Sign of the Unicorn - reading

Finished "Sign of the Unicorn" (Amber Chronicles 3) by Roger Zelazny. What can I say? The story continues. The Unicorn made an appearance. Is there such a thing as too much order? This book says "yes."

The Guns of Avalon - reading

Finished "The Guns of Avalon" by Roger Zelazny. The amazing story continues. The Black Road appears and the Courts of Chaos get much closer to Amber. Corwin considers fratricide (as usual), and also meets up with Dara, who will play a bigger role in future books. With NaNoWriMo over, it's nice to have some time to read again.

NaNoWriMo 2012 - the rest of the story

I had in mind that I would update you every five days during NaNo, but we all see how that turned out. For the record, I had:

8,346 words on day 5 (par 8,333) = ahead
14,362 words on day 10 (par 16,666) = behind
19,083 words on day 15 (par 25,000) = behind
32,238 words on day 20 (par 33,333) = behind
42,311 words on day 25 (par 41,666) = ahead
50,409 words on day 30 (par 50,000) = WINNER!

If you correlate to days of the week, you begin to see a picture of my writing habits this year. NaNo started on a Thursday, and the following Sunday I was caught up. The next full week (November 5-11) I fell further and further behind, and on Sunday I was caught up again. The following week (November 12-18) my word count was again pretty flat during the week, and by Sunday night I was caught up again. Toward the end of the month, though, I wrote pretty consistently and stayed even with par until the end. A picture to show what I mean:

Words written by day:

Monday	3254
Tuesday	2747
Wednesday	8687
Thursday	7415
Friday	5248
Saturday	11429
Sunday	11629

Weekday total: 27,351 words.
Weekend total: 23,058 words. You can see when I did most of my writing. This is not a surprise, though. It's also not a surprise that Tuesday was my low day as that is my busiest day that starts earliest and ends latest.

NaNoWriMo 2012 - day ten

I made up some lost ground today getting around 5,000 words today. I'm still behind, but that was a good chunk of what I needed. We'll see how tomorrow goes. It seems Monday through Wednesday are tough for writing. I'll see if I can change my schedule around a bit and make it not quite so tough.

Today the main character got a name! He also discovered that he's being attacked by some government conspiracy or something. He's not sure yet. I'm not sure yet, either. But at least he has friends. (?!)

NaNoWriMo 2012 - day five

It's day 5 of NaNoWriMo and I'm just on par with 8,346 words of a new story that is going absolutely nowhere as of today. I'm not crazy about the main character, and have put him in a boring situation that I need to somehow drag him out of.

The thing is, I thought it was going pretty good yesterday when I caught up to the words I needed after not writing on Saturday (opting instead to attend a birthday party), and the character got himself a personality. The trouble is, I think I'm going to have to take that personality away from him and give him another one. Yeah, yeah, the obvious schizophrenic route presents itself, but I don't think I like it. I think the personality and the actions he's taking on now are just going to be short-lived is all. A change is coming. That is, if I can motivate myself to push the story ahead more. We'll see.

NaNoWriMo 2012 - day one begins

It is once again November, and NaNoWriMo 2012 has begun. I'm totally pantsing this year - meaning "flying by the seat of my pants." Earlier this morning I activated my NaNo web site account. In doing so it asks you for novel information. I said:

Novel: Through the Rainbow (made this up on the spot)
Genre: Science Fiction (decided as I answered it)
Short Synopsis: Pantsing!

So there you go. I now have a title and a genre, which I did not have yesterday. I have thus far written 80 words, in the form of an email written to myself on a borrowed iPad. An inauspicious start!

The Operators - reading

Finished "The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan" by Michael Hastings, the Rolling Stone reporter whose article about General McChrystal helped bring about that general's resignation.

Much of the book is excellent, and demonstrates the difference between the inside and outside views of such things as the war itself, President Obama's military dealings, the military vs. civilian views of the war and the view of the soldiers as well. Much of the book is unnecessary and should have been edited out. Though many parts were very good, I wasn't exactly compelled to finish it.

[Redacted] - reading

Finished [redacted]. This was the 564-page draft of a novel written by [redacted], a friend/coworker. I had a few minor issues with some parts of it, but the overall story, characters and setting shows real promise. It held my interest throughout and I hope to see more!

Nine Princes in Amber - reading

Finished "Nine Princes in Amber" by Roger Zelazny. This is my second time with this series. The stage is set, the world is understood (to an extent, I guess) and I have nine more books to go!

