Penric's Mission by Lois McMaster Bujold

Penric’s Mission

2/5. Continuing adventures of Penric and his accidental demon. It would have been a 3/5 for pleasantly diverting Bujoldian adventure, but then. My dudes. You can not write the first third of a novel, half-assedly resolve about 20% of the conflict and none of the important interpersonal questions, and then just end it with everyone literally marching off into uncertainty and call it a novella. And it’s not one of those artistic non-endings, either. It’s a screamingly obvious “whoops this grew a novel but I donwanna write it but I do want to sell some books sooooo….”

Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner

Thick as Thieves

4/5. Book five, and a new POV character. It’s another theft caper, except the object is our narrator, who needs to be stolen from his powerful master and, eventually, from all the nonsense he built up in his head to survive.

This one got a little frustrating, since the first 80% is a long, frantic flight across hostile countryside, as a series of variously terrible things go wrong. Stressful! But oh man, that last 20% is so worth it as the convolutions of the scheme spin out. And Irene. Oh, Irene. My heart hurts for them.

I do think that Turner is on the brink of becoming too . . . chary of her hero. She really likes showing him from other points of view, particularly from the POV of people who don’t really understand him and what he’s doing. Which is a perfectly fine narrative kink – and I like it – but at a certain point we do actually need to be in his head again. Otherwise, he’s going to start looking invincibly clever. And this is Eugenides, so we really cannot have that.

2017 reading

So as probably no one remembers, I read only authors that were new to me last year. It was supposed to be an exercise in expanding my horizons and getting me out of my ruts, and on the plus side, it totally did that. On the minus side, it was exhausting. I didn’t realize how mentally restful it is for me to pick up a book continuing a series, or even a book by an author that I know well. There is just a lot of mental work that goes in to reading completely new stuff. Also, work was A Thing this year, and also my father died, and also also I travelled about a month more than usual, all told, all of which disrupted my flow and made me realize how often I wanted that comfort of familiarity.

Plus, I retired my dog halfway through the year, meaning that a significant chunk of my reading time disappeared since I don’t have to take her for walks anymore. Basically, I’ve only read for the last five years during my commute and while walking the dog or doing housework. I’m having to retrain myself to read while sitting still on the couch. It’s weird and I am not good at it; my brain frantically wants me to be doing something. I have taken to reading while pacing slowly through the living room. My wife is bemused.

So, all told, I only read 45 books in 2017. Which is actually better than I was afraid it would be, even though it’s a 25 book drop from my mean.

So, for 2018 my only reading goal is to read more than that. I’m giving myself a running start with a bunch of novellas. No shame here. I’m really glad I did my two years of experimental reading – one year of not reading men, one year of reading only new authors. And I will do both again. But not right now.*

As for the year’s best books, ugh. I am tired. I did read great stuff – Amberlough comes to mind, and Scorpion Rules, and Underground Railroad, and Twitter and Teargas. But don’t make me go hunting up links.

*I am disinclined to do one of those ‘only read queer authors’ challenges. Largely because I don’t really feel like creepin’ on the relative queerness/relative outness of authors. That does not sound like a thing I would enjoy. Not reading men was tricky enough in that regard.