Month 11 of 260 (4.23 percent)
Size of list: 81,149 pages (4.3 percent greater than starting size)
Pages read: 6,297 (7.76 percent)
H-list: 2,040/22,674 (9.00 percent)
N-list: 2,048/35,009 (5.85 percent)
O-list: 2,209/23,466 (9.41 percent)
Finished: Speaker for the Dead, The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft
Reading: Dragon War, The Big Time
This was another month in which my personal life interfered with my reading time. In this case, my family both hired a lawyer and I acted like a lawyer to push for getting my nephew, who is back in foster care, out of stranger care (although they were really great foster parents!) and back with us. That took too much headspace.
Speaker for the Dead, the 1987 Hugo winner, is both a fantastic example of the form and of a great story. It started with a chapter that was almost a side story, about the effects of traveling at relativistic speeds while society goes on, and what that can do to a family when one travels and the other stays behind. Then there was the main story, about contact with aliens and the relationship between colonies and empires and the personal relationships of a family learning its secrets.
The Lovecraft collection, of which I read the final third this month, was dominated by The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, one of the most important Lovecraft novels, and Through the Gates of the Silver Key. I liked that the latter continued Dreamlands/Randolph Carter threads, and Ward had some interesting concepts but I found it difficult to follow the story in the climactic section (possibly in part because of the aforementioned preoccupation with real-life issues).
I've picked up The Big Time, which isn't on my list for this year, but I had it on my phone; I've read one chapter and kind of bounced hard off it because of the casual treatment of rape and domestic abuse. I'm hoping it'll get better as I go.
I'd like to get to 10 percent done by the end of the year, and I don't think that's going to happen, but I'll continue to push.
This was another month in which my personal life interfered with my reading time. In this case, my family both hired a lawyer and I acted like a lawyer to push for getting my nephew, who is back in foster care, out of stranger care (although they were really great foster parents!) and back with us. That took too much headspace.
Speaker for the Dead, the 1987 Hugo winner, is both a fantastic example of the form and of a great story. It started with a chapter that was almost a side story, about the effects of traveling at relativistic speeds while society goes on, and what that can do to a family when one travels and the other stays behind. Then there was the main story, about contact with aliens and the relationship between colonies and empires and the personal relationships of a family learning its secrets.
The Lovecraft collection, of which I read the final third this month, was dominated by The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, one of the most important Lovecraft novels, and Through the Gates of the Silver Key. I liked that the latter continued Dreamlands/Randolph Carter threads, and Ward had some interesting concepts but I found it difficult to follow the story in the climactic section (possibly in part because of the aforementioned preoccupation with real-life issues).
I've picked up The Big Time, which isn't on my list for this year, but I had it on my phone; I've read one chapter and kind of bounced hard off it because of the casual treatment of rape and domestic abuse. I'm hoping it'll get better as I go.
I'd like to get to 10 percent done by the end of the year, and I don't think that's going to happen, but I'll continue to push.
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