kmusser

What I read this past year, is it just me or was 2024 an especially long year? I'm looking back at what I read at the beginning of the year and that seems a lifetime ago. Anyway, on to the books, in the order that I read them.

A Treasury of Great Science Fiction - a two volume set of sci-fi short stories from the 40's and 50's, great mix of stories. Highlights from volume 1 included Rebirth by John Wyndham, a post apocalypse story about surviving a fundamentalist society, felt very much like something Margaret Atwood would write, but predates Atwood by 30 years; Waldo by Heinlein, one of his earlier stories, and mostly interesting for how prescient it feels - I would've assumed the title character was based on Stephen Hawking if it hadn't been written before Hawking was born; The [Widget], The [Wadget], and Boff by Theodore Sturgeon about aliens trying to understand humanity. I did not care for The Weapon Shops of Isher by A. E. van Vogt, I know it's a well known story that gets referenced a lot, but my tolerance for libertarian BS has gotten thin. Volume 2 wasn't quite as strong, but still some good stuff, highlight by far is The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, which I've read before and is still great, a proto-cyberpunk revenge story. This was the last of the books I kept from Sam's Mom's collection.

Together We Will Go by J. Michael Straczynski - this is a book that I imagine would be triggery for some, cathartic for others, but it deals with suicide. The premise being a group of people that want to commit suicide go on a road trip together before doing so and hijinks ensue, you wouldn't expect something with that premise to be funny, but it is, the characters are all interesting and motivations all very different and somehow manages to be both light-hearted and insightful

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin - a novel about two friends that create a video game together, a fascinating look at the creative process, the video game industry, and friendship all rolled up into one. Highly recommended if you are into gaming, not sure how the gaming stuff would come across to someone not at least a little part of that world.

IQ84 by Haruki Murakami - a somewhat frustrating book about 2 characters that go into a slightly alternate version of reality and it gets timey-wimey. The world building expect is interesting and what kept me going despite being centered on a weird love story between characters that never meet and doesn't really make sense and Murakami being guilty of every bad men writing female characters trope you can think of. Can't say I really recommend it, but I did finish it.

The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin - sequel to The City We Became about personifications of New York's boroughs and their fight against Cthulhu-esque horrors. Jemisin has talked about how should had to change the direction of this story as real world events overtook the direction she was originally going in, nonetheless I found it a satisfying conclusion to the story begun in the first book and Jemisin remains one of my favorite current writers.

Tales from the Arabian Nights translated by Sir Richard Francis Burton - not all 1,001, this particular collection has 20 stories - more mythology than stories as we usually think of them and the individual stories vary widely as they obviously come from many different authors and over a very long time period originally. Some can be difficult reading to modern sensibilities due to the racism, misogyny, and ableism - not sure I'd recommend for the stories themselves, but interesting for folks into mythology or the history of stories. I think most people know about the framing of Scheherazade telling the stories in order to spare her life, what I didn't realize is that then many of those stories are also about people telling stories, the story within a story sometimes going up to 5 layers deep making it easy to get lost in the stories which I think is the intent. Also interesting that many of them don't really have a moral or anything, they are just, this is an interesting or fantastical thing that happened, and then move on to the next story. The best of them are the 3 you've already heard of and are thought to be the most recent of them: Aladdin, Sinbad, and Ali Baba. I will say Aladdin especially is very different than what we get from Disney.

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie - a fantasy told from the point of view of a minor deity, I got shades of Terry Pratchett's Small Gods, which I love - though this one is without the comedy, the core story is a mystery with a heavy dose of interesting world building. I absolutely love the narrator here, said deity is a rock, and there are a couple of stories, besides the central mystery, there is also said rock trying to understand both its own history and humans in general and I found it to be a lot of fun.

