New books for 2010
Jan. 12th, 2011 01:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tigerfortI meant to post these as the year went along, and completely failed to. Also, it seems I never posted the last two months for 2009 either. Whoops!
Anyway, in 2010, I seem to have read a total of 69 books I'd not previously perused. Of those, 37 were borrowed from the library, and another eight were borrowed from other people, meaning that I only actually removed twenty-four books from my huge stack of unread books. I suspect I added at least that many (indeed, quite a few of the books on this list are either new buys or gifts), and certainly the bookcase remainsfull to overflowing. Diana Wynne Jones contributed a total of eight of the 69, while no other author was responsible for more than about three, but I think I've now run out of her back catalogue of stuff I'd not read, so I suspect that won't happen again. This year, I may try and keep track of re-reads, too, although if the list gets too embarrassing I won't make it public ;)
Full list behind the cut in blocks of ten; quite a few books are lacking any comment, especially near the beginning of the year, and there's even one where I failed to note the title. Organised: we'z herd of it.
Year's Best SF 12 (eds Kathryn Cramer, David G Hartwell; 2007)[library]
Matter (Iain M Banks)[library]
The Apocalypse Troll (David Weber). No, I'm not sure why I bothered, either.[library]
Quarantine (Greg Egan)[library]
Distress (Greg Egan)[library]
Empire of Ivory (Naomi Novik)[library]
Winterstrike (Liz Williams)[library]
Singer from the Sea (Sheri S Tepper)
Enchanted Glass (Diana Wynne Jones)[borrowed]
A Sudden Wild Magic (Diana Wynne Jones)[borrowed]
Changeover (DWJ). DWJ's first novel, only reprinted recently. Hilariously painful, and vice-versa.[borrowed]
Minor Arcana (DWJ)[borrowed]
Turning Point (Lisanne Norman). An OK space-opera sci-fi series. No science-fiction content as such, but not offensively non-sciencical. I read the series through without suffering mental harm, but they're not in any way outstanding.
Fortune's Wheel (LN)
Fire Margins (LN)
Razor's Edge (LN)
Dark Nadir (LN)
Stronghold Rising (LN). (End of the series; I may try to make some more comments about them as a group.)
Stopping for a Spell (DWJ).[borrowed]
Witch's Business (DWJ)[borrowed]
The Mote in God's Eye (Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle)
Twilight Watch (Sergei Lukyanenko). Excellent final volume of the "Night Watch" trilogy. [library]
The Night Sessions (Ken McLeod). [library]
Old Man's War (John Scalzi). Pretty good space-opera trilogy.[library]
Ghost Brigades (John Scalzi).[library]
Victory of Eagles (Naomi Novik). I'mstarting topretty much completely losing interest in these. It would help if they didn't contain so many obvious inaccuracies and incongruities, and it would help even more if Novik's world had any semblance of coherence and plausibility.[library]
400 Billion Stars (Paul McAuley).[library]
Living Next-door to the God of Love (Justina Robson). One of Robson's award-winners, and I'm glad I looked it out; an excellent, thoughtful, and highly entertaining novel.[library]
(Ken Macleod)[library]???
Zima Blue (Al Reynolds).[library]
The Book of Skulls (Robert Silverberg). Distinctly so-so; possibly the plot was less obvious when it was written, or if your mind works in a different way to mine.
Recursion (Tony Ballantyne)
Analogue Men (Damon Knight)
Space Gypsies (Murray Leinster)
Absolute Zero (Bagthorpe Saga bk2) These weren't really my thing, but then that tends to be a problem with other people's fond childhood memories (in both directions).[borrowed]
Bagthorpes vs the World (Bagthorpe Saga bk4)[borrowed]
The Last Watch (Sergei Lukyanenko). Trilogy of four, then. (This is officially described as 'a sequel to the trilogy'.) A good book, anyway.[library]
Chasing the Dragon (Justina Robson). Which series continues to get steadily better. You probably do need to read the rather trashy first volume to really get on with the rest, alas.[library]
The Cash Nexus (Niall Ferguson)[library]
The Masks of Time (Robert Silverberg). Meh; I think Silverberg has written much better stuff.[library]
The Alternative Manifesto (Eamonn Butler) - wow, what a loon.[library]
Steal Across the Sky (Nancy Kress)[library]
Irons in the Fire (Juliette McKenna). Above-average generic fantasy; I'll be reading the next volume to see how McKenna follows through on the problems and backlash that come with revolutions, but she isn't doing too badly in this first installment.[library]
The Sirens of Titan (Kurt Vonnegut). Favourite moment: the prophesied Messiah explains he's only here because of "a series of random accidents, just like everyone else".[library]
A Madness of Angels (Kate Griffin). Last ~50 pages a bit disappointing. Otherwise not bad[library]
The Alchemy of Stone (Ekaterina Sedia). Excellent fantasy; superbly thoughtful exploration of othering. Highly recommended both for that and as a novel.[library]
Zendegi (Greg Egan)[library]
Crossroads (Peter Nolan)[library]
Watch (Robert J Sawyer). "Not a book to be cast aside lightly; it should be thrown with great force." (Quite apart from its numerous other problems, any book containing the explanation "like all good scientists, he was autistic" is guaranteed to annoy anybody sane. But it had plenty of other problems.) [library]
The Poison Master (Liz Williams). Liked this more than "Winterstrike", I think; found the tacked-on romance a bit irritating, but otherwise good.[library]
Childhood's End (Arthur C Clarke). I think I largely agree with the author's notes on this from thirty years later - good in some ways, but it suffers badly from the utterly implausible magic-psychic-ness bits.[library]
Trigger Happy (Stephen Poole). Inane, inept, and incoherent. (Not helped by being ten years old, but most of the problems would have been obvious to me when it was written in 2000.)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera). Text as meta-text; probably comparable to the best fanfic of the type I've seen. (And yes, that is a complement, and not a back-handed one.)
