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Wow, this is going to be really hard. I haven't posted my books since February and I have no idea if I'll be able to figure them all out. If it's not obvious, I'm not going to do a write up on them.

( But here are the ones I can remember and piece together from the Kobo )

Might be able to finish one more by the end of the year, but it's long and I'm less than a quarter of the way through it, so maybe not.

Wow, again a long time since I last posted my books. I'm not sure I have everything in order. I'm not sure I didn't miss anything. But this is what I think I read.

( this got long )

13. Christopher Moore "Razzmatazz"

I liked "Razzmatazz" better than "Noir", but I still think Moore was just trying to hard to make every single character over the top. Many of his earlier books most of the characters were normal people going through extraordinary circumstances or dealing with the one completely bonkers character. I've got to give credit though with the plot points of getting a group of people under surveillance to a party. I like the way the different threads came together and thought it was the best part of the book.

14. various "Tales from Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine"

I have no idea where we got this book, but it's been on the shelves for a while and I just found it. It contains stories originally published between 1979 and 1984, so fairly early on in the Asimov's run. All before the time I started reading the magazine. The first few stories felt young and fresh. There were some which probably felt retro even in 1984. Overall, it was a pretty good collection. I must admit I was surprised to read the Octavia Butler story in a collection for young adults. She can be pretty bleak and harsh and I'm not sure I would suggest that particular story for young adults.

15. Robert Harbinson "The Built, the Unbuilt, and the Unbuildable"

This is what happens when you take some lectures and try to fluff them up to a a full length book using impenetrable academic speak. Don't walk away from this one. Run. Any sane person would have stopped after a few pages. I have a nice jacket with long arms for occasions like this.

16. Terry Pratchett "Men at Arms"

The good thing about there being so many books in the discworld series is that by the time I get to re-reading them, much of it is fresh and new for me. I had forgotten how much innuendo there is between Nobby and Angua, although it's rather inevitable. It's Nobby afterall. It surprises me how the critical part of the scene with Cuddy in the Tower of Art takes place entirely off screen. I think that was intentional, to make it less disturbing. It might have been better if the paragraphs with Cuddy's viewpoint and Detritus' viewpoint were reversed. I imagine that was a hard bit to figure out how to write. This books is where the Watch really starts to get rich with characters and interactions. Also I love the choice of title of the book. The tongue is stuck firmly in the cheek for that one.

8. Irvine Welsh "Trainspotting"

I have seen the "Trainspotting" movie multiple times but I'd never read the book before, so this was a treat. I think the people who made the movie did a very good job of translating the book into a different form. They did a good job of capturing the feel and many of the stories. But the book format allows so much more. The vast majority of the book is told 1st person. In each chapter/piece you have to determine who the first person is because it's not given to you. All the characters have different internal (and external) voices and generally it's this which gives you the first clue of whose perspective you are experiencing. I found it interesting that this rotating 1st person perspective was kept consistently up to the chapter where Renton meets Dianne. After that point, the 1st person perspective comes and goes.

I don't think they could have done much better with the movie adaptation, but there is so much more in the book. It is awful, dark, and delightful and poetic.

9. Arthur Ransome "Great Northern"

I finally gave in and read the last book in the Swallows & Amazons series. I had been holding out because as long as I had one more book, it wasn't over. But now, alas, I've finished the whole series. I will go back and start from the beginning again.

This book had the whole usual cast of characters, but focuses on the younger kids. That makes sense, because by this point John, Susan, and Nancy are basically adults. They are wrapped up in duties and responsibilities. Nancy does get to shiver some timbers, but Dick, Dorothea, Roger, and Titty are at the center of the action. By bringing in the younger characters in earlier books Ransome solves the "they never grow up" problem which other children's books series get stuck on. They do grow up and more kids come along, that's just the way it goes.

Like the other books this book teaches how to do some thing "the old fashion way". In this case you learn how to make nets and blinds. I don't think this book read quite as well as some of the others. This one had a point "egg collectors bad, conservation good" and the fun was secondary to that.

10. Nicholas Meyer "The West End Horror"

This book has been hanging around the house for many years. Published in 1976, it's one of the Sherlock Holmes stories of the "found writings of Dr. Watson" variety. Basically a fan fic before the term fan fic. I can't seem to put a finger on why but it felt like the story and pacing didn't feel like the originals. It didn't wow me.

