A Descent into Dullness

January:
Short Fiction:  Seanan McGuire's My Last Name, Velveteen vs. the Retroactive Continuity & Velveteen Presents Jacqueline Claus vs. the Lost & Found; Stephen Leigh's the Atonement Tango

New Read:  Eric Flint/Griffen Barber's 1636: Mission to the Mughals
Chuck Wendig's Star Wars: Aftermath
Yuya Sato's Dendera: Old ladies vs. enviroment.  And a marauding bear.
Mira Grant's Parasite
Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl:  Coming of age/starting college for the fanfic writer set.
Douglas Hulick's Sworn in Steel
Foz Meadows' An Accident of Stars.  Teen travel to magical worlds now with PTSD.
Paula Goodlett/Gorg Hoff's Bartley's Man: "Ring of Fire" sidestory, specifically the Sewing Circle/OPM/Barbies bit.
Grady Hendrix' Horrorstor:  There should be an umlaut over that 3rd o.  Haunt at not-Ikea.
Evan Curie's Into the Black
Rachel Aaron's No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished

Rereads: Eric Flint's 1635: the Eastern Front, 1636: the Saxon Uprising & 1636: the Ottoman Onslaught

Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs:  Chris Hastings & Guhiru's the Unbelievable Gwenpool vol.1: Believe It
Stjepan Sejic's Sunstone vol.5:  Final volume of the best bdsm-lesbian-romance comic.
John Layman/Rob Guillory's Chew vol.12: Sour Grapes: More than a bit of a downer ending.  Not Ex Machina levels, but still.

Total: 18


February:
Short Fiction: Seanan McGuire's Lay of the Land & Velveteen vs. Recovery, Yoon Ha Lee's Extra Curricular Activities.

New Read:  Robin McKinley's Deerskin
Tim Pratt's Liar's Blade: Pathfinder tie-in novel.
David Drake's Death's Bright Day:  Latest "Lt. Leary".
April Daniel's Dreadnaught: Nemesis:  Cape fiction with trans-female lead.
T. Kingfisher's Summer in Orcus  YA magical quest from one of the best in the genre.
Ben Aaronovitch's the Hanging Tree:  Latest "Rivers of London" with visits the American & Russian magic heritages.
Becky Chambers' the Long Way to the Small, Angry Planet (I'm not crying you're crying shut up) & a Closed and Common Orbit
Daniel Jose Older's Battle Hill Bolero
Jasper Fforde's the Eye of Zoltar
Jack Weathford's the Secret History of the Mongol Queens:  Non-fiction history on the female Mongol leaders.

Rereads:  -

Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs:  Jennifer Doyle's Knights Errant
Tom Neely/Keenan Marshall Keller's the Humans vol.1: Humans For Life:  Planet of the Apes meets outlaw biker gangs

Total:14


March:
Short Fiction:  This was basically the "Neverless, She Persisted" theme Tor.com did.  With stories by Seanan McGuire, Kameron Hurley, Hyssa Wong, Carrie Vaughn, Chalie Jane Anders, Nisi Shawl, Brooke Bolander, Jo Walton, Amal El-Mohter, Catherynne M. Valente.

New Read:  Jo Walton's the Just City: Athena & Apollo attempt to create Plato's "perfect" Just City.  Shockingly the actual and the theoretical do not mesh perfectly.
Chuck Wendig's Invasive.  Sequel to the Zer0es.  With this second volume its very much supers type bad guy in an espionage/adventure setting.
Chuck Wendig's Atlanta Burns: the Hunt: 2nd of his YA white-trash pulp.  "Winter's Bone" meets Veronica Mars I guess.
RJ Ross' Coyote's Howl:  Latest "Cape High" book.
C.B. Lee's Not Your Sidekick: YA semi-dystopian with supers.
Seanan McGuire's Magic For Nothing:  Latest "InCryptid", with youngest sibling Antimony this time.
Patricia Brigg's Silence Fallen:  Latest "Mercy Thompson", with Mercy kidnapped to Europe 'cause vampire politics.  And the vamps are really the last interesting part of Brigg's urban fantasy series.
Jim Butcher/Kerrie L. Hughes' (ed) Shadowed Souls:  Urban fantasy anthology.
Louis McMaster Bujold's Mira's Last Dance
Anne Leckie's Ancillary Mercy
Matt Dunn's A Day at the Office
Clifford D. Simak's City
George R.R. Martin/Melinda Snodgrass' (ed) High Stakes:  This "Wild Cards" volume was actually a bit too dark even for me.  I'm looking forward to at least slightly more upbeat future books.


Rereads:  John Scalzi's Lock In & Redshirts
Douglas Adams' the Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.  Rereading this I'm suddenly left with the feeling Adams just gave up around the final act.

Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs:  G. Willow Wilson/Adrian Alphona/Tekeshi Miyezawa/Cameron Stewart's Ms. Marvel vol.6: Civil War II:  Carole is in an idjit, out-idioting Tony from the first one.
Gwenda Bond/Kate Leth's Girl Over Paris: Lady high-wire walker vs. ghost mystery.
Marguerite Bennett/Ming Doyle/Marguerite Sauvage/Laura Bragen's Bombshells vol.1: Enlisted
Kate Leth/Brittany Williams' Patsy Walker aka Hellcat! vol.2: Don't Stop Me-ow.  Now with teen mom/vampire Jubilee.
Tom King/Michael Walsh/Gabriel Walte/Mike Del Muado's Vision vol.2: Better Than a Beast
Jason Bulmahn's (et al) Pathfinder: Horror Adventures
Sandy Petersen's (et al) Call of Cthulhu: Keeper's Handbook

Total: 24

July
Short Fiction:  Aliette de Bodard's "Lullaby For a Lost World", Douglas F Warrick's "Sic Semper, Sic Semper", Justina Ireland's "Aisle 13", Gretchen McNeil's "By the Star-Dogged Moon", Chris McKitterick's "Waking the Predator", Mari Mansusi's "the Princess Can Save Herself", Ninu Allen's "the Art of Space Travel" and Sarn Raasch's "Seven Lifetimes"

New Reads:
Ferret Steinmitz' Flex: An interesting magic-system and world building for his urban fantasy series.  But while pretty good overall, the book didn't really grab me enough to continue on with the series it starts.
Lois McMaster Bujold's Penric & the Shaman:  Continuing on with the Penric stories in her "Chalion" series.
Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue: I think this is the first Chabon book I just didn't like.  Not sure why.
Cecil Castellucci's Stars in the Sky:  Sequel to Castellucci's YA sci-fi/western Tin Star.  Lots of neat "alien" aliens and the space station setting goes from near Ghost Town to Boom Town.
KJ Parker's the Last Witness:  1st person tale of revenge from a very unreliable narrator.
Douglas Hulick's Among Thieves:  Down in the streets with the scum style fantasy.

Rereads:
Alan Dean Foster's Into the Out Of:  I was pretty sure this was one of Foster's books I'd read when first bingeing on him back in high school.  But I honestly couldn't recall any of it until the end and the thing with the eyes.
Tamora Pierce's Rebekah Cooper: Terrier & Bloodhund:  Didn't reread the third book because the ending makes me sad.  And in a depressed kind of way.
Harry Turtledove's the Misplaced Legion & Empoeror for the Legion:  If I recall Amazon had the ebook omnibus edition of these two on sale.

Graphic Novels/TPBs/Rulebooks:
Kate Leth, Brittany L. Williams & Natasha Allegri's Patsy Walker aka Hellcat vol.1: Hooked on a Feline
David Wills' Dumbing of Age vol.5: Hey, Guess What, I'm a Lesbian

Total: 14


August
Short Fiction:  Annie Cardi's "the Ones Who Survive", Bethany Hagen's "Hearth Stone Rain", Seanan McGuire's "Full of Briars" & "Velveteen vs. Going Home Again", Rudy Rucker & Bruce Sterling's "Totem Poles" & Dhonielle Clayton's "the Things Our Mothers Tell Us".

New Reads:
Kerryn Offord & RIck Boatwright's 1636: the Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz.  Collecting and expanding the various short pieces into a full novel.  Plus Tom Stone gets yelled at for a being a dick in that one Mercedes Lackey short story which makes me happy.
Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu's the 3-Body Problem
Ann Leckie's Ancillary Sword
RJ Ross' Super Villain Grandpa:  More "Cape High" fluffy junk food.
David Weber/Timothy Zahn/Tom Pope's A Call to Arms:  More "Honor-verse".  Also, I've mentioned a few times before in places that I seem to only really like Zahn when he's playing in someone elses' toybox.
Django Wexler's the Guns of the Empire:  Well that was a nasy twist for "the Shadow Campaigns" series.
A. Lee Martinez' the Last Adventure of Constance Verity:  Trying to retire from a fate-given heroism and adventure.
Johnathan L. Howard's Goon Squad (issues #8-#12):  Sadly the last for awhile until Howard can find a way to make them financially workable.

Rereads:
Harry Turtledove's the Legion of Videssos & Swords of the Legion

Graphic Novels/TPBs/Rulebooks:
Various writers & artists on the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl & the Great Lakes Avengers.  In addtion to all the fun GLA stuff, has the original Squirrel Girl story where she saves Tony Stark from Dr. Doom.  And canonically kicks Von Doom's metal keister.
David Petersen & various on Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard vol.3
Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting's Captain America: the Winter Soldier vol.1 & 2
Jess Fink's Chester 5000 XYV vol. 1 & 2:  Steampunk sexy time comics.
Gurihiru (mostly) & Marc Sumerak, Alex Zalben & Fred Van Lente's Power Pack: Reread my various Power Pack mini-tpbs.  Thor & the Warriors Four, Avengers/Power Pack: Assemble, Power Pack Day One, Power Pack: Pack Attack!, Fantastic Four/Power Pack: Favorite Son, Spider-Man/Power Pack: Big-City Super Heroes & Hulk/Power Pack: Pack Smash! (the only one not drawn by Gurihru, instead having David Williams, Gary Martin and Andy Kuhn).

Total: 20

September
Short Fiction:   No free standing short stories.

New Reads:
Barbara Hambly's Bride of the Rat God:  Urban fantasy/horror in the Silent Film era of Hollywood
Walt Boyes & Bjorn Hasseler (ed) Grantville Gazette vol. 65-67
Sarah Kuhn's Heroine Complex:  Millenial-age social media exploiting supers.
Adrian Tchaivosky's Spoils of War: A "Shadows of the Apt" short story collection.
Michelle West's the Uncrowned King & the Shining Court:  Books two and three of her "Sun Sword" series.
Seanan McGuire's Once Broken Faith:  Latest "Tobey McGuire", with October having to be diplomatic. Again.
Kai Ashante Wilson's the Sorcerer of the Wildeeps
Ian Thomas Healy's the Neighborhood Watch:  YA entry into Healy's "Just Cause" supers series.
Ilona Andrews' Magic Binds:  Lastest "Kate Daniels", where Kate and her chosen family have to push forward on confronting her ancient super-villain dad.
V.E. Schwab's Viscious.  Supers-style revenge with blurring of villain vs. hero.