Operation Mincemeat - reading

Finished "Operation Mincemeat" by Ben Macintyre. You could know this story as a paragraph you read on the web (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat) or as a mention in a documentary, or you can know it in detail from the people planning and executing the operation to the people who caused it to succeed. I liked the latter. This was a story about Operation Mincemeat, a WWII operation where a body with false intelligence was floated along the coast, picked up and channeled through Spanish officers and made their way to Berlin and to Hitler. The effect was that Hitler defended Greece and Sardinia more heavily allowing the allies to land on Sicily more easily and with fewer casualties on both sides.

Distrust That Particular Flavor - reading

Finished "Distrust That Particular Flavor" by William Gibson. This was a collection of articles and addresses from the author, explained or expounded upon by the author. Some interesting stuff, some repetitive stuff, and some that proves Mr. Gibson is far smarter than I am.

Don't Know Much About History - reading

Finished "Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History But Never Learned" by Kenneth C. Davis, which discusses the "messy ripples of history," from the discovery of America to the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Technically, this is the 100th one I rated on GoodReads and I didn't finish until today, but I had a pretty good idea it was getting 4/5 stars from me.

Overall it was a very good treatment of history, though I thought the coverage of earlier history was better organized than the more recent events. Earlier history seemed to be in a more logical order, perhaps because it is so long ago and we've had time to sort through it more completely. One feature of the book that I will likely be cursing for a long time is that each major era referenced one or more "must read" books. I compiled a list of 53 of them and will likely make my way through many eventually.


That list (along with its Amazon star rating) is:

1. From Freedom to Slavery: Rebirth of Tyranny in America by Gerry Spence (4.7/5 stars)
2. Bush V. Gore: The Court Cases and Commentary by EJ Dionne Jr and William Kristol (3/5 stars)
3. Too Close to Call: The Thirty-Six-Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election by Jeffrey Toobin (3.6/5 stars)
4. Maestro : Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom by Bob Woodward (3.3/5 stars)
5. A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President by Jeffrey Toobin (3.6/5 stars)
6. All Too Human by George Stephanopoulis (3.9/5 stars)
7. First in His Class: A Biography Of Bill Clinton by David Maraniss (4.6/5 stars)
8. Shadow: 5 Presidents and the legacy of Watergate by Bob Woodward (3.3/5 stars)
9. And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts (note: 20th Anniversary Edition available) (4.7/5 stars)
10. President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime by Lou Cannon (3.6/5 stars)
11. The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam (4.5/5 stars)
12. Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow (4.4/5 stars)
13. Our Vietnam by A.J. Langguth (4/5 stars)
14. Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK by Gerald Posner (3.4/5 stars)
15. The Fifties by David Halberstam (4.5/5 stars)
16. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality by Richard Kluger (4.9/5 stars)
17. The Great Fear: The Anti-Communist Purge Under Truman and Eisenhower by David Caute (5/5 stars, one review)
18. Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case by Allen Weinstein (3.8/5 stars)
19. Truman by David G. McCullough (5/5 stars, one review)
20. The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes (note: 25th Anniversary Edition available) (4.7/5 stars)
21. Whittaker Chambers by Sam Tanenhaus (rating not available)
22. No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin (4.6/5 stars)
23. Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage by Joseph E. Persico (4.1/5 stars)
24. For the President's Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush by Christopher Andrew (4.6/5 stars)
25. Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor by Robert B Stinnett (3.4/5 stars)
26. The Borrowed Years, 1938-1941 by Rob Ketchum (5/5 stars, one rating)
27. The Great Depression: America 1929-1941 by Robert S. McElvaine (3.1/5 stars)
28. Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg (4.2/5 stars)
29. J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets by Curt Gentry (4.3/5 stars)
30. The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 by Tim Madigan (4.3/5 stars)
31. At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America by Philip Dray (4.9/5 stars)
32. W. E. B. Du Bois, 1868-1919: Biography of a Race by David Levering Lewis (4.1/5 stars)
33. Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris (4.1/5 stars)
34. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris (4.8/5 stars)
35. Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt by David G. McCullough (4.3/5 stars)
36. The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 by David McCullough (4.7/5 stars)
37. April 1865: The Month That Saved America - Jerry Winik (4.0/5 stars)
38. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown (4.7/5 stars)
39. 500 Nations (Pimlico Wild West) by Alvin M Josephy (4.7/5 stars)
40. Undaunted Courage - Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of America by Stephen E. Ambrose (4.5/5 stars)
41. Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Future of America by Thomas Fleming (4.2/5 stars)
42. Three Roads to the Alamo: The Lives and Fortunes of David Crockett, James Bowie, and William Barret Travis by William C. Davis (4.5/5 stars)
43. A Struggle for Power: The American Revolution by Theodore Draper (4.8/5 stars)
44. The Winter Soldiers: The Battles for Trenton and Princeton by Richard M. Ketchum (4.7/5 stars)
45. The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by H.W. Brands (4.6/5 stars)
46. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence by Pauline Maier (4.1/5 stars)
47. Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War by Richard M. Ketchum (4.6/5 stars)
48. Liberty: The American Revolution by Thomas Fleming (4.5/5 stars)
49. Patriots: The Men who Started the American Revolution by A.J. Langguth (4.6/5 stars)
50. The Creation of America: Through Revolution to Empire by Francis Jennings (3.1/5 stars)
51. A Delusion Of Satan: The Full Story Of The Salem Witch Trials by Frances Hill (3.9/5 stars)
52. The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America by John Demos (3.5/5 stars)
53. Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky (4.4/5 stars)

