lurkerwithout: (pic#11202522)
October:
Short Fiction
:
New Reads:  Vivian Cathe's (ed) Humans Wanted
  • Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix Plus
  • C.B. Lee's Not Your Sidekick
  • Charles E. Gannon's Fire With Fire
  • Ken Liu's Wall of Storms
  • A.J. Hartley's Firebrand
Rereads: Lois McMaster Bujold's A Civil Campaign, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance & Gentleman Jole & the Red Queen
  • Terry Pratchett's Thief of Time
Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs: Simon Spurrier/Tun Huat/Michael Del Mundo's X-Men Legacy: Legion v.1: Prodigal
  • Greg Rucka/Matthew Southworth/Lee Loughridge's Stumptown v.1
Total: 12


November:
Short Fiction: Julia Keller's the Tablet of Scapttar
New Reads: Gene Wolfe's Shadow of the Torturer
  • T. Kingfisher's Clockwork Boys
  • Mia Archer's Villains Don't Date Heroes
  • Brandon Sanderson's Oathbringer
  • Jay Styrvant's Perfect Stranges, Black Friday, Over Our Heads & Head Down
  • Jim C. Hines' Terminal Alliance
  • K.B. Spangler's Stoneskin
  • Eric Flint/Paula Goodlett/Gorg Huff's 1637: the Volga Rules
Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs: Christina Strain/Amilcar Pinna/Alberto Alburquerque/Eric Oda's Generation X: Natural Selection v.1
  • David Willis' Dumbing of Age: The Machinations of My Revenge Will Be Cold, Swift, and Absolutely Ridiculous: v.6
  • Chris Claremont/Bob McLeod/Sal & John Buscema/Ron Frenz' the New Mutants: Epic Collection
  • Brennan Lee Mulligan/Molly Ostertag's Strong Female Protaganist v.2
Total: 16

December:
Short Fiction:
New Reads: Robin D. Laws' Blood of the City
  • Chuck Wendig's Aftermath: Empire's End
  • Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country
  • Barbara Hambly's Dragonbane
  • Seanan McGuire's Down Among the Sticks & Bones
  • Paul Cornell's Long Day in Lychford
  • Martin Scott's Thraxas
  • R.J. Ross' Rainbow Rush
Rereads: Terry Pratchett's Going Postal

Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs
: Jason Keeley/Owen K.C. Stephens/James L Sutter (dev team) Starfinder: Alien Archive
  • Chris Hastings/Gurihiru's the Unbelievable Gwen-poole: Beyond the 4th Wall: v.4
  • G. Willow Wilson/Andrian Alphona/Takeshi Miyazawa's Ms. Marvel: Mecca: v.8
  • Ben Aaronovitch/Andrew Catmel/Lee Sullivan's Rivers of London: Night Witch
Total: 13
lurkerwithout: (eastman)
One of the better entries for the franchise.  Fun and fast-paced.  Sure, its full of the normal logic flaws of a movie about space wizards.  Like why do the space bombers, which are flying in space, have to get into position to DROP exploding balls onto a target, which is also a ship flying in space.  But it manages to mostly avoid blatantly lifting plot points from the original trilogy like "Force Awakens" did, while still having homage sequences.  And perhaps a smidgen too much of the cute alien future-plushy critters.  But even before it became part of Disney, the series has always been very toy adjacent.

Plus lots of good actors doing a good job.  Even if I'm not sure what Del Toro's character's name was.  And Levine makes the whole Angriest Sith Boy thing work better this time around.  So over all a good Star War.
lurkerwithout: (television)
Rogue One: Best to get those Disney related rewatches in now.  And that Darth Vader bit at the end is always chilling.

the Founder: Story of the founding of the McDonald's empire and the man who helped build and steal it from the original McDonald brothers.

Arrow s.1:  Where that whole Berlanti/DC 'verse begins.  And its..nice?  Sure, nice to see that Ollie can be just as much of a bonehead sometimes as his buddy Barry.

lurkerwithout: (Default)
April:
Short Fiction:  Jo Walton's a Burden Shared & Sharon Lee/Steve Miller's Cutting Corners.

