Month 51: Alternate alternate history

Month 51 of 260 (19.62 percent)

Size of list: 91,167 pages (17.22 percent above start)

Pages read: 25,976 (28.49 percent)

H-list: 7,391/23,922 (30.9 percent)

N-list: 10,031/37,308 (26.89 percent)
O-list: 8,554/29,937 (28.57 percent)
Reading: A Fire Upon the Deep
Added: This Is How You Lose the Time War  
Finished: A Crown of Swords, The Man in the High Castle

Look, when one thing is inside another is inside another, that's not Inception. That's not what the movie meant by Inception. It's meta, or it's nesting. But the movie Inception was clear that the word inception is about the creation of an idea, and that the target had to be fooled into thinking the idea was his. 

I bring this up because The Man in the High Castle is an alternate history in which the United States lost World War II, but it features an alternate history in which the United States won World War II. It's not as trippy as you might hope, but it is interesting. It takes place mainly in Japanese-controlled San Francisco and what's left of independent United States around Denver. It's entertaining, and leaves enough unresolved that I can see how a TV series was made out of it.

A Crown of Swords was more entertaining than the last couple Wheel of Time books, but had so many pages that were just skimmable. Seriously, it could have been cut down to like a third of what it is with no real loss. It focused on two groups of characters. The young Aes Sedai searched for a magical bowl, and Rand ... I dunno, conquered some places, I guess. My plan was to read two of these books a year, but I couldn't bring myself to read any until too late in the year to read more than one. I will finish! Seven down, seven to go!

Month 50: Rivoluzione

Month 50 of 260 (19.23 percent)

Size of list: 90,624 pages (16.52 percent above start)

Pages read: 25,293 (27.91 percent)

H-list: 7,157/23,922 (29.92 percent)

N-list: 9,777/36,960 (26.45 percent)
O-list: 8,359/29,742 (28.11 percent)
Reading: A Crown of Swords
Finished: Tigana

The setting of Tigana is unmistakably fantasy Italy. It's rotated upside-down, it's called the Palm instead of the boot, and it has nothing in common with the real Italy of the 1400s except that it's divided into various principalities. One of those principalities fought against an invader, lost, and was punished. Tigana is about the survivors of that punishment, and their fight for their land. It's an unusual fantasy, in that there's no claim to be fighting for the king, only for the country, and it becomes literally for the identity of the country, since the invading army's leader, a powerful sorcerer, uses his magic to erase the country's name.
For all that, the story is really about the characters, from the band of rebels to the rival sorcerers occupying the Palm. Their personalities are vivid, drawn through dialogue, inner thoughts and choices under pressure. It's hard not to cheer for them, and that helps make the novel compelling. I highly recommend it, and I look forward to reading some more Guy Gavriel Kay.

Month 49: Aliens in transit

Month 49 of 260 (18.85 percent)

Size of list: 90,609 pages (16.50 percent above start)

Pages read: 24,870 (27.45 percent)

H-list: 6,883/23,907 (28.79 percent)

N-list: 9,628/36,960 (26.05 percent)
O-list: 8,359/29,742 (28.11 percent)
Reading: A Crown of Swords, Tigana
Finished: Way Station
Added: The Calculating Stars, Space Opera
Removed: The Soft Machine 

Way Station, the 1964 Hugo winner, is a book about a man who is impossibly old, because for the past hundred years he has been tending a house that aliens use to transit across the galaxy. Earth is not ready for contact, the galaxy has judged, but it's needed, so aliens recruit a soldier returned from the Civil War soldier to tend a house in rural Wisconsin. Everything in the book takes place in and around that house (except maybe a scene between two federal agents; I don't remember whether that was specifically in D.C., but I think it was). It's not about the aliens, but about how humans react to each other, and how mobs can be whipped up against someone or something that is different. Oh, and our predisposition for blowing ourselves up. It was good. (Also, the main character is named Enoch, but an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. writer told me on Twitter that the show's Enoch is not named after this one.)

I dropped The Soft Machine by Burroughs after maybe 50 pages. It was just... well, repellent. My copy hadn't been checked out of its library in decades, and I could see why.

Month 48: Acceleration

Month 48 of 260 (18.46 percent)

Size of list: 90,793 pages (16.5 percent above start)

Pages read: 24,734 (27.24 percent)

H-list: 6,673/23,907 (27.91 percent)

N-list: 9,492/36,960 (25.68 percent)

O-list: 8,359/29,742 (28.1 percent)
Reading: A Crown of Swords, The Soft Machine
Finished: Barrayar
Added: The Calculating Stars, Space Opera

It turns out that a medication I was on was exacerbating the issues from real life. When I dropped it, I started being able to read again.

Barrayar is book 2 by internal chronology, book 7 by publication order, of the Vorkosigan series. It has a little more science-fiction to it -- Cordelia is living on Barrayar, which was cut off from the rest of humanity for 80 years, and therefore is culturally and technologically different from what she is used to. And one result is that reproduction, for her, should involve uterine replicators, which leads to drama when she has to rescue her own unborn son, with some additional complications, of course. The action and the characters are more interesting in this one than the first one, which sums up why it won a Hugo. But even though there's only one more Hugo winner in this series, I'll probably just keep going. It's a fun series so far.

