Books Read So Far in 2014

Hi.  I'm still around, just busy.

So far this year I've managed to complete a total of five books. Five. Yeah, only five.

(1) Jonathan Strahan, ed., The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, volume seven. This is a Big Book, 624 pages in my trade paperback version. I started it last year. One thing about anthologies, they don't have the pressure of what happens next pushing you to pick them up again soon. But I finished it. Yay! Good, thought-provoking stories in here.

(2) Jo Walton, Among Others. Many wonderful things have been said about this book. They're true. This is the first book of hers I've read. I will seek out more.

When I was in junior high and high school, I always loved really thick books. Thick books meant you got to live in that story world longer. I still favor them. If you do, too, try these next three, at around 600 pages each!

(3) (4) & (5) Kate Elliott's Spiritwalker Trilogy:  Cold Magic, Cold Fire and Cold Steel
I read these last year, and they've been calling to me to re-read for quite some time - my subconscious, on the job. Now that I've completed them again, I noticed scenes to study for help with some of the issues in my current WIP (the novel, not the short stories so much).

I'm almost done with Catherynne M Valente's The Bread We Eat in Dreams. This is a collection of short works. There are stories in here I absolutely love, including "The Consultant," "The Wolves of Brooklyn," and "Twenty-five Facts About Santa Claus."

Not sure how much more book reading I'll be doing. I have many, many short stories to read. More about that in my next post.