Books read in 2011

Organized in three categories: Books I finished, Books I didn't finish but intend to, Books I didn't finish and don't intend to.

Books I finished

1. The Scar, China Mieville

The second book in the Bas Lag Series, it was like Moby Dick and Mos Eisley thrown in a blender. My favorite fiction book as an adult. 

*My favorite book as a teenager was Sword At Sunset, by Rosemary Sutcliff, a more historical look at the Arthurian legend where Arthur was the son of a Roman father and Briton mother. Clive Owen and Kiera Knightley were cast in a movie that was no doubt somewhat based on the book, but was an utter failure.

2. King Rat, China Mieville

Debut novel by the author. Rats, the underground club scene in London, and the Pied Piper of Hamelin, nominated for the Bram Stoker award.

3. A Dance With Dragons, George R.R. Martin. Book 5 of the Song of Ice and Fire serires, probably the fourth best in the series. Spends about 95% of the book wandering around but appears to be moving toward the resolution that ought to start happening if the author keeps the series to the planned seven book length.

4. Lone Wolf: Flight From the Dark, Joe Dever. Got through this in one day, but am by no means finished. The first in a series of hybrid pen and paper rpg and choose your own adventure. Book two is in the mail.

 Books which I intend to Finish

1. The Passage, Justin Cronin. Literary vampire apocalypse. Very similar to Stephen King's The Stand. I'll get back to this one when I feel like doing the post-apocalyptic thing. My sister in law's review, 'I hated it, but I couldn't put it down!'

2. The Electric Church, Jeff Somers. I am currently reading this, I expect to finish before starting something else. Having said that, I set it down to look at the choose your own adventure book, and only put it down to go out to dinner, then when I looked up it was half past midnight, and I was all alone. The Electric Church is a  cyberpunk tough-guy shoot-em up.

3. The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch. Renaissance Italy-based fantasy, like a Robin Hood who keeps all the money for himself. Amazing prologue, slow first chapter. Or GRRM took all my epic fantasy attention earlier in the year.

Books I don't intend to finish

1. The Unremembered, Peter Orullian. I was looking for the next big thing (cough cough! Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson cough cough!) This wasn't it. A few good concepts and some nice webisodes sold me on the first volume of the Vault of Heaven Series. It's gonna take more than that to sell me on the second.

2. The Last Light Under the Sun, Guy Gavriel Kay. I thought I'd found the answer to my sf/f question 'who is that third guy?' Flashes of brilliance and petulance. It made sense because many of the protagonists were teenagers. Halfway through the book I realized I didn't care about any of the characters. I've already bought another Guy Gavriel Kay book, which I've heard is his best, but also that his newest effort was even better than that.

*Context: The first two authors of speculative fiction that I love are China Mieville and George RR Martin. Candidates for third include Guy Gavriel Kay, Scott Lynch, Robin Hobb, and a handful of others.

Speculative Writer Hot List

The Top Ten

1.   China Mieville
2.   George R.R. Martin
3.   Steven Erikson
4.   Guy Gavriel Kay
5.   Brandon Sanderson
6.   Scott Lynch
7.   David Anthony Durham
8.   Robin Hobb
9.  Patrick Rothfuss
10. Joe Abercrombie


The list is only working authors in the sf/f genre that interest me.

China Mieville, I've read four of his books and loved three, would highly recommend the other. Funny thing is, I think if four people read those, they would have the same reaction, but likely loving a different three from the others.

George R.R. Martin, I'd have to say I liked Mieville better by a hair anyway, but Dance with Dragons was a dissapointment. Thankfully, I feel like the series has turned a corner and we begin the (long) homestretch in Winds of Winter...which means in like 2014.

Steven Erikson, I've heard his Malazan Book of the Fallen series described as the best fantasy series of all-time. I've heard it described as Sword and Sorcery. I've heard you have to read the first two books of the series all the way through before you're hooked. It's on my to-do list.

Guy Gavriel Kay, Currently reading my first book by Kay 'The Last Light Under the Sun'. Thinly disguised historical fiction, which is fine, since he does the research more meticulously than most authors do their world-building. Amazing with scenes that make you think deep thoughts, not as great with showing basic emotions, but really catching lightning enough to make up for it. Plus I love me a good historical fiction.

