Last Book Foo of 2015!
Dec. 31st, 2015 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6Before I start, I would like to wish a Happy New Year to anyone reading this, and, in addition, a happy birthday to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
liabrown!
Since we've also got end-of-year-book-foo-wrapup to do, I won't waste time talking about TV/movies (maybe another post soon though) and just get right to the last of the reviews of the year:
Finished: The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
Kirby Mizrachi was attacked and left for dead by a vicious killer that had never been caught, a killer she thinks is may be a serial killer, and she gets an internship at a Chicago newspaper mostly so she can investigate on her own.
What she doesn't know is that she's right, the man who attacked her is a serial killer, responsible for murdering nearly a dozen other women... throughout the twentieth century, leaving strange and occasionally impossible artifacts on the bodies. For the killer, Harper Curtis, travels in time with the help of a house he stumbled upon in his ordinary life in the 1930s, a house that already has his victims listed.
Time-traveling Serial Killer sounds like a good pitch for a movie or a TV series, and it might well be one at some point. But once you get beyond the initial wow factor of the premise, you have to consider how difficult it would be to put an investigator in one time up against a time traveling serial killer, and have a compelling story. Beukes accomplishes this by, mostly, telling two alternating stories. One of these is the story of Kirby, which, for most of it, is less a tense investigation as it is a character study of somebody who went through a severe trauma and is trying to cope with it, not entirely successfully. Her investigation is real, but it doesn't, can't, really get anywhere. It gets frustratingly close a few times, but either bad luck or the natural tendency to dismiss things that don't fit as being "wrong" rather than "time travel" mean that she can't really make any headway until she stumbles upon that one clue that ties things together. The other story told is that of the killer himself... but, in many ways, it's also the stories of the victims, as they're the humanizing focus, their struggles and strength, what makes then "shine" to Harper before he snuffs them out are an important part of the story, and the murders are mostly told from their perspective (although we get plenty from Harper in the hunt and lead-up). It does have some of the same lurid fascination with violence that any serial killer media tends to have, but the personalities and historical context makes them stand out little more than a simple body count.
For me, Kirby's story connected more, but I wanted a bit more of the sense of wonder to be directly tied to it, with more of the book being about her knowing something of what was going on, or trying to directly cope. Still, the characters and prose are well-written enough that I could enjoy it a lot despite that.
On the whole I enjoyed the book, thought with a few complaints. Firstly, it does suffer from the big problem that claims all but the best time travel books... it doesn't really end well. At least, the getting to the ending is pretty compelling, but the final confrontation and immediate aftermath, which attempts to tie up the nature of the house and Kirby's reaction to finding it, and actions afterwards, they left me either wanting more, or outright cold. But, as I said, this is a common problem in time travel stories, and so I was prepared for it and it didn't hurt my enjoyment too much. The final confrontation did lack punch in another way, where I felt there was some kind of narrative need for a direct Kirby/Harper face-off, but instead other parties were heavily involved and blunted the impact.
Secondly, and I realize this is a crazy thing to ask for in a time travel book, but I do wish the story was told a little bit more linearly. I felt the Harper sections bounced around different parts of his... 'adventures', and there was one point where I legitimately thought I'd missed a few chapters because suddenly someone was in an unexpected situation without any lead-up that I felt was due.
Finally a complaint that really isn't about the book itself, but about a number of the descriptions I've read for it. Sometimes I've heard the Shining Girls of the title as women "destined to change history." And while it's true that the women are people who are poised to make changes, possible trailblazers, possible people who might devote their lives to helping people and have some cumulative impact they never realize... in terms of the story, we never actually see what the effects of any of them would have been. So it reads more like Harper is just crazy and sees these women as special and 'must-be-murdered,' when really their lives without him might have lead to great changes in history, or, more likely, might have amounted to just getting by and doing the best they can... like almost any of us. I was craving some element of directly seeing "what might have been," or at least a clear reason why someone or some supernatural force targeted these women, rather than just that they had 'potential.' But as I said, most of this is an issue with descriptions I read elsewhere, rather than the story itself, although I can at least pin my desire to have more concrete information on the 'why' on the actual text.
I liked it, and I think it's worth reading, but for my particular tastes, it doesn't land quite as well as I'd hoped.
Finished: The Phoenix Code by Catherine Asaro
Robotics expert Megan O'Flannery joins a project to produce artificial intelligence in an android body, and begins making quick strides in making the prototype more intelligent and emotive. Meanwhile, she also becomes close with another expert in the field, the strange but brilliant Raj. But then things start to go wrong as the android develops a fixation for Megan.
The book started okay, but my interested started to wane fast. It was at its best when it had the main character trying to train a clearly-not-that-intelligent android... unfortunately, that didn't last long before it became able to act more of less human, albeit one with some severe mental issues and a vastly different knowledge base. Then we moved around between rebellious adolescent and obsessed stalker and a few other personality changes along the way, which occasionally became interesting but with the unpredictability came a sense that the personality was being written to the needs of the plot. And that plot really didn't do much for me.
The words that come most to mind when I think back on the book are, "like an medium-quality Outer Limits episode." It would have made a decent episode of the 90s series... in fact, there are a few episodes that, plotwise, resemble this story a lot. I'm not trying to imply there was any swiping going on, just that many of the ideas feel well-worn and, while suitable for forty-five minutes of television, as a novel, it felt distinctly underwhelming.
