Comics I've Read in 2010

Graphic Novel section [17 total]
[EDIT- added Angel: After the Fall and Invincible Iron Man: The Five Nightmares]

• Angel: After the Fall by Joss Whedon, Brian Lynch, and Franco Urru. [Whedon was the co-plotter here, but the writing is mainly Lynch, as I understand it. For fans of the Angel TV series, which itself was a spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this comic series continues the storyline, which ended with the beginning of a huge battle between all the demonic forces of Wolfram and Hart and Angel and his surviving buddies. I found it kind of disappointing, to be honest. It continues the trend seen in the Buffy comics of throwing in effects and scale at a level beyond what the TV budget would allow for, which is fine as far as it goes, but everything here is a bit too chaotic. They've made big changes to several of the main characters, completely altered the setting by dropping the city of Los Angeles into a Hell Dimension, and they start in media res and take a long time to explain just what's going on. Every chapter (representing an issue) seems to end on a different, shocking cliffhanger/revelation, and by the end of the graphic novel, which also ends in that fashion, I was a bit jaded. There's some snappy dialogue, but I felt as though a lot of stuff got changed just for the sake of changing it. To be honest, this was a problem with the television series as well in its last two seasons, where they made a LOT of weak character decisions and dubious transformations. So if you're a completist, pick this up, but be prepared to need the other volumes almost immediately to make any sense of what's happening.]
  
• The Boys, Vol. 1: The Name of the Game by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson [I'm not linking to any of these books as I wouldn't want to encourage anybody to read them. :-)]
  
• The Boys, Vol. 2: Get Some
• The Boys, Vol. 3: Good for the Soul
• The Boys, Vol. 4: We Gotta Go Now [I checked out all four of these volumes at once at the recommendation of a librarian who I talk to sometimes who has suggested some good reads in the past. These weren't among them. Short story: self-indulgent grossness for the sake of grossness, paper-thin commentary on celebrity, laughable pretense at serving the public, nothing worthwhile that hasn't been done better in other series with vastly more taste. I have a hard time believing that this series continues or that these have actually been popular enough to reissue in hardcover. Longer review here. Now I just have to figure out what to say to the librarian if he asks me what I thought of these, because he is a nice guy.]
• Brit by Robert Kirkman [meh, a lot of action, a couple unusual characters but everything feels really rushed, didn't excite me.]
• Checkmate/Outsiders: Checkout by Greg Rucka and Judd Winick. [Got this crossover for my birthday. A fun read, but a bit confusing because while I've read all the Checkmate titles that sandwiched around this story, I haven't seen the Outsiders stories that immediately preceded it, just the early Outsiders stuff, and the makeup and dynamic of the team had clearly changed a bit in the interim.]
• Crisis on Infinite Earths by Wolfman and Perez [Not good, the writing feels very, very dated and melodramatic, but the art by George Perez is great and I had fun reading this with Will.]
• Gotham Central Volume 1: In the Line of Duty, written by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker, art by Michael Lark. [Really good stories about the police in Gotham who have to deal with cases related directly and obliquely to all the costumed criminals, as well as not knowing what the Batman is up to.]
• Gotham Central Volume 2: Half a Life. [The story in this graphic novel won an Eisner, I believe. It tells the story of detective Renee Montoya, her public outing as a lesbian, and her dealing with false charges of murder.]
• Gotham Central Volume 3: Unresolved Targets. [A great and chilling story involving the Joker terrorizing Gotham that I have to think influenced the plot of The Dark Knight movie, followed by a good story involving the Mad Hatter and disgraced cop Harvey Bullock.]
• Gotham Central Volume 4: The Quick and the Dead. [I liked the opening story about a corrupt forensic specialist selling supervillain related crime scene paraphenalia online a little better than the following story involving little used villain Dr. Alchemy, but the very Hannibal Lector-esque take on Alchemy was fun to read if not entirely original.]
• Gotham Central Volume 5: Dead Robin [The final collection of the series. The title story, which comes first, is very interesting and plays off an interesting fact--when dead teenagers dressed up as Robin start appearing, no one on the police force has any way of knowing if any of them are the real Robin. They don't even know if there are multiple Robins. The wrap-up story carries the character arc of detective Renee Montoya through to its sad but seemingly inevitable conclusion, and features a death that made me sad, as I'd come to like the lost character. The end to a good series.]
• Invincible Iron Man: The Five Nightmares, by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larocca. [Wow. I was very impressed by this collection of the first six issues of the recent Iron series. The writing is sharp, the high-tech future intriguing, and the character of Tony Stark presented in a very interesting fashion. The storyline deals with the things that Stark fears most happening in the world, with the most significant being that a supertech terrorist has figured out how to modify his Iron Man technology and improve it in some ways. I don't quite buy the idea that young Ezekiel Stane is able to generate the power that he does just by converting his body's energy more efficiently, even as he's chugging thousands of calories. I could see him having extraordinary reflexes, getting smarter, and so forth, but powering energy bolts that can hurt Iron Man seems extreme given the rationale. But it's a sci-fi superhero, right? Salvador Larocca's art is fantastic, Fraction's pacing is wonderful, and he finds interesting new ways to torment one of comicdom's most tormented icons. Good stuff that had me searching my library for the next volume. Which, alas, they don't have!] 
• Low Moon by Jason. [A collection of brightly colored, largely silent cartoon panels that display odd twists on familiar themes and a very quirky sense of humor. Did not surprise me to find out that the creator is Norweigian. There's a very Scandanavian sense of melancholy and dry humor running throughout these stories. Very interesting and worth a look if only to see how much story and characterization can be packed into such a minimalist presentation.]
• Sleeper Vol. 1: Out in the Cold by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.
  