New Read:  Joe Hill's the Fireman.  Apocalyptic-Dystopia involving self-combustion plague.
  • Joanne Harris' Jigs & Reels.  Anthology, decent not great.
  • Richard Castle's Driving Heat.  I actually bought like 4 or 5 more of these at once, all fairly cheap e-editions.  But this was the only one I finished as I just got bored with the series.  Kind of like how I skipped the final season or two of Castle.
  • John Wick's Daughter of Fate7th Sea tie-in novel I got for free as part of kickstarter-ing the new edition of the rpg.  Pretty good and like the better tie-in novels makes me want to play the game (again).
  • Ian Thomas Haley's the Bulletproof Badge.  Short fiction collection that ties into Haley's "Just Cause" supers series.
  • Poul Anderson's Midsummer's Tempest.  Combo Shakespeare fanfic and Roundhead English Civil War historical romance.
  • Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking.  I think this was Fisher's last memoir.  Funny if dark, like her.
  • Michael Swanwick's Not So Much, Said the Cat.  Another short story collection, all very good.

Reread:  M. Magdalene's Curvy vol.1-3.  This nekkid magical adventure webcomic is actually finishing up right now.

Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs:  Faith Erin Hicks/Jordie Bellaire's the Nameless City: vol.2: the Stone Heart
  • Kristen Gudsnuk's Henchgirl
Total:13


May:
Short Fiction:  Allen Steele's Sanctuary Ramsey Shehadeh's Red & Rich Burlew's How the Paladin Got His Scar

New Reads: Adam Christopher's Standard Hollywood Depravity.  I keep trying and yet something about Christopher just never clicks with me.  This one is robots + noir + free will issues = ennh.
  • T. Kingfisher's Jackalope Wives & Other Stories.  Anthology of Ursula Vernon short fiction.
  • Marko Kloos' Fields of Fire.  Mission to Mars!
  • Walt Boyes/Bjorn Hasseler (ed) Grantville Gazette vol. 68-70
  • Megan Abbott's You Will Know Me
  • Ellen Datlow/Terri Windling (ed)  Black Swan, White Raven.  One of several of their fairy tale short fiction anthologies.
  • Avery Duff's Beach Lawyer.  Sometimes you just want to try stuff outside your normal wheelhouse.  And sometimes that just means reading an ok legal thriller full of lying liars who lie.
  • Foz Meadows' a Tyranny of Queens.  Sequel to An Accident of Stars and hopefully not the last visit to the setting and characters.
  • S.J. Delos' Some Kind of Hero.  Reformed villain supers fic.
  • Ian Thomas Healy's Just Cause Stories vol. 2 & Jackrabbit: Big in Japan.  The humor in this second Jackrabbit book feels a bit forced.  Especially the older ladies lust for Jackrabbit bits.
  • Joan Aiken's the Wolves of Willoughby Chase

Reread:  Terry Pratchett's the 5th Elephant, the Truth, Nightwatch, Going Postal, Thud!, Monstrous Regiment, Making Money, Unseen Academicals, Snuff & Raising Steam.  Just went on a big Pratchett binge to start off May.

Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs:  Ben Fleuter's Sword Interval vol.1
  • Kieron Gillen/Salador Larroca/Leinel Francis Yu's Darth Vader: the Shu-Toran War
  • Kieron Gillen/Salvador Larroca's Darth Vader: vol.2: Shadows and Secrets.  Gillen and company's Darth Vader series was really, really good.  Successfully works with an evil lead and one who's early and final story has already been set.
  • Ryan North/Erica Henderson's the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up the Marvel Universe.  Squirrel-Girl beats up everyone!  Even Squirrel-Girl!
  • Chris Claremont/Brent Anderson's  X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills

Total:28



June:
Short Fiction: Jessica Reisman's Bourbon, Sugar, Grace & Shira Glassman's Knit One, Girl Two.