In addition to being stale, the plot was full of things that didn't really feel right. Such as, when trying to create an android that can seem human, that they apparently started with robot bodies that looked identical to humans (and Terminator-style, had an outer layer of flesh which, the text made sure to point out, had working sex organs). Seriously? You go to the trouble to produce a sexually capable android body and you haven't even got the AI licked yet? You'd think it would make more sense to start with an obviously nonhuman robot body so that, if it all goes wrong, the thing can't just try to integrate into normal society. I understand that without that, the rest of the story wouldn't have worked, but the movie Short Circuit did better than that.
The book was also weirdly dated. I remember in particular one line where they mentioned all the amenities a particular tool or lab provided, and they mentioned fax. Twice. Now, I believe the second one was a simple accident, but the first was obviously intentional. This kind of thing is inevitable with SF, as it gets old there are going to be some things about the future that are hilariously wrong, and you normally give it a pass... but in this case, it's a little more egregious. The reason, and also why I say it's "weirdly" dated, is that I believe this was revised since it's original 2000 publication, only a couple years ago, and there are a few references to social media or other things that have been updated. That some of the book feels modern and other parts are not make it even worse than if the book was simply out-of-date.
The book's not completely horrible. I did like that there was a romance plot with a person who didn't seem like a typical romantic lead, full of strange habits and insecurities, and there are a few genuine surprises that I liked, but, on the whole, the book misses it's mark.
Finished: Lock In by John Scalzi
Chris Shane suffers from Haden's Syndrome, a disease that struck in our near future and left millions around the world "Locked In" to their bodies, unable to move or do much to interact. The crisis did however, spur some technological development to help those suffering... while they can't cure the disease, there are brain implants that let people telecommute into robot bodies, or even bodies of specially trained humans, and experience something close to a normal life, and also creating a new minority. Where there are new minorities, there is discrimination, and where there is new technology, there are new crimes, and Shane has to deal with both while working for the FBI, as a murder suspect is a human Integrator, who rents his body out to Hadens, and a wave of terrorism is about to break out.
The premise might be a little bit out there, but Scalzi instantly gets to work selling it to the reader as a believable development in human society. And it works, from believable sounding slang terms that have cropped up, to rules (like any crime involving a Haden is automatically considered to be an interstate crime until proven otherwise). Setting the story decades after the disease helps with this a lot, as it's just a fact of life for most of the characters, those who suffer from the condition and those who interact with them. Scalzi also does a neat trick that's been much-remarked... the main character's gender is never identified. The story is told in the first person, and the character, in this story anyway, doesn't seem to pay a lot of attention to sex or romantic matters. Yet, the character doesn't explicitly reject a conventional gender either (although that's also a possibility), it's just not mentioned... things are worded such that there's never a "he" or "she" said in reference to Shane, even from strangers who know about the character's history. This could result in some awkward dialogue, but Scalzi managed it seamlessly, I literally would not have noticed if I hadn't paid any attention. In any event, the reader can choose how to think of Shane... I personally saw her as a woman (albeit one interacting with the world with an android body).
Scalzi always scores high on the readability scale, and this is no exception. It's very breezy, consistently entertaining, and kept my imagination engaged... in fact, it's (unfortunately) very rare that I dream about a book I'm reading, but this one inspired that at least twice.
The plot does, however, feel somewhat light, with few surprises. Maybe it's because of all the heavy-lifting in worldbuilding required, but I was left thinking, "That's it?" at the end of it. If Lock-In was turned into a TV show (and supposedly, it's under consideration for such), the novel would maybe make a decent two-hour premiere. In many ways that makes it ideal for adaptation because it's the kind of blend of SF and procedural cop show that seems to be the only thing mainstream networks are willing to take a chance on.
I'm torn between 3 and 4 stars... but in thanks for the good dreams, I'll put it at the low end of the 4 side
Finished: Other Worlds Than These (short story collection)
"Go then, there are other worlds than these," is one of my favorite quotes from Stephen King's Dark Tower series, subtly evoking the sense of wonder inherent in the idea of a multiverse. So it's appropriate to draw from it for the title of this collection, themed around other worlds and people from worlds like ours who travel to them. It contains both stories that are both sci-fi takes (usually called parallel universe stories, drawing mostly on quantum physics theories), and fantasy (generally called "portal fantasies" because they typically involve some kind of a portal that takes a person from our world to another)
Of course, I tend to be more interested in the former than the latter. Still, portal fantasies are among the fantasy that does tend to interest me more than most. Unfortunately, in this one, few of the fantasies really engaged my imagination in a way I'd hoped. There were a few, like Seanan McGuire's "Crystal Holloway and the Forgotten Passage" and "The City of Blind Delight" by Catherine M. Valente, which, despite not being what I usually read, were enjoyable and affecting. Also of note, Yoon Ha Lee's "Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain," which probably falls under science fiction, but Lee's work has usually left me a little cold in the past, and this one in particular sort of tread on the borders between the two genres. But it worked well for me anyway, short and sweet. I also highly enjoyed "[a ghost samba]" by Ian McDonald, and "Like Minds" by Robert Reed, except I think it failed the ending.
The rest didn't have as much as an impact on me, although some were good, and some I'd read before and enjoyed (like Stephen King's "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut") but didn't have the same impact or didn't enjoy and didn't bother to read again. Most just didn't do much for me. Short story collections always have this problem, though.
Knowing that I should probably give it a three, as I'm typically a bit more generous, but... I felt somewhat let down nonetheless, like I expected to be wowed more given the theme. So I'm giving it a two. That said, there are a few great stories in here, and if it's something that might interest you, certainly worth giving a try.