Rereads:
David Weber's Shadows of Victory

Graphic Novels/TPBs/Rulebooks:
Stan Lee & Steve Ditko's the Amazing Spider-Man Marvel Masterworks vol.1
Pathfinder's Rise of the Runelords: Anniversary Edition
Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda's Monstress: Awakening vol.1

Total: 15

January:
Short Fiction: Seanan McGuire's Snake in the Glass, Ursula Vernon's Razorback and Jim C. Hines' Chupacabra's Song

New Reads:
Robert Jackson Bennett's City of Stairs
Josh Fruhlinger's The Enthusiast
(editors) John Joseph Adams & Hugh Howey's the End Has Come:  Third in a triptych of apocalypse-themed short fiction anthologies.  The last focused on post-apoc survival and rebuilding.
Ilona Andrews' Magic Stars: A "Kate Daniels" series novella focused on Derek and Julie.
Tanya Huff's Third Time Lucky: Collection of short comic works about an immortal wizard.
Lexie Dunne's Superheroes Anonymous & Supervillains Anonymous: Gail is nicknamed "Hostage Girl" because villains think she's super-hero Blaze's girlfriend.  And then we he leaves town she ends up getting super-powers herself.
Michelle West's The Broken Crown
Andre Norton's Tales From the High Hallack vol.1: Collection of "Witch World" short stories.
Delilah Dawson/Kevin Hearne/Chuck Wendig's Three Slices:  A short story from each writer's setting.  All with a cheese divination theme.
Kevin Hearne's Staked: Latest "Iron Druid" book with, shockingly, many vampire opponents.

Rereads: None

Graphic Novels/TPBs:
Garth Ennis/Jonh Mcrea's The Demon: Hell's Hitman

Total: 13

Febuary:
Short Fiction:  Django Wexler's the Shadow of Elysium, Delia Sherman's the Great Detective, Joe Abercrombie's Two's Company, Seanan McGuire's Velveteen Presents: Action Dude Vs. Doing the Right Thing and Brian McCellan's Ghosts of the Tristan Basin

New Reads:
C.E. Murphy's Baba Yaga's Daughter the Tales of the Old Races:  World building short fiction for Murphy's "Old Races/Negotiatior" series.
N.K. Jemison's the Fifth Season:  Excellent read, even if the flash-back part of the story somewhat overwhelms the "now" bits.
Daniel Polansky's the Builders:  Like if Sam Peckinpah directed a "Redwall" movie.
Peter Clines' Ex-Isle:  Supers vs. zombies AT SEA.
Nicola Griffith's Hild:  Iron age Britain historical fiction yumminess.
Greg Van Eekhout's Dragon Coast:  One more crazy heist, one more group of nasty cannibal wizards.
Michael McCloskey's Trilisk Supersedure
T. Kingfisher's the Raven & the Reindeer: Ursula Vernon's Snow Queen adaptation.
Daniel O'Malley's the Rook:  What if you woke up with no memories of your life but were told you were one of the leaders of England's super-powered, super-secret spy orginization.  Oh and some of your co-workers wanted to kill you for what you used to know.
(editor) Eric Flint's Ring of Fire IV:  Most recent pro-anthology for the "Ring of Fire" series.
Georgette Heyer's the Quiet Gentleman:  I've liked other Regency Romance style books, but this one didn't really work for me.
Sherwood Smith's Whispered Magics:  Collection of Smith's short fiction.
Joe Haldeman's All My Sins Remembered:  Such a depressing ending.  Soooo bleak.

Rereads: None

Graphic Novels/TPBs:
G. Willow Wilson/Adrian Alphona/Dan Slott/Christos Gage/Guiseppe Camuncoli's Ms. Marvel: Last Days vol. 4:  Short arc leading into whatever last year's summer crossover event was, with some Spider-Man team-up filler.
Joe Hill/Gabriel Rodriguez' Locke & Key: Alpha & Omega:  Used part of the tax refund to finally finish up the series.
Stjepan Šejić's Sunstone vol.4:  Argh!  Open lines of communication people!
Joe Casey/Nick Dragotta/Brad Simpson's Vengeance:  Better than average Marvel mini-series that got lost in the Big Events.

Total: 19

March:
Short Fiction:  Seanan McGuire's Swamp Bromeliad & Velveteen Vs. the Consequences of Her Actions, Alyssa Wong's a Fist of Permutations in Lightning & Wildflowers, Melissa Marr's the Maiden Thief, Carrie Vaughn's That Game We Played in War Time, Caighlan Smith's the Weather, Dave Freer's the Changeling & the Phooka and David D. Levine's Discards.

