lavaturtle reads 8 in 8 in 2016

Here are my categories. I'm aiming to read 8 books in each.

1. Mt. TBR -- books I own that are waiting to be read as of 1 Jan. 2016 (1/8)
✓ 2. Friendlies -- books recommended by friends
✓ 3. Hugos -- books nominated for the Hugo awards
✓ 4. New fiction -- fiction books published in 2016
5. Old fact -- non-fiction books about history (2/8)
✓ 6. Graphic novels & comics
7. Favorite authors (3/8)
8. New-to-me authors (6/8)

I'm also going to try the BingoDOG and Woman BingoPUP

Mt. TBR
Books read:
1. DMZ, Vol. 1: On the Ground by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli

Possibilities:
* The Trial by Franz Kafka
* Robot Uprisings
* Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
* The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke
* The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
* A Way Home by Theodore Sturgeon

Friendlies
Books read:
1. The Likeness by Tana French (Dublin Murder Squad series, recommended by Mik)
2. Faithful Place by Tana French (Dublin Murder Squad series, recommended by Mik)
3. Broken Harbor by Tana French (Dublin Murder Squad series, recommended by Mik)
4. Last First Snow by Max Gladstone (recommended by Mairi)
5. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin (recommended by Mairi)
6. Crux by Ramez Naam (recommended by Mairi)
7. Apex by Ramez Naam (recommended by Mairi)
8. Runaways #1-6 (Pride and Joy) by Brian Vaughan (recommended by Mairi)

Hugos
Nominee list: http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2016-hugo-awards/
Books read:
1. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
2. Uprooted by Naomi Novik
3. Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
4. Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold
5. Perfect State by Brandon Sanderson
6. Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds
7. Obits by Steven King
8. Folding Beijing by Hao Jingfang

New Fiction
Books read:
1. The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
2. The Root: A Novel of the Wrath & Athenaeum by Na'amen Gobert Tilahun
3. Panacea by F. Paul Wilson
4. Four Roads Cross by Max Gladstone
5. Saga Volume 6 by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples
6. The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin
7. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
8. The Drowning Eyes by Emily Foster

Old Fact (History)
Books read:
1. Bound for Canaan : the underground railroad and the war for the soul of America by Fergus M. Bordewich
2. Claudette Colvin : Twice Toward Justice by Phillip M. Hoose

Possibilities:
* Slavery by another name : the re-enslavement of Black people in America from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon
* Transgender warriors : making history from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman by Leslie Feinberg
* And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shiltz
* A Disability History of the United States (ReVisioning American History) by Kim E. Nielsen
* Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis by Christian Parenti
* Thieves of virtue : when bioethics stole medicine by Tom Koch
* The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI by Betty Medsger
* Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power by Seth Rosenfeld
* The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women by Deborah J. Swiss

Graphic Novels & Comics
Where I've read individual issues of comics, I'll count a roughly trade-paperback-sized group of them as one book for the purposes of this category.

Books read:
1. Saga, Volume 5 by Brian K. Vaughan
2. Marvel Comics: The Road to Civil War (Amazing Spider-Man #529-531, New Avengers: Illuminati, Fantastic Four #536 – #537, Civil War: Opening Shot)
3. Marvel Comics: Stamford Bomb (Civil War #1, New Avengers #21, Civil War: Front Line #1, Amazing Spider-Man #532)
4. Marvel Comics: The Act Passes / Sides Are Chosen (Civil War #2, Civil War: Front Line #2, Amazing Spider-Man #533, New Avengers #22)
5. Marvel Comics: Opening Shots (Civil War: Front Line #3-5, Civil War: Choosing Sides, Iron Man #13)
6. Marvel Comics: War (Civil War #3-4, Civil War: Front Line #6-8, Captain America #22-24, Amazing Spider-Man #534, New Avengers #23-24, Civil War: The Return, Iron Man/Captain America: Casualties of War #1)
7. Marvel Comics: Introspection (Amazing Spider-Man #535-536, Civil War #5, Civil War: War Crimes #1, Civil War: Front Line #9, Iron Man #14)
8. Marvel Comics: Final Battle (Amazing Spider-Man #537, Civil War #6-7, New Avengers #25, Civil War: Front Line #10)
9. Marvel Comics: Conclusion (Amazing Spider-Man #538-539, Civil War: Front Line #11, Captain America #25, Civil War: Fallen Son #1-5, Civil War: The Initiative, Civil War: The Confession)

Favorite Authors
Books read:
1. All the Windwracked Stars by Elizabeth Bear
2. The Scar by China Miéville
3. The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

