What have you been reading this December? > Likes and Comments

Well, this is it. We're into the home stretch for this year. Only 31 days left to finish Bingos and reading targets 😁

I still have...too many...on my BINGO to go. How did I let myself slip so much, I was ahead at the start of the year LOL

With the start of a new month I'll start a new book, Out of Oz by Gregory Maguire

That will fill my Free BINGO slot since it was a Christmas gift from last year (and bonus, I'll actually read a book within a year of receiving it as a gift, that doesn't happen often!)

The Apothecary Diaries, Vol. 14 by Nekokurage

Andrea wrote: "I still have...too many...on my BINGO to go. How did I let myself slip so much, I was ahead at the start of the year LOL
"

I find it is easy to lose track of progress on the Bingo, especially when life intervenes. That was the main reason behind this year's focus on getting to my Bingo books early. But it did lead to starting a few series and not immediately continuing because only the first book counted towards the Bingo. I have a few series to go back and read more of.

Now I just have to hit my reading target for the year - but I think I've only got 2 or 3 books to go, so I should be ok.

As the BINGO card creator it was skewed towards me being to able to use more than one book from the various series I had picked to cover BINGO slots. But plans change, like I wanted to use one for the dark fantasy but it wasn't particularly dark so had to jiggle things around.

I've actually done a year where I just tried to catch up on series I had started. Can always plan to do a half BINGO instead, to give some inspiration but at same time allowing you to finish some things you started that don't fit the slots. The challenge lets you pick how many you plan to actually read and you succeed when you hit that count rather than actually filling the whole card :)

Though its satisfying to fill the card too. Having a "make progress in a series" slot helps a little, I'll consider adding that. This year had the "finish a trilogy"

Those are good ideas, Andrea

Started off December by finishing Shadows Linger by Glen Cook, which is the 2nd Black Company book. I liked book 1 but book 2 was great. Really liked the addition of the 2nd pov, Shed, and his story line. Moving on to book 3, The White Rose, which I think is the final one in the Books of North.

I had to read The Glass Scientists: Volume One before I had to return it to the library. I read a few other graphic novels in this kind of...style...I guess you could call it (target age group, art style), and they were all really heavy on dealing with mental health, depression and such. This one touches on it, but it doesn't turn into a therapy book, its still a fun read and I thought a very enjoyable take on Jekyll & Hyde

'Amber Sea' by Lance W Marker. I was wacthing a documentary about Life on Venus (BBC Sky at Night). Couldn't resist it since I read Derek Kunsken 3 years ago (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amber-Sea-La... )

Finished The Glass Scientists: Volume 2, just as fun as volume 1.

I'm a third of the way through Starbound. It's considerably less YA than the first book in the series, which makes sense as the first book covered a period of several years, and this one will cover a period of 13 years / 50 years (the difference being due to relativistic time frames). I expect to make better progress from now, as work finally appears to be calming down - no more 14 / 15 hour days.

I've been catching up on a few murder mysteries, too many to list here. One thing that's really beginning to annoy is the (lazy?) shorthand that seems to be fairly common in the genre. A disproportionate number of the murderers are female and a disproportionate number of the victims are also female. Anyone who lives in a modernist house, (think 'Grand Designs') is automatically suspect. Such houses are always a blot on the landscape, grandiose and comfortless and their owners arrogant misfits. A building over a century old usually belongs to a warm and wonderful human being, unless they happen to be an inbred sample of the undeserving upper classes.

I'm not suggesting that these books are, or should be, realistic but there seems to be a trend for trying to make the mystery less obvious by using these tropes. It's so pervasive that the mystery element is, instead, being lost. I don't go for the gritty realism of the real hard edged detective novel, I'm too much of a wimp for that, but I do want some element of unpredictability, so that I don't know who did it after a couple of chapters. (That's not a boast about my cleverness in spotting the clues). It doesn't just apply to books. In the last fortnight, I've watched and read well over a dozen such mysteries and there have been two male killers and more female killers than murders (conspiracy). It's boring.