Knot of Shadows, Demon Daughter, and Penric and the Bandit by Lois McMaster Bujold - I think I wrote last time about binging the entire Penric & Desdemona series, mostly light-hearted fantasy mysteries. I've kept up and read the latest 3 of the series, very much in the same vein as the rest, though these had less mystery and more pure world building and introducing new characters who I'm sure will get used in future stories.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov - this is a re-read, I read it back in high school and didn't really like it, finding Asimov's writing to be very dry. I'm not sure I like it any better, but I do think I understand it more - having now read a lot more early sci-fi. It was a somewhat common thing to have stories that were really more essays than stories, given a thin fictional framing so you could pretend it wasn't about current events and I think this is similar to that, there isn't much of a story, and the characters are paper thin, but really it's an essay about the rise and fall of civilization - I know the sequels do get more story like as they go on, still not my favorite thing, but appreciate it's place in the genre.

Buried Deep and Other Stories by Naomi Novik - another short story collection, a fun mix of stories, as usual some definitely better than others. Some set in the same world(s) as Novik's novels, including 2 dragon stories, so I wouldn't recommend this as an introduction, but if you like those you'll probably like this. The title story is one of the best and is a retelling of the Ariadne/Minotaur myth from Ariadne's point of view and giving her a lot more agency than the traditional myth. Interesting in that I also recently read a similar retelling as part of Madeline Miller's Circe, but that was a small part of a bigger story while this one really focused on Ariadne.

Bring Judgment Day: Reclaiming Lead Belly's Truths from Jim Crow's Lies by Sheila Curran Bernard - non-fiction I found thanks to the 500songs podcast. Huddie Ledbetter, more commonly known as Lead Belly, was an early blues musician, you probably know a couple of his songs like "Goodnight, Irene" or "Midnight Special". This book is about how the entire narrative surrounding Ledbetter's life and how he was marketed was the creation of John Lomax, the folklorist who "discovered" him and the relationship between Ledbetter and Lomax. There is also quite a lot about how the institutional racism of the time shaped both Ledbetter's actual life and the largely fictional narrative that Lomax created. Highly recommended.

What I read in 2022, more or less in the order that I read it:

Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh - One of those sci-fi classics that I had never read. Very good space opera stuff, lots of factions all out for their own interests, some stuff is a little dated, but it still holds up pretty well. Also interesting in retrospect seeing other sci-fi that was influenced by this, the action centers around a distant self-sufficient space station trying to maintain its independence and echoes can definitely be found in Babylon 5 and DS9.

Penric & Desdemona series by Lois McMaster Bujold - 10 novellas and 1 novel, starting with Penric's Demon. I found these delightful, basically a mystery series, set in a fantasy world with a bunch of supernatural stuff going on. They did an excellent job of keeping me company during my bought of Covid last spring. The books build on each other, each adding a bit a world building in addition to whatever its mystery is and Penric's relationship with the entity sharing his body deepens as it goes with some exploration of gender along the way. Also found these lighter in tone most other recent fantasy, so if you're looking for some without the grimdark these might be for you.

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin - My adoration of Jemisin continues. There is a Sandman story about cities that become self-aware, and this takes that idea and explores it more fully, I already really like stories about personifications of cities, so this feels like it was written for me. I don't think it has quite the brilliance of the Fifth Season books, but it's also not as demanding and easier to just be along for the ride. Found this to be way better than Robinson's New York 2047 which has a kind of similar setting. Definitely recommended for New Yorker's especially.

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson - Non-fiction, this is the history of the great migration of African-Americans out of the southern U.S. to the northern and western cities. This, or something very like it, really ought to be required reading in U.S. history classes, the great migration is so very basic to understanding our country and it is not well taught. This book is very well done and a pretty comprehensive treatment, it alternates a sort of traditional telling of history with following the stories of 3 individual families that made the migration and I think those stories make this much more personal and engaging. Highly recommended.

Cats Eye by Andre Norton - A short sci-fi story about a bunch of animals kicking bad guy ass, not much depth to it, but fun, with a nice pro-environment theme that feels it was probably a bit ahead of its time back in 1961 when this was written.

Northshore & Southshore by Sheri S. Tepper - These were ok, but not Tepper's best, definitely similar themes that she more fully develops in later books, like many of hers it's about a society that revolves around a central lie and what happens when it unravels. Good for folks that are already Tepper fans, but if you are new to her work go for The Gate to Woman's Country, Grass, or Beauty which are all excellent.

