A Descent into Dullness

OK, lets finally get to the December list. Which is nearly entirely David Weber through the majority of the month. But before that we've got a few other books, including some more cheap random deals for the ol' Kindle. Starting with Jennifer Gardiner's Slim to None about a New York film critic and her relationship with food, family and abandonment. Pretty good book actually, if a few sub-plots do strain my credibility a bit...

Then Shannon Hale's Austenland. Where one woman's obsession with Jane Austen causes problems with her ability to find romance. And so a wealthy relative leaves her a vacation at a Austen fantasy camp as an inheritance. Another fun if silly book...

After that I tried out newcomer Bobby Cole's rookie noir/pulp the Dummy Line. Some clunkiness to it. And Cole could definitely learn to pare down his cast (especially when the viewpoint moves between characters). But an excellent starting work...

Also got the new Stephenie Plum, Explosive Eighteen, book from Evanovich at the start of the month. Sadly I think the romantic triangle aspect of the series is starting to strain a little at the seams. Series is still enjoyable junk food lit despite that...

Then borrowed the Road to Bedlam by Mike Shevdon from the roommate. Sequel to 61 Nails a British modern fae story. Here the lead has to deal with both the mysterious disappearance of his part-Fae daughter as well as a group of missing girls from a coastal town...

Then its mostly Weber, which we'll get back to. Broken up by trying out an early Steven Brust book, To Rule in Hell. Which is a reinterpretation of the War in Heaven and the Fall. Interesting but didn't really click with me...

And around Christmas was the annual reading of Pratchett's Hogfather. Except for that year I watched the movie. The bit with the Matchstick Girl is still one of the best Death moments...

Ok, now Weber. Nearly all Honor-verse books. Except for Off Armageddon Reef. Which is about humanity's Last Colony. In that at some point in the future humans run into the alien Gbaba who systematically wipe us out on world after world in a decades long war. So we set up a colony in great secrecy. One where the adminstrator's in charge of it rewrite all the colonist's brains and create a totalitarian theocracy to keep humanity at a pre-industrial level. And thus safe from the awareness of the Gbaba. Excellent series, though at times I wonder if the whole concept is just Weber trying to one-up his friends Eric Flint and S.M. Stirling...

And then I burned through eleven of the Honor-verse books. The shared world anthologies, the Service of the Sword, Changer of Worlds, Worlds of Honor and More than Honor. The sidestory books Shadow of Saganami, Storm From the Shadows, Crown of Slaves and Torch of Freedom. The last two co-written with Eric Flint. And the core series books At All Costs and Mission of Honor. What can I say, me and Weber really hit it off...

I also tried out another alt history series by Eric Flint. 1812: the Rivers of War has one minor starting change, Sam Housten isn't laid up by a wound in an early battle leading to escalating changes during the War of 1812 and in the actions of several prominent Cherokee and Creek leaders at the time...

After that was a predominately good urban fantasy anthology Down These Strange Streets edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozios. Which, if nothing else, has Glen Cook "Garrett Files" short story...

Then we've got William Dietz finishing up his "Legion of the Damned" series with a Fighting Chance. Which does feel a bit rushed right towards the end but otherwise is a fine finale for this future military fiction series...

Skipped the last book for Brandon Sanderson's "Mistborn" trilogy to go straight to Alloy of Law. Which is set several generations past those books and is a bit of fantasy/Western mash-up. I actually think I liked it more than the original trilogy...

And finished up the month with another "Vampire Earth" book by E.E. Knight, March in Country. This time around Valentine is attempting to repopulate plague ravaged Kentucky with friendly non-humans. While dealing with his increasingly isolationist and defensive home government...

Total books: 23

And I'll try to get to a end of the year wrap-up tomorrow...

I started the month rereading Jane Lindskold's Dragon of Despair, the third book in her "Through Wolf's Eyes" series, finishing it up on the 3rd. Then book 4 Wolf Captured on the 9th, book 5 Wolf Hunting on the 14th and finishing up the series with Wolf's Blood on the 21st. I have to say that I enjoy the final book more each time I reread it. For those who've forgotten, the series centers around Firekeeper, a human raised by wolves. Well Royal Wolves, who are fully sapient wolves that are part of a Royal Beast culture that lived hidden from the human kingdoms until Firekeeper is found...

