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.