Finished: Touch by Claire North
There are ghosts in the world, but not like the ones most people think about. These people live in human bodies, swapping from one to the other with the touch of skin on skin, taking over another person's body completely and living in their life. When they leave, the former host remembers nothing since they were taken. The narrator of Touch is one of these ghosts, who has lived this way for 200 years, jumping from body to body, sometimes for seconds, sometimes for years. But when his most recent host is killed, he must use the killer to try and track down a group targeting his kind, and hopefully escape alive in the process.
One of my favorite books I read this year was North's The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, which was well-reviewed and lived up to it... and although descriptions of this story didn't have as much attraction to me as the other, I decided to give it a try on the strength of my previous enjoyment.
There are some similarities of themes, style, approach in the two books. In many ways, both books are fantasy premises given a sci-fi approach... take this one thing as a granted, and explore it and the ramifications rigorously (but also with a strong eye towards character and storytelling). And in both they explore aspects of immortality and choice of identity. The characters have a similar detached view that borders a bit on amorality (from the "not my problem" side, rather than from deliberate maliciousness), and both are told in the same disjointed way, a main plot that proceeds somewhat linearly, with frequent asides back to other important moments, but not in any particular order. The characters are not the same, however, and this book has a stronger supporting cast (or at least, ones that seem more directly connected to the main plot), although the main villain is a little more cartoonish. The book also has a bit of a weird vibe considering the morality of the whole thing. We're presumably meant to mostly sympathize with the narrator, but when you step back you realize that how they live is really a gross violation of another person in the most intimate way. This isn't entirely glossed over, many characters point out how horrible it is, when you think about it, but at the same time enjoyment of the story sort of depends on you not dwelling on it most of the time. It may be an unsolvable problem given the structure (it'd be easier if it was the story of a group of people hunting these creatures, but that's obviously not the story), but I think the author does about as well as you could expect knowing that, and maybe even turns it into an advantage, because although you follow along, sometimes vicariously enjoying the main character's adventures, you can't quite shake that disturbing vibe, even though the narrator seems to genuinely care about not hurting his hosts more than he can help.
The plot moves along very well, exploring the life and consequences of this style of life while not losing sight of the story, although I do think the end does suffer a bit, with so much jumping around I found it hard to be sure of exactly what was going on. There were also a few annoying gaps in the asides and flashbacks, where they mention some big development, tell some long story about where and when the character was when it happened, but then skip past the actual event, having the thing itself happen off page and only referred to again. And in particular, there was one point of the "rules" of being a ghost that, although explored once or twice, never seemed to come up as an option in some circumstances where it seemed like it really should. I was also annoyed with a little stylistic quirk that also occurred with the August novel, that is, some conversations not being enclosed in quotation marks. It's a small thing to bother me, but it did.
On the whole? This wasn't as good as North's debut (which wasn't even her debut, of course, as she's a prolific author and this is just a new pen name), but it was still solidly enjoyable. I do wonder, especially looking ahead to North's next upcoming novel, if this pseudonym is either intended to or accidentally working towards a formula: stories of a main character who is one of a small group of people in the world with the same "super power", one that is part curse but also allows for some wondrous opportunities. If so, at the very least, it's a formula that I find I really enjoy, and I do want to read her next book, The Sudden Appearance of Hope already. More so because in that case the "power" is one I used to play with myself long ago, with a character on a superhero MUSH.
Finished: Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey (Expanse #4)
Description cut because it's 4th book in a series and necessarily may be spoilery for previous books. The short version is, either my favorite of the series or second favorite, hard to say for sure.
Humanity has begun to colonize a new planet... and already there's a fight over it. When the people who took off early and landed there try to delay the landing of the corporation the government has allowed to settle the planet, there are deaths... which leads to a series of escalations on both sides that threatens to turn into full out war. James Holden and his crew are sent out to be mediators, but things start to go from bad to worse, because not only is there an alien ecology that nobody completely understands yet, there's also the relics of an alien race that seem to be waking up and putting everyone in danger.
The Expanse books have begun to have enough similarity to each other that it's really most effective to discuss them in terms of how they compare to the others. By now, the basics are pretty much the same, a crew of likable characters mostly seen through the eyes of Holden and a guest cast of new viewpoint characters, on some kind of adventure that may impact the future of all humanity. If you like them already, you'll probably be reading this, if not, you won't, so all that's left to say is if it's better or worse than the others.
Mostly, I think it's better. I still think that the second book might be the best of the lot, but if so, it's only by a narrow margin, because I liked this one a good deal more than the last or the first. The plot kept me guessing and impressively managed to raise the stakes as things kept going from bad to worse without seeming ridiculous about it. The viewpoint characters were mostly appealing (although a couple of times you wanted to smack some of them for following the instructions of mean-spirited short-sighted thugs instead of thinking for themselves), and there really is some cool sci-fi work being done about the potential clash of ecosystems and how people might be hurt by them even when traditional predator/prey relationships, or even viruses, aren't the issue. Some of the villains were just incomprehensibly villainous, but, although it's a fine line, I think they came down on the "love to hate" side rather than being ones that were too cartoonish to even take seriously (with the possible exception of one engineer). And the ending really put everything into a new perspective which I wasn't expecting and liked a lot.
So yes, there's no reason to stop reading here, even if it may be a bit formulaic (it is, after all, a series that seems designed to be a good TV series), it's thoroughly enjoyable and rises far above where you'd expect.
Still Reading: Stars: Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian (short story collection)
Tentatively about to start: Planetfall by Emma Newman, Aliens: Recent Encounters (short story collection)
That means my official count this year is.... 71 books! Wow, that's a record for me! According to Goodreads, that's 27937 pages, which makes the average book size 411 pages, and means that for every hour I was alive this year, I read 3 pages. That's one page every 20 minutes of I was breathing, awake or not.
