Books 2016: I'm reading fewer books this year than I have in years

[hawkwing_lb]

Books 2016: 80-95


80. Max Gladstone, Four Roads Cross. Tor, 2016.

Reviewed for Tor.com. REALLY LIKE.


81. Foz Meadows, An Accident of Stars. Angry Robot Books, 2016.

Reviewed for Tor.com. REALLY REALLY LIKE. Love, even.


82. Fran Wilde, Cloudbound. Tor, 2016.

Reviewed for Locus. REALLY LIKE.


83. Django Wexler, The Guns of Empire. Roc, 2016.

Reviewed for Tor.com. REALLY LIKE.


84. Judith Tarr, Lord of the Two Lands. Read in ebook out of a Storybundle.

Excellent novel featuring Alexander, an Egyptian priestess, sundry Macedonians, Greeks, Persians, Levantines and Egyptians, gods and fate. I really enjoyed it.


85. Jo Graham, The Emperor's Agent. Read in ebook out of a Storybundle.

Interesting and entertaining novel set during the Napoleonic Wars. Has reincarnation and magic in. Also espionage, sex and death.


86. Geonn Cannon, The Virtuous Feats of the Indomitable Miss Trafalgar and the Erudite Lady Boone. Read in ebook out of a Storybundle.

Steampunk, really not great at worldbuilding or history, with truly ANNOYING (from an archaeologist's and historian's point of view) archaeological adventurism. However, much diverse characters, quite a bit of queer sex, great sense of batshit delight and delight in being batshit? Kind of aggressively mediocre, though.


87. Heather Blackmore, For Money or Love. Bold Strokes Books, 2016. Ebook.

It's a lesbian billionaire romance! (Sort of.) And it's well-written! And touching! And affecting! And mostly good! THIS IS SURPRISING AS ALL HELL. I recommend it.


88. Jaycie Morrison, Basic Training of the Heart. Bold Strokes Books, 2016. Ebook.

Lesbian romance. Women's Army Corps, WWII. Aggressively mediocre in terms of tension, plot, and writing. Interesting characters.


89. Jenny Frame, Courting the Countess. Bold Strokes Books, 2016. Ebook.

A modern lesbian aristocrat-housekeeper romance that really really wants to be a period novel. Meh.


90. Jaime Maddox, Hooked. Bold Strokes Books, 2016. Ebook.

Terrible lesbian romance with the Problem Of Prescription Drug Addiction thrown in for good (bad) measure. The best that can be said for it is that it's marginally readable.


91. Erica Abbott, Fragmentary Blue. Ebook.

Lesbian romantic suspense. Mostly okay.


92. Erica Abbott, Certain Dark Things. Ebook.

Sequel to Fragmentary Blue. Mostly okay too.


93. Erica Abbott, Acquainted With The Night. Ebook.

Sequel to Certain Dark Things. Kind of a hot mess, but entertaining for all that it is terribly constructed.


nonfiction

94. Joseph Roisman, Alexander's Veterans and the Early Wars of the Successors. University of Texas Press, 2013 [2012].

A thorough history of Alexander's Macedonian veterans as political actors in the years immediately following his death in 323 BCE. Unfortunately not very interested in material culture and making comparisons to other sorts of veterans, but for what it is, absolutely fascinating and well worth reading.


95. Peter Thonemann, The Maeander Valley: A Historical Geography from Antiquity to Byzantium. Cambridge University Press, 2015 [2011].

A magnificent, magisterial regional history of the valley of the Maeander river in Asia Minor. Really engaging, really good. Also well worth reading.

Comments

[rachelmanija]

88. Jaycie Morrison, Basic Training of the Heart. Bold Strokes Books, 2016. Ebook.

Lesbian romance. Women's Army Corps, WWII. Aggressively mediocre in terms of tension, plot, and writing. Interesting characters.

The 100% inverse relationship between your opinion of the writing quality of Bold Strokes books and the degree to which their concepts intrigue me is so consistent that it's getting hilarious. I will eventually start actually reading some but I have a feeling I will agree with you on quality issues as I marly always do with books I have actually read.

[hawkwing_lb]

I find it pretty funny, myself. Because damn, I want the awesome book all of 'em had the potential to be before I started reading 'em.

[sovay]

with truly ANNOYING (from an archaeologist's and historian's point of view) archaeological adventurism

Dare I ask?

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Looting. Looting everywhere.

[sovay]

Looting. Looting everywhere.

Whee.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Btw, I read this and thought you might enjoy it, if you haven't seen it already:

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-bright-ghosts-of-antiquity-7139

[sovay]

Btw, I read this and thought you might enjoy it, if you haven't seen it already

I hadn't! Thank you.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Given the massive changes in your life habits this year, I'd have been surprised if your reading habits weren't affected. But it looks like you're mostly focusing on fun stuff! Glad you're finding things to enjoy in the StoryBundle.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Fun stuff and history. Bits of the Storybundle - for which thanks - will doubtless end up showing up in columns for a while to come...

[hrj.livejournal.com]

By the way, I'm very glad that you regularly review LesFic books (even the very brief mentions) because there's mostly a vast disconnect between that reading community and the larger world. One of the reasons I read/review so little LesFic SFF is because I'm wary of the social consequences of not liking most of it. (And I expect that that would be the case.)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Well, I am auto-approved for Bold Strokes Books' offerings on Netgalley, so I'm not paying for most of this. If I were, I would probably read a lot less of it: most of it is sadly dreadful in execution.