books

I read…a lot. Here’s where I ramble about books and printed media.

PKD Day

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This year’s nominees for the Philip K. Dick award were announced today, and I already have my copies! Looking forward to diving in as soon as I’m done with the book I’m currently reading.

A stack of six books on my lap, showing the tiltes on the spines.

Amusingly, I only had to order five. I’d picked up Triangulum last year at Norwescon, and just hadn’t gotten around to reading it yet. Guess it’s time!

Clarkesworld Issue 219 edited by Neil Clarke

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Book 2 of 2025: Clarkesworld Issue 219, edited by Neil Clarke. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Favorites in this issue were “Souljacker” by Shari Paul, “Driver” by Sameem Siddiqui, and “The Coffee Machine” by Celia Corral-Vásquez.

I realized last week that somehow I got a month behind with my Clarkesworld reading, so this is actually the December issue, and the January issue is coming up next.

Me holding Clarkesworld 219 on my iPad.

Uncanny Magazine Issue 62 edited by Lynne M. Thomas, Michael Damian Thomas, Monte Lin, and Betsy Aoki

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Book 1 of 2025: Uncanny Magazine Issue 62, edited by Lynne M. Thomas, Michael Damian Thomas, Monte Lin, and Betsy Aoki. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Favorites this month were “Kaiju Agonistes” by Scott Lynch, a hilarious take on kaiju stories, and “Six People to Revise You” by J.R. Dawson, which was perhaps a bit predictable, but very nice.

Me holding Uncanny Issue 62 on my iPad

2024 Reading Round-Up

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Every year, I set myself a goal of reading at least 52 books over the course of the year — an average of one a week. This year I made it to 76 books. Here’s a quick (?) overview…

Screenshot from The Storygraph showing my reading goal of 52 books at 146% complete with 76 books, exceeding my goal by 24 books.

Once again, the trend of the last few years holds true, with another year almost entirely dedicated to escapist fluff. Surprised? I’m not. Have you seen…everything?

Non-fiction: Three books, counting for 4% of my reading. A silly little guide to surviving visiting quaint English villages, a comic anthology of plans and schemes that didn’t quite work out, and a really good look at menopause, which I’d recommend to anyone dealing with it personally or who knows someone who is dealing with it personally (I fall into the latter category, being a 50-something cis man who knows a lot of women “of a certain age”, as the old saying goes).

Non-genre-fiction (where “genre” is shorthand — though, not very short, if you include this parenthetical — for science-fiction, fantasy, and horror): Not much, but a little bit. Frederik Backman’s books are always a delight, and this year I really enjoyed Anxious People. Also in this category is the tenth anniversary re-release of Smut Peddler, an erotic comic anthology (another release in the Smut Peddler series was also on my reading list this year, though that one counts as genre fiction).

Quality genre fiction: About the same as last year; primarily the Philip K. Dick nominees and my Hugo project, with a few others added here and there.

As usual, I read all of the books nominated for this year’s Philip K. Dick awards. However, I’m no longer posting my thoughts or review on the nominees, as I am the coordinator for the Philip K. Dick award ceremony at Norwescon. While I have no input into selecting any of the nominees or the eventual winner, I don’t want to give any appearance of impropriety. So, I’ll just read and enjoy each year’s nominees, and you all will have to make your own judgements as to your favorites.

I added seven books to my Hugo reading project and decided to skip re-reading three milkshake ducks, bringing me up to 77% of the way through. This year’s selections were all good — I continue to very much enjoy Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy was excellent hard SF, Connie Willis’s Oxford Time Travel books are delightful, and Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age continues to hold its place as my favorite of his books.

Fluff genre fiction: Unsurprisingly, this once again ended up being the strong majority of this year’s reading. Lots of Star Trek novels, with a few detours here and there. And given everything that was going on in 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024, it was very nice to have a bookshelf full of options that wouldn’t take a whole lot of brain power for me to disappear into. I did hit the somewhat silly but still notable milestone of having read every officially physically released standalone TOS Star Trek novel published to date (this excludes eBook only releases and TOS books that are part of a larger, multi-show series) — basically, on Wikipedia’s list of Star Trek novels, everything in the Bantam Books and Random House sections and everything in the Simon & Schuster section up to where it starts listing TNG books.

Continuing from last year is reading more digitally than in the past, with my two SF/F magazine subscriptions (Uncanny and Clarkesworld) and the ease of bringing ebooks along when vacationing landing me at a split of 70% physical, 30% digital for the year, compared to 78/22 last year.