Possibilities:
* Chill by Elizabeth Bear
* Uncharted Territory by Connie Willis
* Lock In by John Scalzi

New-to-me authors
Books read:
1. Grimspace by Ann Aguirre
2. The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor
3. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
4. Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen
5. The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
6. Lizard Radio by Pat Schmatz

Possibilities:

Woman BingoPUP



1. A "new-to-me" author: Grimspace by Ann Aguirre
2. Author over 60 years old: The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
6. Set in Latin America or Asia: Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson is set in an unnamed country in the Middle East.
8. About a female critter: Penric's Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold
9. Published before 2000: Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler was published in 1993.
10. Set in Europe, Australia, or NZ: Faithful Place by Tana French (set in Ireland)
12. Award Winner: Broken Harbor by Tana French won the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction in 2012
13. By or About a Woman: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin is both by a woman author, and about a woman protagonist.
17. Less than 10 years old: All the Windwracked Stars by Elizabeth Bear
20. About a spy: The Likeness by Tana French (main character is an undercover cop)
22. Women in Science: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (main character is a brilliant mathematician)
23. Women in Combat: Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds (main character is a soldier)
25. African-American Author: The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor

BingoDOG


1. Debut Book: Grimspace by Ann Aguirre
2. Graphic Novel: Saga, Volume 5 by Brian K. Vaughan
3. Less than 200 pages: Obits by Steven King
4. About a Writer: Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (protagonist writes a journal and poetry throughout the story)
5. Title has a Musical Reference: The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
8. A Body of Water in the Title: Broken Harbor by Tana French
9. Food is Important: The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer (the different foods the protagonist eats during different stages of the story evoke the situation he's in)
11. About an indigenous person: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
12. In Translation: Folding Beijing by Hao Jingfang
13. Read a CAT: DMZ, Vol. 1: On the Ground by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli (September DeweyCAT, Arts: protagonist is a photographer)
16. One-Word Title: Uprooted by Naomi Novik
22. Adventure: Panacea by F. Paul Wilson
23. Coming of Age Story: Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold
25. Survival Story: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Welcome to the challenge! I love Connie Willis as well...haven't read Uncharted Territory yet, but it's on my shelf! I also enjoyed Grimspace and really need to get around to the rest of the series.

Welcome aboard and enjoy your challenge! The Tana French series is great. Just finished the fourth book and have to go pick up a copy of the fifth.

Your options in the New-to-Me Authors category are both ones I want to get to soon as well. I may use my impending thingaversary to add them to my own library. Some other categories for me to keep any eye on here as well so good luck with your challenge!

christina_reads, rabbitprincess, AHS-Wolfy, thanks for the welcome/wishes!

Welcome!

Welcome to the challenge, looks like there are a lot of us that are trying to pare our TBR piles down this year.

Great set-up - looking forward to following along!

Commendable challenge! Hope 2016 finds you with excellent books!

Thanks, lkernagh, DeltaQueen50, -Eva-, and mamzel!

The Likeness was so compelling, I stayed up half the night finishing it. I like this series a lot.

Currently reading The Trial. From what I'd heard about this book, I wasn't expecting the main character to be such a self-important asshole! But I'm only 2 chapters in; maybe it gets better soon.

Just got Bound for Canaan : the underground railroad and the war for the soul of America from the library. I'm excited to learn more about that period in American history.

>21 lavaturtle: I have been wanting to try the Dublin Murder Squad books, but for some reason, my library has the whole series minus the first book!

>22 Tara1Reads: That would be annoying! Can you send in a request to purchase?

A couple of years ago we were doing a group read of Sharon Kay Penman and my library had all of the books in the series except the first one. Had to do an interlibrary loan. Then a year later I noticed the library had ordered its own copy, finally ;)

>23 rabbitprincess: It looks like headquarters library of the county library system has it. There are a couple of other holds on it but I can get in line!

Just finished Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America. Learned a lot from this book. For example: Many early underground operatives were Quakers and evangelicals; early anti-slavery activity was tied up with evangelical religious movements. Also: The federal government in the decades before the Civil War was increasingly bending over backwards to keep Southerners happy, by making more and more concessions to slave owners and stripping away civil liberties from abolitionists. The Canadian communities set up by fugitives from slavery were also something I'd known nothing about before. Bordewich doesn't gloss over the sometimes complicated racial politics even within abolitionist circles, and conscientiously gives credit to women and people of color who are sometimes left out of popular narratives.

Have been taking a break from The Trial. Will probably try to get back to it at some point.

I'm hoping to read Faithful Place in the next few days, before it's due back at the library.

