Reading Update

Here are the books I re-read since the beginning of May:

N.K. Jemisin, The Inheritance Trilogy (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, The Broken Kingdoms, The Kingdom of Gods). Epic fantasy. Not earth Medieval Europe based, wonderfully developed characters. Naha is a favorite.

Lois McMaster Bujold, Sharing Knife Series (4 books: Beguilement, Legacy, Passage, Horizon). Fantasy/romance. Has a great depiction of riverboat culture.

Kate Elliott, Spiritwalker Trilogy (Cold Magic, Cold Fire, Cold Steel). Epic fantasy. I love Ms Elliott's worldbuilding. An example: an intelligent species based on troodons.

Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens. Because it's a delightfully funny apocalypse tale.

Elizabeth Bear, 2 books: Blood and Iron and Whiskey and Water. Urban fantasy. Inventive combination of classic Fairie, the Morgan/Arthur myth, mages, werewolves, and a dragon, centered in New York City. Her Morgan is my favorite Morgan ever. And Ms Bear gives the kelpie realistic horse-like behaviors when he's in human form.


Here's what I read that was new for me since the beginning of May:

C.J. Cherryh, The Morgaine Saga. A collection of three SF novels; interplanetary time travel and culture clashes.

N.K. Jemisin & Hiromi Goto, Systems Fail. A collection of short stories and essays published for WisCon38, where they were the Guests of Honor.

Ursula Vernon, Toad Words and Other Stories. Ms Vernon tells delightfully original fairy tales. She is also very good at re-imagining traditional fairy tales. If you're unfamiliar with her work, starting here would be a good choice. Then read Digger (beginning of the story)  - just sayin'.

I finished Toad Words today. I think I'm ready to tackle more new books now.

I Do Read Books, Honest!

I try to post what I've read quarterly. Dropped that ball in 2013! There were two books posts, one in May, with all of five books, and another one in July with eight more books. Here's what I read between  early July and the end of the year.  

(13) Vonda N McIntyre, Starfarers. First book in the Starfarers Quartet. I've always loved McIntyre's fiction and this book made me finally realize why. Her SF is primarily biology based, which is far more appealing to me (a biologist) than purely techy stuff. 

(14) Vonda N McIntyre, Transition. Book two in the Starfarers Quartet. Loving this series!

(15) Vonda N McIntyre, Metaphase. Book three in the Starfarers Quartet. I haven't found a paper copy of book four (Nautilus) yet. I'm gonna have to buy the ebook from Book View Cafe. Must read all the books! 

(16) Mary Robinette Kowal, Glamour in Glass.  Continuing adventures of Jane and Vincent of Shades of Milk and Honey (see July post). I enjoyed this book more because the story line didn't feel as close to Austin.  Also really like how the author limits herself to the vocabulary of the Regency. 

(17) Mary Robinette Kowal, Without a Summer. More Jane and Vincent, and another good one. There will be more books in this series. 

(18) Amy Thomson, Storyteller. I met Ms Thomson at WisCon. This is the first book of hers I've read. It was really interesting and I haven't cried that often while reading in a long time (hit the mommy buttons hard for me). Good SF. 

(19) Ursula Vernon, Digger Omnibus. Oh, people. Read this book! A practical wombat (that's Digger), oracular slug, talking statue, Shadowchild, Ed.  Just some of the marvelous characters you'll meet here. 

(20) Terry Pratchett, Hogfather. Because I always read this book in December. It's traditional. Just checked my list and this is my only Pratchett book for the year. That is very untraditional!

Twenty books in a year is not much, but it's better than I did in 2012, when I read only fifteen. And I didn't read any from September through November because I was writing and cruising. 

It was a year for series: two short story collections by LeGuin, three books in Kowal's Glamourist Histories, the three books of Elliott's Spiritwalker Trilogy, and three of the four books in McIntyre's Starfarer's Quartet. 

I read books by seven authors new to me: Jared Diamond, Skyler White, Steven Brust, Mary Robinette Kowal, Madeline Robins, Kate Elliott, and Amy Thomson. That's a good thing. 

I still have many books in my To Be Read pile, including more authors new to me. It's going to be fun. 

Self-Publishing

Ursula Vernon has a wonderful post on self-publishing.  Being Ursula, there's potatoes, cauliflower, and nonexistent forehead tattoos ... in short, funny and realistic.

The rocket ship on her mantelpiece she mentions is the Hugo award she won for her web comic, Digger.  She mentions Girl Genius in her post as well, a web comic that has won several Hugos.  Yes, plural.

I currently have no plans to self-publish.  It's a lot of work I don't have time for because of the Day Job.  If traditional publishing doesn't happen, I'll consider it.  But only as a last resort.

After you digest Ms Vernon's good thoughts, check out Digger (a fantasy story).  Here's the link to the first episode:  http://diggercomic.com/?p=3

Girl Genius, a steam punk story written by Kaja and Phil Foglio, is still ongoing.  It's updated Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  Link to the first episode:  http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20021104

I love plugging favorite authors!