The complete list (very roughly in order):
1. The Martian, by Andy Weir
2. Burning Paradise, by Robert Charles Wilson,
3. Un Lun Dun, by China Mieville
4. Ragamuffin, by Tobias S. Buckell
5. The Mount, by Carol Emshwiller
6. Some of the Best from Tor.Com 2014 (short stories)
7. The Mirrored Heavens by David J. Williams
8. God's War (Bel Dame Apocrypha #1) by Kameron Hurley
9. Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey
10. Yesterday's Kin, by Nancy Kress (netgalley)
11. Behemoth by Peter Watts
12. Recursion, by Tony Ballantyne
13. Light, by M. John Harrison
14. The Hydrogen Sonata, by Iain M. Banks (RIP)
15. Hannu Rajaniemi: Collected Fiction, by Hannu Rajaniemi (netgalley)
16. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
17. Apex, by Ramez Naam (netgalley, later purchased)
18. A Song Called Youth, by John Shirley
19. The Lives of Tao, by Wesley Chu
20. Capacity, by Tony Ballantyne,
21. Untaken, by J.E. Anckorn (netgalley)
22. City of Savages, by Lee Kelly
23. Galactic North, by Alastair Reynolds
24. Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, by Judd Trichter
25. The Blondes, by Emily Schultz (free from giveaway)
26. The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu
27. Shelter, by Susan Palwick
28. River of Gods, by Ian McDonald
29. Terms of Enlistment, by Marko Kloos
30. The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
31. Fluency, by Jennifer Foehner Wells
32. Afterparty, by Daryl Gregory
33. Infidel (Bel Dam Apocrypha #2), by Kameron Hurley
34. Bless Your Mechanical Heart (short stories)
35. Dark Orbit, by Caroline Ives Gilman (free from giveaway)
36. First Light (The Red #1), by Linda Nagata
37. Cinder, by Marissa Meyer
38. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
39. Up Against It, by M.J. Locke
40. The Deaths of Tao, by Wesley Chu
41. The Starry Rift, by James Tiptree Jr.
42. Linesman, by S.K. Dunstall (netgalley)
43. Arslan, by M.J. Engh
44. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North
45. Harmony, by Project Itoh
46. Near + Far, by Cat Rambo
47. Moxyland, by Lauren Beukes
48. Zeroboxer, by Fonda Lee (free from giveaway)
49. Caliban's War (Expanse #2) by James S.A. Corey
50. Crossfire, by Nancy Kress
51. Artemis Awakening, by Jane Lindskold
52. The Trials (The Red #2), by Linda Nagata
53. My Real Children, by Jo Walton
54. Rapture (Bel Dame Apocrypha #3), by Kameron Hurley
55. Alien Contact (short story collection)
56. Abaddon's Gate (Expanse #3), by James S.A. Corey
57. The Peripheral, by William Gibson
58. Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie
59. Children of the Comet, by Donald Moffitt (free from giveaway)
60. Crashing Heaven, by Al Robertson
61. Hellspark, by Janet Kagen
62. Forgotten Suns, by Judith Tarr
63. The Ark, by Patrick S. Tomlinsen (free from giveaway)
64. Strong Arm Tactics, by Jody Lynn Nye
65. Going Dark (The Red #3), by Linda Nagata
66. The Shining Girls, by Lauren Beukes
67. The Phoenix Code, by Catherine Asaro
68. Lock In, by John Scalzi
69. Other Worlds Than These (Short story collection)
70. Touch, by Claire North
71. Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey
Now, I had two additional goals for this year. One I made partway through the year when I realized I'd accidentally been holding to it. That was my "No Rereads" goal. And I accomplished it (not counting a few short stories I reread in a new collection)!
The other goal was just to try to read more women authors. My methodology was simple, to introduce a very small positive bias, a slight inkling towards "what the hell let's give it a try", whereas normally, (male or female) when I read a book's description, either the premise wows me and I have to get it immediately, or I think, "That sounds kind of interesting... well, let's see if it gets really well-reviewed maybe or I find it in a used bookstore for cheap". Or it's an author I already love. But those conditions can already be skewed against women, so a positive "what the hell let's try it" bias helps counter that. And look at the results. Leaving out the multiple-author short story books (but including single-author ones), I read 68 books, of those, I read 34 by female authors, which works out to exactly half. Just from one tiny bias. I wasn't even GOING for "half", I was going for more, it just happened to be a happy accident. I think that serves, for me, as a good concrete object lesson about something I'd already suspected... how tiny unintentional biases can magnify each other and add up to a dramatically big effect. Last year, only a handful of novels written by women were on my reading list. This year, one tiny bias, and it's almost even. That's just for me. When you get into society at large, well, it's easy to see how things can snowball even with people who genuinely and earnestly believe they're treating everyone equally.
Next year, I think I'll be keeping that goal, and that bias, but unfortunately I suspect I won't be near parity, because I won't be doing the "no rereads" rule, and a lot of my favorites, the regular rereads, are still stacked heavily on the male side. I found one that I suspect might make it into this category (The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August) and a few others that I might reread once or twice, but, well, that is the other problem with a "what the hell" bias, you read plenty of books that just a little less likely to be your thing. But I feel better for trying it nonetheless, and want to keep trying.