Hee, hee, hee... I see you Isabella 😁 I must admit to watching too many American police procedurals and you very soon begin to spot the tropes and all the writer's little moves. The most seemingly insignificant but likeable character introduced early on then largely sidelined, eg: the helpful cheerful but much put upon secretary is probably going to be revealed as the murderer in the final act. Similarly, you should always look out for the expensive quest star who doesn't seem to have much to do, or even appears to 'die' halfway through. Undoubtedly the villain. 😁 It is also fun to see the shows swap plotlines as the writer's rooms from one show do their take on the plot another show did a couple of months ago, eg: The illegitimate child of the unpleasant tycoon who fools him by working as his much abused PA under a pseudonym in order to murder him and inherit the empire. 😁

like you Isabella, I'm not pretending to be clever, it's just that once you watch a few of these shows, you begin to see how they like to construct their stories. It's not a case of following the clues, more the way the story is put together, directed and musical cues inserted.

What? Yes I know, but American police procedurals are undemanding and so kind of restful. TV comfort food.😁

Finished Blood and Other Cravings...there were maybe 5 stories I liked in this? Half the time though I couldn't even identify the craving, and since I was wanting supernatural stories, too many seemed to fall under people just having some mental breakdowns. And there were a couple stories that were good, but were a bit more disturbing than I was comfortable with, guess those stories achieved their goal but *shudders*

At least my anthology is slot is filled on my BINGO. And I'm probably putting this book into our local Little Free Library so made some room on my bookshelf ;)

Not starting anything new, I still have A Book of Tongues on my eReader and Out of Oz in dead tree form.

I just finished up Cackle, and I'm working on A Guardian and a Thief and A Memory Called Empire, which I am really enjoying. I'm a smidge behind on my ARCs so I need to get caught up haha

finished in 3 days it was a giant train puzzle that kept getting more complicated. it was simultaneously annoying and hard to put down. both character and reader have to figure out the new floor layout each book but this train layover from hell with monsters that evolve to be progressively more aggressive as the crawlers break a system that was intentionally made to break as they solve it was a giant head ache. we already know from book one that the aliens are dicks because they cause Armageddon and then treat it like amazing race/ survivor galactic style. but unlike the previous floors the answer to the puzzle is unfair because they are not given any info to solve it just thrown in a changing maze and hope they don't die. don't get me wrong still funny but i like the floor set up off the next book much better its kinda mad max-ish with clear quest goals
other books i'm pecking at this month are all urban fantasy stuff that's been loaded on my kindle for a while will update if i finish any.
just finished The Gate of the Feral Gods
This book was so good the floor is split into bubbles with 4 quadrants and in order to escape the floor each quadrant boss must be defeated. Carl can talk to some people he met on the previous floor but not everyone and they must solve each portion of the puzzle. Each quadrants goal is related to an ancient ghost. some factions want to bring it back to life and others do not. Of course things do not go to plan because the show runners, AI, and the Skull Empire keep intervening and cant decide weather to kill the team or milk them for ratings . So of course he must blow shit up. there are gods sea monsters and cyborg alien things. have fun :) oh and the AI goes is psycho and plays a round of kiss , marry, kill with the crawlers because borant intervened again. it was fun.

I read a MG novel that I do not have enough superlatives for! The Key to Extraordinary . One of the best feel good books I've read this year!

Isabella wrote: "I've been catching up on a few murder mysteries, too many to list here. One thing that's really beginning to annoy is the (lazy?) shorthand that seems to be fairly common in the genre. A disproport..."

Hmm Might I suggest that it could just be the type of murder mystery? I read quite a lot of mysteries myself, but cant say that Ive noticed these being overwhelming tropes across the genre. The only one I'd agree with is women as victims. I'd agree, especially in modern murder mysteries, the murder victims are disproportionately women for sure.

But when it comes to houses, cant say Ive noticed that. There is definitely the trope on the other side of the suspicious denizens of victorian homes, haha. And as far as perpetrators, I find in those I read they tend to be men rather than women.

My thought is, perhaps widen reading to different sub-genres be it historical mysteries, Nordic noir, golden age mysteries and so on.

I read The Female Man by Joanna Russ, which was released in 1975, fifty years ago. Four identical women separated by probability are put together for a reason only revealed at the end of the novel. The novel explores how each of these women are shaped by their different upbringings. Disturbing and thought provoking.
I plan to read The Mad Ship (Book #2 of the Liveship Traders) by Robin Hobb next. Rare ships of wizardwood are owned by generational families and used to trade expensive goods. The ships are sentient and tuned to the family. Piracy is prevalent in this world and complicates the plot.

