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So I'll continue my slow backslide in reading quantity and aim for 20 books this year. If I can't do that I might as well just give up on life altogether. Goodreads Profile.
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Jan 4, 2015 05:07
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January 1. City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett 2. Hotwire by Simon Ings currently reading: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne Valente City of Stairs started off slow but by the end I was fully on board and I was really pleased that in this climate of endless sequels and series to read a well written standalone novel. Of course now it is a series but at least the sequel seems to be focusing upon a supporting character so I hope he doesn't bring up and start messing around with too many characters from Stairs since I was entirely happy with how their arcs ended. I didn't even remember reading Hotwire until I checked goodreads, so you know that's a good sign. I guess it was interesting but it didn't really connect with me in any meaningful way, and considering how hard he was riding on Gibsons
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Jan 30, 2015 23:37
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Ursus Veritas posted:January April 3. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne Valente 4. The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1) by Craig Schaefer Well school was a lot rougher than I expected this term but at long last I have the spare time to read again. Catherynne is easily my favourite writer and Ship of Her Own Making just managed to reinforce that opinion, it's a young adult novel but the prose is still as dense and poetic as her adult works, the only thing that really suffers is the simplification of character motivations and morals. The Long Way Down is a pretty good urban fantasy novel, it lays out an interesting world and some characters with cool backstory that I look forward to delving into. I didn't fall in love with it but I'm looking forward to reading the follow-ups.
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May 2, 2015 02:13
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Ursus Veritas posted:January 5. Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle 6. Three Parts Dead (Craft Sequence #1) by Max Gladstone 7. Touch by Claire North 8. The Three-Body Problem (Three Body #1) by Liu Cixin 9. Hero by Perry Moore 10. Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman 11. A Key, an Egg, an Unfortunate Remark by Harry Connolly White Van was okay, it was an interesting book but not one that really stuck with me after I finished it. Three Parts Dead was pretty cool, very cool world building and magic system that's inherently tied together with law, a book about wizard lawyers is shockingly compelling. The plot is very straightforward though, your typical bad man wants to be a god story. Touch deals with some similar themes to North's previous novel but it doesn't hit the same highs, essentially it follows a 'ghost' who can possess any person they touch as they try and figure out why some multinational group is trying to kill them. Three-Body was interesting but I wasn't as enamoured with it as most seem to be but I enjoyed reading a sci-fi novel from China, even though Liu seems about as hopeful about humanity as most Western authors do. I guess my problem with it is I just don't find the alien race particularly compelling, that said I'm definitely going to read the rest of the series, hope they change my mind. I've had a huge craving for superhero fiction so I read Hero next and it was okay. It's YA so it wasn't particularly deep or dark and you can tell how badly the author wanted this book to be set in the DC Universe since every hero is not-Superman or not-Wonder Woman. I guess it's notable for having a gay protagonist which is pretty cool. I read Trigger Warning, it's a Neil Gaiman collection, full of Neil Gaiman stories, some of them were good (The Sleeper and the Spindle), some of them were bad (Jerusalem), but I like Gaiman so I'll keep reading his work. Finally Unfortunate Remark was very cool, it's an urban fantasy novel with a pretty straightforward plot (the villain is literally introduced like Blofeld) but it makes up for it by being funny and unique for the genre (the protagonist is a 60 year old Woman) that really relishes in loving with the genre tropes. I really hope he continues this but since this was thrown out as a sweetener for his Epic Fantasy kickstarter I won't hold my breath. Turns out a month long unpaid work term is a pretty good way to get some reading done.
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May 31, 2015 18:15
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Ursus Veritas posted:January June 12. After the Golden Age (Golden Age #1) by Carrie Vaughn 13. Vicious by V.E. Schwab July 14. Blackbirds (Miriam Black #1) by Chuck Wendig 15. In the Woods(Dublin Murder Squad #1) by Tana French 16. Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1) by Sarah J. Maas After the Golden Age was okay, basic premise is how the child of Superhero deals with having no superpowers of their own. Decently written, but the plot was very predictable. Still it scratched my Superhero fiction itch for a little while. Vicious was fantastic, easily my favourite book of the year thus far. It's another Superhero story but this one is about dueling best friends turned Supervillians and I just loved it, easily the best piece of Superhero fiction I've managed to read. Blackbirds is a roadtrip urban fantasy, it toes the line of trying too hard to be gritty / super dark very well. Very much an introductory story though, not a lot of the universe is explained or really examined. In the Woods was loving awful. The writing was fine, but the ending is garbage and left me feeling unsatisfied and like I wasted my time. Throne of Glass is a novel for teenage girls that I read because I was bored. Nothing really special but still a fun read. I'm always surprised about what it's okay to write about in Young Adult books (in this case it's torture and references to rape) but what do I know? I was watching slasher flicks when I was seven. Currently reading The Water Knife but it's not really doing anything for me, might drop it and read Aurora since the Sci-Fi / Fantasy thread is raving about it.
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Aug 1, 2015 02:37
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Ursus Veritas posted:January August 17. The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi October 18. Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson November 19. Crooked by Austin Grossman December 20. So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson 20/20. Water Knife is pretty good. Not really all that memorable to me. Aurora is fantastic, the final section is one of my favourite things I've read all year. Crooked was super boring, this is Grossman's weakest work yet. And Publically Shamed was good as well. Mostly this year was spent at school and working, also reading a lot of short stories. They're available for free, what a fantastic value! My favourite book of the year was Vicious, and the worst was In the Woods. gently caress that book was terrible.
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Dec 27, 2015 02:26
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