posts interesting only to me

Twelve books read this month as I took some effort to get my totals up. It brings my total number of books read in the first half of 2015 up to fortynine, putting me more or less on course for my goal of a hundred. As you can see below, now I just need to catch up with my reviewing too…

A Very British Genre — Paul Kincaid
A dated (1995) but still usable short introduction to the history of science fiction & fantasy as a British genre. As with a history, it gets slightly less usable the closer it comes to its present. Also interesting to see as a time capsule of what British SFF was like twenty years ago, before so many of the current giants had even started getting published, or had just begun to do so.

The Three-Body Problem — Cixin Liu
One of the three non-Puppy candidates for the Best Novel Hugo, a very Asimovian hard science fiction story. Asimovian because it’s all about ideas and characterisation falls somewhat by the wayside.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August — Claire North
Winner of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Harry August relives his own life over and over and he’s not the only one. The end of the world was always coming, but each new life it comes faster…

The Tropic of Serpents — Marie Brennan
The second book in the series of Faux-Georgian natural history fantasy memoirs of a lady dragonist. Great fun, intelligently written and well done dragons are always interesting.

The Renaissance at War — Thomas F. Arnold
One in a series of military history chapbooks I picked up, this is a very readable introduction to the topic of European warfare in the late fifteenth and sixteenth century.

Hero Complex — Sean O’Hara
Anime influenced superhero crack fic.

Warfare in the Seventeenth Century — John Childs
Followup to the Renaissance book. Interesting but of course Eurocentric.

Wave without a Shore — C. J. Cherryh
A short, early philosophical science fiction novel from Cherryh.

The Amoeba in the Room — Nicholas P. Money
A nicely readable introduction to the wonderful world of microbiotic life, sometimes marred with unfortunate attempts at humour.

A Man of Three Worlds — Mercedes García-Arenal & Gerard Wiegers
A very interesting biography/history of Samuel Pallache, a Moroccan Jew who worked as an agent, merchant, spy, arms dealer and more around the turn of the seventeenth century, working for the sultan of Morocco, the Dutch Republic and others.

At the Seventh Level — Suzette Haden Elgin
One of those somewhat forgotten and overlooked female authors, who sadly died earlier this year. This was the first novel of hers I’d read and it was an interesting one.

Throne of the Crescent Moon — Saladin Ahmed
Well done oriental fantasy that reminded me slightly of N. K. Jemisin’s Killing Moon duology.

Late again as I keep forgetting to write these posts. Another disappointing month reading wise, only six books. I got nobody to blame but myself, having focused too much on other things than reading. This way I’ll not reach my goal of a hundred books read this year.

Bone Gap — Laura Ruby
I only read this to review it for my local science fiction bookstore, but I was glad I did so. A young adult fantasy novel that takes some very old fairy tales and shows what it looks like if the princess isn’t quite willingly taken away by the beautiful prince on the white horse…

The Riddle of the Labyrinth — Margalit Fox
The story of the decyphering of Linear B, the language found on clay tablets in the famous Mycean palace of Knossos and the three people who played key roles in it.

Great Powers and the Quest for Hegemony — Jeremy Black
Written twenty years after the first publication of Paul Kennedy’s 1988 The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers this is an appraisal of and correction to it, treating the same period

Sterrensplinters — Eddy C. Bertin
A career long retrospective collection of one of the best science fiction short fiction writers in the Dutch language.

Solar Flares — Andrew M. Butler
A reappreciation of the seventies in the context of science fiction, long shunted awkwardly inbetween the twin peaks of the New Wave and Cyberpunk. Slightly disappointing as it degraded into long recitations of book titles, movie plots undsoweiter. This needed a better structure.

Night’s Master — Tanith Lee
A reread sadly inspired by Tanith Lee’s death. Lush, decadent, erotically charged fantasy.

Eight books read is only two per week, which isn’t quite the tempo I’m hoping for, but I have too much fun doing other things. Quite a few books read on the way to and from Eastercon; sadly however I bought roughly ten times as much.

Behold the Man — Michael Moorcock
I read this on the way to Eastercon, the day before Good Friday. It seemed fitting to read this story of a time traveller whose entire life has prepared him to journey back into time to the Crucifixion. One of Moorcock’s early classics, starring one of his characteristic passive protagonists.