Other statistics of note, I got 5 physical books free, 5 from netgalley, and a handful from paying for membership in a group that gives out awards and gives free ebook copies of the nominees to voters, which really isn't free but really isn't buying. ANd a few that were in bundles of course. But still, free books rock, yo.
liabrown! Since we've also got end-of-year-book-foo-wrapup to do, I won't waste time talking about TV/movies (maybe another post soon though) and just get right to the last of the reviews of the year:
Finished: The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
Kirby Mizrachi was attacked and left for dead by a vicious killer that had never been caught, a killer she thinks is may be a serial killer, and she gets an internship at a Chicago newspaper mostly so she can investigate on her own.
What she doesn't know is that she's right, the man who attacked her is a serial killer, responsible for murdering nearly a dozen other women... throughout the twentieth century, leaving strange and occasionally impossible artifacts on the bodies. For the killer, Harper Curtis, travels in time with the help of a house he stumbled upon in his ordinary life in the 1930s, a house that already has his victims listed.
Time-traveling Serial Killer sounds like a good pitch for a movie or a TV series, and it might well be one at some point. But once you get beyond the initial wow factor of the premise, you have to consider how difficult it would be to put an investigator in one time up against a time traveling serial killer, and have a compelling story. Beukes accomplishes this by, mostly, telling two alternating stories. One of these is the story of Kirby, which, for most of it, is less a tense investigation as it is a character study of somebody who went through a severe trauma and is trying to cope with it, not entirely successfully. Her investigation is real, but it doesn't, can't, really get anywhere. It gets frustratingly close a few times, but either bad luck or the natural tendency to dismiss things that don't fit as being "wrong" rather than "time travel" mean that she can't really make any headway until she stumbles upon that one clue that ties things together. The other story told is that of the killer himself... but, in many ways, it's also the stories of the victims, as they're the humanizing focus, their struggles and strength, what makes then "shine" to Harper before he snuffs them out are an important part of the story, and the murders are mostly told from their perspective (although we get plenty from Harper in the hunt and lead-up). It does have some of the same lurid fascination with violence that any serial killer media tends to have, but the personalities and historical context makes them stand out little more than a simple body count.
For me, Kirby's story connected more, but I wanted a bit more of the sense of wonder to be directly tied to it, with more of the book being about her knowing something of what was going on, or trying to directly cope. Still, the characters and prose are well-written enough that I could enjoy it a lot despite that.
On the whole I enjoyed the book, thought with a few complaints. Firstly, it does suffer from the big problem that claims all but the best time travel books... it doesn't really end well. At least, the getting to the ending is pretty compelling, but the final confrontation and immediate aftermath, which attempts to tie up the nature of the house and Kirby's reaction to finding it, and actions afterwards, they left me either wanting more, or outright cold. But, as I said, this is a common problem in time travel stories, and so I was prepared for it and it didn't hurt my enjoyment too much. The final confrontation did lack punch in another way, where I felt there was some kind of narrative need for a direct Kirby/Harper face-off, but instead other parties were heavily involved and blunted the impact.
Secondly, and I realize this is a crazy thing to ask for in a time travel book, but I do wish the story was told a little bit more linearly. I felt the Harper sections bounced around different parts of his... 'adventures', and there was one point where I legitimately thought I'd missed a few chapters because suddenly someone was in an unexpected situation without any lead-up that I felt was due.
Finally a complaint that really isn't about the book itself, but about a number of the descriptions I've read for it. Sometimes I've heard the Shining Girls of the title as women "destined to change history." And while it's true that the women are people who are poised to make changes, possible trailblazers, possible people who might devote their lives to helping people and have some cumulative impact they never realize... in terms of the story, we never actually see what the effects of any of them would have been. So it reads more like Harper is just crazy and sees these women as special and 'must-be-murdered,' when really their lives without him might have lead to great changes in history, or, more likely, might have amounted to just getting by and doing the best they can... like almost any of us. I was craving some element of directly seeing "what might have been," or at least a clear reason why someone or some supernatural force targeted these women, rather than just that they had 'potential.' But as I said, most of this is an issue with descriptions I read elsewhere, rather than the story itself, although I can at least pin my desire to have more concrete information on the 'why' on the actual text.
I liked it, and I think it's worth reading, but for my particular tastes, it doesn't land quite as well as I'd hoped.
Finished: The Phoenix Code by Catherine Asaro
Robotics expert Megan O'Flannery joins a project to produce artificial intelligence in an android body, and begins making quick strides in making the prototype more intelligent and emotive. Meanwhile, she also becomes close with another expert in the field, the strange but brilliant Raj. But then things start to go wrong as the android develops a fixation for Megan.
The book started okay, but my interested started to wane fast. It was at its best when it had the main character trying to train a clearly-not-that-intelligent android... unfortunately, that didn't last long before it became able to act more of less human, albeit one with some severe mental issues and a vastly different knowledge base. Then we moved around between rebellious adolescent and obsessed stalker and a few other personality changes along the way, which occasionally became interesting but with the unpredictability came a sense that the personality was being written to the needs of the plot. And that plot really didn't do much for me.
The words that come most to mind when I think back on the book are, "like an medium-quality Outer Limits episode." It would have made a decent episode of the 90s series... in fact, there are a few episodes that, plotwise, resemble this story a lot. I'm not trying to imply there was any swiping going on, just that many of the ideas feel well-worn and, while suitable for forty-five minutes of television, as a novel, it felt distinctly underwhelming.
