Month 4: This is why

Month 4 of 260 (1.54 percent)

Size of list: 79,430 pages (2 percent greater than starting size)

Pages read: 1,803 (2.27 percent)

H-list: 557/22,219 (2.51 percent)

N-list: 970/35,009 (2.77 percent)

O-list: 276/22,202 (1.24 percent)

Finished: Ancillary Justice, The Dying Earth

Reading: Sanctuary, Foundation, The City Stained Red, The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft (no progress this month)

Added: none

This is the first month where I feel like I've really been rewarded for choosing to do this. Reading these books was superior to most other leisure choices I could have spent the same time on, and I'll continue to be happy in the future that I read them.

Ancillary Justice is the first of the Hugo winners in what I define for my own purposes as the modern era. It did what I want good science fiction to do: start with an interesting concept, in this case a consciousness that can inhabit multiple bodies, and then go beyond to consequences of that. All the noise about how it handles gender (which is in service of making the POV character not human) really does a disservice to what a good book this is.

The Dying Earth is a hugely important book in the creation of D&D: based on my reading of what others have written, I'd say it's behind Lord of the Rings and ahead of Hammer horror in terms of significance and influence. It's enjoyable in its own right, but more enjoyable for being able to see that this is where certain mechanics, spells and tropes were invented. (Also kind of cool: I borrowed it on interlibrary loan and it came all the way from the University of New Mexico-Valencia. And there was a cigarette ad in the book, a sheet of color glossy paper inserted between two pages in the middle.)

I've just in the past few days cracked Foundation; when my friends read it in junior high, I didn't, in part because there was a prequel trilogy and I tried to read the first volume and couldn't get into it. It appeals to me much more now, especially because Asimov's psychohistory makes so much sense now that I've studied social science. I'll probably finish it within two weeks.