New Reads:
Stephen Leather's Once Bitten:  Meh vampire fic.
Seanan McGuire's Chaos Choreography:  Latest "InCryptid" novel, going back to Verity Price and a reality dance show reuinion.
R.J. Ross' Shadow Boy:  Most recent "Cape High" book that wraps up the Evil Presidential Canidate arc.
(editors) Walt Boyes/Bjorn Hasseler's Grantville Gazette vol.62-64
Ken Liu's Grace of Kings.  The rise from peasant gangster to Emperor.
Orest Stelmuch's the Boy From Reactor 4:  Ukrainian and Russian gangsters, Chernobyl and hockey.
George R.R. Martin's A Knight the 7 Kingdoms:  Collection of the Duncan & Egg/Hedge Knight stories.
Tamora Pierce's Magic Steps, Street Magic, Cold Fire, Shatterglass, the Will of the Empress & Melting Stones.  Bingeing on nearly all the remaining "Circle of Magic"
(editors) Will Shetterly/Emma Bull's Liakek 1:  First in a shared-world anthology series.
Joe K. Lansdale's Savage Season.  Stupid Sundance preview week making me think I could record all of Hap & Leonard so I had to read the book instead.  Good book though.
Jeff Vandameer's Annihilation, Authority and Acceptance:  I heard there was a television adaptation for this trilogy in the works.  If they get it right it will be super-creepy and amazing.
K.J. Parker's Downfall of the Gods.  One goddess' long scam against her pantheon, though I'm unclear as to her motivation.

Rereads: None

Graphic Novels/TPBs:
Shannon, Dean & Nathan Hale's Calamity Jack:  Steampunk/fairy tale mash-up sequel to Rapunzel's Revenge
Ananth Hirsh/Yuko Ota's Lucky Penny

Total: 22

Short Fiction: Ray Wood's In the Sight of Akresa is a fairly depressing story about denying your true self and letting your lies damn those you care about.  Then issues four thru six of John L. Howard's supers series Goon Squad.  And finally Hero of Five Points by Alan Gratz is an entertaining bit of "Gangs of New York" steampunk style that serves as an intro to his full length novel series...

Jaye Wells' Dirty Magic is a better-than-average urban fantasy/police procedural.  With the War on Potions replacing the War on Drugs...

At the Queen's Command is the first in a trilogy by Michael Stackpole, a fantasy alt history for the American Colonial period.  The conflict here is the equivilant to the French/Indian War with the names changed...

The latest Ring of Fire  book is from the team of Eric Flint, Georg Huff and Paula Goodlett, 1636: the Vienna Waltz.  Mostly set up for bigger events still to come and shake out from mainline events.  Still I enjoyed seeing the mostly grown up Barbie Consortium and Sewing Circle entranpeneurs...

The Illana Andrews finally have Kate meet her dad in the latest "Kate Daniels" novel, Magic Breaks.  Where I think the main lesson is that he's basically an asshole DM who likes to show off his latest crazy-ass dungeon design...

The Widow's House continues Daniel Abraham's "the Dagger and the Coin", with more heroic bankers vs. the evil empire and its mad priest hood.  Also a depressive dragon...

Bluebell Hall by Kayla Basha is a cute little YA romance set at a magical girls school...

I think what draws me to the cheaper self-puplished supers stuff like R.J. Ross's Steampunk Time (latest "Cape High") is nostalgia for being college age and part of the "Superguy" mailing list.  Though this latest of Ross' fluffy supers series does go a beat deeper into the world building..

The weirdest/intresting-est bit of old Ed McBain "87th Precinct" crime books like Fuzz is police work data tracking in a pre-computerized era...

Wolfhound Century by Peter Higgins is difficult to sumarize.  Its a bit magical alt history with what seems to be a Russian perspective.  And some spies vs. revolutionaries with alien god-like beings in the background.  Intriguing but not a quick read...

T. Kingfisher is a pen name for Ursula Vernon, creator of the great ended webcomic Digger.  Toad Words & other Stories is a wonderful collection of her fairy tale inspired short fiction...

Scott Meyer's Off to be the Wizard and Spell or High Water are fantasy books where wizards are all people who basically stumbled onto the computer cheat codes for reality...

Finally Chris Moriarty's Spin State is the start of a scifi trilogy where the main FTL transportation slowly degrades your memory.  Leaving people dependant on electronic back-ups to maintain the accuracy of their own past.  This book concentrates on a military commando forced to confront the past she hoped to have buried in order to solve a murder and keep a political crisis from blowing up...


Total Books: 14

The majority of the short fiction this time around comes from me finally getting around to putting all of Sean McGuire's free stories on the old Kindle.  All pretty good, though a few could have used some extra work going from opening chapter to complete but related story.  But still, lot of free stories; One Hell of a Ride, No Place Like Home, Married in Green, Sweet Poison Wine, the First Fall, Loch & Key, We Both Go Down Together, Ghosts of Bourbon Street, Blocked and Black as Blood.  All are part of her InCryptid series.  The latest novel of which, Half-Off Ragnarok, is what got me jonesing to grab all the tie-in stories I hadn't gotten around to...

R.J. Ross' Cape High is, not to surprisingly, another supers e-series.  And like a lot of them, they start out rocky but improve as the books progress.  Each book of teen-age supers branches to a new view point character.  I got the first four; Super-Villain Dad, America's Grandson, Hello Kitty and Don't Know Jack along with the start of a tie-in short story series, Black Cat Files: the Trial...

And I only read one of Tor.com's free fiction pieces in April, Anyway Angie by Daniel Jose Older.  Very nice near future dystopia/horror story.  Manages that whole introduce a potential series thing without just feeling like an overstuffed introductory chapter.  I'm hoping Older does put out more of this...

David S. Goyer and Michael Cassutt's Heaven's War continues their trilogy of a mixed group of humans kidnapped during a first contact situation.  This second book moves around in focus a lot between the various stolen people from both the American and Indian space centers.  And gives up the motivations of the conflicting alien groups...

Maker Space is K.B. Spengler's latest e-novel bridging the time jump gap of her webcomic, a Girl & Her Fed.  More conspiracies, cyborgs and police work.  Though still no talking koala...

