Actual Beach Reads

and poolside reads and airplane reads, because I'm on vacation!  (well, I was.  Now I'm home, the laundry is all done, and I'm back to work tomorrow.)

Midnight at the Well of Souls by Jack L. Chalker.  There are a few books I have been meaning to go back and read, titles which were important to me as a developing reader circa 1997.  I found and read that historical romance a few years ago; after finding that, this series began niggling at me.  I found one of the books in the series in the Friends' sale at the Silversale branch of the Kitsap Regional Library.  I originally read the series out of order, and soon after read it in the proper order.  It was my first introduction to hard core sci fi and influenced what I read for quite a while. 

I anticipated I wouldn't actually enjoy the book, but would be able to see the parts I originally appreciated.  I was actually wrong, in that I did still enjoy the book this read-through.  Yeah, it has some issues in that the writing could be cleaner: it reads like pulp sci fi, but that's what most readers expect.  There were a lot of distracting printing errors (like a word starting with cl being written as starting with d), and a pretty big binding deal where page 280 jumped to 313, proceeded to 344, and repeated beginning at 313 again.  I'm going to be generous and ascribe most plot inconsistencies in the last section of the book to details lost in the missing 30-ish pages.

I had so much fun rereading this pulp that I will go directly to my OPAC and request the next via ILL.  

Mr. Churchill's Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal.

I had been looking for a little while for something to fill the same niche as Her Royal Spyness.  The Black Dahlia series didn't do it for me.  This is the answer-- realistically spunky female heroine, historic British setting, nice inclusion of setting details, mystery plot, although that isn't the main reason for reading the story.  Nice, enjoyable, used my phone to put books 2 and 3 on hold from my lounge chair.  

Genocide of One by Kazuaki Takano.  I had been looking forward to this one for a while, but I'm having a tough time getting into it-- the first characters are stereotypical tough guys, not largely distinct from other tough-guy characters, and it looks like the story is going to be largely plot-driven, when the jacket description had me hoping for more sci-fi elements.

The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge by Michael Punke.  The writing style in this book is very enjoyable, like in The Lieutenant or His Majesty's Dragon.  The writing adds considerably to the story.

The story does end at a really odd place; when the story is about real historical people, it seems like some authors struggle finding a good place to stop that doesn't end in death.  The main character comes looking for revenge, (spoiler!) is thwarted by circumstance, and it's suddenly the historical note and acknowledgement pages.  

Also, there is information on the front and back covers of this ARC about how it will soon be a "major motion picture" plus information directing book groups to publisher resources for this book.  Although I very much enjoyed the story, I don't think it would make a very exciting movie nor a good book for discussion-- while the character's constant struggle for survival against a variety of situations kept the book going, it seems it would get rather monotonous in a movie.  Plus, he only wants to survive to get revenge, not because he has a family or is a generally happy guy, so it would be hard to cheer him on in a movie.  And while there are a few characters worth a little discussion, they aren't main characters.  It's not as if the main character could have made very many different choices.  What's he going to do, talk it out with the bear?

The Accidental Empress by Allison Pataki.  Ten pages past halfway, I quit this.  I'm rather interested in the story, since it's a time and place I haven't read much about, but I'm too annoyed.  The cover, binding, and some of the language are designed to make the book fit into "historical fiction," but it has most of the bad parts of a romance novel: the main characters are shallow and stupid, important secondary characters have no redeeming features, and motivations don't seem very plausible.  The most interesting and well-drawn characters are secondaries who don't actually get much screen-time.  

I'm so doing awesome at my resolutions.

Green by Jay Lake.  I kind of like where this is going, but I'm not totally into it.  I would so have been totally into it many (many) years ago, when I was temporarily infatuated with Maria Snyder's Poison Study et al.  Definitely a good title for fans of the same.

Throwbacks

I found notes on these titles ingeniously hidden in my email, and various other places I thought (at the time) would be a good place to make my future self find them. It's not a huge number of items, and none I finished.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Thomas Sweterlitsch. I placed this on hold as a possibility for an upcoming program. It isn't a good fit for the program, and also I didn't enjoy it very much.  The world building is interesting, but not enough information is shared; there too many new elements, all only hinted at, none explained.  This would be for dedicated sci-fi readers only; it's not a good genre-seducer.

