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: Deluge of Dresden

Recently I've been reading books in the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. Our library is missing a couple of the books in the series and the others are often on hold, but I saw the 8th book in the series, Proven Guilty, sitting on the shelves when I took the kids to my local branch a couple weeks ago. I grabbed it, went and bought the 7th book in the series, Dead Beat, at my local bookstore, the Rediscovered Bookshop (a great store that I highly recommend to anyone living in or passing through the Boise area). I even got a discount on the purchase because we'd bought enough books over the past year for our buyer's credit to kick in.

I devoured the 7th book and was halfway through the 8th when I saw the 9th book, White Night, sitting on the library shelf. I checked that out and finished the 8th book and read the 9th while at a cabin by the Payette River in Garden Valley, Idaho. I came home for a day to take care of my lawn and dropped off some books--only to spot the 10th book in the series, Small Favor, on the library shelves. I grabbed that and started it this morning.

I have to think that there's some good karma involved in the timing of all of this, or at least some hints that I should be reading the series.

As for the books themselves, it's a pleasant series in that (a) Butcher has become a better writer as the series has gone on, and he was an enjoyable writer to begin with, and (b) each novel manages to be fairly self-contained while rewarding the readers who have kept up with the continuity. There are recurring characters and threats, questions seeded in one book to be paid off in the next, and an overarching, shadowy menace that began to appear in the series around book 7 (I think).

By this point Butcher is better able to pull off contemplative moments of introspection or observation than he was at the beginning of the series. He's also invested more words and energy into adding depth to his wide cast of characters. He's become particularly adept at making his recurring villains interesting and even sympathetic at times while not losing sight of the awfulness of the crimes that many of them have committed. (I think Butcher has been much more successful at keeping a balanced perspective on this issue of making evil characters fascinating without suddenly deciding that they are really okay at heart than the writers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer did in its final two seasons, where they simply looked the other way with characters like Spike and pretended they had suddenly redeemed themselves because the audience was enamored with them.) Butcher has also really pushed his characters into gray areas between purely good and purely evil, though there are still some characters who represent each moral extreme. It creates a nice continuum.

For me Butcher's calling card is his penchant for constantly increasing the crisis factor throughout the course of a novel, a tactic that would wear thin if it weren't for the frequent injections of humor into the dialogue and Dresden's self-reflections. He also makes his heroes pay a price for their heroism, which makes their sacrifices more meaningful and satisyfing than the typical action hero fare.

As for the magic and such that Butcher describes, sometimes I'm engrossed by it, but often it falls a little flat or repetitive in the actual execution, to be honest. Except for the one or two occasions in a given novel where the wizard Harry Dresden actually casts a ritual spell, which are typically well done and flavorful, the effect of most of the magic wielded by Dresden and his cohorts doesn't seem very, well . . . magical. It just feels like special effects, big blasts of energy and defensive shields, sort of like comic book superheroes dropped into an urban fantasy setting.

On the other hand, the monsters and faeries and spirits and evil magicians and assorted supernatural factions that Butcher introduces into the stories are typically a real treat, building over the course of the series into a very interesting setting full of many varied and often unpredictable characters who provide many sources of conflict and entertainment. It's good stuff that doesn't get dumped on the reader at first glance but develops over time as Dresden comes into contact with different groups and beasties.

I actually suspect that this approach makes the books more accessible to a broad audience, because even if you don't follow the rationale for the magic at first, you can still follow most of what is going on in the action sequences. And Butcher usually has at least one excellent action set piece in each novel, though the best ones are not always in the climactic scenes.

Throw in his increasing facility for sketching memorable character traits for the supporting cast and fleshing out the psychology, motivations, and personal sacrifices of the major characters, and it's no wonder Butcher has such a successful series on his hands. Not being a big mystery reader or a fan of the various multi-volume fantasy series that, while well-written, can't seem to satisfactorily end a story in 800 pages, it's rare for me to pursue a series this long without losing interest as the author begins to repeat him or herself or just runs out of steam. So color me impressed with the frequency and consistency of Butcher's Dresden novels.

After book 10 I'll be a little overdosed and happy to get a break before book 11 comes off the library's new books list, but I'm also gradually accumulating my own copies of Dresden Files books that I've already read. That's something I do only when I think an author's work is worth coming back to for enjoyment multiple times.

Review: Schismatrix and The Alchemist

Recently finished two books:

Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling. This book is full of science fiction ideas about technology and society that seem believable and fresh today even though it was written nearly 25 years ago (1985). It has the same trouble with fairly flat characters who seem to exist more to show off particular technologies or social ideologies than to undergo actual growth and change that pervades most of Sterling's work. But it is a remarkable book nonetheless, one that I think I struggled to understand when I first read it as a teenager. Reading it now for the first time in over a decade, I have a greater appreciation for the imagination the author displays. At the same time, the clunkiness of the narrative stands out a bit more.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo. This is a short novel about a shepherd boy who seeks his destiny, which begins as a journey in search of a hidden treasure amid the Pyramids and ends as a quest to learn the secret Language of the World, which is the key to spiritual and psychological transformation, which in turn is the true goal of alchemy. It has the tone of a fable and presents a lot of interesing insights into the character of human feelings and emotions and how we treat each other, as well as some thoughtful ideas about the nature of fate. All in all, a nice story that makes you think about your own dreams and what you are or aren't doing to achieve them.

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.

100 Books in a Year

I set myself a goal of reading 100 books in 2009, which I realized I haven't mentioned elsewhere. I'm not sure that I can hit this goal, but I thought it would be interesting to try. I'll be posting short reviews on the books that I've read so far on the site.

The first of these reviews applies to the two books of the Golden Age trilogy that I read in January and February and quite enjoyed. You can read my earlier post about the trilogy here.