jethrien

I think this may be the last year I rate books publicly, although I may still list them. In the last couple months, this has suddenly become awkward as I interact professionally with too many of these folks, and it's not going to get less awkward any time soon.

1. Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer by Rax King, 5. Memoir
2. The Good-Enough Life by Avram Alpert, 3.5. Self-Help
3. The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal, 5. Science Fiction
4. What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist—the Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England by Daniel Pool, 4. History
5. The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang, 5. Romance
6. Servant of Empire by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts, 3.5. Fantasy
7. The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston, 4. Romance
8. A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, 4. Science Fiction
9. The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna, 4. Fantasy
10. Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge by Eleanor Herman, 3.5. History
11. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, 4. Fantasy
12. Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart, 3. Fantasy
13. One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston, 5. Romance
14. On Trails: An Exploration by Robert Moor, 3.5. Pop Science
15. Stiletto by Daniel O'Malley, 5. Fantasy
16. Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty, 4. Science Fiction
17. What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe, 5. Pop Science
18. Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao, 5. Science Fiction
19. The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington by Jennet Conant, 3.5. History
20. Mistress of Empire by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts, 3.5. Fantasy
21. Remind Me to Hate You Later by Lizzy Mason, 3.5. General fiction
22. The Company of the Dead by David Kowalski, 3. Science Fiction
23. A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab, 4. Fantasy
24. A Conjuring of LIght by V.E. Schwab, 4. Fantasy
25. The Hydrogen Revolution by Marco Alverà, 3. Pop Science
26. Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, 5. Fantasy
27. Sing Anyway by Anita Kelly, 3.5. Romance
28. All the Feels by Olivia Dade, 4. Romance
29. Of Dragons, Feasts, and Murders by Aliette de Bodard, 4. Fantasy
30. The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Ann Older, 4. Science Fiction
31. The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard, 4. Fantasy
32. The House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard, 4. Fantasy
33. The House of Sundering Flames by Aliette de Bodard, 4. Fantasy
34. Network Effect by Martha Wells, 5. Science Fiction
35. Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells, 4.5. Science Fiction
36. Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith, 5. Fantasy
37. A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers, 4. Fantasy
38. Bishop's Opening by R.S.A. Garcia, 3.5. Science Fiction
39. I Never Liked You Anyway by Jordan Kurella, 4. Fantasy
40. Spear by Nicola Griffith, 4.5. Fantasy
41. The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green, 5. Memoir
42. Save the Cat by Blake Snyder, 3.5. Writing
43. Around the World in 80 Plants by Jonathan Drori, 4. Pop Science
44. The Archived by Victoria Schwab, 4. Fantasy
45. The Eye of the Heron by Ursula K. Le Guin, 3.5. Science Fiction
46. The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson, 3.5. History
47. The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett, 3.5. Fantasy
48. The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope, 3. Classic
49. The Unbound by Victoria Schwab, 4. Fantasy
50. The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells, 2. Classic
52. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, 3. Classic
53. The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge by David McCullough, 4. History
51. Divinity 36 by Gail Carriger, 5. Science Fiction
54. The Sumage Solution by G.L. Carriger, 5. Romance
55. The Omega Objection by G.L. Carriger, 4.5. Romance
56. The Enforcer Enigma by G.L. Carriger, 4.5. Romance
57. The Greeks: A Global History by Roderick Beaton, 5. History
58. Happy Place by Emily Henry, 5. Romance
59. End of Story by Kylie Scott, 3.5. Romance
60. Even Though I Knew The End by C.L. Polk, 5. Fantasy
61. Role Playing by Cathy Yardley, 4. Romance
62. The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner, 4. Fantasy
63. Swordheart by T. Kingfisher, 4.5. Fantasy
64. Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher, 4. Fantasy
65. The Wonder Engine by T. Kingfisher, 4. Fantasy