Weighing the Soul (Len Fisher). Mildly entertaining but badly flawed pop-science book.[library]
Nor Crystal Tears (Alan Dean Foster). Fairly good YA novel set in ADF's 'humanx' universe. A bit shallow, perhaps, but enjoyable nonetheless.
Gateway (Fred Pohl).
Revolt in 2100 (Robert Heinlein).
Rainbow's End (Vernor Vinge).[Library]
I Shall Wear Midnight (Terry Pratchett). pTerry's more recent books feel to me as though he feels (understandably) he's working against a deadline to make his point, and some of the economic/political/social stuff that used to be undercurrents is now very much at the forefront. The new books are still good, but they're more political polemic and less entertainment than they used to be.
The Iron Dragon's Daughter (Michael Swanwick).
Saturn's Children (Charles Stross). Not bad, but probably one of Charlie's least interesting works, at least for me.
The Sunless Countries (Karl Schroeder). Virga, book four. Better, I think, than book three (which was pretty good)[Library]
Twisted Metal (Tony Ballantine). Interesting, and not bad, but it didn't really quite work for me somehow.[Library]
Orphaned Worlds (Mike Cobley). Humanity's Fire, book two. I want to like these, but Mike does seem to be trying to make it difficult one way and another...[Library]
The Anvil of the World (Kage Baker). Possibly the best book I've read all year. Fantastic.[Originally Library, but I now have my own copy for rereading!]
Puzzles of the Black Widowers (Isaac Asimov). I've always had a soft spot for Asimov's sneaky problem solving "Black Widowers" series, and this is no exception.
Blood Music (Greg Bear). I think I preferred the short story, which leaves the reader to find their own conclusion, whereas the ending to the novel feels rather awkward and tacked on.
Tragically, I was an only twin (collected Peter Cook). Need I say more?
The Fuller Memorandum (Charles Stross). Laundry series, book three - in which Bob gets religion (and an iPhone). The Laundry books are probably my favourites among Charlie's stuff, and this one is no exception.
Anyway, in 2010, I seem to have read a total of 69 books I'd not previously perused. Of those, 37 were borrowed from the library, and another eight were borrowed from other people, meaning that I only actually removed twenty-four books from my huge stack of unread books. I suspect I added at least that many (indeed, quite a few of the books on this list are either new buys or gifts), and certainly the bookcase remains
Full list behind the cut in blocks of ten; quite a few books are lacking any comment, especially near the beginning of the year, and there's even one where I failed to note the title. Organised: we'z herd of it.
Year's Best SF 12 (eds Kathryn Cramer, David G Hartwell; 2007)[library]
Matter (Iain M Banks)[library]
The Apocalypse Troll (David Weber). No, I'm not sure why I bothered, either.[library]
Quarantine (Greg Egan)[library]
Distress (Greg Egan)[library]
Empire of Ivory (Naomi Novik)[library]
Winterstrike (Liz Williams)[library]
Singer from the Sea (Sheri S Tepper)
Enchanted Glass (Diana Wynne Jones)[borrowed]
A Sudden Wild Magic (Diana Wynne Jones)[borrowed]
Changeover (DWJ). DWJ's first novel, only reprinted recently. Hilariously painful, and vice-versa.[borrowed]
Minor Arcana (DWJ)[borrowed]
Turning Point (Lisanne Norman). An OK space-opera sci-fi series. No science-fiction content as such, but not offensively non-sciencical. I read the series through without suffering mental harm, but they're not in any way outstanding.
Fortune's Wheel (LN)
Fire Margins (LN)
Razor's Edge (LN)
Dark Nadir (LN)
Stronghold Rising (LN). (End of the series; I may try to make some more comments about them as a group.)
Stopping for a Spell (DWJ).[borrowed]
Witch's Business (DWJ)[borrowed]
The Mote in God's Eye (Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle)
Twilight Watch (Sergei Lukyanenko). Excellent final volume of the "Night Watch" trilogy. [library]
The Night Sessions (Ken McLeod). [library]
Old Man's War (John Scalzi). Pretty good space-opera trilogy.[library]
Ghost Brigades (John Scalzi).[library]
Victory of Eagles (Naomi Novik). I'm
400 Billion Stars (Paul McAuley).[library]
Living Next-door to the God of Love (Justina Robson). One of Robson's award-winners, and I'm glad I looked it out; an excellent, thoughtful, and highly entertaining novel.[library]
(Ken Macleod)[library]???