• Sleeper Vol. 2: All False Moves
  
• Sleeper Vol. 3: A Crooked Line
• Sleeper Vol. 4: The Long Way Home [These somewhat disturbing graphic novels are the best combinations of noir, crime, and superhero storytelling out there. Double agent Holden Carver, whose unwanted superpower serves to alienate him from his own body and the world around him, gets stranded in a criminal organization when his handler is shot and left in a coma. These aren't your standard supervillains, though their leader, Tao, is a classic evil mastermind in many ways. Carver is constantly pushed into situations where he has to choose between duty, friendship, and survival, and every choice he makes seems to push him deeper into trouble. He has no good choices concerning who to trust. By the end, it's less a matter of wondering if he can get free and more a matter of wondering what the collateral damage to Carver and those around him is going to be. Riveting stuff, well illustrated by Phillips. There's some sex and violence that goes beyond what I typically consider tasteful or necessary, but it doesn't feel gratuitous in Brubaker's hands--there are moral and personal consequences for actions, and material that feels dark is presented as such. So superior to the Ennis crap above that the comparison between the two on one of the book covers made me want to puke. The books have been collected into two volumes, Sleeper Season 1 and Sleeper Season 2, which are the affordable ways to pick them up.]
• Squadron Supreme by Mark Gruenwald [A classic that still holds up, filled with many plot twists and turns and a ton of difficult decisions for the characters that one didn't see in comics at the time.]

Books I've Read in 2010

May
Fiction

• The Yard Dog by Sheldon Russell. [A good book. Review here.]
  
• The Trade of Queens by Charles Stross. [Not as good as the first few books in the Merchant Princes series, and feels a bit like it rushes to the ending. Longer review here. ]
  
• The Kingdom of Ohio by Matthew Flaming. [A very unusual story centered on an equally odd romance between a mechanic from Idaho who is helping to build the brand new New York subway system and a princess/mathematical prodigy from the Kingdom of Toledo, which may or may not have ever existed. Edison, Tesla, and J.P. Morgan all make appearances. The novel blends a bit of urban history with colonial history mixed liberally with totally made up history from a closely parallel world, complete with sections replete with thorough footnotes to sources that might or might not exist. There's also a very vaguely described deus ex machina involving instantaneous travel through time, space, alternate universes, or possibly all of the preceding. It's a strange, confidently written novel that kept me turning the pages. As literary fiction with a touch of the fantastic cloaked as weird science, it works. As literary science fiction, it fails, mainly because it's incoherent as to the causes and effects of its central plot devices. So your level of enjoyment will probably be colored by what you're expecting to read. I was in the mood for something odd yet mainstream, so I enjoyed it. I think the faux history sections helped with that; they break up the momentum of the narration a bit, but are very cleverly done.]
  
• Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay [Another poetic, epic, and deeply engaging Kay novel, this one set in a fantastic version of the Tang Dynasty in China. It begins with the middle son of a decorated general in the midst of carrying out the task he has chosen to mourn his father's passing: burying the thousands of dead soldiers (from both sides of the conflict) left untouched for many years at an isolated mountain battlefield at the very edge of the Empire. This unusual act draws attention to him, that, combined with less dramatic events in his past and the ties of his family to the Imperial Court, changes his life, and the course of the Empire itself, irrevocably. Highly recommended.]
• The Last Guardian of Everness by John C. Williams. [An epic fantasy that mixes the modern-day with an everything and the kitchen sink compilation of mythologies, folklores, and legends. The world is about to be overwhelmed by the Dark Lord of the Dreaming. The last guardians of the old order are the only ones who can stop it, but to do so they're supposed to bring about the end of the world. As you might guess, this leads to some hesitation. Can be a little confusing at times, but has lot of interesting imagery. The way in which so many different mythological elements are blended together is intriguing. And the sense of how the passage of time and the simple human capacity to forget can erode the power of those who were once legendary.  Ends on a total cliffhanger, with the fate of the world literally in the balance. A really powerful imagination at work here.]
  

Nonfiction

April
Fiction

• The War in 2020 by Ralph Peters. This book is now nearly 20 years old, so its predictions of future conflict involving a still solvent Soviet Union, a white-controlled South Africa, and a militaristic Japanese economic powerhouse all seem quite dated in some respects. In others, such as its depiction of the threat posed by the warmongering tendencies of various ethnic, nationalist, and fundamentalist Islamic factions in Central Asia, the collapse of order in Mexico, the tension between needing high-tech solutions to battlefield problems and the need for trained and dedicated soldiers to implement them, and social disruption at home, it seems eerily prescient. Not a book that glorifies combat or warfare, but one that does laud the honor and sacrifice of those who fight for their country. More nuanced and better written than much military fiction, though the female characters fall pretty flat. 
• The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemisin. [Intriguing and engaging first novel, a fantasy about gods, power, and family politics. The world is ruled by a single family due to the fact that they were the chosen of the Sky God, who won a terrible war with the two other founding deities of his pantheon, killing one and enslaving the other and all his children. So this family holds its power through the simple fact that it has bound gods and demi-gods into its service. At the same time, one must be very careful how to unleash their power. A young woman whose mother, once the heir apparent, was exiled from the family for marrying beneath her station, receives a sudden summons to the Court after her mother's death and is named one of three potential heirs. The rest of the novel is her struggle to understand the true history of the god war, to survive her encounters with her relatives and the enslaved gods, and to understand her true place in the world. An understatement to say that the final transformations involved are quite dramatic.]

Nonfiction

•  Young adult books on the Maya, Aztec, and Inca.
• Yellow Smoke, a book on how technology and changing geopolitics have impacted the status and goals of the modern American Army. Perhaps a bit too sanguine in its assessment of how technology will supplant the fighting and killing role of ground forces, who will be transformed from primary fighters to recon units who target enemy forces for destruction by a wide array of weapons platforms operated remotely or fired from a great distance. But a lot of interesting insights into how the U.S. military system works and how it could be improved over time.

March
Fiction

• A Gentleman's Game by Greg Rucka. [A well-paced, engrossing espionage novel based on the characters and situations from Rucka's black-and-white Queen and Country comic series. This tale is about an MI-6 Special Ops agent named Tara Chace who is given the assignment to assassinate a prominent imam with suspected ties to a terrorist attack on London. Does a good job of showing how complicated and dangerous the job can be when almost everything goes right according to the plan, because of the politics that emerge when the U.S., British, Israeli, and Saudi Arabian governments are all involved.]
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. [A Young Adult novel that deals with the very serious themes of how civil rights, technology, and national security can intersect with frightening results in the age of terrorism. I read nearly the entire book in one day on my iPod Touch. Some pretentious British jackass who teaches literature poo-pooed this book's Hugo nomination as an example of dumbed-down pap dominating the awards. But this book was very engaging.]