Brandon Sanderson, After taking over the Wheel of Time Sanderson has really been thrown into the big leagues it would seem. I quit halfway through his debut novel 'Elantris' a year ago, but I've only heard great things about his 'Way of Kings', which is the first of a new series.

Scott Lynch, GRRM keeps blurbing him, that's got to be worth something. Then I heard world-building comparisons to China Mieville's New Crobuzon (admittedly described as inferior, but China's #1 on this list for a reason). Plus the cover art for his upcoming looks pretty cool.

David Anthony Durham, I've read the first few pages. Sounds dark enough to keep people interested, though it seems like the UK won't even publish book three of his series that started with 'Acacia', which I bought Dalton for his birthday. Maybe that's why this guy is on the list, he's only the fourth guy I've spent money on when buying new.

Robin Hobb, I wanted a female perspective on High Fantasy, and heard this is the one to go to. I have the first book of her 'farseer trilogy', bummed that it's in the first person, but I consider myself an open-minded reader (that is, I don't limit myself to high fantasy/new weird written in 3rd person).

Patrick Rothfuss, Was the consensus heir to a Song of Ice and Fire for most awesome next series until Sanderson penned 'Way of Kings'. Also, I've heard there isn't really a point, kind of like the Conan stories, but without Conan.

Joe Abercrombie, gets this because of the other writers I'm familiar with but won't be giving a chance, his titles/cover art push him ahead.

books cont'd part 2

rediscovered this blog while thinking about make a blog about the weather. Read Under the Dome and the Scar. Under the Dome wasn't anything to write home about, though the audio book helped a lot on a solo car ride to San Jose and back. Stephen King writes small town America circa 1940-1985 really well. 2010? Not so well. But just when I thought I'd given up reading Stephen King's new material he anounces a new Dark Tower novel. Sigh.

China Mieville on the other hand hasn't dissapointed. The Scar was something of a marathon of a book, not so much for length as for pacing, the plot was kinda Moby Dickish. However, it may have been the most thought provoking novel I've read...ever? Little Daniel says that Perdido Street Station was good but too academic for fun reading, but the Scar makes Perdido Street look like the next Roland Emmerich film. Don't get me wrong, Perdido Street is probably still my favorite Mieville novel, but the Scar took thought provocation to a new level.

Haven't gotten around to the Desert Spear yet, though it's on my to do list. Here's my list of books I'm hoping to finish next:

1. Timeline, Michael Crichton. 200 pages in, fast-paced, well researched. Not too academic for fun reading.

2. The Passage, Justin Cronin. 80ish pages in, slow paced, litereary novel, vampire apocalypse.

3. King Rat, China Mieville. 20ish pages in, medium paced, modern fairy tale horror. Mieville's debut novel.

4. The Unremebered; Vault of Heaven book 1, Peter Orullian. 12% in on Kindle, Tolkien-esque high fantasy, good concept, poorly executed, probably lost me already.

Looking forward to Embassytown, Mieville's newest, though I like to stagger a (few) lighter books between Mieville novels, also Dance with Dragons is coming out this year, so I'll probably get to that sooner than I'd like.

books continued

I just read my last post to see where I'm at, and I'm honestly a little disappointed. I haven't been doing the 3 hour round trip train commutes since May so I've been reading the same book for over a month now. I'm on the final act, and it's been a fun ride. Still talking about Perdido Street Station if you're wondering, and tops out at just over 600 pages if you're wondering about that part. I'd like to point out two things about Mieville's writing that have hit me lately. First is to just go ahead and give you another reason he's such a good writer. About a month ago I came across Jim Butcher's blog (on how to write a first SF/F novel), copied it and made it into a pdf for my own personal reference when offline, and picked up on an interesting point concerning voice. The only viable options for inexperienced writers are 1st person and 3rd person voices, and what Butcher brought to light is that authors are naturally good at one or the other. Butcher himself is a natural 1st person guy (most often utilized in detective-type stories), and apparently wrote about 5 unpublishable 3rd person voice novels before figuring that out. Anyway, this relates to China Mieville because 'the city and the city' which has all kinds of award nominations to go with at least the one Arthur C. Clarke win is a 1st person book, while Perdido Street Station (2 wins and a few more nominations) is 3rd person. The second thing I found interesting in Mieville's writing is his utilization of rules found in pen and paper rpgs. Thinking specifically here of a character who is a great scientist, but overweight, can't shoot a gun to save his life, and can't beat up anybody except a strung out junkie. You can't have your cake and eat it. Most writers in epic fantasy who follow this rule tend to start out with a dumb jock hero type who eventually learns to be...whatever. Caring, smart, thoughtful, good, whatever. Kinda boring. Well, I also wanted to list off the next few novels I hope to read and why.