Also just picked up Grimspace from the library. I'm intrigued -- based on the cover blurb, it sounds like it has some elements in common with This Alien Shore, which I really enjoyed.

Happy Thingaversary!

paruline Thank you!

Finished Faithful Place late last night. This book has so many well-drawn characters, all struggling with their own varied problems while getting tangled up with each other. The story is sad, of course (it's a murder mystery, plus the protagonist's family is full of poverty and abuse), but it ends on a more hopeful note than the previous two in the series.

In the wee hours of the morning I finished Grimspace. Wow! I did not see the ending coming. I like the detailed, expansive world Aguirre has built. I want to read more about many of the things that were mentioned in passing. I also like that there's a well-drawn lesbian character. I'm not sure how I feel about the relationship between Jax and March -- is it the gradual blossoming of something between two broken people pushed together by circumstance? or a forced and unnecessary romance subplot? I waffle on this by the minute.

I mentioned that this sounded like it might have similarities to This Alien Shore. Now that I've read it... it does, but there are also differences. In common: One group has a monopoly on FTL travel due to having all the people with the special ability to do FTL jumps. FTL jumpers pay a price for their talent. Someone wants to break the monopoly. The main character is a jumper who gets caught up in all this. Different: In Grimspace, the Corp that controls FTL travel also controls everything else in most of the universe; they're more ruthless and less sympathetic. There is no opposing force of anywhere near the same strength. (Probably some additional differences -- it's been a while since I read This Alien Shore)

>28 lavaturtle: I love the Dublin Murder Squad series! Faithful Place was a very good entry.

>29 lavaturtle: Glad you liked this one as I've just recently picked up a copy for my own collection. It will be my first of her works so it's always good to see a positive review for a potential read. Moves it up the list that little bit more.

>29 lavaturtle: It's been a while since I read Grimspace, but I remember enjoying it! I even have the next few books in the series, but I haven't gotten around to them yet. I'll have to move them closer to the top of my TBR list, although I'd definitely need to reread Grimspace first!

I finished reading All the Windwracked Stars. It took me a while to get into this book. The imagery is beautiful and the characters are intriguing, but there's so many seemingly disconnected characters, so many names I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to recognize. It's not until late in the book that everything starts coming together into one story -- and then it's great! But it's still not going to be one of my favorite books. I've read other books by this author that I've liked much more.

Broken Harbor is another haunting story in the Dublin Murder Squad series. French does a great job with the protagonist's voice/characterization -- he's a self-important dude who's sure that he's right about everything and everyone gets what they deserve, I can't stand the man, but I couldn't put the book down for wanting to know what happened. And of course in addition to being an exciting murder mystery, it's a meditation on class, values, and fate in the wake of an economic crash.

Finally made it through The Scar. This was a slow read for me, and I didn't find it as compelling as some of China Miéville's other works. It dragged on a lot through the middle. And I became impatient with the protagonist's disdain for everyone and everything else. I liked Perdido Street Station a lot, so I'm disappointed that this one wasn't as much to my tastes.

I liked The Book of Phoenix a lot. The relentlessly African/Black-centric narrative is so different from what I'm used to. I'm intrigued by the near-future setting where global warming has put palm trees in the northern United States and huge leaps have been made in biotech and human corruption and cruelty is the same as it ever was. I love the magical realism, which fits perfectly with the narrator's voice. Phoenix is a beautiful, flawed, emotional protagonist. I want to read more by this author. (The weird library of congress scene was weird, but it didn't bother me enough to significantly tarnish my reading experience.)

Saga, Volume 5 is another solid entry in the series. At the beginning Alana and Marko are each with one of the TV-heads, and the conflict they get drawn into (mirroring how the Landfall/Wreath conflict drew in the rest of the galaxy? There's a great, and solemn, discussion of this war and its impact on people at the beginning of the volume.) largely drives the plot. There's also a side plot featuring The Brand and several other characters on a quest to cure The Will. The characterization, especially of the children, is great as usual.

>37 lavaturtle:
I thought I had read this already, but the above didn't sound familiar at all and it turns out my copy ended up at the bottom of a pile of magazines I had on a chair. Thanks for reminding me and making me look for it! :)

I'd been looking forward to reading The Ballad of Black Tom since I heard about it: a Black author re-imagines one of Lovecraft's stories, tackling Lovecraft's racism head-on in the process. I read the book in one sitting on Saturday. It's about Horrors Man Was Not Meant To Know, but it's also about racism and police violence. It's set in the 1920s, but it's fresh and relevant now. Would absolutely recommend this to anyone even a little familiar with Lovecraftian horror.