Finally, Storygraph’s stats on my year’s reading tell me:

Graph of my books and pages read over the year. I read the most in February and April, the least in March, June, October, and December.

 

On to 2025!

Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold

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75/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A two-century prequel to the Vorkosigan saga, as the Quaddies — humans genetically engineered for zero-G, complete with a second pair of arms rather than legs — make a break for freedom. Not quite as good as later Vorkosigan books, but also one of the earliest written, and still very enjoyable, with some neat feats of sci-fi engineering balancing out the less well-developed characters.

Me holding Falling Free

Harm’s Way by David Mack

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74/2024 – ⭐️⭐️

Though officially a TOS adventure, this is really mostly a part of the Vanguard spinoff book series, which I read so long ago as to have forgotten both characters and key points. As a result, it felt like I was reading a mid-series book, and missing much of the necessary context. The primary foe is so overwhelmingly powerful that there’s an extended battle sequence in the latter half of the book that feels very out of place; perhaps it works within the greater Vanguard storyline, but to me, it was just troubling and very un-Trek. Klingon characters include pre-“Day of the Dove” Kang and Mara, which does expand their characters in interesting ways and hints at background motivations for future Federation/Klingon developments, but also doesn’t really mesh with what I remember of Kang and Mara’s actions in the episode (though, admittedly, it’s been a few years since I watched it, and I’m relying partially on Memory Alpha’s plot summary here). All in all, an uneven Trek adventure, and not one of my favorites.

Me holding Harm’s Way

Milkshake Duck Status and Rationales

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For my own purposes, a (not comprehensive) list of currently known milkshake ducks in my media libraries, how I’m treating their work in my own consumption habits, and any rationales or justifications for these decisions. You may not agree with any or all of this, and that’s fine. This is kind of an exercise to help me figure out why I’ve made the decisions I have, and perhaps, whether I should rethink or change those.

This is being actively updated as my mind processes, and likely will continue to be updated as I think and if (or, unfortunately, when) more people out themselves as belonging to this category.

  • Scott Adams: General right-wing buffoonery, including sexism, racism, anti-science views, etc.
    Haven’t really paid much attention to him in years anyway, thanks to his eye-roll inducing rants, but do have the very fancy oversized 10-year anniversary collected Dilbert, which was last taken off the shelf to see if it was the right size to prop up part of our couch (it wasn’t). Will probably offload it at some point.
  • Woody Allen: Sexual abuse
    Not watching any new work or supporting by buying old work. Keeping and will occasionally rewatch old favorite films already in the collection. While I certainly don’t wish death upon him, his eventual passing will mean that I’ll be more easily able to justify finding those of his films that I know I enjoy but won’t purchase now.
  • Piers Anthony: Sexism, misogyny, pedophilic themes
    Any of Anthony’s books I had in my collection got booted years ago, after I started re-reading the Xanth series, got through the first two while getting increasingly uncomfortable, and then doing a little research and discovering just how bad it got. I couldn’t imagine having those on my shelves if any of my niblings ever went looking for something to read.
  • Orson Scott Card: Homophobia
    Not buying any new stuff, though I did pick up used copies of the first few Ender’s Game/Speaker for the Dead sequels and read some of them after reading those two Hugo winners (I think I still have some to go). From what I’ve seen, OSC hasn’t been nearly as vocal or influential as he once was, EG/SftD are too foundational to my early SF reading to write them off, and my re-read for this project confirmed just how good they are — and, interestingly, how drastically their message of inclusion contrasts with OSC’s statements. Unlike Anthony, whose beliefs are very obvious in his work, OSC’s work actually doesn’t hint as his personal beliefs, so it’s much easier for me to justify keeping his books on my shelves.
  • Neil Gaiman: Sexual abuse
    Still adjusting to this one. Won’t be buying, reading, or watching any new projects. Keeping books and films already in the collection, but it’ll probably be a while before I feel like re-reading anything (and just decided to skip his two Hugo award winning novels in my Hugo best novel reading project).
  • J.K. Rowling: Transphobia
    Not buying, reading, watching, or otherwise supporting any projects. Haven’t ditched the Potter books or films already in the collection, but not re-reading the books (and just decided to skip her one Hugo-award winning Potter book in my Hugo best novel reading project) or re-watching the films. Stopped subscribing to HBO’s Max streaming service in part because of their decision to move forward with a new Harry Potter series.
  • Dan Simmons: Islamophobia
    The same basic bucket as OSC: Not reading anything that isn’t already in my collection, but the Hyperion cantos was too mind-blowing to entirely ditch.