GoodReads 100

My last post prompted me to take a look at the books I have rated so far on goodreads. I am coincidentally at 100 books there and wondered how my ratings of books stack up against the rest of the goodreads community.

If you take the average rating and compare it to mine, I'm pretty much in line. Overall, goodreads average on these 100 books is 3.8 stars, and my average is 3.4 stars, making me a little pickier overall.

There were six books that I gave a one-star rating to (The Wailing Wind, Falling Awake, Treasure Hunt, Bloodroot, You Lost Me There and One Perfect Word). The average rating of these six on goodreads is 3.6 stars, so it's probably just me.

On the other end of the scale, there were 16 books I gave five stars to (No Ordinary Joes, The Good Soldiers, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Redwall, The Terror, War Dances, The Last King of Scotland, How I Paid for College, Interred with Their Bones, Hyperion, Snow Crash, Neuromancer, Dune and three from the Incarnations of Immortality series: #1 On a Pale Horse, #3 With a Tangled Skein and #6 For Love of Evil). Goodreads average on these is 3.9 stars, so I'm above that by 1.1 stars.

The highest rated of these 100 books according to goodreads is 4.49 stars, going to The Hunger Games, which I rated 2 stars.

Long story short (no pun intended), my taste in books is probably different than yours. :-)

Realmwalkers - reading

Finished "Realmwalkers" by E.V. Medina and Jack Shepherd. If you are a fan of Rachel Aaron's Eli Monpress series, you may also like this story. In my review of Aaron's work, I said the powerful characters stopped just shy of calling the king "dude." In Realmwalkers, Alain is so unbelievably powerful, and his companions refer to him as several versions of "dude." This grated on me. It doesn't help that he's homophobic, and for one of the good guys, seems pretty disrespectful to those around him. For example there was a missed opportunity for him to leave his "starblade" behind out of respect for the queen rather than being the only one to wear a weapon in her presence. There is also little element of actual risk in the story that it dulls the tension. Death is quite casual since you can be brought back from it.

Some of the other terminology could be owned better by the authors. Calling some characters "females" was awkward, as was the name of Alain's several powers, such as "white hand within measure at need." It didn't give me a good sense of what the power was, or that it grew organically in the world. It sounded more like it was being scientifically classified.

An epic battle was fought, but the details provided were not the details that would have excited, robbing the scene of its impact. When the goddess showed up, her presence was not revered by her faithful so much as she was held up as just another powerful being in the fight (but the focus was on Alain).

Overall I wanted to like Solita, her companions and her plight, and appreciate the world for what it was, but couldn't.

No Ordinary Joes - reading

Finished "No Ordinary Joes: The Extraordinary True Story of Four Submariners in War and Love and Life" by Larry Colton. This might as well have been a sequel to "The Worst Hard Time" (about the Great Depression) in that it tracked the lives of four sailors from growing up during the Great Depression - one of whom came from the area covered by the previous book - to joining the Navy and fighting in World War II. Their submarine was sunk by a torpedo dropped from a Japanese plane and the men were captured and taken as POWs to be held for two years, until the war ended. It then followed their lives as they returned home, grew old and, in some cases, died. I was torn between 4 and 5 stars as a rating, but I didn't want to put this one down until the end. Even then I did a bit of research on the ship and crew. Then I asked my mom about details about what my dad did while he was in the Navy since he's no longer around to tell me the stories.