First Impressions by Charlie Lovett.  I so loved Lovett's The Bookman's Tale.  I kept waffling on this: to read or not to read?  Second books are frequently such a let-down, but once in a while (like Susan Pfeffer), you get a sophomore book that's even better than the first.  

Turns out, this isn't bad, just not captivating. Plus, the Jane Austen thing.  I'm just not into it.

Beautiful Disaster by Janie McGuire.  Well, some sort of disaster, at any rate.  I saw this well-reviewed a number of times, and while the book isn't good, I'm just as annoyed at the reviewers.  1) "New Adult" novels can include characters outside of the 18-19 range.  2)  Even young-ish adults should be able to choose books on relevant topics and characters their own age that don't sacrifice writing quality.  

The writing is too simple-- the characters are shallow and predictable-- and overwritten-- every line of dialogue is underscored with macro facial expressions, winks, or practiced nonchalant body movements.

and now for the count

I love tables. And graphs. And reports. When other department heads submitted 1- or 2-page annual reports, mine was 11. In high school, when we had to write a 10- to 12-page research paper, I was the kid who submitted a 17-pager, plus bibliography, plus maps. I like to compare and contrast things to other things. I like what we learn by comparing and contrasting things. I think what these numbers tell us is that I'm sort of a busy person and don't have as much time to read as I used to. That's not particularly useful information to anyone, nor any great surprise, but shush.

2014*:
books started: 60
books finished: 43 (71.7%)
finished books that were fiction: 35 (81.3%) (includes 2 picture books and juvenile titles)
finished books that were nonfiction: 7 (16.3%)
finished books that were graphic novels: 1 (2.3%)
finished books by female authors: 29 (67.4%)
finished books by male authors: 11 (18.9%)
finished books by male and female authors: 3 (7%)

*these numbers don't include the books, either started or finished, that I read for the Benjamin Franklin awards, nor the books that I read as an editor, because I didn't choose any of those books for myself. Including those would add over 85 books to the total.

books started, decrease from 2013: 46 (43.4%)
books finished, decrease from 2013: 26 (37.7)
books finished ration, increase from 2013: 6.6%

2013:
books started: 106
books finished: 69 (65.1%)
finished books that were fiction: 55 (79.7%)
finished books that were nonfiction: 12 (17.4%)
finished books that were graphic novels: 2 (2.9%)
finished books by female authors: 48 (71%)
finished books by male authors: 20 (29%)

The first year I ever counted how many books I'd read, it was something ridiculous, like 212. I really think that's what it was. I was going to school full time and I worked a retail job, but I lived at home, not on campus; I didn't participate in student government; I didn't socialize. I worked, I did my schoolwork (which was not even particularly challenging, doing required courses at community college), and I read. Now, I work full-time, I do the laundry and cooking and dish washing, I spend time with my family, and I have other hobbies. Still, 43 books is more than a lot of people, so I don't feel too bad.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do this year. Some friends set themselves reading goals (100 books, which seems a little much for me, I mean that would be finishing over twice the number I read this year). I was thinking of making a reading challenge list for our little book group (you know, like read one sci-fi, one book set in a high school, one book with a bad guy as the main character), the kind of thing that's supposed to help you spread your reading wings a bit. I feel like I read an acceptably wide variety already.

I think perhaps instead, my goals will be to
1) always have something to write on my "Currently Reading" mug, i.e., to always be actively reading something, and
2) to actually post them up here at least twice a month.  Posting isn't as much work as I for some reason think it is, and it always makes me feel more inspired.  

But let's not call these resolutions, because those never turn out well.

i love being well-rested

My son has been staying a few days at his grandparents', so this morning I got to sleep in until 10:15, stay in bed until 11:30, get up, do just enough dishes to get to the coffee pot, turn the fireplace on, and get back in bed for another hour.  My mother-in-law deserves cake.

Yesterday's Kin by Nancy Kress.  This reads alot like The Martian: it's really a story about people-- in this case, a woman, her children, and a coworker-- and, oh, there happen to be sci-fi elements.  I really like that sort of sci-fi.

It also reads like The Martian in that the ending is oddly anticlimactic and makes one wonder about the author and publishing deadlines and things.

Except for the last 5 pages or so, the book was really great and I have recommended it to those friends on whom I forced The Martian, most of whom then went out and forced it on other people.