Then on the 6th was both the most recent "Ring of Fire" e-book anthology, Grantville Gazette 32, edited by Paula Goodlett, and a new "Garrett Files" from Glen Cook, Gilden Latten Bones. The latter ends up going in an unexpected direction in regards to fantasy/pulp P.I. Garrett's personal life...

By the 10th, the once-and-current roommate had started bringing over his stuff to move in. Which meant pillaging each other's libraries for new books. Letting me finish Lois McMaster Bujold's Cryoburn and Steven Brust's Iorich. This "Vlad Taltos" book from Brust actually seems to follow chronologically right after the last. Which is kind of weird for that series. The book itself has Vlad working within the Imperial justice system to help clear one of his crazy House of the Dragon friends. Bujold's latest "Miles Vorkosigan" is an entertaining read but probably wouldn't have been more than middle of the pack for the series until the end. Where LMB just emotionally devastates me with a series of fucking drabbles...

On the 15th I finished Polish fantasy writer Andrzej Sapkowkski's The Last Wish the first in his "The Witcher" series. This first book is a series of stories about a monster hunter in a grimngritty fantasy world that also is full of re-imagined fairy tales. Some of which are fairly clever, like "the Beauty & the Beast" one. But honestly if I wanted to follow the adventures of a broody, total bad-ass, near-unstoppable killer I'd be reading Wolverine comics...

After that I decided to check out S. Andrew Swann aka Steven Krane aka S. A. Swiniarski. Starting with his furry cyberpunk series "Moreau". Where various world governments had created armies of bio-engineered animal hybrid soldiers in what is essentially WW3. Finished Forests of the Night on the 16th, Emperors of the Twilight and Specters of the Dawn on the 17th and finally Fearful Symmetries: the Return of Nohar Rajasthan on the 18th. The first and last are centered around 2nd-generation tiger Moreau Nohar (though he makes appearances in the other two) who works a P.I. The second follows an engineered human cyborg (or Frankenstein) and the third a former gangbanger Moreau bunny-girl. Good books, though the roommate was actually shocked when I referred to them as furry cyberpunk...

Also from Swann were a pair of World of Magic Merges With Real World books. In them a giant magic gate opens in Cleveland, allowing travel between the two worlds. The lead character in them is a political beat reporter, which is actual a nice change from the regular P.Is, cops and wizards for urban fantasy series. I finished the Dragons of the Cuyahoga on the 29th and the Dwarves of Whiskey Island on the 3oth...

On the 23rd I finished up Mark del Franco's Unperfect Souls, 4th in his "Connor Grey" books. This is like the previous series in being an urban fantasy setting where the world of Fairy has partially merged with the regular world. With the lead being a screwed up druid (aka wizard) who used to be a power and mover in the Fairy government but is now a scruffy investigator who helps the local cops. Enjoyable and del Franco is one of my favorites among the 2nd or 3rd tier writers in the urban fantasy sub-genre...

Next on the 24th was a new (or at least new to me) Pratchett non-fiction book. The Folklore of the Discword by Sir Pterry and Jacqueline Simpson explores the connection between the Discworld setting and actual folklore. Not as good as the Science of Discworld books, but still both enjoyable and informative...

On the 27th I finished Cherie Priest's Dreadnought a sequel to her excellent Boneshaker. This book has more of her "Clcokwork Century" steampunk setting, with nurse Mercy Lynch leaving a Confederate hospital after she learns of the death of her Union husband at the Andersonville military camp to journey across the country to meet with her long-absent father, now seriously ill up near Seattle. Both books would still make for great sources for Deadlands players and Marshals...

And I finish out the month with the 2nd to last "Spenser" series, Painted Ladies, by the late, great Robert Parker. Spenser is hired to help deliver a ransom for a stolen painting that ends with the professor making the exchange dead from a bomb. And when Spenser goes to work tracking down the thieves he unravels a knot of lies, murder and theft leading back to WW2 and the Nazi death camps...

Total books: 19

June 2nd: Janet Evanovich - One for the Money, Two for the Dough and Three to Get Deadly

June 3rd: Evanovich - Four to Score and High Five

June 4th: Evanovich - Hot Six, Seven Up and Hard Eight

June 5th: Evanovich - To the Nines, Ten Big Ones and Eleven on Top

June 6th: Evanovich - Twelve Sharp, Lean Mean Thirteen, Fearless Fourteen and Finger-Lickin' Fifteen: Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books are the literary equivalent of snack food for me. Quick and fun as evidenced by my being able to reread the entire series in preparation for the latest book in five days. The basic set-up of the series is that Stephanie Plum, a fairly average girl from Trenton, NJ gets laid off from her lingerie buying job. So she blackmails her cousin into letting her work as a skip-tracer or bounty hunter. A job at which she is, for the most part, humorously bad. The series eventually settles into a pattern of Steph hunting down mostly goofball bounties, bouncing between the two love interests (cop Joe Morrelli and fellow bounty hunter Ranger) and dealing with the rest of the oddball cast. The support cast, like Steph's feisty grandmother or ex-hooker turned bounty hunter-assistant Lulu, are a large part of what makes the stories so enjoyable. Plus I love how Steph never quits, no matter how disastrous things get...