Wishful Drinking - reading

Finished "Wishful Drinking" by Carrie Fisher. I wasn't expecting quite so much gossip in this one, though I'm not sure exactly what I *was* expecting. I feel like I didn't quite connect with Carrie's sense of humor, and the book fell short for me because of that since it was intended to have a lot of humor in it. Your mileage may vary.

The Worst Hard Time - reading

Finished "The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl" by Timothy Egan. First, let me say that I greatly enjoyed this, even though it clearly demonstrated the great harm ignorance can cause. These people didn't just survive the great American Dust Bowl, they (along with a persistent drought and typical high plains weather) created it. And yeah, some of the aspects of the story were repetitive, but then again, there were a lot of "dusters" who stuck around long after things went not just bad but ridiculously bad. The descriptions of the dust storms were vivid, bringing you right to the time and place, staring at a black wall as it flew mercilessly at you, all the while knowing it will choke the air out of you, your family and your livestock, and the static in the storm would be bad enough to kill the things you tried to keep growing despite the conditions.

The Forgotten Man - reading

Finished "The Forgotten Man" by Amity Shlaes. A book about the politics and economy around the Great Depression, this book was maybe an order of magnitude too detailed for me. I feel like many of the things the book was trying to say got lost in the many details and side stories, or just got lost along the timeline. Don't get me wrong - the details are interesting in their own right. I just know I'm not going to remember 95% of this one.

The Good Soldiers - reading

I find myself once again behind on posting about books, but only because I've been busy with other things. I started walking in the evenings as part of the "Global Corporate Challenge." I took a week vacation and went camping. The Monday I returned to work I presented my final project for a class. Thursday and Friday that week my employer held its second "Hackathon" in which you have about 24 hours to code up some project you want to work on. On Sunday I was on a plane to Florida for a week-long conference. It's been about two weeks since my return and I'm finally getting back to my long to-do list.

Finished "The Good Soldiers" by David Finkel. This tells the story of the 2-16 battalion and their time in Iraq during President Bush's "surge" strategy. The book is well written and well researched, combining first-hand reporting with after-action interviews with many soldiers and leaders of the battalion as they faced IEDs, exchanges of small-arms fire and the challenge of living in a war zone. It describes their injuries - both visible and invisible, and did so the telling of a poignant story. The story also includes what Wikileaks referred to as "Collateral Murder" in which a helicopter fired on two Reuters reporters and their group on the ground for holding a camera, resembling a weapon. It gives the reader a lot to think about. I recommend it strongly.

Sh*t my Dad Says - reading

Finished "Sh*t my Dad Says" by Justin Halpern. I followed the Twitter feed for a while, and it was funny. The book is an expanded version of it telling longer versions of stories that lead to quotes. Much of it was good, but frequently I wanted to hear a bit more from a particular story and the author had already moved on. Overall not bad, though.

Catching up

I have finished making the smaller edits for Tunder's Year (which really needs a new title). All that remains now is to rewrite the ending, and work on a few places I identified that need bigger changes, such as turning a summary into a conversation, etc. I'm excited to be close to the end of a second draft. This is a first for me!

Finished "Quantum Man: Richard Feynman's Life in Science" by Lawrence M. Krauss. No book about Feynman is complete without discussing his contributions to physics, very little of which I actually understand, but the author made that aspect of Feynman approachable, at least. Other than that, it was a good story about a great mathematician/physicist/explorer/drummer/playboy.

Finished "If You Ask Me" by Betty White. This was very much like catching up on Betty White's blog, if such a thing exists. It consisted of many short stories about widely varied topics. Cute, nonetheless.

I started "One Perfect Word" by Debbie Macomber. It was an interesting premise in which she would select a word and intentionally focus on that word for a whole year, applying it to her life. I was actually curious about which words she used and what process she used to select them, but when it became about how "God takes part in the choosing" and turned to the bible and faith, none of which was mentioned on the cover, I lost interest. I was hoping for something a little more intellectual.

Next up: William Gibson's "Distrust That Particular Flavor." This selection is unrelated to my impression of "One Perfect Word" - I picked both up from the library at the same time.