I've know read enough of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Liaden series that I can mostly figure out where the various stories in their second Constellation omnibus should fit in the greater narrative.  Which is a plus, since most of them drop you into their space opera setting pretty cold...

Another ok volume of the Grantville Gazette edited by Paula Goodlett.  But nothing in this 53rd volume that captured my interest like the musicians, Russian, Americas colonies or Sewing Circle/Barbie Consortium series.  I was more pleased with the e-arc of 1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies by Eric Flint & Charles Gannon.  Lots of pirates and politics and naval battling...

Mur Lafferty's Ghost Train to New Orleans is an enjoyable second novel in her Shambling Guide series.  Good mix of world-building and character driven drama...

I picked up Ruth Downie's Persona Non Grata on a whim when it was a Kindle Daily Deal I believe.  Its an enjoyable mystery in a Roman Empire setting.  I could see picking up more of them if I find them on the cheap.  And I didn't have a giant electronic pile of unread books still...

Raising Steam is not one of Pratchett's better Discworld books.  But neither is among the least.  Like many of the recent in the series it has a feeling that the author wants to get as much down and into the series before he can't write anymore.  And while Moist doesn't seem to have the focus of his previous two books, that fits a character whose base motivations have changed so drastically from his original introduction.  Andof course even average Pratchett is better than no Pratchett...

Finished up the final part of Debra Doyle and James McDonald's original MageWorlds trilogy.  And while their space opera setting was nice enough I don't think I'll be picking up more of the expanded series.  I may eventually take a look at some of their other fiction series...

I very much liked Tad Williams Celestial noir novel the Dirty Streets of Heaven.  And when I have the extra funds its' sequel is definitely on my list of books to pick up.  It is a somewhat lengthy list though...

Finished out the month with the most recent door blocker anthology from editors George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, Dangerous Women.  Generally good to excellent collection of fiction.  And I definitely got thru it faster than I did their Jack Vance tribute anthology...

Total Books: 17

Looking over my November list I'm only seeing four free-range short stories.  Andy Merino's grotesque transformation story of a pioneer journey in the Oregon Trail Diary of Willa Porter.  Then Benjamin Rosenbaum's bureaucracy and social media during the zombie apocalypse in Feature Development for Social Networking.  Su Yee Lin has a dreamscape style quest in 13 Steps in the Underworld.  And finally Michael Swanwick has another of his "Mongolian Wizard" stories set in a fantasy alternate history World War with House of Dreams...

Actually started the month with Paolo Bacigalupi's YA zombies & the meat packing industry book, Zombie Baseball Beatdown.  Followed by volume 50 of the Grantville Gazette (edited by Paula Godlett) one of the less memorable and slight collections.  I honestly had to go back and look to remember any of the stories in it...

Veteran mystery writer Janet Evanovich teams with long time tv and novel mystery writer Lee Goldberg with the Heist.  The pair craft a competent and entertaing (if overused concept) cop and crook team up to take down a bigger Bad...

American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett is creepy and gripping mix of small town Americana, Cthulhu-style alien entities and dysfunctional families...

Another entry in Baen's "Ring of Fire" e-books, 1635: Music & Murder by David Carrico collects the various Gazette stories that lead into 1636: the Devil's Opera.  I do like the "modern" music influencing the downtime art forms stories, so it was nice to have them collected in one spot...

Gail Carriger's "Finishing School" was a new one for me.  The two books in the series so far, Etiquette & Espionage and Courtesies & Conspiracies combine Victorian-era steampunk, vampires, werewolves, espionage and girl's finishing schools...

Finally got around to Suzanne Collin' 'pre-"Hunger Games" book Gregor the Overlander.  Turns out its the start of a kidlet series, of the hidden magical world stumbled into by a "normal" hero.  I will give Collins this, she had me crying over the heroic death of giant cockroach.  And roaches freak me the fuck out, so high bar there...

I was less than impressed with the pair of horror novels by Joey Compeau.  One Bloody Thing After Another feels unfinished, like it ends about 3/4 of the way thru the story.  And I could not bring myself to wade thru the wholesale slaughter and murder of kids with the Summer is Ended & We are Not Saved...

I was happily surprised by Drew Hayes' Super Powereds and Super Powereds 2.  He writes the books one chapter at a time and posts them on his site, then publishes the whole thing when they're done.  I've been avoiding checking the individual chapers for volume 3 as I want to read it as a whole.  But you can actually see his writing craft improve chapter by chapter.  I'll also admit I picked up the first one hoping it was by the still-missed late Drew Hayes of Poison Elves.  Sadly, no...

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's latest "Liaden" book, Trade Secret, took me a few chapters to get hooked into.  Mostly trying to recall which sub-story line and short fiction it was mainly connect into...

Sharpe's Prey by Bernard Cornwell takes place in 1807 and Denmark, in between the India and Spain campaigns for Wellington and Sharpe.  Not one of the most memorable in the series, but picking it up filled one of the holes in my collection of the series...

I've been mixing together reading the Frank L. Baum "Oz" series after getting a complete omnibus e-edition and picking up the recent Marvel comics' adaptations by Eric Shanowar and Skottie Young.  For November I read the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz.  The expanded Oz setting is a trip and a half...

The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe is another YA/End of Civilization book.  Its also a touching, melancholy and yet hopeful book.  Crewe's makes a great choice in focusing on a small isolated coastal island struggling with the civilization-breaking plague outbreak.  I need to get the sequel sometime soon...