In addition to being stale, the plot was full of things that didn't really feel right. Such as, when trying to create an android that can seem human, that they apparently started with robot bodies that looked identical to humans (and Terminator-style, had an outer layer of flesh which, the text made sure to point out, had working sex organs). Seriously? You go to the trouble to produce a sexually capable android body and you haven't even got the AI licked yet? You'd think it would make more sense to start with an obviously nonhuman robot body so that, if it all goes wrong, the thing can't just try to integrate into normal society. I understand that without that, the rest of the story wouldn't have worked, but the movie Short Circuit did better than that.
The book was also weirdly dated. I remember in particular one line where they mentioned all the amenities a particular tool or lab provided, and they mentioned fax. Twice. Now, I believe the second one was a simple accident, but the first was obviously intentional. This kind of thing is inevitable with SF, as it gets old there are going to be some things about the future that are hilariously wrong, and you normally give it a pass... but in this case, it's a little more egregious. The reason, and also why I say it's "weirdly" dated, is that I believe this was revised since it's original 2000 publication, only a couple years ago, and there are a few references to social media or other things that have been updated. That some of the book feels modern and other parts are not make it even worse than if the book was simply out-of-date.
The book's not completely horrible. I did like that there was a romance plot with a person who didn't seem like a typical romantic lead, full of strange habits and insecurities, and there are a few genuine surprises that I liked, but, on the whole, the book misses it's mark.
Finished: Lock In by John Scalzi
Chris Shane suffers from Haden's Syndrome, a disease that struck in our near future and left millions around the world "Locked In" to their bodies, unable to move or do much to interact. The crisis did however, spur some technological development to help those suffering... while they can't cure the disease, there are brain implants that let people telecommute into robot bodies, or even bodies of specially trained humans, and experience something close to a normal life, and also creating a new minority. Where there are new minorities, there is discrimination, and where there is new technology, there are new crimes, and Shane has to deal with both while working for the FBI, as a murder suspect is a human Integrator, who rents his body out to Hadens, and a wave of terrorism is about to break out.
The premise might be a little bit out there, but Scalzi instantly gets to work selling it to the reader as a believable development in human society. And it works, from believable sounding slang terms that have cropped up, to rules (like any crime involving a Haden is automatically considered to be an interstate crime until proven otherwise). Setting the story decades after the disease helps with this a lot, as it's just a fact of life for most of the characters, those who suffer from the condition and those who interact with them. Scalzi also does a neat trick that's been much-remarked... the main character's gender is never identified. The story is told in the first person, and the character, in this story anyway, doesn't seem to pay a lot of attention to sex or romantic matters. Yet, the character doesn't explicitly reject a conventional gender either (although that's also a possibility), it's just not mentioned... things are worded such that there's never a "he" or "she" said in reference to Shane, even from strangers who know about the character's history. This could result in some awkward dialogue, but Scalzi managed it seamlessly, I literally would not have noticed if I hadn't paid any attention. In any event, the reader can choose how to think of Shane... I personally saw her as a woman (albeit one interacting with the world with an android body).
Scalzi always scores high on the readability scale, and this is no exception. It's very breezy, consistently entertaining, and kept my imagination engaged... in fact, it's (unfortunately) very rare that I dream about a book I'm reading, but this one inspired that at least twice.
The plot does, however, feel somewhat light, with few surprises. Maybe it's because of all the heavy-lifting in worldbuilding required, but I was left thinking, "That's it?" at the end of it. If Lock-In was turned into a TV show (and supposedly, it's under consideration for such), the novel would maybe make a decent two-hour premiere. In many ways that makes it ideal for adaptation because it's the kind of blend of SF and procedural cop show that seems to be the only thing mainstream networks are willing to take a chance on.
I'm torn between 3 and 4 stars... but in thanks for the good dreams, I'll put it at the low end of the 4 side
Finished: Other Worlds Than These (short story collection)
"Go then, there are other worlds than these," is one of my favorite quotes from Stephen King's Dark Tower series, subtly evoking the sense of wonder inherent in the idea of a multiverse. So it's appropriate to draw from it for the title of this collection, themed around other worlds and people from worlds like ours who travel to them. It contains both stories that are both sci-fi takes (usually called parallel universe stories, drawing mostly on quantum physics theories), and fantasy (generally called "portal fantasies" because they typically involve some kind of a portal that takes a person from our world to another)
Of course, I tend to be more interested in the former than the latter. Still, portal fantasies are among the fantasy that does tend to interest me more than most. Unfortunately, in this one, few of the fantasies really engaged my imagination in a way I'd hoped. There were a few, like Seanan McGuire's "Crystal Holloway and the Forgotten Passage" and "The City of Blind Delight" by Catherine M. Valente, which, despite not being what I usually read, were enjoyable and affecting. Also of note, Yoon Ha Lee's "Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain," which probably falls under science fiction, but Lee's work has usually left me a little cold in the past, and this one in particular sort of tread on the borders between the two genres. But it worked well for me anyway, short and sweet. I also highly enjoyed "[a ghost samba]" by Ian McDonald, and "Like Minds" by Robert Reed, except I think it failed the ending.
The rest didn't have as much as an impact on me, although some were good, and some I'd read before and enjoyed (like Stephen King's "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut") but didn't have the same impact or didn't enjoy and didn't bother to read again. Most just didn't do much for me. Short story collections always have this problem, though.
Knowing that I should probably give it a three, as I'm typically a bit more generous, but... I felt somewhat let down nonetheless, like I expected to be wowed more given the theme. So I'm giving it a two. That said, there are a few great stories in here, and if it's something that might interest you, certainly worth giving a try.