66. Midnight Duet by Jen Comfort, 4. Romance
67. Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai, 4. Fantasy
68. Can't Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne, 3. Fantasy
69. How Much for Just the Planet? by John M. Ford, 3.5. Science Fiction
70. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson, 3.5. Self-Help
71. Wolfsong by T.J. Klune, 4. Fantasy
72. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, 5. Literary Fiction
73. The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin, 3.5. Fantasy
74. The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo, 5. Fantasy
75. That Special Something by Erin McRae and Racheline Maltese, 4. Romance
76. The Dispatcher: Travel by Bullet by John Scalzi, 4.5. Fantasy
77. Parasite by Mira Grant, 4. Horror
78. Husband Material by Alexis Hall, 4.5. Romance
79. Please Scream Quietly by Julie L. Fennell, 4. Anthropology/Cultural studies
80. Arch of Bone by Jane Yolen, 2.5. Historical fiction
81. The Adventures of Amina Al-Sarafi by Shannon Chakraborty, 5. Fantasy
82. Translation State by Ann Leckie, 4.5. Science Fiction
83. Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffrey, 3.5. Fantasy
84. Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede, 3.5. Fantasy
85. Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey, 4. Fantasy
86. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, 5. General fiction
87. In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune, 3. Science Fiction
88. Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey, 3.5. Fantasy
89. The Fiancee Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur, 4. Romance
90. mindfulness guide by J. Mark G. Williams, 3.5. Self-Help
91. Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble by Alexis Hall, 4. Romance
92. Babel by R.F. Kuang, 5. Fantasy
93. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, 4.5. General fiction
94. Ravensong by T.J. Klune, 3.5. Fantasy
95. Mr Katō Plays Family by Milena Michiko Flašar, 3.5. General fiction
96. A Most Agreeable Murder by Julia Seales, 4. Mystery
97. The Weaver and the Witch Queen by Genevieve Gornichec, 4. Fantasy
98. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, 2. Classic
99. Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change by W. David Marx, 5. Anthropology/Cultural studies
100. And What We Can Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed, 4. Fantasy
101. The English Experience by Julie Schumacher, 4. General fiction
102. Poison or Protect by Gail Carriger, 4. Romance
103. City of Bones by Martha Wells, 4. Fantasy
104. The People We Hate at the Wedding by Grant Ginder, 3.5. General fiction
105. A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark, 4. Fantasy
106. Dome 6 by Gail Carriger, 4. Science Fiction
107. Death is a Lonely Business by Ray Bradbury, 3.5. Mystery
108. Enchanted to Meet You by Meg Cabot, 3. Romance
109. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, 4.5. Fantasy
110. Charlie All Night by Jennifer Crusie, 3. Romance
111. Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising by Timothy Zahn, 4. Science Fiction
112. Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good by Timothy Zahn, 4. Science Fiction
113. The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, 3. Fantasy
114. Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong, 3. Fantasy
115. The Marquis Who Mustn't by Courtney Milan, 5. Romance
116. Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale, 4.5. General fiction
117. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, 3. Fantasy
118. Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil by Timothy Zahn, 3.5. Science Fiction
119. Stronger Than a Bronze Dragon by Mary Fan, 3.5. Fantasy
120. Peril at Price Manor by Laura Parnum, 3.5. Children's
121. Do Your Worst by Rosie Danan, 3.5. Romance
122. Murder Most Faire by Teel James Glenn, 2.5. Mystery
123. Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher, 5. Humor
124. Tune In Tomorrow by Randee Dawn, 4. Fantasy
125. Small Miracles by Olivia Atwater, 5. Fantasy
126. Wings of Fire Legends: DragonSlayer by Tui T. Sutherland, 4. Fantasy
127. The Undetectables by Courtney Smyth, 3.5. Fantasy
128. Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire, 4.5. Fantasy
129. Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty, 5. Science Fiction
130. The Four ??? Of the Apocalypse by ed. Keith and Wren DeCandido, 3. Fantasy
131. Forget the Funnel by Georgiana Laudi, Claire Suellentrop, 3. Technical/Career
132. The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, 5. Fantasy
133. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, 5. Literary Fiction

The bullet points of the last six months:

- Last few months of the last job were very bad.