Masques - reading

Finished "Masques" by Patricia Briggs. Abruptly I picked this up while at the library. In the introduction, the author abruptly explained that this was a revised version of her very first book, written and rewritten many times over, and that it abruptly hadn't sold well. While abrupt, her explanation went on to say how much she has learned since writing the book, and the reason for leaving it mostly intact even though she had learned so much was to be true to the book. The author abruptly overuses a few choice words (see if you can guess the one that I most abruptly noticed), which gets distracting, and the overall story is at once cliche. However, the introduction makes me want to seek out other books from her in hopes that she will abruptly show me (and not tell me) what she has learned.

Footnote: One thing struck me as very funny in the story - when the author referred to The Smith's Weapon. My head immediately went to a singing sword - "Stop me! Oh, ho ho stop me!" Do you need to have your Hand in Glove to handle it? After you vanquish a foe, do you Take a Bow? When you're bested, do you Panic? Oh, ho ho, stop me!

Tunder's Year - Once Through

I wrote "Tunder's Year" for NaNoWriMo 2011. Since then I printed a copy of the book through CreateSpace, read through that book once, barely resisting the urge to make comments. Then I let it sit a while. Recently I picked it up again and read through it, allowing myself to freely make comments in pencil in the book, scribbling out things I didn't like and adding things I thought sounded better. I finished that pass this morning.

The next step for me is to take the hand-written notes and putting them in the document, and print another copy.

The current back-of-the-book blurb says:

A hatchling blue fae named Tunder

emerges from her egg in an idyllic

forest on the edge of a lake. As she is

just beginning to explore the area, 

everyone she meets and everything she

knows is threatened by a sudden wildfire.

Then the imps attack!

Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII - reading

Finished "Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII" by David Starkey. I started this one because of the Tudors series on Showtime, which I'm still in the middle of, and found the two overlap quite a bit. Taking the author at his word, it is amusing that the further away we get from events of King Henry VIII's reign, the more accurate the information about the event becomes. On the other hand, the author had an attitude of superiority over other historians with all the cattiness of a royal reporter. For example, "The fact has been obscured by the carelessness of many historians about detail." He had similar problems with some of those he wrote about. "Anne had an irritating and un-businesslike habit of not dating her letters," for example. Or referring to the papal "weasel word" when talking about whether his first wife was a virgin when they were married ("perhaps"). There were other amusing phrases. One that stands out talks about Henry's "machinery of 'love on the rebound.'"

I don't personally know much about that part of English history aside from recognizing many of the bigger names, so found it a bit difficult to follow at times when the author would jump ahead - sometimes even decades - to events I'm not familiar with. There are other similar jumps around the timeline that make it difficult to correlate the events in my mind. Sometimes he got bogged down in details, which had I known more about that time period I might have appreciated more, but really just muddled through. I mean, he's a(n?) historian, not necessarily a storyteller, right?

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future - reading

Finished "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future...Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned" by Michael J. Fox. This quick story of MJF's life from dropping out of school to becoming an advocate for stem cell research underscored the idea that you can get an informal education in life, something that I did for a while before returning to school to finish my BS. Sometimes funny, sometimes inspiring, it was a decent - though very short - story worth reading.

A Wrinkle in Time - reading

Finished "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle. This is old-school fantasy from 1962, and it is starting to show its age. It took probably half the book to really get going, and at 190 pages total, it was over quickly. I was amused that it began with "It was a dark and stormy night," a phrase from 1830 that has been referenced in several stories and popularized more recently by Snoopy in Peanuts.

7 Dirty Words - reading

Finished "7 Dirty Words: The Life and Crimes of George Carlin" by James Sullivan. This covered his career from very early until his death in 2008, including his military experience, his idol (Lenny Bruce), his various routines and how some of them evolved, his influence on censorship and law, his relationships and even his hairstyles. Best enjoyed with an open mind. After I finished it, I went on Netflix and watched about 4 hours of his routines. 4/5 stars

1776 - reading

Finished "1776" by David McCullough. I loved how the author referenced so many primary sources in the telling of the military and political events of 1775 and 1776 in America, including resources from the British commanders and soldiers. One thing referenced in several places throughout was General Washington's indecisiveness, which I hadn't learned much about before. Also, several instances of the amazing luck his army had on multiple occasions and how that turned the tide. Now I want to go back and read McCullough's John Adams.

