed by him given he lived near Edinburgh (and at the top of the road of my parents in law).
I love him but tired of him. After 6 mistborns, 3 wheels of time, and I think some other stuff I felt like I was reading palette swapped sprites of the same enemies. Still I’m sure I’ll give Way of Kings a try once he’s 80% done with the series.
There was a humble bundle of all his stuff last year. I didn’t get it, as I really didn’t like old man’s war and the internet says that’s his best book / best place to start, generally speaking. But he keeps coming up. Maybe one day I’ll try Redshirts or Collapsing Empire.
Love it! Brian Jacques came to my local book store each year in the 80’s and 90’s, and I went every year to get the new hardback signed. I still remember Mossflower as my favorite but Salamandastron stands out, too.
For what it’s worth, I haven’t enjoyed any of his fiction writing—like Cory Doctorow, he does good and necessary things online but I don’t get on with the books at all.