- The previous company botched their IPO so thoroughly we've had deeply distressing tax implications this year. (We can afford it, it just really sucks and has been incredibly stressful.)

- Last job implies - new job! With significantly more responsibilities, but money to match. Also a bit of a hot mess but in a completely different way and that way has a lot of things I can actually fix. I've got a behind-schedule product launch, my new industry is on strike, and I've got hella HR issues with my team. But I'm in the process of fixing A and C, and I'm having (stressful) fun.

- In between jobs, went to Mexico on a spontaneous solo trip. Saw Mayan pyramids, swam in cenotes with bats, ate really amazing food.

- Just got back from family trip to Greece that Chuckro did a substantial post.

- Turned in the edits on debut novel to editor on Sunday night.

- On hopefully last pass on the next novel before it goes to my agent.

- Still legally can't tell you about potentially interesting third development (very frustrating).

Whee!

I keep debating on whether to keep posting. I like having the records, and yet I feel stretched terribly thin. I think I'm moving to comment-less Goodreads posts - just stars, so I have the record - so I'll paste them in here. ...does anyone actually care, without the summaries?

1. Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer by Rax King, 5. Memoir
2. The Good-Enough Life by Avram Alpert, 3.5. Self-Help
3. The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal, 5. Science Fiction
4. What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist—the Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England by Daniel Pool, 4. History
5. The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang, 5. Romance
6. Servant of Empire by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts, 3.5. Fantasy
7. The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston, 4. Romance
8. A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, 4. Science Fiction
9. The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna, 4. Fantasy
10. Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge by Eleanor Herman, 3.5. History
11. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, 4. Fantasy
12. Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart, 3. Fantasy
13. One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston, 5. Romance
14. On Trails: An Exploration by Robert Moor, 3.5. Pop Science
15. Stiletto by Daniel O'Malley, 5. Fantasy
16. Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty, 4. Science Fiction
17. What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe, 5. Pop Science
18. Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao, 5. Science Fiction
19. The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington by Jennet Conant, 3.5. History
20. Mistress of Empire by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts, 3.5. Fantasy
21. Remind Me to Hate You Later by Lizzy Mason, 3.5. General fiction
22. The Company of the Dead by David Kowalski, 3. Science Fiction
23. A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab, 4. Fantasy
24. A Conjuring of LIght by V.E. Schwab, 4. Fantasy
25. The Hydrogen Revolution by Marco Alverà, 3. Pop Science
26. Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, 5. Fantasy
27. Sing Anyway by Anita Kelly, 3.5. Romance
28. All the Feels by Olivia Dade, 4. Romance
29. Of Dragons, Feasts, and Murders by Aliette de Bodard, 4. Fantasy
30. The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Ann Older, 4. Science Fiction
31. The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard, 4. Fantasy
32. The House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard, 4. Fantasy
33. The House of Sundering Flames by Aliette de Bodard, 4. Fantasy
34. Network Effect by Martha Wells, 5. Science Fiction
35. Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells, 4.5. Science Fiction

I've got like four different books currently in progress, so I imagine 2023 will get off to a fast start.

113. Barcelona by Gary McDonogh and Sergi Martinez-Rigol. 3. Competent enough history of the city. They use maps to orient each chapter, which sometimes makes things more clear and sometimes more muddled, but generally a good intro to the region.

114. History of Spain: A Captivating Guide to Spanish History, Starting from Roman Hispania through the Visigoths, the Spanish Empire, the Bourbons, and the War of Spanish Independence to the Present by Captivating History. 2. Ugh, I'd vaguely remembered that I'd read a Captivating History book before, but forgotten that they're basically a random series of Wikipedia articles with terrible pacing. (In my defense, I was reading this on the plane to Spain on a trip I'd planned with a week's notice, and had not done the research I'd usually do.) Like a quarter of the book is the Roman history, with incredibly needlessly detailed descriptions of individual battles of the Punic Wars. Then a mad rush through a lot of the Moorish/Medieval history. Wikipedia is cheaper and probably better organized.

115. Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. 4. Low stakes cozy fantasy in which an orc opens a coffee shop. Are you looking for sweeping adventure? Not happening. Are you looking for problem solving around the logistics of baked goods while building found family, with just enough conflict to keep things moving? This cinnamon bun of a book about cinnamon buns is your cup of...coffee.

116. The Bride Test by Helen Hoang. 4. Another charming romance from Hoang that features neurodivergent protagonists respectfully. Khai is an autistic American protagonist whose mom tries to mail order him a bride from Vietnam. Esme's willing to go along for a free get-to-know-you trip to the US so she can track down her father. Despite a million potential landmines, Hoang threads the needle deftly and sweetly.

117. Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes. 3.5. I appreciate how the messed up protagonists (he's a major league pitcher whose slump destroyed his career, she was about to leave her golden boy husband the night he died and is having trouble processing being a non-grieving widow) don't actually save each other. They have to save themselves before they can make things work.

118. Jolene by Mercedes Lackey. 3.5. Retelling of the Dolly Parton song as a fantasy Sixteen Tons in which Jolene may be an eldritch abomination? Why not?

119. To the Stars by George Takei. 3.5. Autobiography includes the sad but fascinating details of the actor's childhood in a relocation camp as well as a lot of the behind-the-scenes Star Trek info you'd expect. But it's from 1994, before he was out, so I imagine there's an entire parallel track of info we would get if this was written today that's entirely missing.

120. Closer to Home by Mercedes Lackey. 3. The Herald Spy books have somewhat better pacing than the Collegium Chronicles. If you haven't read Lackey, her earlier stuff is better, but I continue to find these comfort reads. I did appreciate that this had a few wrinkles I didn't predict from the obvious Romeo and Juliet set up.

121. Closer to the Heart by Mercedes Lackey. 3. Somewhat more complicated plotting, although I felt like Amily's roof running lessons were going to go somewhere but never did.

122. Closer to the Chest by Mercedes Lackey. 3. I feel like the titles between this and Closer to the Heart should have been swapped, TBH. Fun for Valdemar stans (which ok, I still am), repetitive for everyone else.

123. John Dies at the End by David Wong. 2.5. I think this one may have just been Not For Me. The combination of absurdist gross out horror sounded like I might enjoy it, but the climactic sequence finally brought home the degree to which body horror and penis jokes were just not landing for me.

124. What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher. 4.5. Incredibly creepy and effective retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher. Intense body horror done right. (You don't HAVE to read the Poe to appreciate it, but it helps. And the Poe is a novella in public domain, go pull it up on your phone.)

125. Calling on Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede. 4. This is an odd interstitial book in the Enchanted Forest chronicles, but the blue floating donkey alone is worth the price of admission.

126. All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. 5. Budding witch Patricia and shiny new mad scientist Laurence are the kind of friends you get when outcasts are shoved together in elementary school. But their thorny friendship into adulthood threatens to tear apart or repair the universe.

127. Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Anthology ed. by S.B. Divya and Mur Lafferty. 4. A collection of short stories from the podcast, featuring some of the best authors in fantasy and SF at the moment. I enjoyed the vast majority. A warning, though - as much of good SF can and should be, some of these are ANGRY.

128. Afterparty by Daryl Gregory. 5. A scientist who destroyed her life tries to keep the designer drug that makes you think you see God from hitting the market. Incredibly twisty and densely plotted, with some particularly clever tricks.

129. Truth of the Divine by Lindsay Ellis. 3.5. You can think something is very well done and not actually enjoy it very much. This sequel about a semi-disastrous first contact in Bush era America is pretty devastating. The author was in a black place in her life when she wrote it, and it's pretty much Major Depression, The Book.

130. Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise. 4. An adult Wendy tries to recover her daughter when Peter drags her unwilling to Neverland. I love the flashbacks to the asylum Wendy spends her early adulthood in (because where else do you put a girl who insists she went to a magic island in that time period?) as well as Neverland through the eyes of people who are less willing to put themselves under a bratty boy's spell.

131. Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher. 5. While the opening promises somewhat more horror than the rest of the book supports, this adult fantasy about a quest to destroy an evil king and save the protagonist's sister includes goblin markets, tentative romance, and a demon chicken. Also, how refreshing is it for the protagonist to be in her 30s and kind of frumpy instead of a dewy-eyed 18 who doesn't know she's beautiful (that's what makes her beautiful)?

132. Mash Up ed. by Gardner Dozois. 4.5. This anthology has each story begin with a famous line from another book. Even the ones I didn't like at first, I liked by the end.

133. The Lights of Prague by Nicole Jarvis. 4. Solid vampire hunter tale set in 1800s Prague. I should have seen the ending coming, but didn't, and was delighted.

134. The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher. 5. For a book with relatively little gore, this is incredibly creepy while also being surprisingly funny. But I think I particularly appreciated how well the author handles the usual questions (why doesn't she call for help? Why doesn't she leave the haunted house?), while keeping her narrator genre-aware in retrospect.

135. The Stars We Steal by Alexa Donne. 3.5. This loose science fiction retelling of Persuasion is fun YA fluff, although I was terribly disappointed the little sister didn't leap and demand to be caught on the spacewalk.

136. The Councillor by E.J. Beaton. 5. Dark and broody political fantasy with some excellent twists, although I'm not sure the addiction thread really pays off in any particular way.

( Long story short )

But in the meantime, I had sudden unexpected time off. So I went to Barcelona!

So I have news - my debut novel, Dreadful, is going to be published by Titan in April 2024!

Stress levels = not better. Combo of stuff I can't talk about and stuff I'm not ready to talk about and stuff I'm too tired to talk about. Have short book reviews instead.

72. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. 4. There are middle grade books that are equally appealing to adults, and middle grade books that are excellent for what they are, and this summer camp for Greek gods' kids leans towards the latter. But I hope my kid picks it up.

73. Still Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton. 3.5. So Wheaton wrote a lot of blog posts, and then annotated them into a book, and then re-annotated that. Honestly, a bunch of the earlier posts are not particularly well written and come off as whiny and kind of prejudiced. But he's cringing even more than you can, so it's forgivable. Also, damn, this dude's parents suck.

74. Seasonal Fears by Seanan McGuire. 3.5. Not as strong as the first in the series, which was heavily experimental and brilliantly conceived. I found the degree to which the info dumping was lampshaded and spread out irritating, and the pacing of the ending just didn't really work for me. I realize it was kind of horror pacing versus fantasy pacing, but it was pretty obvious things weren't resolved.

75. A Lowcountry Bride by Preslaysa Williams. 3.5. Sweet little love story, but the barriers she put in the way were kind of infuriating. (And I specifically mean the way the job and the daughter were handled.) On the other hand, I appreciated how (minor spoilers) chronic illness was handled as a whole - there's no impossible magical fix, but the protagonist is still worthy of (and gets) love even if she knows she's looking at a likely early death.

76. Last Tang Standing by Lauren Ho. 4. On one hand, this is a pretty obvious imitation of Crazy Rich Asians with its status-obsessed, brand-name dropping, outrageously wealthy Singaporeans. On the other, it's still loads of fun.

77. Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat. 5. One of the best cookbooks I've ever read, ever. Incredibly detailed and factual and yet still compulsively readable.

78. The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber. 4. This science fiction novel of a missionary on an alien world while our own collapses into apocalypse was fascinating in that I utterly could not predict the plot arc. I had NO idea where the author was going, in a good way.

79. I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider. 3. These mostly single-page comics about books and reading are entertaining as standalones, but were clearly meant to be read days apart on social media. They get pretty repetitive all in a row.