New Read: Seanan McGuire's Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day, Every Heart a DoorwayVelveteen Vs. the Seasons.  The first is about ghosts and moving on.  Then the start of her new-ish "Wayward Children" series about kids who travel to magical worlds (and sometimes come back) and the last is the latest collection of her "Velveteen" stories.
  • R.J. Ross' Rocky Road.  More "Cape High" popcorn.
  • Maggie Stiefvater's the Raven Boys & the Dream Thieves.  Modern fantasy centered around the search for sleeping Welsh king in Virginia.
  • Ellen Klages' Passing Strange.  1940s San Francisco lesbian counter-culture with a dash of magic.
  • Chuck Wendig's Thunderbird.  Latest "MIriam Black" book.  With south-western doomsday prepper cult.
  • Charlie N. Holmberg's the Paper Magician, the Glass Magician & the Master Magician.  Enjoyable, if a little slight, trilogy of magical historical/romance/adventure.
  • Karen Diem's Human.  Second of her "Arca" supers series.
  • Sharon Lee/Steve Miller's the Gathering Edge.  Most recent "Liaden" book.
  • Rachel Manjic/Sherwood Smith's Rebel.  Third of their "the Change" books.  Still the best Gamma World game setting.
  • V.E. Schwab's a Darker Shade of Magic
  • Pen & Cape Society (ed) the Good Fight 3: Sidekicks

Reread
: Michael Stackpole's  X-Wing: Rogue Squadron; Wedge's Gamble; the Krytos Trap & the Bacta War.  One of my favorite bits of the Star Wars 90s EU book line.
  • Jeffrey Brown's Incredible Change-Bots Two.  I know I'd read this before but everything about it seemed unfamiliar.
  • Kate Beaton's Never Learn Anything From History
  • Rick Remender/Daniel Way/Marjorie Liu's Punisher: Franken-Castle.  This is exactly the kind of crazy that I like to see when mixing Punisher with a supers setting.

Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs
:  Christopher Hastings/Irene Stychalski/Gurihiru's the Unbelievable Gwenpool: Head of M.O.D.O.K.  Hasting's is a great comedic writer and I just adore Gurihiru's art.
  • Brandon Montclare/Amy Reeder/Marco Failla's Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur: Cosmic Cooties.
  • Jason Aaron/Kieron Gillen/Mike Deodato/Salvador Larroca/Mark Brooks' Vader Down.  Vader is just super scarily competent in this one.  Like end of Rogue One scary.
  • Kieron Gillen/Salvador Larroca/Juan Gimenez' Darth Vader: vol.4: End of Game.
  • Faith Erin Hicks' the Adventures of Superhero Girl (Expanded Edition).  Just enough new material for me not to count this as a reread.
  • Ben Aaronovitch/Andrew Cautmel/Lee Sullivan/Luis Guerrero's Rivers of London: Body Work
  • Mike Maihack's Cleopatra in Space: the Golden Lion.
  • Rick Remender/Jerome Opena/Matt Hollingsworth's Seven to Eternity: vol. 1: the Godwhisperers.  I know this new Remender series gets a bit of positive buzz, but it didn't connect with me at all.
Total: 32
lurkerwithout: (Book on bed)
October:
Short Fiction: No free range fiction at all that month.

New Reads: Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker.
Eric Flint's 1636: the Ottoman Onslaught

Rereads:  So I started rereading all of the Ring of Fire books (not including the semipro Gazettes)
Eric Flint's 1632
Eric Flint (ed) Ring of Fire vol. 1-3, Grantville Gazette vol. 1-6
Eric Flint/David Weber's 1633 & 1634: the Baltic War
Eric Flint/Virginia DeMarce's 1634: the Ram Rebellion, 1634: the Bavarian Crisis & 1635: the Dreeson Incident
Eric Flint/Andrew Dennis' 1634: the Galileo Affair & 1635: the Cannon Law
Eric Flint/Charles Gannon's 1635: the Papal Stakes
Virginia DeMarce's 1635: the Tangled Web

Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs7th Sea 2nd Edition
G. Willow Wilson & various artists' Ms. Marvel Vol. 5: Super Famous
Tom King, Gabriel Walta & Mike Del Mundo's Vision Vol.1: Little Worse Than a Man

Total: 24


November
Short Fiction: Drew Hayes' Supervillain Apology Letter, Johnathan Carroll's the Loud Table, Chuck Wendig's Beware of Owner & This Guy.

