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Print Story 2015, now with 20% fewer pages
Books
By Vulch (Fri Jan 01, 2016 at 02:57:27 PM EST) shelves full of books, tablets full of electrons (all tags)
Allowing for the usual bunch of things I forgot to log I appear to have read 125 book-like things in the past year. Electric things are up again as I finally cracked and started getting ebooks from Amazon. Still prefer an actual book where possible, but the 99p offers tend to attract. Last year I managed 138 books containing something like 50,000 pages, this years 125 only held around 40K.

Half a dozen overlaps with Mr Escargot, plus a couple more in common still languishing in my TBR stack.

Late April and early May got filled with reading Hugo award nominees, the various short from category works from the voters pack ought to be included in there too. The Hugos are the only reason I forced myself to finish "The Dark Between The Stars", calling the characters cardboard is denigrating shredded tree products. On the other hand because of the ker-pupple of the last couple of years I've been getting a bunch of recommendations from places like File 770, John Scalzi's Whatever and Charlie Stross's Diary. Some work out well, others not so good, but a lot come with "cheap today on Amazon/Kobo/Smashwords/etc". For the first time in forever I've actually got a To Be Read pile of around 10 physical books and 50 or so electric ones.

Highlights: Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold which I read in ARC form, Cordelia Vorkosigan as Vicereine of Sergeyar after the death of Aral and a re-interpretation of previous history.
The Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein, starts out looking like one sort of story but as details get filled in you realise it's something completely different.
The March North by Graydon Saunders, set in a world where magic has been messing with the landscape and environment for millenia. There's a sequel but it's electric only and the price is still over my threshold.
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, my pick for the Hugo novel category.

Lowlights: The Dark Between the Stars which was just terrible, Freedom at Feronia which was a major letdown after the first in the asteroid police series, and Annihilation from the Southern Reach trilogy which has not made me want to read the other two volumes.


December

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January

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2015, now with 20% fewer pages | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 hidden)
99p Kindle Daily Deals by TheophileEscargot (2.00 / 0) #1 Sat Jan 02, 2016 at 02:17:29 AM EST
I find them pretty tempting as well, less than the price of a newspaper.

What did you think of "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet"? I've been recommended it.
--
It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?

Please enter a subject for your comment. by Vulch (4.00 / 1) #4 Sat Jan 02, 2016 at 11:32:21 AM EST
TLWTASAP I've seen described as Firefly fan-fiction which isn't quite fair. Apart from the general story line, nothing much sticks in my mind. It was a decent read but I don't think it's quite as good as some people seem to think.

I've worked out how to add a tag to Calibre imports automatically, and how to use virtual libraries in it, so I'm at least able to find out which deals I haven't read yet instead of repeatedly going through the first couple of pages...



[ Parent ]
What did you think of by Scrymarch (2.00 / 0) #2 Sat Jan 02, 2016 at 02:31:15 AM EST
Cyberpunk Malaysia and Ash: A Secret History?

I read Ash years ago and liked it at the time.

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Different by Vulch (4.00 / 1) #3 Sat Jan 02, 2016 at 11:22:18 AM EST
Cyberpunk Malaysia definitely had a different viewpoint to the usual run of western stuff, I think knowing a bit more about the region would have helped. Ash I liked, similar resonance to the David Drake/Eric Flint Belisarius series with an outside influence driving historic conflict and diverting it to a new path.



[ Parent ]
I'm a bit of a Mary Gentle fan generally by Scrymarch (2.00 / 0) #5 Sun Jan 03, 2016 at 03:33:14 AM EST
Going back to Golden Witchbreed. The worlds always have this sidewise realism that gets into my head.

The characters also seem real but always to be doing things that are a bit stupid or at least pigheaded.

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[ Parent ]
2015, now with 20% fewer pages | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 hidden)

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