February [6 completed]
Fiction

• Counting Heads by David Marusek. [See my lengthy review of this interesting but flawed science fiction novel.]
• Mainspring by Jay Lake. [An enjoyable steampunk fantasy about a young man on a quest to repair the mainspring that turns the brass clockworks of an Earth in a literal clockwork universe. I liked the first half of the novel better than the second, and the ending was a bit mystical for my tastes, but overall it was a fun read.]
• Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon. [Not a dazzling novel, but a well-crafted and well-written story that doesn't play games with the reader or try to impress us with metaphysics. I enjoyed it and have already checked out the sequel. Longer review here.]
  

Nonfiction

• Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon [Another great collection of essays about writing and fiction that filled with me wonder and envy. My reading habits and experiences with writing courses in college seem to have paralleled Chabon's very closely, but his drive and talent created light years of distance in the final result.]
• Supercapitalism by Robert Reich [A decent look at how the growth of corporations has undermined the democratic process. Essential argument is that corporations in the global marketplace maximize benefits to consumers and investors but ignore the needs of citizens, all the while growing more involved in the political arena to the detriment of our good as a society and a democracy. Does a nice job in showing how we got to this point since World War I. Falls flat in prescriptions for change: limit corporate spending on politics (a goal nullified by the recent, obnoxious Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission) and stop the legal fiction of treating corporations as individuals.]
• Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein [This slim volume attempts to illustrate some of the essential concepts of various philosophical thinkers through the use of jokes whose humor is based on those concepts. It's funnier than my description makes it sound. Not sure that I have a deeper grasp of philosophy, but I did laugh at a fair number of the jokes.]

January [2 completed]
Fiction

• Lamentation by Ken Scholes [Impressive novel blending sci-fi and fantasy.]

Nonfiction

• Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon [Great collection of essays about being a son, father, and brother.]

I Have a Lot of Books

This became clear when I posted a list of the books that I own but haven't gotten around to reading all of yet. And I have many more books than that, not even counting the rpg books or the graphic novels. Probably 400 books or so including all the graphic novels and rpg books.

The funny thing is, I'm always finding new, interesting books in the library. The other funny thing is that I read almost nothing in the typical bestseller or literary fiction categories.

So I thought about it, and this is why I have so many books and haven't read a bunch of the ones I own (though I have read most of the books I own, probably 3/4 or so):

• I'm a fairly voracious and omnivorous reader. I'm guessing that I average about a book a week (I usually have one work of fiction and one or two nonfiction books going at any given time). I would say that half of what I read is nonfiction (divided amongst science, history, and miscellaneous cultural stuff ranging from theories of magic to linguistics). The remaining half is divided between science fiction, fantasy, and mysteries,in that order of preference. I'm just curious about a lot of things.
  
• If I enjoy a book a lot, I really like to own a copy of that book. If I check a book (fiction or nonfiction) out from the library three or more times to read all or part of it, then I try to acquire a copy of that book. And I like shopping for book bargains the way some people like to buy shoes. I love used books and have ever since I was a kid in Las Cruces, where places like Dave's Paperback Exchange were a little oasis of speculative fiction in a town filled with people whose imaginations didn't run in the same vein as my own. (One reason I don't yet own a copy of Clifford Geertz's Local Knowledge is that I haven't found a used copy for less than $5 and I don't feel like buying a beaten up copy for $10 or $20 for a new copy. I like the book but not that much.)
• In a similar fashion, I reread the best fiction books in my collection every few years and refer back to sections of the best nonfiction books every year or so. Right now I'm debating when I'll get around to rereading several Guy Gavriel Kay novels and whether I'll reread a couple Sheri Tepper novels first. Anyway, this type of behavior isn't conducive to getting rid of books once I acquire them and it can delay me from reading more recently acquired books.
  