Still Life - reading

Finished "Still Life" by Joy Fielding. About a woman who goes into a coma after being hit by a speeding vehicle who later finds she is able to hear what goes on around her, this felt like a soap opera all around. I was wondering how the author was going to keep the coma patient as the main character since all the action would have to come to her, and when she would come out of it to reveal that she could hear what was said in her presence. It was generally a good job. I personally thought it went on a little too long, but was for the most part nicely done. Some of the secrets revealed to the patient made me cringe at the stupidity, but sometimes the guilty feel they need to vocalize and I guess that she was in a coma made them comfortable enough to do so. 3/5 stars.

Does Pohl hate NaNo?

"When I wrote it was in bursts: an eighteen-thousand-word novelette all one night long, taking the last page out of the typewriter at noon and falling exhausted to sleep. It was not a bad novelette, but the way I wrote it was very bad. To produce so much so quickly and so exhaustingly makes it that much harder to sit down to produce again. The experience gives you the confidence that a great deal can be done in a short time, which encourages delay."

- Science fiction author Frederik Pohl
(from his autobiography "The Way the Future Was")

I would have to say that 99% of my writing has happened during NaNoWriMo. While I never banged out an 18,000 word novella overnight, nor skipped a night of sleep for writing, I have hit 10,000 words in a day during NaNo before. It is hard work for me!

That said, I do have to agree with both conclusions. It does give confidence that I can finish NaNoWriMo, which is a lot of writing in a month, but I also see myself procrastinating the other 11 months of the year.

The Assassin - reading

Finished "The Assassin" by Stephen Coonts. One of these days I will figure out where to look and see that a book is part of a series. I don't recall the cover saying anything about it being the third in a line. Anyway, since I skipped the first two books, take this with a grain of salt. I wasn't overly impressed with this one. I can't point to anything terrible about it except for maybe a couple pet words ("erect!"), or maybe referring to the bridge of the Starship Enterprise as the "cockpit." I also can't point to anything awesome or memorable.

I fixed that for you.

My son linked me to an article on blogspot that needed a few changes, so I took a little time. Below the jump is the corrected version.

The Reapers Are the Angels - reading

Finished "The Reapers Are the Angels" by Alden Bell. Another well-written zombie book, this one about a young girl making her way in the post-apocalyptic world. With vivid descriptions and colorful characters, I recommend this one even if zombie-fiction isn't your thing. (I wouldn't say it's my thing, but this is the third zombie book in recent memory for me.)

You Lost Me There - reading

Finished "You Lost Me There" by Rosecrans Baldwin. Holy crap, did the author ever lose me. I nearly gave up halfway through but because I haven't reached the point where I can put a bad book down like a rabid dog, I finished it. The cover said "intelligent prose, [...] wears its smarts lightly and probes its emotions deeply." It's possible I'm just too stupid to get the intelligent prose, but wasn't one of the faults of the main character that he hasn't grieved for his late wife? Denial does not equal probing your emotions deeply. Not recommended by me. Ask someone smart.

2011 Top Ten Books

I went through 2011's books and selected ten that I would recommend. Note: these are books I read (or listened to - many were audiobooks) in 2011, not books that were published in 2011.

10. Haiku
9. Paul is Undead
8. The Return of the King
7. The Dark Volume
6. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
5. Redwall
4. The Kite Runner
3. The Terror
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
1. The Pillars of the Earth

I did it countdown-style which implies I believe "The Pillars of the Earth" to be the best of the bunch, though depending on the day any of several others could slide up to that top spot. They're all good, though.

The Spirit Thief - reading

Finished "The Spirit Thief" by Rachel Aaron. This had an interesting premise and some decent characters, but I disliked the dialogue. I think the characters stopped just shy of calling the king "dude." As the story progressed, I had an easier time imagining a group of gamers sitting around the D&D (or whatever system they use) table playing through these encounters than I did the characters themselves living in their world. I've played with people who while gaming talk like those in the book.

There were hints to future story arcs but I don't think enough got done in this one book. I wanted a little more closure (or at least fewer loose ends). I won't be picking up the next in the series.

Boneshaker - reading

Finished "Boneshaker" by Cherie Priest. I was sometimes envious of the author's ability to give just enough words to paint a picture in my mind, and sometimes wishing she would linger in a scene a bit longer. Either way, though, the book evoked great mental images of history gone sideways. It was a fun and enjoyable read all around. I can't say I was 100% satisfied by the ending, but it did bring things together and change the lives of the characters.