New Reads: Drew Hayes' Going Rogue (more NPCs turned Adventurers)
Maggie Stiefvater's Sinner (Coming of age while trying to date a werewolf rock star)
Bob Defendi's Death by Cliche (Unfunny garbage I only got several chapters in before metaphorically tossing it)
Stephen King's Joyland
David Weber's At the Sign of the Triumph (9th and final "Safehold" book.  At least until Weber decides to do another arc)
Lois McMaster Bujold's Penric's Mission
Poul Anderson's 3 Hearts & 3 Lions (enh, I've liked other P. Anderson, but not this time)
R.J. Ross' Mic Drop (newest "Cape High")
K.D. Spengler's Brute Force (latest "Rachel Peng")

Rereads: Eric Flint/Andrew Dennis' 1635: Parcel of Rogues
Eric Flint/David Carrico's 1636: the Devil's Opera
Eric Flint/Charles Gannon's 1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies
Eric Flint (ed) Ring of Fire 4

Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs: Shaenon Garrity & Jeffrey G. Well's Skin Horse Vol.6
Roger Stern, Gerry Conway, Bill Mantlo, Mike Magnola, Kevin Nowlan & Gene Colan's Dr. Strange & Dr. Doom: Triumph & Torment (Strange and Von Doom team up to breach Hell and rescue Doom's mom)
Chris Claremont & John Byrne's X-Men: Days of Future Past
Steve Englehart, Roy Thomas, Ross Andru, Sal Buscema & Neal Adams' Defenders Masterworks Vol.1

Total: 18


December:
Short Fiction: Catherynne M. Valente's the Beasts Who Fought For Fairyland, Mavisela Navarro Reverse Documentary & Carrie Vaughn's the Thing About Growing Up in Jokertown

New Reads: James S.A. Corey's Caliban's War (2nd "Expanse" book.  I will likely be able to juuuuust keep ahead of the tv show)
Catherynne M. Valente's the Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
Lexie Dunne's How to Save the World
Blythe Woolston's MARTians (box store service industry slow slide into dystopia/apocalypse.  extra depressing thanks to election, even with hopeful ending)
Michael Wallace's Queen of the Void (nice enough milspec scifi, but milspec scifi writers a suggestion.  there are era's OTHER than Napoleonic Europe and Victorian Colonialism to base your future societys on.  just sayin'.)
Anne Pederson's 1635: the War for the Rhine
Jay M. Gates/Andrew Liptak (ed) War Stories
Karen Diem's Super
Emma Cline's the Girls (this got a lot of positive buzz last year but it did nothing for me.  i quit like halfway)
Marion G. Harmon's Team Ups & Crossovers (newest "Wearing the Cape" with the lead going on a cross-dimension journey and interacting with other writer's supers universes)

Rereads:Eric Flint (ed) Grantville Gazette 7
Eric Flint/Walter H. Hunt's 1636: the Cardinal Virtues
Eric Flint/Paula Goodlett/Georg Huff's 1636: the Kremlin Games
Terry Pratchett's Hogfather (Christmas tradition)

Graphic Novels/TPBs/RPGs:  Mark Waid, Terry Dodson & Rachel Dodson's Star Wars: Princess Leia
Kieron Gillen & Salvador Larroca's Star Wars: Darth Vader Vol.1 (i can't say for the rest of the Marvel run, but these two were both VERY good and I'll probably get more of the Vader series)
Eiichiro Oda's One Piece: New World (finished vol.82 which seemed to finish up this arc)
Tony Isabella, Bill Mantlo, George Tuska & John Byrne's the Champions Marvel Masterworks vol.1
Christopher Baldwin's Anna Galactic
Amy Reeder, Brandon Montclare, Natacha Bustos' Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur vol.1: BFF
Nick Spencer, Ramon Rosanas & Mark Brooks' the Astonishing Ant-Man vol.1: Everybody Loves Team-Ups (i like Spencer's lower tier comedy books but do not care for his take on Captain America.  or his strange no punching nazi positions.)