• I have an odd schedule because I am a work-from-home freelancer. This means that there are stretches when I have more free time than most people because I don't have a paying job and the kids are in school. Even an extra free hour translates into a lot more reading time. But at the same time, I can't predict when I'll be free and when I'll get a contract to work on, so I sometimes get books intending to read them and then have little free time to read for the next couple months. Those books may then slip out of my awareness and gather dust on a shelf.
  
• Traits a and b sometimes combine to convince me to buy cheap books without really thinking through the purchase--I see something at a book sale that intrigues me and it looks like a great deal so I grab it. I'm thinking of just avoiding the big library book sale that occurs twice a year here in Boise, because while I have found a few nice books over the years, I probably don't get around to reading the majority of the stuff I acquire.
• I write speculative fiction and I never know what kind of resource/reference material might be useful, so I cast a wide net. I've got books on some fairly esoteric stuff because I came up with some unusual questions. Our library is good but not exhaustive by any means, so I have to buy some of these books if I want to explore their contents.
  

My goal with reading the stuff currently on my shelves is trying to figure out which of these books I can donate. The others I probably will read more than once.

I really need to figure out which of the guides to writing are worth keeping. Part of that involves actually doing the exercises that they suggest.

Anyway, my shelves and shelves of books are a pleasure for me for the most part, though it can be hard figuring out what to keep in the basement (where most of my shelves are) and what to keep upstairs for easier access. Every few months I get the urge to reorganize my books, which drives everyone else in the family a little crazy. Don't know why I have that impulse. I just do.

New Reading Goal

In addition to the other books I get from the library, in particular nonfiction, I'm going to make a concerted effort to read, cover to cover, the following books that have been sitting on my shelves that I have not read or have not completed.

Here's the list, 106 at this point (I have to look at a few more of the Science Fiction Annual Collections to see if they should be added), broken out by category:

Science Fiction [32]

• The Year's Best Science Fiction 24th Annual Collection
• The Year's Best Science Fiction 22nd Annual Collection
• The Year's Best Science Fiction 6th Annual Collection
• Supermen: Tales of the Posthuman Future
• The Space Opera Renaissance
• Worlds that Weren't (Alternate History Anthology)
• One Lamp (Alternate History Anthology)
• The Earth Book of Stormgate, Poul Anderson
• Steampunk
• The Collected Stories of Greg Bear
• The Forge of God, Greg Bear
• Eon, Greg Bear
• Eternity, Greg Bear
• Dinosaur Summer, Greg Bear
• Earth, David Brin
• Shadow of the Hegemon, Orson Scott Card [sci-fi]
• Shadow Puppets, Orson Scott Card [sci-fi]
• Shadow of the Giant, Orson Scott Card [sci-fi]
• Foreigner, C.J. Cherryh
• Babel-17, Samuel R. Delany
• Altered Carbon, Richard K. Morgan [sci-fi]
• Signal to Noise, Eric Nylund
• An Exhaltation of Larks, Robert Reed [sci-fi]
• Marrow, Robert Reed [sci-fi]
• Calculating God, Robert J. Sawyer
• Sun of Suns, Karl Schroeder [sci-fi/fantasy]
• A Door into Ocean, Joan Slonczewski [sci-fi]
• The Rediscovery of Man [Complete Short Stories of Cordwainer Smith]
• The Castaways of Tanagar, Brian Stableford
• Singularity Sky, Charles Stross
• The Awakeners, Sheri S. Tepper [sci-fi/fantasy]
• The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

Fantasy [27]

