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Last of the 2018 books!
#98: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. 3.5. So a big part of the popularity of this series is the love story, including the steamy sex scenes. A lot of which...didn't do it for me. Jaime seems reasonably historically accurate in attitudes, and it's not super appealing. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the double-dose of historical fiction from a 1945 nurse time traveling to 1743.
#99: Crap Dates: Disastrous Encounters from Single Life Ed. by Rhodri Marsden. 2.5. A series of generally 2 sentence anecdotes. Mildly amusing, not brilliantly so. A thing to read on your phone while in line at the grocery store.
#100: Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City by Peter Demetz. 3. Interesting but a bit frustrating. This history of Prague tends to spiral a bit, leaping ahead and doubling back, dropping references that don't make sense to someone not well-versed in Czech history and then explaining them 40 pages later. Some periods are described in exhaustive detail, others basically skipped. There's a certain assumption that the reader has a grade school knowledge of Bohemia, which I don't think most English-speakers have.
#101: Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon. 4. We're past the courtship phase of the great romance in this continuation from Outlander, and I like the book the better for it. Stories often end post-marriage, but relationships very much don't. Also, the historical intrigues step up, which is what I'm really in this for.
#102: Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. 5. "Story of Your Life" was the basis for the movie Arrival, which was about all I knew going into this anthology. Chiang's work is amazing (although not always comfortable). One or two of these didn't grab me as much as the others, but "Story of Your Life," "Division by Zero," and "Hell is the Absence of God" are all deeply original, thoughtful, thought-provoking, and devastating.
#103: Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear. 5. One of the best steampunk novels I've read, although not one of the most original. We've got all the trappings here - airships, submarines, exoskeletons, Gold Rushes, hookers with hearts of gold. None of them particularly original. But she manages to write a first person prostitute protagonist without sensationalizing or any sex scenes whatsoever. We've got multiple characters of color, from all different backgrounds. Great LGBT characters. All of it organic, compelling, and delightful. The plot is suitably twisty, with great character beats and a couple fabulous set pieces. And her narrator's voice is an absolute delight. Really, the entire thing rests on Karen's voice, and Karen is hilarious, touching, and generally just plain awesome.
#104: Lady of Devices by Shelley Adina. 3. This steampunk romp turned out to be more like a prequel to any real series - it's almost entirely set up without any actual plot. Entertaining but a bit derivative, and takes a sudden turn for the wildly implausible halfway through as our debutante-wannabe-inventor suddenly shacks up with a crew of criminal orphans. Any real payoff must be in subsequent books.
So it occurs to me...I haven't been counting books I've read with Alex. Which makes sense with picture books and somewhat less with chapter books, which we're now hitting. So...I guess there's a handful more that I didn't include here. Ah well.
Stats:
Fantasy 42
Science Fiction 16
Romance 13
Science Fiction/Fantasy 5
Mystery 4
History 4
Humor 3
Classic 3
Historical fiction 3
Literary Fiction 2
General fiction 2
Children's 2
Self-Help 2
Memoir 1
Drama 1
Pop Science 1
Includes male authors: 38
Includes female authors: 78
This year especially turned into a comfort-reading year - makes for a lot less nonfiction, literary, etc. But still, there's variety there.
#99: Crap Dates: Disastrous Encounters from Single Life Ed. by Rhodri Marsden. 2.5. A series of generally 2 sentence anecdotes. Mildly amusing, not brilliantly so. A thing to read on your phone while in line at the grocery store.
#100: Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City by Peter Demetz. 3. Interesting but a bit frustrating. This history of Prague tends to spiral a bit, leaping ahead and doubling back, dropping references that don't make sense to someone not well-versed in Czech history and then explaining them 40 pages later. Some periods are described in exhaustive detail, others basically skipped. There's a certain assumption that the reader has a grade school knowledge of Bohemia, which I don't think most English-speakers have.
#101: Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon. 4. We're past the courtship phase of the great romance in this continuation from Outlander, and I like the book the better for it. Stories often end post-marriage, but relationships very much don't. Also, the historical intrigues step up, which is what I'm really in this for.
#102: Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. 5. "Story of Your Life" was the basis for the movie Arrival, which was about all I knew going into this anthology. Chiang's work is amazing (although not always comfortable). One or two of these didn't grab me as much as the others, but "Story of Your Life," "Division by Zero," and "Hell is the Absence of God" are all deeply original, thoughtful, thought-provoking, and devastating.
#103: Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear. 5. One of the best steampunk novels I've read, although not one of the most original. We've got all the trappings here - airships, submarines, exoskeletons, Gold Rushes, hookers with hearts of gold. None of them particularly original. But she manages to write a first person prostitute protagonist without sensationalizing or any sex scenes whatsoever. We've got multiple characters of color, from all different backgrounds. Great LGBT characters. All of it organic, compelling, and delightful. The plot is suitably twisty, with great character beats and a couple fabulous set pieces. And her narrator's voice is an absolute delight. Really, the entire thing rests on Karen's voice, and Karen is hilarious, touching, and generally just plain awesome.
#104: Lady of Devices by Shelley Adina. 3. This steampunk romp turned out to be more like a prequel to any real series - it's almost entirely set up without any actual plot. Entertaining but a bit derivative, and takes a sudden turn for the wildly implausible halfway through as our debutante-wannabe-inventor suddenly shacks up with a crew of criminal orphans. Any real payoff must be in subsequent books.
So it occurs to me...I haven't been counting books I've read with Alex. Which makes sense with picture books and somewhat less with chapter books, which we're now hitting. So...I guess there's a handful more that I didn't include here. Ah well.
Stats:
Fantasy 42
Science Fiction 16
Romance 13
Science Fiction/Fantasy 5
Mystery 4
History 4
Humor 3
Classic 3
Historical fiction 3
Literary Fiction 2
General fiction 2
Children's 2
Self-Help 2
Memoir 1
Drama 1
Pop Science 1
Includes male authors: 38
Includes female authors: 78
This year especially turned into a comfort-reading year - makes for a lot less nonfiction, literary, etc. But still, there's variety there.
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