Late last night I finished reading for the second time The Shadow of What Was Lost. I enjoyed that second reading a lot more than the first time. I have now started the second reading of the next volume in the trilogy, An Echo of Things to Come. The first reading of that book, two years ago, ended with a DNF, I hope that this time I'll read it to the end with pleasure.

I finished Starbound. I thought it was better than the first book in the series - Marsbound - but I'm not really sure where the story is going to go in the final part of the trilogy - Earthbound.

I have started reading War in 2080, which is not (strictly speaking) SF. David Langford is a physicist and an award-winning SF author, and in 1979 he wrote this book speculating on what warfare would be like a century in the future. We're nearly halfway through that period.

I'm reading the latest Bernard Cornwell: Sharpe's Storm.

Re-read The Death of Dulgath; read Wool Omnibus; in the middle of Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds.

When I was at Dragonsteel last weekend, it was painfully obvious that I need to catch up on my Sanderson and re-read some stuff, so I'm thinking of making next year my "year of Sanderson."

Finished The Walking Cat: A Cat's-Eye-View of the Zombie Apocalypse Vols. 1-3. You know how there are a lot of cute, cozy cat mangas out there? This is that. Its also a zombie apocalypse so people are dying and being eaten and stuff. But the cat is still cute. Bizarre combo but I sorta liked it.

Also finished A Book of Tongues for my Weird West slot. I'm trying to decide what I think about this thing, its definitely different. On the one hand, there is a lot of very explicit gay sex bordering on erotica (or maybe all the way over into it). On the other, those scenes are integral to the plot, they aren't gratuitous. Being in the heads of the characters during those scenes turns out to be important later on. Of the 3 main characters, 2 are villains, but at the same time you get this "aww but they love each other" even as they're going around robbing and killing, because they're partly doing it because they want to take care of each other (they're outlaws, they can't get a regular job)...but also because they are nasty guys and enjoy the killing. It's like, I dunno, Dexter? Only they don't restrict themselves to killing bad people.

Toss in some Aztec mythology and the Weird West gets really really weird.

Books I'm starting now:

For my Underground BINGO slot I've got Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. I've read a surprising amount of Gaiman, or Gaiman inspired stuff this year.

And I have a library book to hurry up and return - The Lake of Souls by Darren Shan. This doesn't help my BINGO but its short and I'm so close to finishing the series...

On my eReader I'm staring on Longknifes Defend the Legation by Mike Shepherd which is the last Kris Longknife book, and clearly NOT the end of the series. Guess that will never be written he's got two HUGE plotlines that moved at a snail's pace and are gonna be left dangling unless he pulls a Deus Ex Machina in this one. I don't intended to finish this by the end of the year. Pretty much just need *something* on my eReader if case I use public transit or sit in a doctor's office where I can't put my hands on other books.

As for Out of Oz I mentioned earlier, its long at 600+ pages, so I put it aside for now, I've read lots of library books this year so I can fill in the "free" BINGO slot using one of those. I don't think I'll be able to fit it along with my 3 other books for my BINGO otherwise :)

Flecker’s Magic by Norman H. Matson

Blind Date with a Werewolf . I set aside today to read this and I absolutely loved it!! Total fun! I laughed my way through the first story, and was a wee bit disappointed the others weren't nearly as funny. I loved how the stories all connected and I loved the ending.

Been reading all of the Narnia books out loud to my son this year. We recently finished The Magician’s Nephew and are about halfway through The Silver Chair.

But it has me thinking, especially as someone who reads broadly, reads SFF fantasy broadly, and likes to argue with authors (what, you don't talk to your books alone in your room?). So I've got a hot take on why Narnia is good because it is kind of the punk rock position in modern SFF... I'm pretty sure you guys will have some very smart rebuttals to my late night rantings.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

So, I finished V E Schwab's 'A Darker Shade of Magic' and I give it a solid four stars. Not five, even though I did enjoy it, mainly because the characters are the sort of people you only meet in books and never in real life. That this is Fantasy doesn't excuse that. I did in fact like the characters, I just didn't quite believe in them. The knock on from that was that I didn't quite believe in the
perils and danger either, if you see what I mean?