Zima Blue (Al Reynolds).[library]
The Book of Skulls (Robert Silverberg). Distinctly so-so; possibly the plot was less obvious when it was written, or if your mind works in a different way to mine.
Recursion (Tony Ballantyne)
Analogue Men (Damon Knight)
Space Gypsies (Murray Leinster)
Absolute Zero (Bagthorpe Saga bk2) These weren't really my thing, but then that tends to be a problem with other people's fond childhood memories (in both directions).[borrowed]
Bagthorpes vs the World (Bagthorpe Saga bk4)[borrowed]
The Last Watch (Sergei Lukyanenko). Trilogy of four, then. (This is officially described as 'a sequel to the trilogy'.) A good book, anyway.[library]
Chasing the Dragon (Justina Robson). Which series continues to get steadily better. You probably do need to read the rather trashy first volume to really get on with the rest, alas.[library]
The Cash Nexus (Niall Ferguson)[library]
The Masks of Time (Robert Silverberg). Meh; I think Silverberg has written much better stuff.[library]
The Alternative Manifesto (Eamonn Butler) - wow, what a loon.[library]
Steal Across the Sky (Nancy Kress)[library]
Irons in the Fire (Juliette McKenna). Above-average generic fantasy; I'll be reading the next volume to see how McKenna follows through on the problems and backlash that come with revolutions, but she isn't doing too badly in this first installment.[library]
The Sirens of Titan (Kurt Vonnegut). Favourite moment: the prophesied Messiah explains he's only here because of "a series of random accidents, just like everyone else".[library]
A Madness of Angels (Kate Griffin). Last ~50 pages a bit disappointing. Otherwise not bad[library]
The Alchemy of Stone (Ekaterina Sedia). Excellent fantasy; superbly thoughtful exploration of othering. Highly recommended both for that and as a novel.[library]
Zendegi (Greg Egan)[library]
Crossroads (Peter Nolan)[library]
Watch (Robert J Sawyer). "Not a book to be cast aside lightly; it should be thrown with great force." (Quite apart from its numerous other problems, any book containing the explanation "like all good scientists, he was autistic" is guaranteed to annoy anybody sane. But it had plenty of other problems.) [library]
The Poison Master (Liz Williams). Liked this more than "Winterstrike", I think; found the tacked-on romance a bit irritating, but otherwise good.[library]
Childhood's End (Arthur C Clarke). I think I largely agree with the author's notes on this from thirty years later - good in some ways, but it suffers badly from the utterly implausible magic-psychic-ness bits.[library]
Trigger Happy (Stephen Poole). Inane, inept, and incoherent. (Not helped by being ten years old, but most of the problems would have been obvious to me when it was written in 2000.)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera). Text as meta-text; probably comparable to the best fanfic of the type I've seen. (And yes, that is a complement, and not a back-handed one.)
Weighing the Soul (Len Fisher). Mildly entertaining but badly flawed pop-science book.[library]
Nor Crystal Tears (Alan Dean Foster). Fairly good YA novel set in ADF's 'humanx' universe. A bit shallow, perhaps, but enjoyable nonetheless.
Gateway (Fred Pohl).
Revolt in 2100 (Robert Heinlein).
Rainbow's End (Vernor Vinge).[Library]
I Shall Wear Midnight (Terry Pratchett). pTerry's more recent books feel to me as though he feels (understandably) he's working against a deadline to make his point, and some of the economic/political/social stuff that used to be undercurrents is now very much at the forefront. The new books are still good, but they're more political polemic and less entertainment than they used to be.
The Iron Dragon's Daughter (Michael Swanwick).
Saturn's Children (Charles Stross). Not bad, but probably one of Charlie's least interesting works, at least for me.
The Sunless Countries (Karl Schroeder). Virga, book four. Better, I think, than book three (which was pretty good)[Library]
Twisted Metal (Tony Ballantine). Interesting, and not bad, but it didn't really quite work for me somehow.[Library]
Orphaned Worlds (Mike Cobley). Humanity's Fire, book two. I want to like these, but Mike does seem to be trying to make it difficult one way and another...[Library]
The Anvil of the World (Kage Baker). Possibly the best book I've read all year. Fantastic.[Originally Library, but I now have my own copy for rereading!]
Puzzles of the Black Widowers (Isaac Asimov). I've always had a soft spot for Asimov's sneaky problem solving "Black Widowers" series, and this is no exception.
Blood Music (Greg Bear). I think I preferred the short story, which leaves the reader to find their own conclusion, whereas the ending to the novel feels rather awkward and tacked on.
Tragically, I was an only twin (collected Peter Cook). Need I say more?
The Fuller Memorandum (Charles Stross). Laundry series, book three - in which Bob gets religion (and an iPhone). The Laundry books are probably my favourites among Charlie's stuff, and this one is no exception.