Lion of Ireland by Morgan Llywelyn - Historical fiction about Brian Boru who unified Ireland around 1,000 AD. Overall pretty good, I thought the historical, military and political aspects very well done. There were some bits that would take me out of the story like sticking some Paganism in there which I'd normally appreciate except that it was obviously modern Neo-Paganism and not period accurate Paganism. Also I didn't think the writing on his relationships was very good, his partners coming across as caricatures rather than real people. Still well worth the read if interested in Irish history.

Four for Tomorrow by Roger Zelazny - Four sci-fi short stories, ok, but none of them really stood out for me, not as good as the Amber stories he is more famous for.

Lost horizon by James Hilton - Written in 1933, the very first mass market paperback and the book that gave us Shangri-la. I was pleasantly surprised by how well this has aged, there were a few bits of casual racism and misogyny, but not as much as expected and those mostly coming from a character portrayed as an asshole. The central theme of a group trying to preserve knowledge in the face of the imminent collapse of civilization still seems relevant.

The Noman Way by J.T. McIntosh (aka James MacGregor) - This on the other hand has not aged well, from 1964, a sci-fi story about a sports obsessed society - at least when the bad guys turn out to be Nazis there is some satisfying Nazi punching to be had.

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) - This is a retelling of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" giving it substantially more backstory and doing some playing with gender while keeping all of Poe's creepiness. I don't normally even read horror, but I trust Vernon's storytelling abilities completely and this is extremely well done. Highly recommended if you like the creepy.

The Wolf of Winter by Paula Volsky - A Russian-esque fantasy world exploring magic use as a drug and the potential abuse that comes with that. Not bad, but I think Ferrett Steinmetz's "Flex" is a more interesting book about the same idea, granted that is urban fantasy while this is more traditional. And among Volsky's other books I liked "Illusion" a lot better.

Life Among the Apaches by John C. Cremony - Non-fiction, an account published in 1868 from a man involved in fighting and later translating for the Apache and other tribes of the southwestern U.S. Not something I'd really recommend other to history buffs, the author has many opinions that are now cringeworthy, and he was writing with an ulterior motive of trying to paint the Apache as a serious threat, but it's also obvious that he admired them in many things, and he rails against the abysmal U.S. policies towards Native Americans of the day. Despite its flaws I found it interesting just because it was a first-hand account from a time and place that not many have survived. Read while taking a trip to New Mexico with my Mom, and so doubly interesting to read descriptions of the landscapes we were driving through while they were still controlled by the Apache.

Indexing by Seanan McGuire - Urban fantasy where fairy tales come to life and there is a secret agency to protect the normals from them. Reminds be a little of the Jasper Fforde Thursday Next books. Having a hard time really getting into this, starting it during the summer in e-book form and still haven't finished, still plugging away though.

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse - Back to the southwest, this is a post-apocalypse world set on the Navajo reservation where the Diné legends have come to life and our protagonist hunts supernatural monsters. Very Shadowrun-esque and full of Diné myth meeting modern day Diné culture. Great stuff and I think this would make for an awesome movie. This is the start to a series and looking forward to more of them.

Hawk of the Wilderness by William L. Chester - They can't all be winners; this is a Tarzan knock-off from 1936 and I didn't make it very far before giving up. Sets the action in the arctic instead of the jungle and it just doesn't work, while also being cringeworthily racist.

Star Rangers by Andre Norton - From 1951, one of Norton's first sci-fi stories, and despite pre-dating Star Trek by over a decade it feels kind of like a Star Trek story. Imagine if the Federation collapsed due to internal divisions but ships out on the frontier continued their missions of exploration even without a home to report back to and you have this story.

You are Here by Thich Nhat Hanh - Non-fiction, some Buddhism 101 from the famous monk and teacher. I hadn't read him before, and I can see why his writings are popular. A very straightforward style and he emphasizes the more practical aspects of Buddhism, what does it look like in practice in terms of day to day living, how to practice and what are the benefits in coping with modern life. Not finished yet and no idea how it compares to his other books, most of which I believe are very similar, but definitely intend to try and adopt some of his recommendations.