11. Rohase Piercy "My Dearest Holmes"

This book is a more recent (2007) Holmes & Watson story. Again, a found writing of Dr. Watson. It is un-apologeticaly slash fiction. The first section is a stand alone story, which takes place before Watson's marriage. I felt this section did a good job of Holmsian plot and pacing. The detail of dialog and inner dialog didn't really hold up for me, it went a bit too far from the original. But then again, I'm not the target audience. But I felt the author did a nice job of tying up the mystery. The second part of the book deals with the time when Watson is married and to the resolution of "The Final Problem". This section I felt was more clunky. I did like how the author came up with an explanation for Mary calling Watson "James", a very nice touch. And I liked the how the author dealt with Mary & Watson in general. But the detail writing felt even more removed from the canon constructions. Slash fans who don't want prawn might find this book more entertaining.

5. "Sisters In Law"

This book covers the careers of Sandra Day O'Connor & Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the 1st and 2nd women on the supreme court, respectively. I lived through the time covered by this book, but through much of it I was less than totally aware of what was going on with the Supreme Court. I found some of the book quite enlightening. I was not happy to read all the ways in which things happened due to "friend of a friend" type contacts. The differentiator was less about 'liberal or conservative' and more 'went to the right school and knew someone who knew the right person.' I assumed there was some level of that, but the breadth and extent is still disappointing. Today I always assume politics is heavy in the court, but I didn't realize the sort of backhanded maneuvering was taking place in the '70s. I'm sure it's even worse now, which makes it hard for someone a cynical as I am to think about. I don't think it is the most corrupt institution in US government, but that bar is very low indeed.

I have always felt like my life will probably be summed up to "everything he ever did in total amounted to fuck all." That's the way life is for most of us. We really aren't going to change the world. We're going to muddle through, get by okay if we're lucky, and hopefully treat our fellow human beings decently. But for prominent people to have their entire life's work basically undone in a short time, that's got to bite. Well, it would bite if they were alive to see it.

I was startling to be reminded just how awful the gender discrimination and straightjackets were back in the early '70's. I mean today we can see a lot of problems and backsliding, but I'd forgotten just how bad it was before. I like to hope that there will be an equal amount of change in another 50 years and not continued regression.

6. Janny Scott "A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother"

This book was an interesting biography. The first few chapters covered more grandparents, great aunts and uncles than I could follow, but once we got down to the birth family and life of Stanley Ann Dunham it got more interesting. The biographer drew together a bunch of incidents and facts which suggested ideas but didn't draw positive conclusions. I like that. It was interesting as a biography regardless of the fact that one of her children ended up becoming president of the US. That comes in, but thankfully isn't the focus. I think the book is a good example of how most of us more or less muddle through and if we're lucky we find out what makes us happy, or content, or perhaps provides for us before we die. If we're unlucky we find none of the aforementioned. Very few find all of the aforementioned. I think Dunham understood at some point she was trading security for what made her happy, what was her passion. That might have cost her years in lifespan, but she (and we) can never know. She just might have traded her happy years for stable unhappy years and ended with the same outcome.

1. Barack Obama "Dreams from My Father"

The first two sections of this book felt kind of wandering and not cohesive. That may have been intentional because he was talking about not fitting in and finding his place. I really enjoyed the 3rd section of the book which talked about his first visit to Kenya and his family there.

2. Kim Stanley Robinson "Red Mars"

"Red Mars" was one of those books which I had heard of, but never got around to reading. I didn't know what to expect because I had intentionally avoided spoilers and summaries. But since this book is quite old, I'm not going to worry about spoilers here. This is an incredibly ambitious book. It covers geology, economic theory, psychology, sociology, political theory, and run of the mill sci-fi technological extrapolation. And it tries to do so while having a plot. That's a lot to ask of any book. It would have taken a miracle to pull it off and miracles are hard to come by. The characters reactions and sociology felt like something an author writing in the '50's would have come up with when trying to show the year 2000. The book was published in the early 90's, but doesn't acknowledge the impacts of HIV, long term birth control, or anything non-heteronormative, let alone project into further social change. In order to have the plot move along correctly, we need lots of science, but then we have to ignore critical things like meteor showers and the importance of earth's magnetic field. But we'll bring those things into play when they are needed, please ignore them at all other times. And two critical points which break the whole suspension of disbelief come into play: In a tech level with the ability to build machines to terraform Mars why can't earth be so terraformed? And in a society where one person can program machines to build hundreds of miles of pipeline (in days) and robots that can make robots, a handful of partisans could have overwhelmed a force with interplanetary supply lines easily.