I enjoyed it enough though, that I will likely finish the trilogy if I can pick up the other two books at a price I'm happy to pay.😊

Something I did wonder, was whether V E Schwab and Brandon Sanderson had a bet, or something to see who could write the best novel that begins when a character called Kel/Kell with powerful magical abilities, meets a young, female street thief who tends to dress in men's clothes and has magic of her own that she is largely unaware of.🤣

Next, and in keeping with a personal tradition of mine, I shall be reading Christmas Ghost Stories, mainly of the Victorian and Edwardian kind. I have picked up a collection called 'Spooky Christmas.' I have read some of them before but since the e-book cost me the princely sum of 49 pence😁 I don't much mind skipping a story here and there. 😊

Robin wrote: "I did in fact like the characters, I just didn't quite believe in them."

Well, even in a fantasy, humans are human (assuming those characters were humans) so they should be believable humans. But its the perils and dangers that make a fantasy a fantasy, those should be believable within the rules set out by the book's worldbuilding, but otherwise get free rein.

Yes, the perils and such were perfectly consistent with the world building etc, I wouldn't have given a 4 if they weren't. No, it's me really. I had a slight disconnect, because I found the characters likeable but not realistic, very much 'fictional' characters (which of course they are). Because they were not entirely real to me, the danger didn't feel real either. Just a personal thing, others may well feel differently, in fact I'm sure that they do, since it is a very popular book. And as I say, it won't stop me from reading the rest of the trilogy if I can pick it up at the right price. 😊

I do a lot of that, the "I'll read more of this series if I can find it at the library". Between the library, the free library boxes, used bookstores, eBook deals and discount stores like BookOutlet I rarely buy a book full price unless someone gives me a gift card for Indigo...which people do since its hard to buy a book for me which I don't already have or have read :) Plus its fun for me to browse and see what I discover.

Return to the True Game - Jinian Footseer - Teri S Tepper

Robin wrote: "So, I finished V E Schwab's 'A Darker Shade of Magic' and I give it a solid four stars. Not five, even though I did enjoy it, mainly because the characters are the sort of people you only meet in b..."

I did enjoy this first book in the series, but the problems you identify, for me, escalated in the subsequent issues.

Andrea wrote: "I do a lot of that, the "I'll read more of this series if I can find it at the library". Between the library, the free library boxes, used bookstores, eBook deals and discount stores like BookOutle..."

The ability to get books from the library on my Kindle is such a game-changer. As much as I love physical books, I've got several forces in my life that consistently drive me to that easy-button. And my shelves are very full. But I do try and buy books that make a big impact on me or are freaking brilliant or are pretty and just good enough.

Finished Neverwhere, Gaiman is able to create the most bizarre and interesting characters, as well as locations. Turns out this is also a TV show and I found it on youtube so I know what I'll be watching once I'm done with all the Christmas prep I still have to do. This fills my underground BINGO slot.

My copy also has the short story How the Marquis Got His Coat Back so reading that today

I also finished Lord of the Shadows by Darren Shan, these are quick reads and I've only got the last one left so gonna try to get that in by the end of the year, just to be able to add one more "completed" series to my series tracking post :)

Thanks for letting us know Neverwhere is on youtube. It is also available from my library, but this is one step easier than my DVD player! (Talk about lazy!)

Andrea wrote: "Finished Neverwhere, Gaiman is able to create the most bizarre and interesting characters, as well as locations. Turns out this is also a TV show and I found it on youtube so I know what I'll be wa..."

I maybe be biased because I saw the TV show before I read the book, but I thought the TV show was better than the book, although I enjoyed that as well.

The TV series came first, though they kind of were done in parallel, Gaiman putting stuff into the book that he couldn't put into the series (and maybe vice-versa) so you might be right as to which is really the better of the two :)

Starting on another BINGO book A Rope of Thorns by Gemma Files which is very much not a Christmasy book :)

I am always disappointed by V E Schwab. Great premises, poor executions. Annoying, shallow characters? I don't know.

No Man's Land: Volume 1 by Sarah A. Hoyt

No Man's Land: Volume 2 by Sarah A. Hoyt

I have finished Marsbound / Starbound / Earthbound. The three books tell a continuous story, but are all quite different in style and tone. Earthbound, the final book, was the most thought-provoking, but I also found it the least satisfying.

I'm a bit over halfway through War in 2080. I'm finding it interesting, but predicting the technology of 100 years in the future (at the time of writing) requires a level of prescience that the author hasn't displayed, which is hardly surprising given the technological advances of the last century.

I have started reading The High Crusade

No Man's Land: Volume 3 by Sarah A. Hoyt