Total: 22
lurkerwithout: (eastman)
Episode III & i/2 (how do fractionals work in Roman numbering anyway) was pretty darn good.  Sure the characters probably could have used a smidge more depth (beyond Director Krennick at least).  But the various character call-backs to the rest of the franchise work well (well outside from the confusing addition of Dr. Death and his sidekick and the pointless very brief sequence with R2D2 & C-3PO).  But yes, this was some very nice Star Wars-ing.
lurkerwithout: (Yub Yub)
It was pretty good.  Compared to the previous three it was a phenomanal masterpiece.  But it had plenty of exciting actioning and the funny bits all got laughs and the new kids were all great.  Ok, maybe Nu-Vader was a bit too emo in his motivation.  And the movie did have a criminal lack of Ewoks.  Also there is one scene where Leia and Han are having a conversation and the camera just keeps quick cutting back and forth between them and that just irritated me.  I mean come one!  Its a big screen!  They'll both fit on it at the same time!

But all-around a good movie.
lurkerwithout: (Borg cat)
star wars the gif
lurkerwithout: (Book on bed)
So more than a bit late on this one.  Ah well.  Starting out with the uncollected short stories for the month.  Seanan McGuire's Emeralds to Emeralds, Dust to Dust is part of a series of e-stories re-imagining the Oz setting.  Hers is a noir-ish murder mystery where political agitator and some-time diplomat Dorothy Gale is tasked with solving a murder by her ex, Ozma.  The was Weston Ochse's Border Dogs, part of his Seal Team 666 series, about chupacabres, drug cartels and coyotes.  The people smugglers not the wild canines.  Liked this one I eventually got around to picking up the book.  Then we've got a Hemingway homage by Harry Turtledove, Running of the Bulls.  Might have more to comment on that one if I'd ever been into Hemingway.  And finally a steampunk Western, Terrain, by Genevieve Valentine.  Which just serves as another reminder that I should try and track down some of her full length work...

A big portion of March's books come from me deciding to pick up a giant stack of Lone Wolf books.  Like a lot of D&D nerds I was big into Joe Dover's & Gary Chalk's choose-your-own-adventure series as a kid.  Books are still pretty good and tempt me towards seeing if I could get a group together to run the rpg version.  Anyway, re-played Flight from the Dark, Fire on the Water, the Caverns of Kalte, the Chasm of Doom, Shadow on the Sand (which covers the regular Kai books), Kingdom of Terror,Castle Death and Jungle of Death (starting the MagnaKai books)...

Malindo Lo's Huntress is a fairy tale style fantasy, serving as a prequel to her Ash book...

On the collected short story side, had several anthologies for March.  Grantville Gazette vol. 46, edited by Paul Goodlett, continuing the e-collections for the Ring of Fire series.Tales of the Far West, edited by Gareth-Michael Skarka is a collection of Wuxia/Western mash-ups.  The quality of the stories in the Mad Scienctist's Guide to World Domination will likely vary on how tolerant you towards various level of bad guys win type stories.  But its got a good selection of writers.  Austin Grossman, Seanan McGuire and DIana Gabaldon among others.  All editied by John Joseph Adams.  And I finally got around to finishing up Vol. 29 of the Year's Best Science Fiction.  This was the 2011 edition, edited as always by Gardner Dozois.  Literally took me a year to get thru this, despite the very high quality of the contents...

Midnight Bluelight Special is the second in McGuire's Incryptid novels.with Verity Price, ballroom dancer and cryptonaturalist and her ex-Covenant boyfriend having to deal with a Covenant team.  One of whom is family...

Patricia Brigg's latest Mercy Thompson book is Frost Burned.  Picking up where her last Alpha/Omega left off, a rogue group has kidnapped Mercy's husband and nearly all of his werewolf pack.  Plus some Fae assassins...

The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters starts with a pretty great high concept.  A cop looking to solve a murder when the whole world is under a death countdown from a closing asteroid.  Happily its a well written book on top of that...

The Cold Commands is the second of Richard Morgan's grimdark fantasy books.  More brutal violence and terrible good guys fighting worse bad guys...