As either a utopian or dystopian novel, this could have been much shorter. There were lots of descriptions that reminded me of John Carter, albeit more based in astronomy than fantasy. So do I think it was worth it? Not really.

29. Asimov's Nov/Dec 2023

This issue is the end of an era. I started getting issues of Asimov's in 1986 I think. derien may have started a bit earlier. With exception of a few lost issues with moves, we've kept a subscription continuously the whole time we've been together. But this is our last printed issue. I had been debating ending our subscription entirely because I feel the overall quality of the content has been tailing off for a while. But when I found out we can get epub versions, which should be compatible with our ebook readers, I decided to go that route. So the next issue will be electronic only. I like the printed format, but I think we have 5 boxes packed full of old issues and can't read them because of allergies and decomposing paper.

In this issue, my favorite long piece was Dominica Phetteplace's "The Ghosts of Mars" Many of the of stories in Asimov's recently have had non-sociotypical characters, but a lot of them just feel like it's a cover for the author's inability to write emotion. The main character in this one felt real to me, with a voice which was believable. Among the short stories, my favorites were Prashanth Srivatsa's "Meet-Your-Hero", Frank Ward's "In The Days After", and James Patrick Kelly's "Embot's Lament".

24. Terry Pratchett "Moving Pictures"

After finishing up "A History of Mechanical Inventions", Terry Pratchett's roast of Hollywood was a very fun read. It is obvious Pratchett loves the subject matter and there is so much to make fun of in movie tropes. This book introduces Gaspode the Wonder Dog, who is a particular favorite of mine.

25. "The Long List Anthology Vol. 7"

This is the first of the Long List anthologies which I've read. It was a pretty good collection with many strong stories. There were a few which didn't do much for me, but the majority were good to great. I'd recommend picking this up if you like shorter works and definitely if you can find it on sale (as I did). I have a few more volumes in this series which I will be sprinkling in between my novels length reading.

26. Asimov's Science Fiction Sep/Oct 2023

"The Break-In" worked better than most of the Kristine Kathryn Rusch. I think the jumping between character perspectives helped the energy level and flow. However, the ending made it feel like just part of a story, not really as stand alone work. My favorites for this issue were the novelettes. Dean Whitlock's "Deep Blue Jump", Michele Lafromboise's "Tears Down the Wall" and David Erik Nelson's "The Dead Letter Office" were my favorites. Several of the short stories were doing different things this month. None of them really hit on all cylinders for me, but I appreciate the variety and the effort.

26. Jasper Fforde "The Fourth Bear"

I can't remember when I last read "The Fourth Bear", but it's been a while. I'm always amazed by the number of references Fforde can stuff into a single book (and that's just the ones I pick up on). I had forgotten how he placed this book within the Thursday Next universe, so there is some crossover to the other series. This book feels a little less zany than "The Big Over Easy", but it is still out there with nursery rhyme characters and psychotic murderous baked good (cookie or cake?). How does he come up with all this stuff?!

27. Terry Pratchett "Reaper Man"

How did I forget so many of the parts of this book? Even though this one takes place fairly early in the Discworld saga, I ended up reading it quite a while after the books around it. That being said, much of it was new to me again on the re-read. Really this book is two stories which take place between the same two covers which really don't bother to interact with each other. I think Pratchett probably had both ideas, but neither made a full novel and he needed to have a full novel. They really could have been done as one of those back to back books where you read halfway through for one story, then turn the books upside down and start reading from the other cover for the other story. In one storyline Death gets great character development and the author gets to play with an extended metaphor. In the second storyline it is lovely how Pratchett excoriates suburbs and malls. Some of the plot points are a bit clunky, but the descriptions of rural life and rural and wizard personalities are worth it.

7. Terry Pratchett "Sorcery"

Continuing the re-read of all the Discworld books. In "Sorcery" you can feel Pratchett getting the rhythm which he honed for many years. It's hard to put my finger on just how, but every now and then I'd hit a bit of very prime stuff. Bits of this felt repeated from the early books and I'm glad for the next book we get to move on to a different cast of characters. It seems by the way Pratchett ended it, he wanted a break from the characters as well.