• The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 8th Annual Collection
• The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 9th Annual Collection
• The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 12th Annual Collection
• The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 15th Annual Collection
• The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 16th Annual Collection
• Year's Best Fantasy 1
• Year's Best Fantasy 2
• Year's Best Fantasy 3
• Year's Best Fantasy 4
• Modern Classics of Fantasy
• Masterpieces of Fantasy and Enchantment
• Legends II: Dragon, Sword, and King
• Legends II: Shadows, Gods, and Demons
• Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
• Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman
• Assassin's Apprentice, Robin Hobb [fantasy]
• Royal Assassin, Robin Hobb [fantasy]
• Assassin's Quest, Robin Hobb [fantasy]
• Oathbreakers, Mercedes Lackey
• A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Leguin
• The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Leguin
• Tales from Earthsea, Ursula K. Leguin
• At the Mountains of Madness, H.P. Lovecraft
• The Golden Compass, Phillip Pullman
• The Amber Spyglass, Phillip Pullman
• The Subtle Knife, Phillip Pullman
• The Black Throne, Fred Saberhagen & Roger Zelazny

Mystery [6]

• Tough Guys & Dangerous Dames (Hardboiled Mystery Anthology)
• Mammoth Book of Great Detective Stories
• Historical Detectives
• Darwin's Blade, Dan Simmons [mystery/thriller]
• Black Lotus, Laura John Rowland [historical mystery]
• Straight, Dick Francis

"Literary" Fiction [5]

• Best American Essays 1994
• Best American Essays 1996
• Best American Short Stories 1989
• O'Henry Awards 1990
• Fluke, Christopher Moore

Adventure/Espionage [2]

• The Crook Factory, Dan Simmons [history/espionage]
• Combat [anthology of near future combat stories]

Nonfiction Science [17]

• What Are You Optimistic About?
• What We Believe But Cannot Prove
• What Is Your Dangerous Idea?
• True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier, by Vernor Vinge
• Best American Science and Nature Writing 2005
• Empires of the Word (nonfiction linguistics)
• Einstein for Beginners
• The Physics of Star Trek
• The Origin of Species
• Science Matters
• Technology in World Civilization
• Engines of Creation
• Paradigms Regained
• How the Mind Works
• The Society of Mind
• The Age of Intelligent Machines
• The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome

Nonfiction Other [8]

• A History of Warfare (nonfiction history)
• The Shield of Achilles (nonfiction history/government/law)
• The Day the Universe Changed
• The Clustered World
• New Rules for the New Economy
• Collapse
• Worlds of Sense
• What If? [alternate military history]

Writing and Creativity [9]

• Flow
• Plot & Structure
• Story, Robert McKee
• How To Write a Damn Good Novel
• How To Write a Damn Good Novel II
• Coaching the Artist Within
• Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel
• Manuscript Makeover
• Self-Editing for Fiction Writers

You'd think that I wouldn't find the need to buy any more books or check out any from the library with a to-read list like this one, eh? But no.

Review: Gentlemen of the Road

Just finished re-reading Gentlemen of the Road, a short swords-and-horses pseudo-historical novel by Michael Chabon. Quite a treat and something any fan of Chabon's or the genre should read for themselves.

The novel follows the misguided adventures of wandering Jewish physician and swordsman Zelikman and the African ex-Byzantine mercenary Amram as they travel eastward past the Crimea and toward the Caucus Mountains. They stumble across a coup in the mysterious nation of Khazar, a state formed by steppe nomads who adopted Judaism instead of Christianity or Islam. And against their better judgment they end up helping one of the sole remaining heirs to the position of war bek (the temporal ruler of Khazar, who is supposedly under the authority of the spiritual leader, the kagan), a person who is not quite what they seem to be, on a lurching, uneven journey toward a kind of justice.

In his afterword, following a lengthy (and for my money completely unnecessary) explanation of why a serious writer is tackling such escapist adventure fare, Chabon explains that he wanted to write a story about Jews with swords that wouldn't be immediately dismissed as an attempt at satire or surrealism. And in the long-lost kingdom of Khazar he found a brief time and place where he could tell a story filled with wild invention and supposition while still retaining a historical element.