Elysium — Jennifer Marie Brissett
This was a novel I might’ve nominated for the Hugos had I read it before. A love story that takes place against a backdrop of constantly shifting alternate histories, with the protagonist and their lover switching gender, sexuality and relationship with each shift, as the world increasingly takes a turn for the strange. Found via James Nicoll, as so much else.

Lost Things — Melissa Scott & Jo Graham
Another James recommendation, who called it “Jazz Age Occult Adventure” which suits this very well. A group of flyers get involved in an occult conspiracy, not entirely by accident.

The Fall of Chronopolis — Barrington J. Bayley
I’m a sucker for this sort of time war, dueling timelines story and Bayley has written a jewel here. Written with a pulpy jauntiness, but much denser than it first looks.

Strata — Terry Pratchett
Sometimes described as a Discworld prototype, this is both a serious sensawunda sort of space opera, Big Dumb Object story and a parody of same, especially Larry Niven’s Ringworld.

The Goblin Emperor — Katherine Addison
Political wishfullfilment fantasy of the benign kind, nominated for a Hugo and so far my pick for the winner. This may change once I’ve read The Three Body Problem.

The Race — Nina Allan
I had just bought this at Eastercon, after seeing the usual British suspect rave about it, when the author herself walked into the room, so now it’s a signed copy. A great novel, which shifts perspective in unexpected ways and does so with great skill. One plot point in the middle of the novel though had me stopped in my tracks, of which more once I review this properly.

Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen — Johan Huizinga
Classic history book by a Dutch historian, first published in 1919 and better known in English as The Waning of the Middle Ages. This is a history of 15th century Burgundy & France, in which the worldview of that period and region is put centre stage, a worlview that according to Huizinga was in the autumn of its existence, tired, wornout and in need of replacement.

Really? I’ve only read four novels this month? Apparantly so. Granted, most of the month was spent reading through this list of short fiction, but even so, this is disappointing.

Juniper Time — Kate Wilhelm
Read for Joachim Boaz’s Kate Wilhelm review series. This is one of the novels the cyberpunks were rebelling against.

Reaper Man — Terry Pratchett
I read this in the wake of the news of Terry Pratchett’s death, his most fitting novel as it revolves around mortality and DEATH.

The Shining Girls — Lauren Beukes
Serial killer horror is not my thing as it so often puts its sympathies with the killer more than with their victims; cf. The Silence of the Lambs. Beukes however keeps her sympathies firmly where they belong, showing the waste and destruction the killer engages in without glamourising it.

King’s Dragon — Kate Elliott
It’s unfair. Here I was expecting at best a compentently written epic fantasy story, but instead Elliott made me think, by never choosing the lazy option, by actually creating a medievaloid fantasy world that is more than just modern people in medieval drag. It also has one of the most harrowing depictions of the psychology of domestic abuse I’ve read in any novel.

A slightly disappointing total of seven books read this month, down from eleven last month. Partially this is because I started a short SF marathon over at my booklog, which I hope to finish on Sunday. At least it’s up from last year, when I only finished two books.

A History of Future Cities — Daniel Brook
Looks at the development and history of four “artificial” cities and the role they played in the development of their respective countries: Saint Petersburg, Mumbai, Shanghai and Dubai.

The Myth of the Strong Leader — Archie Brown
A synthetic history book that takes aim at the desire for strong leaders, both in democracies and autocratic systems.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet — Becky Chambers
Self published, old school adventure science fiction about a crew of wormhole punchers who get involved in something way above their pay grade…

Annihilation — Jeff VanderMeer
Brilliant first entry in a science fiction trilogy all published last year. It reminded me of Roadside Picnic though VanderMeer said to me he hadn’t read that before writing this.

The March North — Graydon Saunders
Graydon is an old acquaintance from rec.arts.sf.* known for his smart but sometimes slightly gnomic posts, this is his first published fantasy, somewhat less gnomic but still smart.

My Real Children — Jo Walton
An alternate history domestic novel that almost made it on my Hugo ballot.

Sarah Canary — Karen Joy Fowler
I asked Twitter to choose me a book to read and this is what it came up with, Karen Joy Fowler’s debut novel, science fiction in name only about a mysterious woman stumbling into a Chinese railway workers camp one day in 1873. If you put your SF hat on, it’s a First Contact novel, but it’s easy to read it as “just” a story about the mythology of the west, feminism and racism too.