Also picked up from the library: Last First Snow and The Atrocity Archives

Last First Snow was excellent. Elayne Kevarian and Temoc, relegated to fascinating supporting characters in earlier books, take center stage here. It's great to see things from their POV, and how they navigate situations with no good options. I liked this book a lot better than Two Serpents Rise, which was set in the same city.

Started reading The Atrocity Archives. Love the premise. Hoping the geek-snark will mellow out once the protagonist has spent more time outside a stuffy office environment. Also hoping for some women characters who aren't one-dimensional stereotypes.

Finished the The Atrocity Archives. It was a lot of fun. As I'd hoped, the story moved away from "OMG look I'm a snarky IT guy!" as it really got going. And each of the two stories in this book had at least one competent woman. I'm looking forward to reading more of this series.

In preparation for the upcoming Captain America movie, I'm reading through the Civil War comics, with the help of http://www.comicbookherald.com/the-complete-marvel-reading-order-guide/guide-par... . The questions it asks are certainly compelling: Should superheroes be accountable and regulated? Who wins and who loses if all superheroes are government employees?

Things I've discovered so far (after the "The Road to Civil War" section):
* Tony Stark's role in all this is more complex than I'd realized.
* Spiderman is actually funny!
* The Fantastic Four are so not my thing.

About midway through my Civil War comics read. There's a lot more of this than I thought... but it's more compelling than I expected.

>44 lavaturtle:
I liked it a lot and it made me quite excited to see the movie.

Finished reading the Civil War comics. That was a really intense story. I'm super excited to see the movie tonight. (I also feel like I need to keep reading the next few Spiderman/Captain America/etc. issues to find out what happens next with a couple of subplots...)

Now reading The Fifth Season, which is amazing and brutal and wonderful.

Saw the Civil War movie. It was a great movie, despite having substantial differences in plot from the comics. Fun, and also thoughtful.

Finished The Fifth Season, which was also really great. I love the worldbuilding, and the character development. I love that the story deals head-on with what oppression looks like in a variety of subtle and unsubtle ways. I love that not all the characters are straight white cis people. Really glad the Hugo ballot caused me to read this book.

>47 lavaturtle: We thought the Civil War movie was nicely balanced between all the characters. No small feat with so many in the mix.

Continuing the Hugo nominees readthrough, I read Uprooted. I liked the description of different approaches to magic, and the idea of this community that lives on the brink of the evil woods and has a lot of traditions around dealing with that. There were a number of well-drawn characters, and frustrating court politics were frustrating. I was glad that in the end, Prince Marek's foolishness wasn't because he was possessed by the Wood, it was just because he was an arrogant self-serving person with no regard for other people's lives. It really bothered me that Agnieshka fell in love with the Dragon after months of emotional abuse. This is such a damaging high-fantasy trope and I wish people would stop promoting it. I wish that Agnieshka had gotten romantically involved with Kasia instead. They were so obviously in love.

I'm glad I finally read Parable of the Sower. It was published in 1993, but it's so timely now: It's set it a world of runaway global warming, a wrecked economy, eroding labor laws, police corruption, and hostility towards migrants. The protagonist develops her own worldview while learning how to build and maintain a community when everything's falling apart. I cared about the characters and hope everything works out for them. I look forward to seeing what happens next in Parable of the Talents.

Read Binti from the Hugo voter's packet. I enjoyed this novella about a young Himba woman's journey to a prestigious university planet.

>51 lavaturtle: I've been working through the Hugo novellas too. I loved Binti but my vote might go to Penric's Demon.

I realized after finishing Alif the Unseen that it doesn't fit into any of my 8 categories. I'm glad I read this book, though. It's sort of cyberpunk, sort of fantasy, woven throughout with Muslim folklore and culture. The protagonist has a lot of growth over the course of the story. The supporting characters are complex and vivid.

You are reading a lot of books on my tbr. I always like seeing other opinions. I'm glad you liked The Parable of the Sower as that's one of my favorite books. I hope you also enjoy the sequel.

PS if you haven't read it already, you might enjoy Who Fears Death, which is a sequel of sorts to The Book Of Phoenix.

Who Fears Death sounds intriguing. I'll definitely check that one out. Thanks!

Read Penric's Demon from the Hugo voters' packet. I enjoyed this story about a good-hearted boy who inadvertently stumbles into a web of court intrigue and magic.

Next from the Hugo voters' packet: Perfect State by Brandon Sanderson. The premise of this story is interesting, and the novella takes it in an interesting direction. I did not see the ending coming. The presumption of universal heterosexuality was kind of annoying, but didn't take away too much from the story.