Beta read another book for my friend Joe Selby.  Family Jewels is a future scifi/noir mash-up with detectives and teleportation and planets owned by decendents of todays mega-wealthy and a jewel heist.  I had a few quibbles with some parts of the set-up, but as always I wish Joe had a publisher so more people could get a chance to read his work...

You're Jonah Yu is a Choose Your Own Adventure book by Jeffrey C. Wells, that ties into his and Shaennon K. Garrity's webcomic Skin Horse...

And finally, ended the month with a reread of Lois McMaster Bujold's Captain Vorpatrill's Alliance.  I just really like this and a Civil Campaign and just can't get enough of either...

Total: 21

Non-anthologious short fiction:  Twittering From the Circus of the Dead by Joe Hill was one of the most genuinely creepy stories I've read in awhile.  Dale Bailey's A Rumor of Angels is a somber bit of fantasy set during the Dust Bowl.  Grimoire of the Lamb is an "Iron Druid" story from Kevin Hearne dealing with some of the old-school Egyptian pantheon.  Warren Ellis presents a day with a hitman in Dead Pig Collector.  And It Was a Day is an old little poem by Usula Vernon...

On the actual anthology front for that month we start out with the 49th Grantville Gazette (ed. Paula Goodlett).  Sadly the story that sticks in my mind the most from that is the murder mystery one that never really seems to come together.  Glitter & Mayhem (ed. John Klima, Lynne M Thomas & Michael Damion Thomas) are scifi and urban fantasy stories with night club and/or roller derby themes to them...

I got K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr's Loki's Wolves as a give away from Tor.com.  Its a nice enough YA urban fantasy about the descendents of the Norse gods.  I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure if I really want to get more of the series when it comes out...

Herbert Sakalauck's the Danish Scheme was originally part of the Grantville Gazette anthologies, several stories about a new Western Canada colony in the "Ring of FIre".  But its now one of the re-polished into a regular novel eBooks Tor is putting out from the series...

To Be or Not to Be by Ryan North and Shakespeare is probably one of my favorite things I've got through Kickstarter campaigns.  A choose-your-own-adventure version of Hamlet.  I liked the path where Ophelia becomes the founder of modern plumbing thru her mastery of SCIENCE...

Carrie Vaughn's latest "Kitty Norville" book, Kitty in the Underworld, has her werewolf protaganist kidnapped by a small group looking to use her in an occult ritual against the ancient vampire Roman.  Which if it weren't for the whole drugged and kidnapped might have been something Kitty would have been interested in helping with...

Cold Copper continues Devon Monk's is the latest "Age of Steam" horror/western/steampunk.  Like Cherie Priest's books, prefect for any Deadlands players out there...

And still another from a continuing series with Brass Man by Neal Asher, part of his "Human Polity" series.  Though the titular android is really more of a sideshow to the ancient buy deadly artifacts, alien intelligences and A.I.s all warring on the frontiers of "civilized" space...

Young Sentinels is the newest of Marion G. Harmon's "Wearing the Cape" supers eBook series.  With the Sentinels teams recruiting new teen supers to help slow down the ever increasing super-villain threat...

Mark Del Franco's Undone Deeds is the finale to his "Connor Grey" modern fantasy series.  And I'll admit, the ending made me cry a little bit...

I read an interview with Joe Hill where he said that NOS4A2 was him just running right the fuck at writing like his dead.  And the book definitely reads the closest to being a Stephen King novel of his stuff I've read.  And not in a bad way...

Darwin's Elevator makes for an excellent start to Jason M. Hough's post-apocalyptic scifi series.  The apocalypse being an alien-delivered plague that turns humans into near-mindless savages.  Unless they happen to be within a set distance of the also alien-delivered space elevator.  Or are one of the tiny percentage of immune humans.  Like the scavenger group led by one of the book's lead characters...

While David Weber's  House of Steel does open with a short story focusing on the life of King Roger, its actually more one of those world building source books for his Honor-verse.  And mostly just the Manticore part of said universe.  Still it did prompt me into another rearead of the "Honor Harrington" series.  Starting in September with Echoes of Honor, Ashes of Victory and War of Honor...

Total books: 17

Just getting this under the wire.  Starting off June with Mur Lafferty's the Shambling Guide to New York City.  Which is about writing tour books for the supernatural community.  Some nice twists on the usual modern paranormal tropes...

From one of my various Kickstarter rewards I got Harry Connelly's  King Khan.  Which is a pulp adventure story with a talking gorilla who teaches at Oxford going to Los Angeles to fight zombies and mummies and stuff.  At one point he's joined in his quest by a young Luchador.  Its pretty fucking great...

For some reason I got to describing Poul Anerson's the High Crusade to the roommate.  I forget why.  But that led to me realizing I know longer had a physical copy and so grabbing it for my Kindle.  And of course rereading the tale of how some English crusaders steal a spaceship from some space pirates and then go forth (with their entire fucking Duchy) and conquer space.  With swords and bows and shit...

Dead Ever After is the finale for Charlaine Harris' "Southern Vampire" books.  A decent ending that wraps up the majority of the various primary and secondary character arcs.  And leaves Sookie with the expected love interest...

I picked up James S.A. Corey's Leviathan Wakes as Kindle Daily Deal, even though the roommate has the whole series.  And then after I finished it I found that it included ALL of Daniel Abraham's (who is the same guy) the Dragon's Path.  Which is the start to his epic fantasy series with religious wars and old soldiers and one of the leads being a bad-ass teen lady banker.  So basically two bucks got me the first book in a hard core no-FTL hard scifi series AND a great new first book for a cool epic, little bit grimdark but not to grimdark, fantasy.  Definitely five-starred THAT purchase...