I added The Calculating Stars because it won the Hugo, and Space Opera because I wanted it to win.

Month 47: Marginally more than nothing

Month 47 of 260 (18.08 percent)

Size of list: 89,870 pages (15.55 percent above start)

Pages read: 23,300 (25.93 percent)

H-list: 6,333/23,472 (27.91 percent)

N-list: 8,608/36,960 (23.29 percent)

O-list: 8,359/29,438 (28.4 percent)
Reading: A Crown of Swords

Some of this month was Hugo reading, but I also managed to push through 125 pages of Wheel of Time book 7. 

Month 46: Nothing

Month 46 of 260 (17.69 percent)

Size of list: 89,870 pages (15.55 percent above start)

Pages read: 23,1667 (25.78 percent)

H-list: 6,333/23,472 (27.91 percent)

N-list: 8,475/36,960 (22.93 percent)

O-list: 8,359/29,438 (28.4 percent)

In the wake of our 4-year-old being taken, I went into a fairly bad depression. I read nothing this month.

Month 45: Characters taking sides

Month 45 of 260 (17.31 percent)

Size of list: 89,870 pages (15.55 percent above start)

Pages read: 23,167 (25.78 percent)

H-list: 6,333/23,472 (26.98 percent)

N-list: 8,475/36,960 (22.93 percent)

O-list: 8,359/29,438 (28.4 percent)

Finished: Shards of Honor, Golden Fool

Added: Shards of Honor, The Warrior's Apprentice

Shards of Honor is the first novel in the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold. Fans recommend reading it before Barrayar, which was a Hugo winner, so I read it. I loved it; it's a fantastic novel about two people from opposing sides of a war stranded together, and then what happens when they return. Neither side is presented as good, or right, except that there's a power struggle within one side of the war and the main characters are on the right side of that conflict. It takes place in outer space but isn't especially speculative; the characters and the world behave and react like modern Earthlings would. But the joy comes from the characters, which is why I devoured it in a week.

Golden Fool is the second book in the second Fitz trilogy; it was my favorite of the five so far, and especially a contrast to the last book, Fool's Errand. Golden Fool actually makes use of its length for multiple things to happen -- there is a three-sided cultural clash, there is factional strife within the court and within the society, and Fitz is dealing with relationships with women and with his foster son and and and... and then it sets up for a major, series-defining quest in the next book, which I only hope is not as long and monotonous as the quests in books 3 and 4. 

Month 44: Old books in the desert

Month 44 of 260 (16.92 percent)

Size of list: 89,337 pages (14.86 percent above start)

Pages read: 22,646 (25.35 percent)

H-list: 6,333/23,472 (26.98 percent)

N-list: 8,475/36,960 (22.93 percent)

O-list: 7,838/28,905 (27.12 percent)

Finished: The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu

Reading: Golden Fool

The only book I finished reading was the non-fiction The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu, which is basically a book-length news magazine article. For hundreds of years, Timbuktu, in what is now northern Mali, was a center of learning, but the tides of conservative Islamic thought rose and fell, and the books needed to be hidden. Often they were hidden away in trunks that went unopened for decades, even while bugs ate away at the books inside. This book is the story of an effort to obtain, restore and preserve the books while the tide was out, but then to protect them when the tide came in again. I read the Kindle version, so may have missed maps and photos which would have made the story easier to follow. I'm glad the heroes in this book exist; I'm not so sure about reading this story in this form.

Month 43: Post-apocalyptic magic

Month 43 of 260 (16.54 percent)

Size of list: 89,374 pages (14.91 percent above start)

Pages read: 22,187 (24.82 percent)

H-list: 6,333/23,472 (26.98 percent)

N-list: 8,475/36,960 (22.93 percent)

O-list: 7,379/28,942 (25.2 percent)

Finished: The Obelisk Gate

Reading: Golden Fool, The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu

The main book I read this month was The Obelisk Gate, volume 2 of N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy. While the first volume was a time-hopper, this volume takes place in pretty much linear time but with jumping character perspectives. It was a fantastic narrative of conflict and growth, and I enjoyed it a lot; but it was a middle volume, so not as earth-shatteringly original as the first volume nor as profound as I expect the third will be. I would compare it favorably to Ancillary Sword, Leckie's second volume; now I have to read The Dark Forest, Liu's second, just for comparison's sake.