Finished: Touch by Claire North
There are ghosts in the world, but not like the ones most people think about. These people live in human bodies, swapping from one to the other with the touch of skin on skin, taking over another person's body completely and living in their life. When they leave, the former host remembers nothing since they were taken. The narrator of Touch is one of these ghosts, who has lived this way for 200 years, jumping from body to body, sometimes for seconds, sometimes for years. But when his most recent host is killed, he must use the killer to try and track down a group targeting his kind, and hopefully escape alive in the process.
One of my favorite books I read this year was North's The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, which was well-reviewed and lived up to it... and although descriptions of this story didn't have as much attraction to me as the other, I decided to give it a try on the strength of my previous enjoyment.
There are some similarities of themes, style, approach in the two books. In many ways, both books are fantasy premises given a sci-fi approach... take this one thing as a granted, and explore it and the ramifications rigorously (but also with a strong eye towards character and storytelling). And in both they explore aspects of immortality and choice of identity. The characters have a similar detached view that borders a bit on amorality (from the "not my problem" side, rather than from deliberate maliciousness), and both are told in the same disjointed way, a main plot that proceeds somewhat linearly, with frequent asides back to other important moments, but not in any particular order. The characters are not the same, however, and this book has a stronger supporting cast (or at least, ones that seem more directly connected to the main plot), although the main villain is a little more cartoonish. The book also has a bit of a weird vibe considering the morality of the whole thing. We're presumably meant to mostly sympathize with the narrator, but when you step back you realize that how they live is really a gross violation of another person in the most intimate way. This isn't entirely glossed over, many characters point out how horrible it is, when you think about it, but at the same time enjoyment of the story sort of depends on you not dwelling on it most of the time. It may be an unsolvable problem given the structure (it'd be easier if it was the story of a group of people hunting these creatures, but that's obviously not the story), but I think the author does about as well as you could expect knowing that, and maybe even turns it into an advantage, because although you follow along, sometimes vicariously enjoying the main character's adventures, you can't quite shake that disturbing vibe, even though the narrator seems to genuinely care about not hurting his hosts more than he can help.
The plot moves along very well, exploring the life and consequences of this style of life while not losing sight of the story, although I do think the end does suffer a bit, with so much jumping around I found it hard to be sure of exactly what was going on. There were also a few annoying gaps in the asides and flashbacks, where they mention some big development, tell some long story about where and when the character was when it happened, but then skip past the actual event, having the thing itself happen off page and only referred to again. And in particular, there was one point of the "rules" of being a ghost that, although explored once or twice, never seemed to come up as an option in some circumstances where it seemed like it really should. I was also annoyed with a little stylistic quirk that also occurred with the August novel, that is, some conversations not being enclosed in quotation marks. It's a small thing to bother me, but it did.
On the whole? This wasn't as good as North's debut (which wasn't even her debut, of course, as she's a prolific author and this is just a new pen name), but it was still solidly enjoyable. I do wonder, especially looking ahead to North's next upcoming novel, if this pseudonym is either intended to or accidentally working towards a formula: stories of a main character who is one of a small group of people in the world with the same "super power", one that is part curse but also allows for some wondrous opportunities. If so, at the very least, it's a formula that I find I really enjoy, and I do want to read her next book, The Sudden Appearance of Hope already. More so because in that case the "power" is one I used to play with myself long ago, with a character on a superhero MUSH.
Finished: Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey (Expanse #4)
Description cut because it's 4th book in a series and necessarily may be spoilery for previous books. The short version is, either my favorite of the series or second favorite, hard to say for sure.
Humanity has begun to colonize a new planet... and already there's a fight over it. When the people who took off early and landed there try to delay the landing of the corporation the government has allowed to settle the planet, there are deaths... which leads to a series of escalations on both sides that threatens to turn into full out war. James Holden and his crew are sent out to be mediators, but things start to go from bad to worse, because not only is there an alien ecology that nobody completely understands yet, there's also the relics of an alien race that seem to be waking up and putting everyone in danger.
The Expanse books have begun to have enough similarity to each other that it's really most effective to discuss them in terms of how they compare to the others. By now, the basics are pretty much the same, a crew of likable characters mostly seen through the eyes of Holden and a guest cast of new viewpoint characters, on some kind of adventure that may impact the future of all humanity. If you like them already, you'll probably be reading this, if not, you won't, so all that's left to say is if it's better or worse than the others.
Mostly, I think it's better. I still think that the second book might be the best of the lot, but if so, it's only by a narrow margin, because I liked this one a good deal more than the last or the first. The plot kept me guessing and impressively managed to raise the stakes as things kept going from bad to worse without seeming ridiculous about it. The viewpoint characters were mostly appealing (although a couple of times you wanted to smack some of them for following the instructions of mean-spirited short-sighted thugs instead of thinking for themselves), and there really is some cool sci-fi work being done about the potential clash of ecosystems and how people might be hurt by them even when traditional predator/prey relationships, or even viruses, aren't the issue. Some of the villains were just incomprehensibly villainous, but, although it's a fine line, I think they came down on the "love to hate" side rather than being ones that were too cartoonish to even take seriously (with the possible exception of one engineer). And the ending really put everything into a new perspective which I wasn't expecting and liked a lot.
So yes, there's no reason to stop reading here, even if it may be a bit formulaic (it is, after all, a series that seems designed to be a good TV series), it's thoroughly enjoyable and rises far above where you'd expect.
Still Reading: Stars: Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian (short story collection)
Tentatively about to start: Planetfall by Emma Newman, Aliens: Recent Encounters (short story collection)
That means my official count this year is.... 71 books! Wow, that's a record for me! According to Goodreads, that's 27937 pages, which makes the average book size 411 pages, and means that for every hour I was alive this year, I read 3 pages. That's one page every 20 minutes of I was breathing, awake or not.
