Month 15: The first book I hate

Month 15 of 260 (5.77 percent)

Size of list: 82,256 pages (5.8 percent greater than starting size, unchanged for two months)

Pages read: 8,369 (10.17 percent)

H-list: 2,456/22,674 (10.83 percent)

N-list: 2,760/36,116 (7.64 percent)

O-list: 3,153/23,466 (13.44 percent)

Finished: Fool's Errand, The Big Time

Reading: The Dragon Reborn, The Uplift War

The Big Time is the 1958 Hugo winner, and when I finished it I was glad, because it meant I didn't have to read it any more. The book is set in a bubble in time and space; half the characters are soldiers in an endless war across time and space, and the others are charged with providing R&R to those soldiers. There are many reasons for hating this book. Some of it is just an outdated version of gender roles, although the main character, a woman, always being casually in fear of being hit by her boyfriend goes beyond that. Some of it is the main character herself; I hate her voice, from her accent to what she says. Part was the supporting characters; although some were soldiers recruited from across time, and some were doctors or entertainers, it was hard to really keep track of their roles and motivations. I loved the big-picture concept of the war between two factions of unknown entities, fighting across Earth's history for unknown goals, and I could enjoy books set in this universe. Just not this book.

Fool's Errand is the first book in Robin Hobb's third trilogy in her world. It returns to the first-person character of the first trilogy, and really repeats a lot of flaws with Assassin's Quest, the third volume of said first trilogy. Specifically, this is largely another Tolkien-esque fantasy road trip, where we get interesting but ultimately inconsequential pages and pages about every inn, every ferry, and stops on the way. The second trilogy, the Liveship Traders, was third-person with shifting POV characters, and these characters had much more interesting goals. I'll keep reading, because the first two books in the first trilogy were more interesting, but really, I'm already tired of the fantasy road trip.

I'm halfway through The Uplift War, the 1987 Hugo winner and sequel to Startide Rising, which I read last year; and have just barely cracked into The Dragon Reborn, the third volume of The Wheel of Time. I'm still behind on the year, but I'll catch up.