1. Under the Dome, Stephen King. The premise is that an alien has put an impenetrable dome over a small town in (you guessed it) Maine, and the people stuck inside have to figure out what to do to coexist in the new absence of law.

2. The Scar, China Mieville. The second novel set in the Bas-lag universe. This one away from New Crobuzon and out on the high seas. Apparently a patch or expansion to Second Life was inspired by this book. Can't get enough of Bas-Lag, but I wouldn't mind a break from the post-grad level writing, it's hard to read with interruptions.

3. The Desert Spear, Peter V. Brett. Back to Jason Statham-style demon slaying. Hack, slash, rinse, repeat. Not a boring read.

4 and 5 are also China Mieville books, unless book 5 of Ice and Fire comes out before then, then that goes to the top of the list. Gotta give Aquila a bath. Thanks for reading (probably talking to myself around August or September).

Books

I think the last time I posted I said I wanted to read Peter V. Brett's The Warded Man (The Painted Man in Britain), I did. It was a fun book. A little darker than your average fantasy stuff, which is good of course. I'd say the tone was still a little light even if the content wasn't so much. Tone was light due to the action-packed adventure-style of the story, kind of hack and slash fun. I couldn't find the sequel at the English bookstore in Shinjuku, so I'll try to get it when I go back to the States, hopefully it'll be in paperback by then and I can pick it up Stephen King's Under the Dome, which comes out in paperback this Summer as well and is at the top of my list.

So When I returned to the bookstore to see what to get next I picked up Jim Butcher's first book in his 'Codex Alera' series, which admittedly looked a little light, but heck, his other series looked a little grungier but wasn't epic fantasy which I'm looking to keep an eye on, and the other epic fantasy series didn't have book 1 in stock. I also picked up China Mieville's Arthur C. Clarke and British Fantasy awards winning 'Perdido Street Station'. Absolutely delightful. The two long series I powered through last year was Stephen King's Dark Tower, and George RR Martin's Ice and Fire. Both treated the reader as intelligent adults. That is to say, no matter how whacked out your universe is, certain rules apply to mortal beings, such as, they are mortal, they are not inherently good, they are not always going to deprive a reader (viewer as always happens in the movies) of a blood-filled payoff because protagonist takes the high road and only kills when he absolutely has to, etc. China Mieville treats his readers as adults as well. I read his most recent Arthur C. Clarke winning novel (British Sci-Fi award), the City and the City, and am surprised at how different the two are. Both make you think while reading, his writing is at college or post-graduate level, but the two are on opposite ends of the speculative fiction genre. Think BladeRunner without Daryl Hannah verses Mos Eisley on steroids. Perdido Street would be Mos Eisley on Steroids if you're wondering. In fact, the reason I'm not reading it now is to tell you how much I'm enjoying it (assuming you are out there).

this and that

 That's odd, I'm sure I posted once between the end of March and this post, I remember because I thought to myself, 'this writing is so bad I don't even know why I'm doing this'. I can't guarantee the writing will be better tonight however. I suppose I can take solace in that I don't think anyone reads this. I wanted to celebrate my first win in Fantasy Baseball this season, so cheers to me. After losing the first, what quarter of the season? I finally got into the win column and currently sit at 1-4. matches are decided from points scored from Monday to Sunday, head to head. I'm actually quite proud of my roster, and if I can back my way into the playoffs I could have a shot in my casual league. I also believe I've learned some valuable (in the free fantasy baseball universe) lessons about drafting a team. But enough about that, onto the next paragraph.