That's it for 2022. First one up for 2023 is Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki which I just got for Christmas and am very much looking forward to.

I suppose if there's one minor consolation in this wreck of a year, it's that I did get quite a bit of reading done.

( What I read this year under the cut, more or less in the order that I read them: )

My last book update was two years ago! My reading may have slowed down somewhat, but I am reading stuff. So here is the big recap of the what I've read since 2016

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin - By far the best thing I've read recently. Amazing story, fascinating characters, unique world building involving a malevolent Earth and the earth-benders orogenes that fight it, a creative non-linear story telling style all comes together to make for some riveting reading. (TW: child abuse)

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin - The 2nd book deals with the aftermath of the first and setting up for the 3rd, I'm not sure it stands as well on its own. Told in a more linear style and a bit slower pace, it still makes for good reading, more world building, more character building, and did its job in making me want the next one.

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin - A suitably epic conclusion, what began as a very personal story in the first book, here is scaled up with the stakes increased and the action pumped back up. The narrative is split into two, one in the distant past, and the current dealing with the repercussions of the first with the fate of the world in doubt. If there's a theme to this whole series it's how do you deal with a world that is literally trying to kill you.

Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff - A series of connected short stories which are re-tellings of H.P. Lovecraft stories moved to the 1950's with an African-American family as the protaginists. They deal with the twin horrors of racism and "things man was not meant to know". Extremely well done.

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie - Sequel to the Ancillary Justice (which is awesome), the protaginist adjusts to a life not driven by revenge and we get to see a bit more of this universe and the story develops into a decent murder systery type story. Not as strong as the first book, largely because the antagonist is not as interesting, but still a good read. Along the way it also sets things up for the trilogies conclusion, on my to be read list.

Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard - Non-fiction story of James Garfield and his assasination which I found absolutely riviting, largely because I knew next to nothing about Garfield and he was a fascinating character, a sort of JFK of his era, and the consequences of his assasination were game changing for American politics.

Hero of the Empire by Candice Millard - The story of Winston Churchill experience of the Boer War, or alternatively you could say it's the story of the Boer War using Churchill's POV as a window. Some interesting history, it's one of those wars in which there's nobody good to root for.

The River of Doubt by Candice Millard - The story of Theodore Roosevelt's exploration of an Amazonian river that almost ended in disaster. Excellent writing as always from Millard. My take away was to never go to the Amazon.

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson - An African based fantasy story of a caravan travelling through a hostile magical landscape led by two men with magical powers of their own. The writing style can be a bit dense in places, but it's a fascinating world that I'd like to see developed more.

The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne - Post-apocolypse story about two women's rather harrowing journies towards each other, one a child from west Africa, and the other a collegiate woman from India. This is definitely a book more about the journey than the destination. Interesting read and I like her writing style, but the story is very meandering, and I found the end anti-climatic, as if she wasn't sure what to do with the characters once they reached their destination.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor - A short story/novella about a woman who is the first of her tribe to go to space, and there she navigates through a first contact like scenario gone wrong. Great story, just too short, I need more, fortunately there are 2 more books. As an aside I liked this much more than "Who Fears Death".

Alice by Christina Henry - A Sequel/Retelling of Alice in Wonderland, re-imagined as a horror story, but keeping all the surrealness. Horror is not my preferred genre, but still though it well done.

Rebels of Ireland by Edward Rutherfurd - A massive historical fiction account of the history of Ireland (mostly Dublin really) from the 1500's to the Irish Civil War following the fates of several intertiwned familes. There is also a previous book, Princes of Ireland, covering earlier history that I did not read. Read in preperation and during our Ireland trip. I did not find the writing as engrossing as some of Rutherfurds earlier books like Sarum, or Russka; but it's still a fun way to learn the history and it helped to visit some of the places I was reading about.

Atlas of Irish History - Picked up while on the trip, nicely done collection of maps showing Ireland's history, nice companion to the above.