Some of my favorite quotes from the novel (bear in mind that all of these are set up by at least a paragraph or two of narrative that I feel are too lengthy to excerpt here but that make them all the funnier or more heartwarming):

"Just when did you acquire a conscience?" Zelikman said.
"A figure of speech. Which will it be?"

and

"I want Hillel. And do not repeat, Amram, that a horse is a horse, because, history, circumstances, and I have disproved that argument many times."

and

"Take care of what you say," Amram advised him. "He healed me of a sword cut to the neck five years ago, and I've been carrying him on my back ever since."

and

It was remarked by one of the eminent physician-rabbis of the city of Regensburg, in his commentary on the Book of Samuel, a work now lost but quoted in the responses of Rabbi Judah the Pious, that apart from Torah the only subject truly worthy of study is the saving of men's lives. Measured by the criterion of this teaching--propounded by his grandfather--Zelikman counted two great scholars among his present acquaintance, and one of them was a horse.

and

Filaq wiped the blade on the flap of his tunic and then handed it back, haft first. "Thank you for saving my life," he said.
"I don't save lives," Zelikman said. "I just prolong their futility."

and

"The offer to join us was a simple one, really," Joseph Hirkanos said when Zelikman tumbled into the basket, looking him up and down from the tips of his curled slippers to his blackened hedgehog of a plaited beard to the clumsy windings of his head wrap. "But I divine that you find a way to complicate everything."

and

"He is in love with a hat," said Flower of Life, frowning at Zelikman through the crook of Amram's arm. . . . "If so," Amram said, somewhat weary of the matter of Zelikman and hats, "it would not be the first time."

and finally

And then they took the first road that led out of the city, unmindful of whether it turned east or south, their direction a question of no interest to either of them, their destination already intimately known, each of them wrapped deep in his thick fur robes and in the solitude that they had somehow contrived to share.

100 Books? I was delusional

My friend Aaron likes to torment me because he is a troubled person. Recently he reminded me of my "read 100 books in a year" goal.

Yeah. When I have nothing else going on, this is feasible--I read 9 books in January. When I'm doing a lot of stuff (putting in a new garden, writing crazy stuff every day, working out, volunteering with the kids, etc.)--not so much. I stopped logging the books I was reading in February, which makes this kind of tough. Here's the (mostly complete, I think) list of what I've read so far, not including graphic novels or long runs of comic books, which I think are probably fudging the goal too much.

Nonfiction [6]

• The Last Opium Den by Nick Tosches
• Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction by David Keown
• Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction by Kim Knott
• Clausewitz: A Very Short Introduction by Michael Howard
• Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A Urban New World by Robert Neuwirth
• Asperger Syndrome and Difficult Moments by Brenda Smith Myles and Jack Southwick

Sci-Fi [8]

• Year's Best Science Fiction 25th Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois
• The Golden Age by John C. Wright
• The Phoenix Exultant by John C. Wright
• The Golden Transcendence by John C. Wright
• Gridlinked by Neal Asher
• Newton's Wake by Ken Macleod
• Matter by Iain M. Banks
• The Last Colony by John Scalzi

Fantasy [1]

• The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan (reviewed this on Amazon)

Mixture [1]

• The Dog Said Bow-wow by Michael Swanwick

Game-Related Rules and Settings Books [3]

• Primetime Adventures by Matt Wilson
• Suppressed Transmission, Vol. 1 by Ken Hite
• Suppressed Transmission, Vol. 2 by Ken Hite
  

I'm currently closing in on the end of Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling, which I haven't read in over a decade. That will give me a total of 20 books as I close in on a third of the year gone by, with science fiction first, nonfiction second, and misc. categories bringing up the rest.

I'm only counting nonfiction and gaming books if I read the entire thing--I've been referencing a few of them pretty heavily recently but haven't gone cover to cover yet.

Seems like my reading pace has slowed a lot the last two months, so 50 books for the year is a much more reasonable goal than 100 was. On the other hand, I'm less than a pound away from my six-month weight loss goal.

Then again, I don't know how to count my progress toward my writing goal. As written, it says:

(1) Write for 500 hours or more. Only fiction writing counts toward this goal, and writing about a fictional setting does not count toward meeting this resolution. Only writing actual story scenes, narrative, description, or plots qualify. Try to write stories or chapters, but focus on writing something.

Well, I've written a lot, but much of it is for my web site, and much of it is more or less setting. So I imagine I'm way behind this goal as I originally structured it. Though I have been writing for an hour or so a day for a good while now.