Jay Lake's Green is an excellent fantasy series.  One with a nice off-brand setting, magic-system and mythology.  Also an intriguing  and entrancing lead in the much-piled-upon Green...

Carrie Vaughn's  Kitty Rocks the House is the latest in her Kitty Norville books.  With werewolf radio host Kitty having to deal with a power grab by an outsider in her pack.  And vampiric ally and Master of Denver, Rick, being tempted away by a secret order of Catholic vampires...

Michael Brandman was one of the co-writers on the Jesse Stone tv series.  Which explains why he was picked to continue the late Robert Parker's books.  At least the Jesse Stone ones.  And he does an..adequate job of it with Killing the Blues.  Not enough to get me to continue with non-Parker Robert Parker, but ok...

And lastly Joe Schrieber's Red Harvest another of his Star Wars + Zombies books.  This one set at a Sith academy during the Old Republic era...

Total Books: 22
lurkerwithout: (Book on bed)
Started the month with Adrian Tchaikovsky's the Air War the latest in his "Shadows of Apt" series. Which has the Wasp Empire going back on the offensive again. And with their new petrochemical engines, surprise allies and other new innovations things look very bleak for..well pretty much everyone...

After that I tried out Devon Monk's Steampunk/Horror/Western series, with Dead Iron. Intriguing series, but I'm not sure how much I actually enjoy it. Probably wait until I get around to the 2nd book before I make a final decision...

Then I wen on a bit of a Pratchett tear. Rereading Truth, Monstrous Regiment, Night Watch, Going Postal, Thud, Making Money, Unseen Academicals and Snuff all in a row over like five days...

Then the roommate got his physical copy of Bujold's Captain Vorpatril's Alliance so I reread that as well. 'Cause I really love Ivan in that book...

Also from the roommate was Larry Corriea's Monster Hunter Legion. Corriea may be a crazy pants super Liberterian but he can write fun, high stakes action...

I'm not sure why I took until the middle of the month to get vol.44 of the Grantville Gazette eBook (still edited by Paula Goddlett). Maybe it was that I'd read most of the stories beta and earlier draft versions on the Baen forums...

Charles Stross' Halting State has been sitting in my To Read pile for a good while now. Really since I'd learned there was book from the same setting as his Rule34. Good book that seems to be a bit of a bridge between Old School Cyberpunk and the New Class stuff...

Another Western/Horror mash-up with Lee Collins' the Dead of Winter. A pretty good vampire hunter book but one that didn't click with me...

After that was the Inexplicables the latest Clockwork Century book from Cherie Priest. Which is more of a direct sequel to Boneshaker than the rest of the series. Plus it has Bigfoot AND zombies...

Timothy Zahn's Choices of One is a prequel to his previous Star Wars books, set just a little while before the Empire Strikes Back. It features many of Zahn's regulars in addition to the regular core cast, though most don't actually directly interact. Also it has one of my new Top Crowning Moments of Awesome involving Thrawn and Vader...

Red Country is the latest mud & blood fantasy from Joe Abercrombie. Set about a decade after the Heroes it reads like a Peckinpah sword & sorcery movie. And yet it STILL has the most optimistic ending of any of his books in the series so far...

And I finished up the month with the three most recent of David Drake's Lt. Leary books. In the Stormy Red Sky, the Distant Deeps and the Road to Danger. More well-done historical military fiction adapted for his scifi setting...

Total books: 21
lurkerwithout: (Mal's pretty hat  Angie creator)
Photobucket

West End 4 Life, yo!
lurkerwithout: (Borg cat)
Photobucket


And a cat that looks like mine

Photobucket
lurkerwithout: (Borg cat)
The Star Wars Weather Forecaster. Of course it uses current conditions, so when I typed in Phoenix I found it I live on Endor...

Also hit "go" while leaving the city space blank...
lurkerwithout: (Shiny)
lurkerwithout: (Empowered do not want)
BioWare bans the words gay, lesbian and homosexual on their forums. *Add C3PO joke of your choice here*


ETA: BioWare has since fixed the problem and apologized for the fuck-up. A company that screws up in regards to GLBT issues and then APOLOGIZES. Who could ever concieve of that...

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