Perils of Prague by Doc Coleman - Steampunk adventure story, the characters felt like stereotypes, but the plot, action, and world building were solid even if I did feel I was reading an account of a RPG adventure at times.

Destroyer by Andrew Hickey - A story about British espionage during WWII intertwined with the occult, so take the WWII plot line of Cryptonomicon and add Aleister Crowley and some magic, all told in a dryly humorous style.

Blood Soaked and Gone by James Crawford - Book 3 of zombies, now with more aliens. Ok conclusion to the series, I think I suffered a little from character overload and having trouble tracking who was who, but still enjoyable.

Wars and Rumors of Wars by M.G. Norris - I got the first few chapters as a freebie, have not read the whole book. Main storyline vaguely typical fantasy setting with a half-orc protaganist, raised by human, but ends up with the orcs when his village is destroyed; and his human brother trying to mount a rescue. There's also a meta storyline of beings watching the first story from the future that I didn't get enough to understand what it was about. Enjoyable, but not blown away, have not sought out the rest of the book.

Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon - Historical fiction about the namesake surveyors and their journey across colonial America, heavy on the allegory with the odd couple giving their takes on all kinds of subjects of the day, and a dash of supernatural. It feels like I really ought to like this book, given its subject matter, but Pynchon's writing style is so frickin' dense that I've had trouble getting through it and stuff that's supposed to be funny falls flat due to excessive inscrutablility.

She and Allan by Henry Rider Haggard - Catching up on my pulp adventure stories from the 20's, this sequel to "King Solomon's Mines" and "She" lets their respective protaginists play off each other. Obviously very dated, but interesting seeing the source for so many adventure story tropes.

The Second War of the Worlds by George Smith - This is fan fiction from the 70's mashing up Orson Well's War of the Worlds with the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Up The Line by Robert Silverberg - A time travel story mostly about characters trying to have sex with their ancestors. Nominated for the Hugo in 1970, fortunately voters came to thier senses and gave it to Ursula LeGuin instead.

The Devolutionist and the Emancipatrix by Homer Eon Flint - From the 20's, this is more thought experiment/social commentary than story as the protaginists telepathically visit alternate Earths with decidedly different economic and political systems than our own.

Buck Rogers: That Man on Beta by Addison Steele (psuedonym of Richard Lupoff) - This has aged poorly. Pulp adventure story that really doesn't have much to offer.

Rum and Runestones - an anthology of supernatural pirate themed short stories, it sounded promising, but was disappointing. Most of the stories read more like an RPG character background than an actual story. Picked it for the Misty Massey story featuring the protagonist from "Mad Kestrel" and that was the best of the lot.

If you grew up in Chicago then Mike Royko was a household name, he was a daily columnist for various Chicago papers, writing from 1963 to 1997 - that's a lot of columns, over 7,000 in all. I've been reading a collection of his best columns and find it fascinating, it's like diving into a time capsule, having the same person writing about seeing Jackie Robinson play up to criticizing the Gulf War. His early columns especially were new to me and I had not realized how early he started calling out racism, reading those were reminders of both how far we've come and how far we still have to go. Also interesting to see his writing change, those early columns often contained casual misogyny which mostly disappeared in the later ones. Anyway, definitely recommended, there are some excepts online at http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/730719.html, the 2nd one there is the Jackie Robinson one, which was one of my favorites.

Ok, it's been over a year since I've done a books update, so this is a long list. I think I'm missing some too that went straight into the goodwill pile after being read.

( On to the books, what I have read over the last year )

Almost a year since my last book update and I have been doing a lot of reading. Last summer I traded my Magic card collection to a bookshop owner for a large box of books, so my "to be read" pile is now a little ridiculous. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some, but here we go:

( what I’ve been reading for the last year - this got really long )

The last couple of years my reading has dropped off quite a bit, larger due to switching from the train to driving for my regular commute. So I think the following list is roughly my last year’s worth of reading.

( What I’ve been reading, under the cut )

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Way behind on these, the early ones a bit fuzzy in my memory, I think I'm missing a few altogether. But anyway . . .

( what I was reading in 2010 )