June 8th: Raymond Feist/Jenny Wurts - Daughter of the Empire

June 9th: Feist/Wurts - Servant of the Empire

June 11th: Fest/Wurts - Mistress of the Empire: Feist collaborates with Wurts to retell the Rift War from the invading Tsurani perspective. Primarily Mara of the Acoma. Mara is just about to take religious vows and enter seclusion when she has to become head of her House after her father and brother are killed in the war as part of a political maneuver by their House's primary enemy the Minawabi. The three books cover a period of about 30 years and showcase both Mara's ability to master politics and war and how she uses her own personal growth as a person to force the Empire to evolve as well...

June 14th: K.D. Wentworth (ed) - Writers of the Future XXV: An anthology series started by L. Ron Hubbard meant to showcase up and coming talent in science-fiction...

June 16th: Harry Turtledove - In At the Death: The finale to Turtledove's massive alt history series about a divided U.S.A. Covers the end of the second World War and the start of the nuclear age. Both here and his "Aliens invade during WW2" series once atomics are developed they get used a LOT more often than real history...

June 18th: Robert Parker - Promised Land: Still the earliest Spenser novel I own. Has Spenser hired to find a runaway wife, which he does. Mostly. Also has the beginning of the long-term Susan/Spenser relationship and the friendship with Hawk...

June 20th: Parker - Pastime: The most important part of this Spenser novel to me is that it introduces Spenser and Susan's dog Pearl. Also it has Spenser helping a younger friend find his mother and revealing a good bit of his childhood past at the same time...

June 22nd: Steven Brust - Taltos and Phoenix: Vlad Taltos, human in the empire of elvesDraegarans. Master assassin and crime boss. Which doesn't really convey how enjoyable Brust's characters are or the way he experiments with perspective and non-linear story-telling...

June 23rd: Terry Pratchett - Pyramids: Breaking up rereading about one assassin to read about an entirely different one. If I were to ever try to run GURPS: Discworld I think Pteppic and You Bastard would make for ideal NPCs to use. Not really connected to any of the ongoing sub-series but still able to showcase the flavor of the setting...

June 25th: Brust - Jhereg

June 26th: Brust - Yendi and Teckla

June 27th: Kim Harrison - Black Magic Sanction: I think this will be the last book I buy for "The Hollows" series. I still like Rachel Morgan a lot as well as much of her supporting cast. But I just don't like the setting at all. The bland "Demons" and Elves and how even werewolves are entrenched in bureaucracy and red tape...

June 28th: Brust - Dragon

June 29th: Brust - Issola and Orca

June 30th: Evanovich - Sizzling Sixteen: In the latest Stephanie Plum's boss and cousin Vinnie has got himself snatched due to his massive gambling debts. So Steph, Lulu and office assistant Connie have to get him back so they can keep him alive long enough to raise the money to cover his debts and to keep their jobs...

Total Books: 33

I finished rereading Brust's Five Hundred Years Later this weekend. And I've got to wonder how anyone can manage to write in that (Pseudo-Dumasian?) style.

Khaavren felt the blow in his heart, yet he gave no sign of it on his countenance. "A certain duty I may have been assigned? Come, what can you mean?"

"We will tell you," said Aliera.

"I ask nothing better," said Khaavren.

"Then attend."

Sethra said, "We wish to know, insofar as you are allowed to tell us-"

"For," put in Aliera, "you may not be allowed to tell us, and if you cannot speak of these matters, we understand and will not press you."

"Yes, yes," said Khaavren, "Go on."

And it goes on like that. Plus its written in some kind of 3rd person Historical Drama kind of way, so the narrator will interupt to talk about how they COULD describe everything in some kind of detail, but won't. Unless they have to. But they'll not do it unless they have to. And so on...

And yet, for some reason, I still like the book. Is this what Dumas actually reads like I wonder?