I also quickly bought the King's Blood and Tyrant's Law the next two books for the series and am very impatiently awaiting the release of the 4th...

Fearsome Journeys, edited by Jonathan Strahan, is a tight little anthology.  Its got some Elizabeth Bear and Daniel Abraham and Scott Lynch and a new Glen Cook "Black Company" story...

Esther Freisner's Nobody's Princess and Nobody's Prize are kind of ancient Greek historical fiction, non-magical myth re-imagining, Torjan War prequels about teen Helen...

Limits of Power is the latest in Elizabeth Moon's "Paksworld" novels.  With several nations, who had outlawed magery (which is different from wizardry and not-druidery and clerical magics) for pretty solid historical reason, dealing with a resurgance of people showing up with magery powers.  Plus Alured the Black from waaaaay back in the first trilogy really steps up as a bad guy...

The roommate picked up the 5th and 6th of Craig Johnson's "Longmire Mysteries", the Dark Horse and Junkyard Dogs.  So after blowing thru those, I of course had to immediately grab Hell is Empty and As the Crow Flies, the 7th and 8th books in the series...

G. Willow Wilson's Alif the Unseen is a pretty great modern fantasy set in the Middle East, with an Arab/Indian hacker getting involved with genies and targeted by state security because of the upper class girl he's gotten involved with...

Beginnings (edited by David Weber) is the most recent of his "Honorverse" tie-in anthologies.  Though the first story, dealing with early colonization star ships and the crashing Earth governments could be part of more than a few limited resource in-Sol system scifi settings...

Also the latest Grantville Gazette (still edited by Paula Goodlett) with this 48th volume filling in still more of the fringes for the "Ring of Fire" setting...

And then we've got the latest "Iron Druid" book from Kevin Hearne, Hunted.  Which has the death of a goddess and a chase across Europe and the Greco-Roman pantheons being assholes...

Then another anthology with Machine of Death (edited by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo and David Maiki).  Which is a collection of short stories all based around the concept that society is introduced to a machine that perfectly and accurately and unerringly predicts how you will die...

And finally from the free-range short story round up.  Leigh Bardugo's the Too-Clever Fox is a bit of a fable about a fox and supernaturally skilled hunter.  Jedediah Berry's a Window or a Small Box is a very off kilter bit with a couple on the run in a strange and illogical world.  Porn & Revolution in the Peaceable Kingdom is another oddball story where every other species on the planet has become sentient.  I mean all of them.  The lead is a slime mold.  Except they basically live kind of like humans do now and keep humans as pets.  I mean we're still sentient, just not very bright.  Anna Banks' the Stranger is kind of a "Little Mermaid" homage, though it has a pretty soft and inconclusive ending...

Total books: 23

And the first book finished in '13 is Robin Wyrick's Eviction Notice. A mostly comedy scifi story where aliens are going to jettison every living thing on Earth into space because of a senior prank involving crop circles...

Then a quick reread of Pratchett's Small Gods brought on by some online discussion of women in his work. Mostly to double check that huh there AREN'T any in one of my favorites for the series...

Followed by the first of several anthologies for the month, volume 45 of the Grantville Gazettes, still edited by Paula Goodlett. Also for January the newest "Bordertown" collection Welcome to Bordertown edited by Holly Black & Ellen Kushner. Velveteen vs. the Junior Super Patriots, collecting the first half of Seanan McGuire's online supers short stories. The 2012 Free Baen collection (though I don't have an editor for that) and Best of Tor.com edited by Patricia Hayden, Liz Gorinsky & David Hartwell. Oh and while not an actual collection, "The Restless Dead of Siegel City", "Lucky Penny" and "Stowaway" a trio of holiday themed shorts for Blake Petit's supers setting...

I ended up not really liking Phillip K. Dick's alternate history the Man in the High Castle. I guess I can't really enjoy Nazi Victory stuff, unless it sets them up for eventual destruction...

Mark Anthony's the Keep of Fire is the second in his "real" Earth in fantasy world series. I'm a little bit daunted at reading the remaining five books in the series though. Despite liking the characters I'm still more than a bit tired of the cross-world savior trope. Though I did finish and enjoy Barbara Hambly's similar trilogy with the Walls of Air and Armies of Daylight...

Liked Michael Stackpole's In Hero Years I'm Dead which has him revamping his longtime Batman expy Revenant. Which also has a formalized supers battle concept evoking fantasy sports leagues...

After reading some short fiction by her picked up Melinda Lo's Ash. A YA book retelling "Cinderella" with the titular lead torn between her Fae "godfather" and female Royal Huntswoman...

Also got around to Chuck Wendig's paranormal books Blackbird and Mockingbird. Wendig I think perfectly balances the whole likeability vs. asshole protagonist thing...

I'd also say that I enjoyed Devon Monk's second steampunk/horror/western Tin Swift more than the first...

And more in the finally getting to pile, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller's "Liaden" series. With what is kind of a side series to the mainline with Fledgling, Saltation, Ghost Ship and Dragon Ship. My only minor beef is that there are a couple spots where characters go off and do stuff that is probably covered in the writer's very large backlog of short fiction...

In the middle of all that though I also broke off for a reread of David Weber's Shadow of Freedom. Mostly to tide me over while impatiently waiting for new Honorverse or Safehold books...