54. Monster in My Closet by R.L. Naquin. 3.5. Points for urban fantasy where the heroine isn't hard-bitten or ass-kicking. Extra point for some less obvious monsters instead of the overdone vampires/werewolves/elves. Subtract points for the part where she's a total moron about what's going on with her best friend when it's painfully obvious.

55. How to Marry a Werewolf by Gail Carriger. 4. She's a disgraced bluestocking sent to make a good match, he's a grumpy furry government agent, they unite to put their tragic pasts behind them and also humiliate her asshole parents.

56. The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang. 5. Romance featuring an autistic heroine written by an actual autistic woman, so this smart, sweet romance feels nuanced and authentic and doesn't leave you with that icky feeling that maybe the author is exploiting someone else's story. Also, really hot sex scenes.

57. The 5th Gender by G.L. Carriger. 4. Fizzy SF mystery with a lot of alien sex in it. Yes, it's a weird place, genre-wise.

58. Moby Dick by Herman Melville. 3...5...? I dunno how to even rate this thing. Foundational, deeply weird classic. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes amazing action scenes, with an experimental post-modern thing going half a century too early and infamously too much detail about whales. Some of it hilariously incorrect. The second time I've read this thing, took longer than the first. (In my defense, I started it, got halfway through, slid into a depression that has nothing to do with poor Ishmael, and really haven't been in the headspace to deal with this and limped through the second half this time.)

59. The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle. 5. An alternative take on Lovecraft's "Horror at Red Hook" but largely from the perspective of a Black musician/con artist, written by a Black author. Actually addressing the crimes of racism at the time, this is significantly more nuanced, terrifying, evocative, and interesting story than the original it's based on.

60. Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade. 5. Real person Game of Thrones Jaime fanfic with the serial numbers filed off wait no come back it's great I promise. He's a star in a smash hit fantasy TV series with terrible showrunners that outpaced the book, she's a fat scientist who writes fanfiction, oh wait but HE SECRETLY ALSO WRITES FANFICTION ABOUT HIS CHARACTER and he totally starts dating her but doesn't tell her they're actually friends online and really, I promise, it's great.

61. Empire State by Adam Christopher. 2.5. Christopher really wants you to question what's really going on, but to the point that I just couldn't care about most of the twists by the end. When all our information about what will or will not happen when the maguffin maguffins comes from people who have repeatedly lied and who you can't figure out whose side they're on, it's hard to tell if you want the hero to succeed or not...or whether they succeeded in the end. Anyway, Prohibition, private eyes, superheroes, pocket universes, doppelgangers, shadowy conspiracies blah blah blah. Stylish but too convoluted.

62. Naamah's Blessing by Jacqueline Carey. 4. At this point, Carey's clearly tired of the kinky-sex-and-convoluted-politics she built this series on, because this one's almost straight adventure. But it's cool Renaissance-in-the-Americas, with magic and real gods and oh, someone manages to cure smallpox so the Spanish-analogues fail to topple the Aztec-analogues. And the creepiest use of ants ever.

63.The Devil's Delilah by Loretta Chase. 2.5. The plot, revolving around a stolen manuscript changing hands, is dizzy enough to irritate but not dizzy enough to rise to the farce it wants to be. I really, really wanted to like the sweet, bookish hero. But while he struggles to break free of the old school alpha male role, he keeps falling back in because the author doesn't seem to be able to think of a hero as sexy unless he's lost control with lust or is secretly masterminding while refusing to give the heroine useful information. Which means that the poor dude keeps breaking his own character.

44. The Astronaut and the Star by Jen Comfort. 4. She's a super competitive astronaut, he's a goofy movie star with undiagnosed ADHD. They fight sort-of crime, mostly bad parents and stupid YouTubers. Sweet and charming.

45. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. 5. Somewhere between self-help and philosophy, a musing on what we should actually think about doing for a meaningful life from someone who fully admits he doesn't have neat answers.