(I actually socialized last night at a friend's house.  She had been late coming around to reading The Martian, but then consumed it in 2 days.  Now that it's out in paperback, she had 2 copies on her counter, which she is going to give as gifts. Ha!)

You and I, Me and You by MaryJanice Davidson.  This was not a good series completion.  Not that this author was ever a great writer of amazing literature, but she has gone way down in my estimation.  First, instead of just reminding readers of what happened in the previous book, she actually lifted entire pages and copied them in by way of "flashback" scenes.  No.  Also, her character with synesthesia (who we met in the 2nd book but who had a lot more page-time in this installment) was very poorly drawn, being both overly-simplistic and inaccurate in what details were shared.  I know that's the character "handicap" du jour but if you're going to jump on the bandwagon, you could at least do it properly.

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe.  (500)  I really like the web comics, but hadn't noticed the "What If?" section.  (What?  It's in the header border.  No one ever looks there.)  As this is just a compilation of answers that have been included online, it might not be a necessary read for people who follow the site religiously.  But, as it was all new to me, I heartily enjoyed it.  The creator is amazingly funny and assumes readers are smart enough to be able to follow along-- or at least get the general idea-- on some fairly involved science and math stuff.

Shall I Knit You a Hat?: A Christmas Yarn by Kate Klise; illustrated by M. Sarah Klise.  I make my boys a hat to include in their stockings every year, and this came up in the catalog when I was searching through for new patterns.  It is a sweet little picture book story, nothing earth shattering.

The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith.  I have never read this book before.  Shocking, no?  Although my 7-year-old has a sadly inadequate familiarity with traditional fairy tales, including most of the ones in this book, he still got a kick out of it, because it's a little bit rude and some of the plots don't follow predictable lines, and that's funny.

The Boleyn King by Laura Andersen.  I very much wanted to like this, and I keep picking it up, but now I'm going to put it down for real.  Theoretically, I like the plot, but the sense of history isn't strong enough-- not enough historical detail, and the characters sound like modern-day speakers.

Good on the author for not trying for a dialect or for conventions she hasn't mastered, which would definitely ruin the reading.  The other thing is that this is a mystery set in an alternate history time line, so that's elements of mystery, historical fiction, and actually fantasy, and before a quarter of the way through, a romance story line is also being woven in.  That's too many genres being melded together.

As it has been Christmas time (shocking, I know), I haven't gotten much reading done lately; I did get to watch quite a bit of TV while knitting dozen or so projects.  (I'm very much looking forward to making this for myself as soon as I can find fingering weight yarn in the right color!)

Lie to Me, season 1, with Tim Roth.  I have had this on my Netflix Watch list for a very long time.  I wouldn't have added it if I'd noticed it starred Tim Roth; ages ago, an old boyfriend made me watch a whole bunch of Roth movies, and they were all disgusting and weird and stupid.  But I am very much enjoying this show, already part way through season 2, so I'm glad I was so unobservant.

The Paradise, series 1, with Joanna Vanderham.  You could watch this just for the costuming and props.  It looks amazing.  The acting is fine, the story line is ok, those two factors aren't why people watch BBC dramas.  I'm waiting for series 2 to be available for free through Amazon Prime.

Primeval, series 1 through 4, with Andrew Lee Potts.  I'm too lazy to check, but if I had to guess, I would say that the writers or directors, or both, changed season to season.  I really enjoyed series 1-- uncomplicated story lines, people fighting dinosaurs, check.  I don't know why they thought it necessary to add all these various conspiracies inside the government, outside the government, plus all the future time travel junk, in the later series.  I'll watch 5 when it becomes available, but I'm not convinced that the show was taken in the right direction.

As a side note, a major plot change depended on the characters killing a dinosaur instead of sending it home, and that action reverberated down through history and changed some of the characters.  But 1) both before and after, they had to kill other dinosaurs, or had to keep them at the research center and not send them home, and 2) they by-now hundreds of various animals that have come through and then gone home, not to mention the times the team has gone through and then come back, would have contaminated all those points in the past with modern-day germs and microbes and things, which would drastically change the evolutionary chain.  They don't even make any half-assed excuses and gloss past the problem; they just ignore it.  That frustrates me.