A Descent into Dullness

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

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

From the normally NSFW Chester5000XYV by the esteemable Jess Fink. Though this latest arc has been pretty tame, sexiness wise...

More late than usual on this one.  So let us start with the free-range short fiction for August.  We've got "Cayos in the Stream" by Harry Turtledove.  A somewhat alternate history story with Hemingway hunting for Nazi U-boats in the Caribbean.  Then Meghan McCarron's "Swift, Brute Retaliation" where just being dead doesn't stop a dead kid from being a bullying dick to his little sisters.  V.E. Sawhab's "Warm Up" probably works better as a prequel chapter to her supers novel then as a stand-alone story.  And finally a Narbonic/Skin Horse short from Shaenon Garrity, "By Comitee", where a group of well-meaning activists (including an A.I, a gerbil and a cat) try to plan a surprise birthday party for a helicopter.  A black ops social services helicopter.  I do so love the Narboni-verse...

Carrying over from the previous month is the remaining of David Weber's "Safehold" books, How Firm a Foundation and  Midst Toil & Tribulation.  And I'm still very impatiently awaiting the next book due out next year...

Then we've got Neil Gaiman's the Ocean at the End of the Lane.  An excellent story about childhood terror and wonder and magic.  So like a lot of Gaiman's stuff...

Greg Stolze's Sinner is a supers book.  I think the roommate got this from a Kickstarter campaign.  I liked the world-building bits and the life and crimes of the titular super-villain, told after he turns himself in.  The final climax feels a bit rushed and I'm not sure how well it really holds together.  But Cephalopod, the remotely operated octopus themed super-hero was pretty damn cool...

Unfettered (edited by Shawn Speakman) was a pretty good anthology from a diverse bunch of writers, all to help with the editor's fight against cancer.  Or at least to help defray some of the costs of said fight...

Christopher Moore ruins art forever with Sacre Bleu.  Ok, thats his hyperbole.  But it definitely puts a similar twist on art to what he did with Jesus and vampires.  And King Lear.  And Christmas angels...

Helen and Troy's Epic Road Quest by A. Lee Martinez shows that working fast food can really suck and lead to being geased and having to work for cryptic agencies who are lot less helpful than they could be.  Also that its hard balancing being a modern Orc with the urge to follow your ancestral traditions...

Probably the most memorable scene in Illona Andrews' Magic Rises is while on a boat ride to Europe, the band of American shapeshifters (plus Kate) have to fight a band of weredolphin pirates.  Greek weredolphin pirates...

The Russians Are Coming is another story filling in the time gap for K.B. Spengler's <a href = "http://agirlandherfed.com/">A Girl & Her Fed</a>.  With squirrel infestations to go along with sort-of-government cyborgs.  And super-hardcore sex.  Lots of that...

Chuck Wendig's Blue Blazes is basically a urban fantasy story.  But more a criminal syndicates type story.  But also still that elder horror from beneath the earth.  But also a broken family drama.  Plus monsters and magic drugs...

Warbound finishes up Larry Correia's "Grimnoir" trilogy with the neccesary super-sized action sequences and heroic deaths.  All very epic pulp adventure...

Charlie Huston's latest, Skinner, is a near future epsionage technothriller.  With the titular Skinner being the world's scariest bodyguard...

Naomi Novik's most recent "Temeraire" book, Blood of Tyrants, takes her band of dragons and pilots from Japan to China and then to Napolean's invasion of Russia...

Next is Jim Hines' second Libriomancer book Codex Born.  This volume concentrates more on bad-ass dryad Lena Greenwood, in addition to Libriomancer Isaac...

After that was a quick reread of Steven Gould's Helm.  Don't remember what prompted it, beyond the book being one of my favorites...

Then one of Neal Asher's "Polity" books, Line of the Polity.  Worth it for making me wonder what the D&D or GURPS stats would be for a Gabbleduck.  No one does crazy space monsters like Neal Asher...

And finally Austin Grossman's YOU.  Which reminded me a whole lot of Douglas Coupland's Microserfs, in a very good way...

Total Books: 18

Reading the comments and alt text on the xkcd and I think a lot of people don't actually understand what the word monopoly means...