I went through a phase of doing a weekly reading roundup a number of years ago, but started getting blacklisted for mass mailing and it became a pain to have to source all the page numbers and stats.
I currently do all my reading on an MP3 player or Braille display, both of which generate a bookmark whenever I pause, so I have easy access to the last time I opened a book. With this I should be able to put together a quick little post each month detailing what I’ve read. This is the first.
This Month’s Stats
Of the 20 books I read this month, 9 were rereads and 11 were new. 65% of the titles were science fiction, 20% fanfics, and the rest of the pie chart falls to thrillers, political fiction, young adult and horror.
The Sci-fi
I opened December by rereading the first 2 books in David Walton’s Memory series, Living Memory and Deadly Memory. Book 3 was out shortly thereafter and I concluded the trilogy with Memory Reborn. The whole series is really good, and although yes of course we’ve had dinosaurs before, it’s done well here from a master, as you might expect of Walton. I admire his books, his writing is always hugely readable.
Douglas E. Richards latest book, the Breakthrough effect, also came up this month. I was sure I’d read it on release but didn’t log it so technically it’s new. Nothing out of the ordinary here, Doug’s gotten into a formula, but it was enjoyable to me. The Artifact by Peter Cawdron was also new, and I didn’t know how I’d feel about it without there actually being any alien contact early on but it worked really well. Then a Graham Storrs story called Metaman, following a genius-level Human working with uplifted, superintelligent post-Human folk. Finally to conclude the new sci-fi reads a book called Times Ellipse, the idea of which just pissed me off so I didn’t enjoy it very much.
Fanfiction
The second largest category of reading this month was Fanfic. I famously tell the story that, by the time the last canon Harry Potter novel was done with, I had already read as much fanfic as the complete works 16 times over (some 54,000 print pages). None of the fics this time were rereads, although I do break the classics out quite often.
I spent nearly 12 hours with Angry Harry and the 7, one of those Harry learns about things before Hogwarts and gets smart ideas, and a bit less with The Merging, a story where the Dementor attack at the start of book 5 changes everything. There was also a shorter comedy shot about Grindelwald and another one of those, if I’m allowed in the Triwizard tournament then I’m already an adult tropes from Robst, famed for Harry Crow of course which is good.
Looking ahead
Mike Chen has a new book out on the 30th, which is all I’m aware of wanting to read in January.
The list for December
An asterisk denotes a reread. I’m happy to share my sources of EPubs or .brf copies if I have them. I don’t do audiobooks.
- Sinyk, Angry Harry and the Seven
- David Walton, Living Memory *
- David walton, Living Memory #2 – Deadly Memory*
- David Walton, Living Memory #3 – Memory Reborn
- Cory Doctorow, The Lost Cause
- John Scalzi, The Android’s Dream*
- Peter Cawdron, Jury Duty*
- Lerner, Edward M – Small Miracles*
- Shaydrall, The Merging
- John Scalzi, The Kaiju Preservation Society *
- Peter Cawdron, The Artifact
- Graham Storrs, Metaman
- Starfox5, Reformed Returned and Really Trying
- Douglas E. Richards, The Devil’s Sword*
- Benjamin Wrax, Memorial Bot
- Eliot Peper, Foundry
- Elan Mastai, All Our Wrong Todays*
- Douglas E. Richards, The Breakthrough Effect
- Frasier Armitage, Time s Ellipse
- Robst, Can’t Have It Both Ways