Month 42: The end of the trilogy after The Trilogy

Month 42 of 260 (16.15 percent)

Size of list: 89,432 pages (14.99 percent above start)

Pages read: 21,710 (24.28 percent)

H-list: 5,943/23,530 (25.26 percent)

N-list: 8,475/36,960 (22.93 percent)

O-list: 7,2925/28,942 (25.2 percent)

Finished: Empire's End

Reading: Golden Fool

Added: The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu

The only book I finished this month was Empire's End, the third volume in the Star Wars: Aftermath trilogy. It was a little disappointing after the high-tension end of Life Debt, the second book. It was a conclusion, and it features Jakku, and explains why Jakku is littered with Star Destroyers and other crashed ships. There was a moment which made me recoil a little, that felt less like Star Wars and more like Transformers, when a droid manages to reassemble itself, but given the reactions from Star Wars haters, I wanted to resist even that. The book is fine, I guess, and I really like the fact that it's in the Star Wars world but doesn't use the major Star Wars characters so much -- Han and Leia are key, and Mon Mothma and Mas Amadda are there, but it's really about Temmin, Nora, Sinjir and Jas. It makes me want to read more Star Wars, but it's still not as thick as the other science fiction I'm about to bite into. 

Month 41: Wilderness and civilization, imagined and real

Month 41 of 260 (15.77 percent)

Size of list: 89,152 pages (14.63 percent above start)

Pages read: 21,453 (24.06 percent)

H-list: 5,943/23,530 (25.26 percent)

N-list: 8,475/36,960 (22.93 percent)

O-list: 7,0355/28,662 (24.06 percent)

Finished: Swords Against Death, Educated: A Memoir

Reading: Empire's End

I finished two books this month, fiction and nonfiction, fantasy and reality. But a common thread running through Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (especially volume 1, which I read last month) and Educated is how someone raised in the wilderness among an insular people then associates with the alien life of the city. Honestly, this is a stretch — a wilderness barbarian facing the thieves' guild actually has a much easier time than a girl homeschooled (only not actually schooled) facing college.

I read the first two Lankhmar collections because volume 1, Swords and Deviltry, was actually a prequel, a collection written 30 years after the real first stories that appeared in volume 2, Swords Against Death. While the early stories were tales of adventure in and around the city of Lankhmar in the world of Nehwon, the prequel stories tell what the two protagonists were doing before they met, then how they met, then set up an enemy for them. I liked the older stories better, because it put the protagonists up against interesting enemies — seven priests on an island, or a mysterious ship, or a magical shop. The personalities of the characters slowly bubble out, but they're not much more than tropes. The stories are an easy read, and maybe I'll go back for volumes 3 to 7 later. There are worse ways to spend one's time.

Educated: A Memoir is the true story of Tara Westover, who was raised by religious fundamentalist, survivalist, apocalypse-preparing Mormons in southern Idaho, then went to college and discovered the world. It was the most stressful thing I can remember reading. The abuse she suffered — from an older brother who was just mean, from a father who meant well but just did not understand things like safety or medicine — made for a gripping read, but in part because I kept waiting for even worse to happen. There's so much to explore there, especially, from my point of view, about the father. Would he have been this way if the government hadn't been such destructive, murderous assholes at Ruby Ridge? Why did he not adjust any of his thinking when the Y2K crisis didn't come to pass? And of course, my view is colored by my own circumstances — someone I have to deal with more than I would like also has similar views about vaccines and about the government, and I worry that this insanity will hurt people I love.

So I'm gonna focus on Star Wars next. 

Month 40: Silence about Lankhmar

Month 40 of 260 (15.38 percent)

Size of list: 89,152 pages (14.63 percent above start)

Pages read: 20,907 (23.45 percent)

H-list: 5,943/23,530 (25.26 percent)

N-list: 8,209/36,960 (22.21 percent)

O-list: 6,755/28,662 (23.57 percent)

Finished: Swords and Deviltry
Added: Swords Against Death, Educated: A Memoir

Reading: Educated: A Memoir

Progress is being made, but I finished the first Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser book, and decided to read the second next and comment about them together next month.

Month 39 / Year 3

Month 39 of 260 (15.00 percent)

Size of list: 88,552 pages (13.85 percent above start)

Pages read: 20,365 (23.0 percent)

H-list: 5,943/23,530 (25.26 percent)

N-list: 8,001/36,694 (21.80 percent)

O-list: 6,421/28,328 (22.67 percent)

Finished: The Best of H.P. Lovecraft (volume 3), Lord of Chaos
Next: Swords and Deviltry (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser)

In terms of progress, I closed out Year 3 not as high as I'd like, but above the diagonal red line. I'd like to work more on the N list of fantasy novels, get it above the O list of other stuff, but really I feel okay about where I am.

I had expected that the volume of Lovecraft labeled The Best of H.P. Lovecraft wouldn't actually be his best work, just his last work, but no, it was truly his best. The Call of Cthulhu, The Colour Out of Space and other late stories were far better than the early stuff. It was still racist, but less overtly. It was also enjoyable to read the stories that I had played through back when I played Mythos, the Lovecraft CCG. 

Lord of Chaos, volume 6 of The Wheel of Time, was, again, a good story that was just half again as long as it should have been. Entire chapters of travel could be excised with no diminishment of the story! But then you get to the chapters where things happen, where people make things happen, and it's enjoyable -- at least, enjoyable enough. Honestly, though, I'm reading it more to accomplish reading it than because I want to, at this point.