Finally the roommate picked up Mike Shepherd's "Kris Longknife" military scifi. Got to the first five books, Mutineer, Deserter, Defiant, Resolute and Audacious, by the end of the month. Enjoyable if slight on character depth. Very pulpish in feel. I do like how ships in the earlier books use ice-coverings as ablative armor for space combat...

Total books: 27

Once again just getting the last month done before the current one ends. Starting off with the Kevin Anderson edited Blood Lite III: Aftertaste urban fantasy anthology. Which was pretty lackluster overall. Even old favorites like Jim Butcher have fairly weak offerings in this one. In fact, as far as I can recall, all three volumes of this series have been less than stellar, with none making my 50% or more enjoyable stories test to keep...

Much better was the reprint of Wild Cards with the two new stories added, edited by George R.R. Martin and Dark & Stormy Knights, another urban fantasy anthology, edited by P.N. Elrod. The "Wild Cards" series has long been a favorite, so two new stories was just icing on replacing my worn-down original copy of volume one. And Elrod's anthologies have a high ratio of quality...

I love Baen's offering of election Advance Reader Copies. I mean fifteen bucks is normally about twice my max for an e-book. But I can't resist getting things like the newest "Ring of Fire" novel, 1636: Papal States by Eric Flint & Charles Gannon three months early. This one finishes up the Italy centric arc started previous by Flint & Andrew Dennis...

Got Check Wendig's Dinocalypse Now as part of a Kickstarter drive. Its a fun pulp-adventure story that serves as an introduction to "Spirit of the Century" rpg. The book is full of psychic dinosaurs, jet pack adventurers, talking gorillas and angry cavemen with a cliff-hanger ending...

No Wake Zone is the sequel to C.E. Grundler's Last Exit to New Jersey. You'd think Hazel Moran's friends and family would have figured out that lieing to her for her own good doesn't work. I mean it went really badly the last time...

The roommate got into writers Ilona Andrews from one of their short stories. And I can't blame him since I devoured thru the first five of their "Kate Daniels" books, Magic Bites, Magic Burns, Magic Strikes, Magic Bleeds and Magic Slays over several days. The series is set in a world where technology is failing as magic rises into ascendcy. Kate Daniels, the lead, is a merc and troubleshooter dealing with shapeshifters, vampires and guilds of would be paladins in a altered Atlanta...

In fact I liked them enough to grab up the various short stories and novellas for my Kindle. Magic Dreams and Magic Mourns are regular expand the setting style shorts. Curran and Fathers & Sons retell portions of the previous volumes from the view point of the main romantic interest for Kate...

Also from the Andrews, but unrelated to "Kate Daniels", was the novella Of Swine & Roses, a story about feuding magical Houses, teen romance and a pig related curse...

I'm still not sure about the Long Earth by Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter. Its a good book and I am intrigued enough to want to know what happens next. But something about most Multiple Earth stories just doesn't click with me. I'm not sure why, maybe its something to do with Quantum...

Charles DeLint's Little Grrl Lost is nice YA book which puts a would be punk Little into his Newford setting...

Got to several of my backlog of Kindle Deal of the Day books in July. Starting with Heat Wave by Richard Castle. A decent enough modern mystery/crime book, where I'd be interested in checking out the rest of the series if I find them on the cheap. I do wonder who they have ghost writing them...

Also tv related is the Cold Dish by Craig Johnson, the first in the "Longmire" series the recent A&E show was adapted from. I'm definitely wanting to check out the rest of this series, but $12.99 is well above my normal price limit on an eBook. And I couldn't remember the author's damn name the last time I was at the used book store. Also Lou Diamond Philips captured his character's voice perfectly in the tv show...

I was a bit let down by the other two Deal books. Alison Croggon's the Naming is a pseudo-Gaelic/Celtic fantasy that reminded my a bit of Lloyd Alexander. But man, the book just slogged along at times. Its the first in what is obviously meant to be an epic story, but I can't find myself willing to wade thru the next books. The other book, Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage just failed to connect with me. I found myself giving up about 3/4 of the way thru. The book wasn't helped by the guest introduction basically spoiling the ending in discussing the story...

The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi is in the same world as his Ship Breaker, where much of the south-eastern U.S. is devastated marshland. I like the touch, where China attempted a peace keeping mission against the many American warlords...

Mira Grant's Blackout brings her "Newsflesh" trilogy to a close. And its a pretty fucking bad-ass ending, what with the giant conspiracy and the surprise resurrection and all...

From the roommate insists I read this pile, Eric Flint & Dave Freer's Slow Train to Acturus has an alien civilization making first contact with a Terran Generation-type colony ship. Pretty good and interesting directions the various human cultures evolved in. Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle the Mote in God's Eye was a scifi classic I'd never got to. And I own a few of the pair's other books. But I found myself having to constantly remind myself that they wrote this in the 70s to try and get past how antiquated the futuristic culture seemed. Especially given the one non-white character being a underhanded, conniving baddie...

Peter Clines' Ex-Heroes and Ex-Patriots are an enjoyable pair of super-heroes in zombie apocalypse world. I'm hopeful that Clines will put out a third book in the series...

And finally Kitty Steals the Show is Carrie Vaughn's most recent "Kitty Norville" book. With werewolf radio host Kitty going to London and the First International Conference on Paranatural Studies. With Kitty and her family meeting up with various old friends and foes, looking into the vampire's Long Game and helping a ghost have a family reunion...

Total Books: 28