46. My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George. 3.5. I adored this as a kid, and have always had a soft spot for castaway narratives. As an adult, this is a little on the smug side. Usually, the castaway has a good reason they have to do the survivalist thing; in this, the kid runs away and the parents are genially cool with it. Also, it's unbelievable in how easily everything works out for him. But the falcon's cool.

47. Penric's Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold. 5. The first of the Penric novels (it took me a little while to find my copy). Painfully innocent nobleman accidentally gets possessed by an incredibly powerful demon, and instead of freaking out or going on a rampage, decides to make friends with her.

48. Naamah's Curse by Jacqueline Carey. 4. There's a lot of rehashing the previous book, but given that I had more than a decade between the first and second books, that's probably a good thing. As is typical of the series at this point, we have a major travelogue with a meandering plot (punctuated by plenty of sexytimes). All of which is genuinely enthralling world-building and pretty great sexytimes.

49. The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook. 3.5. Steampunk swashbuckler with a very convoluted backstory involving the Golden Horde taking over Europe via nanobots and zombies but is mostly about the sexy sexy air pirate-turned Duke. I feel like there were some cool themes that kept getting brought up and then not fully exploited.

50. The Quiet Gentleman by Georgette Heyer. 3.5. I feel like Heyer usually gets filed under Regency Romance, but this one is really a Regency mystery in which a minor character eventually ends up with the hero. The romance part is pretty underdeveloped, but the mystery is fun. The snark is top notch.

51. Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer. 2. In which Heyer shows her age unfavorably. Minor bits of ugly racism. But mostly a domineering hero and a completely idiotic damsel in a very old-school romance arc. Tries to do a bunch of misdirection with a mystery, but it's pretty obvious where it's going, and almost everyone needs to be slapped upside the head with a rolled up newspaper. Did Not Age Well.

52. Planesrunner by Ian McDonald. 3. The first couple chapters promise reality hopping, but 9/10 of the book is bogged down on one (admittedly cool) electropunk world. There's some cool stuff here, but the plot of the book are really disconnected from the plot of the trilogy in a way that kind of turned me off.

51. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. 5. A small not-quite-literary, not-quite-romance contemporary fiction about rock and roll and comic books and being a teenager and abusive parents and falling in love. The author's voice is just so compelling, though, I felt like I was half in the characters' heads hours after I finished reading it.

14. The Rook by Daniel O'Malley. 5. Waking up with no memory in a dangerous situation is a running trope, but this one adds superpowers and shadowy government agencies in a particularly delightful way.

15. A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar. 3.5. Dreamy and wandering, this fantasy kind of reminds me of Wild Sargasso Sea in tone and disillusionment.

16. The Afterward by E.K. Johnston. 3.5. I liked the characters, and I really liked the hook of the aftermath of the big fantasy battle against the evil god. But the two plots really had nothing to do with each other, and one resolved so incredibly conveniently for the character that it felt a little cheap.

17. The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan. 4.5. Really fascinating historical overview trying to take the Middle East and Central Asia as the center of the story instead of Europe. (I say "trying" because it's still unbalanced - we get a bunch of asides about what's going on in backwater England, with surprisingly little about what's going on in China or Southeast Asia to balance.) Still, it's phenomenally well done and a perspective Western audiences don't usually get exposed to.

18. The Oracle Glass by Judith Merkle Riley. 5. Hidden history in which the fortune-tellers of Louis XIV were real magicians. It's not a spoiler, since his name is in the cast, but the demon who shows up towards the end and is petulantly funny is my favorite.

19. The Silk Road by Captivating History. 2.5. Bought this by mistake when I was trying for Frankopan's book. Reads kind of like a lot of Wikipedia articles strung together. There's some interesting info here, but it's rather slim for the topic, especially given that about half of it is about Ghengis and Kublai Khan. (Poor Timur/Tamerlane and Zheng He each get, like, a paragraph, in comparison.)