 Since coming to Japan I got back into reading novels. I guess between college and World of Warcraft I lost interest. After arriving in Japan, with a slow computer and really no friends (except a girlfriend who was a senior in college at the time), I didn't have a lot of ways to escape to America. Nevermind that the first two novels I read were about Japan (Silence, and Shogun), they were written in English. From there I found a copy of It by Stephen King in the bookstore and thought, '1000 pages...$9? great!'. The book was exceptional. Eventually I got married and Maki got pregnant so my free time was less, but you ride trains in Tokyo, and I don't like listening to music all that much, so I read. I started browsing fantasy lists and went back to Stephen King for the Dark Tower, a seven book series, that I finished in about 6 months. 6 of the books top 500 pages and 3 top 800 if my memory serves. Next came George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, I was reading book one during most of Aquila's birth. Having six younger siblings, three of which were home births I learned a long time ago that women in labor don't really pay attention to what your doing, they'll remember it afterward, but they won't care. The pain and subsequent joy mute whatever else was going on. They can usually recount with disturbing clarity everything that was said or done in the room, even though at the time they appear to be completely out of it. Anyway, my son was born and I finished four published Ice and Fire books and check GRRM's blog daily for updates on when book 5 will be released. I started reading Brandon Sanderson's debut novel Elantris, it was in a bookstore in Tokyo and it's a stand-alone so I gave it a shot. Sanderson is famous for his Mistborn series and as the guy who is finishing Wheel of Time. I'm almost halfway through but I got bored and bought China Mieville's Arthur C. Clarke Award winning 'The City and the City'. The guy is 3 for 7 on Arthur C. Clarke awards, which is the best sci-fi novel published in Britain in a given year. I wanted to read Mieville's debut, which sounded much more fantastic, though with less phenomonal reviews, but it wasn't in the Japanese bookstores. While waiting on GRRM's Dance with Dragons I've been searching for my next book (after City and Elantris) and may have found it in Peter V. Brett's debut which I've forgotten the name the something something man, I don't remember. Ah well, getting late. I'd love to write my own novel someday, not expecting to get published just to write the best novel I can,  but it's hard. Plotting, drafting, research, etc. Sigh. Well, it's a comparatively cheap hobby. That's all.

very end of a busy march

Watching baseball on TV and it's very sweet. Nevermind that it's the Hiroshima Carp against the Hanshin Tigers, and the Carp are losing, nevermind that my favorite team Japanese team is so unpopular that they can't get a game televised on Cable, where they show high school girls basketball, it's still sweet. Maybe I'll see Eric Stults, the Bethel College grad who never got a fair shot at the Dodgers rotation though he showed himself to be as reliable as any fifth starter anywhere, the Dodgers sold his contract to the Hiroshima Carp, so maybe I'll see him tomorrow. Dodgers themselves are an absolute mess. I blame Bud Selig for allowing the McCourts to buy them in the first place. The funniest part is they refused someone else, then accepted the McCourts as buyers, what a joke. I'm actually thinking to make the Angels my American League team this year, and number 2 overall. I've been an Indians guy for so long but it just doesn't mean anything these days, they're not interesting, I've never been to Cleveland, and I can take my kid to Angels games. I can go to Angels blanket night. I can teach him to steal leftover ice cream helmets after the game and wash them out in the bathrooms, then get the fifth outfielder or second string middle reliever to sign it. Is there really a better fan experience than that? One last point, the Dodgers begin the season at Pittsburgh, so hopefully we're 3-0 by the time we start playing Major League teams. But seriously the Pirates seem to be putting it together, I'd say they're up to about half a Major League starting lineup with guys like McClutchen, Garret Jones and Ryan Doumit. How do you pronounce that anyway? Doe-mit!?

Spend a lot of my dreamy time thinking about reading and writing. I've always wanted to write a novel, but never had the discipline to think anything through from start to finish, much less actually pen a first draft. When I was 10 years old I had a real winner I was gonna call 'The Great Guinea Pig Adventure', and it was gonna be way edgier than David's finished manuscript for 'Journey to PetTown'. Now I'm 27, I've got a few how-to books, and would find it to be a huge personal accomplishment to get a full manuscript written and refined to something I could think of as publisher ready. I wouldn't make it a goal to publish it because merely having a worthy manuscript isn't good enough to get it published, there are too many worthy manuscripts for publishers to consider as it is, and also, almost nobody puts out a worthy manuscript on their first try. I'll leave you with this true story to illustrate my point. I read about a guy, and this is a story I like to tell so if you've heard it from me just hear it again, a guy who submitted his novel to a publisher who responded with 'I can't publish this, but I'd be interested in reading your next effort.' he responded the same way with the second effort, and the third. The fourth he published, and that novel was a bestseller, it was called Carrie, the author was Stephen King, and every novel he's written since have been bestsellers. Cheers.