The complete list (very roughly in order):
1. The Martian, by Andy Weir
2. Burning Paradise, by Robert Charles Wilson,
3. Un Lun Dun, by China Mieville
4. Ragamuffin, by Tobias S. Buckell
5. The Mount, by Carol Emshwiller
6. Some of the Best from Tor.Com 2014 (short stories)
7. The Mirrored Heavens by David J. Williams
8. God's War (Bel Dame Apocrypha #1) by Kameron Hurley
9. Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey
10. Yesterday's Kin, by Nancy Kress (netgalley)
11. Behemoth by Peter Watts
12. Recursion, by Tony Ballantyne
13. Light, by M. John Harrison
14. The Hydrogen Sonata, by Iain M. Banks (RIP)
15. Hannu Rajaniemi: Collected Fiction, by Hannu Rajaniemi (netgalley)
16. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
17. Apex, by Ramez Naam (netgalley, later purchased)
18. A Song Called Youth, by John Shirley
19. The Lives of Tao, by Wesley Chu
20. Capacity, by Tony Ballantyne,
21. Untaken, by J.E. Anckorn (netgalley)
22. City of Savages, by Lee Kelly
23. Galactic North, by Alastair Reynolds
24. Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, by Judd Trichter
25. The Blondes, by Emily Schultz (free from giveaway)
26. The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu
27. Shelter, by Susan Palwick
28. River of Gods, by Ian McDonald
29. Terms of Enlistment, by Marko Kloos
30. The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
31. Fluency, by Jennifer Foehner Wells
32. Afterparty, by Daryl Gregory
33. Infidel (Bel Dam Apocrypha #2), by Kameron Hurley
34. Bless Your Mechanical Heart (short stories)
35. Dark Orbit, by Caroline Ives Gilman (free from giveaway)
36. First Light (The Red #1), by Linda Nagata
37. Cinder, by Marissa Meyer
38. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
39. Up Against It, by M.J. Locke
40. The Deaths of Tao, by Wesley Chu
41. The Starry Rift, by James Tiptree Jr.
42. Linesman, by S.K. Dunstall (netgalley)
43. Arslan, by M.J. Engh
44. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North
45. Harmony, by Project Itoh
46. Near + Far, by Cat Rambo
47. Moxyland, by Lauren Beukes
48. Zeroboxer, by Fonda Lee (free from giveaway)
49. Caliban's War (Expanse #2) by James S.A. Corey
50. Crossfire, by Nancy Kress
51. Artemis Awakening, by Jane Lindskold
52. The Trials (The Red #2), by Linda Nagata
53. My Real Children, by Jo Walton
54. Rapture (Bel Dame Apocrypha #3), by Kameron Hurley
55. Alien Contact (short story collection)
56. Abaddon's Gate (Expanse #3), by James S.A. Corey
57. The Peripheral, by William Gibson
58. Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie
59. Children of the Comet, by Donald Moffitt (free from giveaway)
60. Crashing Heaven, by Al Robertson
61. Hellspark, by Janet Kagen
62. Forgotten Suns, by Judith Tarr
63. The Ark, by Patrick S. Tomlinsen (free from giveaway)
64. Strong Arm Tactics, by Jody Lynn Nye
65. Going Dark (The Red #3), by Linda Nagata
66. The Shining Girls, by Lauren Beukes
67. The Phoenix Code, by Catherine Asaro
68. Lock In, by John Scalzi
69. Other Worlds Than These (Short story collection)
70. Touch, by Claire North
71. Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey
Now, I had two additional goals for this year. One I made partway through the year when I realized I'd accidentally been holding to it. That was my "No Rereads" goal. And I accomplished it (not counting a few short stories I reread in a new collection)!
The other goal was just to try to read more women authors. My methodology was simple, to introduce a very small positive bias, a slight inkling towards "what the hell let's give it a try", whereas normally, (male or female) when I read a book's description, either the premise wows me and I have to get it immediately, or I think, "That sounds kind of interesting... well, let's see if it gets really well-reviewed maybe or I find it in a used bookstore for cheap". Or it's an author I already love. But those conditions can already be skewed against women, so a positive "what the hell let's try it" bias helps counter that. And look at the results. Leaving out the multiple-author short story books (but including single-author ones), I read 68 books, of those, I read 34 by female authors, which works out to exactly half. Just from one tiny bias. I wasn't even GOING for "half", I was going for more, it just happened to be a happy accident. I think that serves, for me, as a good concrete object lesson about something I'd already suspected... how tiny unintentional biases can magnify each other and add up to a dramatically big effect. Last year, only a handful of novels written by women were on my reading list. This year, one tiny bias, and it's almost even. That's just for me. When you get into society at large, well, it's easy to see how things can snowball even with people who genuinely and earnestly believe they're treating everyone equally.
Next year, I think I'll be keeping that goal, and that bias, but unfortunately I suspect I won't be near parity, because I won't be doing the "no rereads" rule, and a lot of my favorites, the regular rereads, are still stacked heavily on the male side. I found one that I suspect might make it into this category (The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August) and a few others that I might reread once or twice, but, well, that is the other problem with a "what the hell" bias, you read plenty of books that just a little less likely to be your thing. But I feel better for trying it nonetheless, and want to keep trying.
Other statistics of note, I got 5 physical books free, 5 from netgalley, and a handful from paying for membership in a group that gives out awards and gives free ebook copies of the nominees to voters, which really isn't free but really isn't buying. ANd a few that were in bundles of course. But still, free books rock, yo.