8. Jennifer Worth "Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End"

This book, like the previous two has a mix of dark and light stories. There are some places where we cover ground which we'd gone over in previous books, sometimes from a different perspective, sometimes not. This book wraps up several of the main characters stories and is a natural ending point of the series. I don't think it was as strong as the first two books, but it was nice to see how some of the things turned out.

9. Asimov's Jan/Feb 2023

I have had a subscription to Asimov's since the '80's. We have boxes of back issues on shelves or in storage. It is hard to contemplate, but I'm debating letting my subscription lapse. Every now and then there will be an outstanding, wonderful story. But in general the number of stories that do nothing for me outweigh the ones which do anything for me. I feel like the quality of the stories has been steadily declining over the years. This makes me sad. It seems the longer form stories tend to lose the most and the short works are where we see the remaining gems.

What follows is what I wrote to a friend about Norman Spinrad's "Up and Out".

"Derien started to read it and gave up after a few paragraphs. I had to read the whole thing, because I always do.  Spinrad is either a) senile, b) a really bad author, or c) a genius author who is able to write an entire long form story perfectly in character of a thoughtless tech bro. It's hard to tell which based on the evidence presented. As far as the qualities of the story, it's hard to know where to start.  All complications and consequences are just glossed over. The writing made we want to poke my eyeballs out with a spork. The plot was wanking over (to quote the Australian "Honest Government Ads" group) shitfuckery. If it was a spoof of how Musk would think and write about himself, it was brilliant. If it was intended to be anything other than a farce, it was sad indeed."

The whole first part of this issue was either torture or did nothing for me. My favorite was Ramsey Shehadeh's "Cigarettes and Coffee" which did a good job of putting the reader into the shoes of a main character who is not in charge of everything and not infinitely wealthy, and who's world just doesn't turn out perfect no matter what they do. Quite the opposite in fact.

10. P. G. Wodehouse "Sam In The Suburbs"

After Asimov's I decided to read a random P.G. Wodehouse. I thought based on the title and the settings that this book was written later in his career, but it's was actually published in 1925. The prose was right on the mark with humor both overt and implied. The plot is a bit less clear. Maybe he tried to put too much in there. The start is a bit clunky because plot points involving the main character need to get established. I thought Wodehouse spent a bit too much time on the early scenes in London. He brings in a ton of different characters all working on different threads through the middle of the book. In the end he ties it all together, but the way he chose to do it seemed a bit off. While I was reading it I actually thought of a way it could have tied out better, but I can't remember it now and might never again.

Not the strongest Wodehouse book, but still a fun read.

11. Terry Pratchett "Wyrd Sisters"

I finished the re-read of "Wyrd Sisters" while on vacation. I had forgotten just how unresolved Pratchett left many of the story lines in this one. He really had fun bashing tropes in this one and the refusal to resolve everything feels like more of that. Granny is much more Granny in this one, but hasn't quite jelled into her final state. Nanny springs into action basically complete. After reading this one, I almost feel like I have to read one of Jasper Fforde's "Fool" series to get my full dose of Shakespeare pastiche.

3. Becky Chambers "The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet"

"The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet" was a fun read, but really felt like I should have gotten it from AO3. It feels like Firefly/DS9 fanfic which was written with an eye toward selling the rights to TV. Somehow the chapters seem to feel like we're getting episodes in a show. It was enjoyable and there are some interesting ideas in the universe which Chambers built. Generally, I like the differences in the races and how humans fit into it. This is Chambers' first novel and self published at that and as such is an impressive effort. If I sound a bit critical, it just because I think with a little more editing/refining it could have been stellar.

4. Joe Haldeman "Dealing in Futures"

"Dealing in Futures" was kind of a mixed bag for me. I was impressed by the novella "You Can Never Go Back", which was the basis for the central section of "The Forever War". I've heard about "The Forever War" as a classic of science fiction, but have never read it. Maybe I'll do that now. This story was the first time I've ever read anything "space marines" where the combat could be followed and which conveyed the ugliness of war. Some of Haldeman's fictional social changes have come to pass, but these stories were written in the mid '70's to early '80's. His attitudes and those of his main characters are generally stuck in the '70's or earlier. I'm not nostalgic for the '70's, I lived through them (albeit as a kid) and now I'm just embarrassed by how sexist, racist, and close minded American society was. Sometimes it was hard to get around the squicky bits to see the interesting plots and worlds.