I'll take a BB for Alif the Unseen - sounds like an intriguing mix.

Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds is an interesting story about a group of soldiers and civilians thrown together at the end of an interstellar war. The premise reminds me a little of the end of Forever War. The main character is interesting. I didn't care for the narration style -- it felt flat and emotionless, even when the protagonist was obviously feeling strong emotions.

Also, the discussion of the causes of wars seemed overly simplistic, a description of religious differences entirely lacking specifics or a reason anyone cares. "They're fighting because they disagree about the details of their religious texts, which is obviously silly" as an explanation for war appealed to me when I was in high school... but in the real world, the seemingly trivial religious differences are usually a proxy for other issues. As a backdrop for the story, this oversimplified narrative about war was unsatisfying worldbuilding.

I have mixed feelings on the framing device of "I'm telling this story to the legions of people born on the spaceship who have no knowledge of our origins". On one hand, sure, that's a cool idea. On the other hand, we learn /nothing/ about the future society... so it fails to make the story more interesting. It mostly distracts from the main story by periodically jumping out to say "remember, there are future people!"

Moving into the novelette section of the Hugo ballot... Obits by Steven King is a well crafted horror story about a hack writer who discovers he has a terrible power. The story works well, it's the right length, and the ending strikes a satisfying balance between wrapping things up and leaving ominous loose ends.

Folding Beijing is an interesting story, using a very weird premise to say something about inequality, who gets to make decisions about economies, and whose well-being is considered important. Unfortunately, the one woman character has almost no agency, existing solely as a prize to be fought over by the men.

Read The Root: A Novel of the Wrath & Athenaeum by Na'amen Gobert Tilahun, which I'd been excited about since I heard about it on Scalzi's blog. I love Erik's characterization and his diverse set of friends, allies, coworkers, and enemies. All the characters felt well-developed and complex. It took me longer to get into Lil's story, with its less recognizable world, but it's a satisfying story too. I'm excited to see the two of them (presumably) finally meet in the sequel.

Panacea by F. Paul Wilson

Things I liked about this book:
* The premise is neat, and some interesting questions are explored.
* The different factions are really interesting and well-developed
* Laura Fanning and Rick Hayden are compelling characters, and the supporting cast is pretty well-drawn too

Things that annoyed me:
* Laura's incessant policing of Rick's speech patterns. Especially because the way he talks /isn't actually weird at all/. It makes her sound like an obnoxious grammar pedant... and she uses the same constructions he does immediately afterwards.
* Towards the very end of the book something happens that feels like a very ham-fisted hook for a sequel or series of sequels. It's unnecessary (it could just happen at the beginning of some hypothetical sequel), and distracts from wrapping up the narrative.
* The way a certain romantic subplot developed... Laura periodically declaring "I sure haven't been with a man in a loooooong time" in a matter-of-fact way was a really weird way to convey her gradually falling for Rick. Like, seriously, the best thing you can find to say about your crush is "he sure is male and also here right now!"? It didn't read right to me at all.
* Switching back and forth between viewpoints sometimes spoiled a surprise that one POV hadn't found out about yet, taking some of the suspense away.

Overall, it was an enjoyable story.

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip M. Hoose

I didn't realize when I requested this book from the library that it was a juvenile book. Fortunately, while the writing style is somewhat simplified, it doesn't shy away from actually telling the history it's about. Claudette Colvin's personal story is intertwined with details about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I learned a lot about Colvin's activism, and about Browder v. Gayle, the case that struck down the segregation law. Would definitely recommend to anyone who wants a quick read to learn more about this chapter of the civil rights movement.

Four Roads Cross by Max Gladstone

Another fantastic book in the Craft sequence. Tara Abernathy is instantly relatable, using law/magic to save her city and its gods while struggling to pay off her student loans. Everything about the world is like this, a modern society entwined with magic and gods, and it works amazingly well. The supporting cast is compelling too, each wrangling their own very human problems. I love this series.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin

I enjoyed this story about a newly elevated noblewoman fighting to live and die on her own terms. The world and cosmology were really interesting. The plot took a while to really get going, but the ending was satisfying. I'm glad the next book explores life outside the palace more.

Saga Volume 6 by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples

This series continues to be awesome. Some great new characters in this installment.

DMZ, Vol. 1: On the Ground by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli

I've had this on my shelf for ages, and finally got around to reading it. It was written 10 years ago, and in some ways it's obviously a product of its time -- the US is bogged down in overseas wars, and questions about the neutrality of journalists embedded with military forces are prominent -- but in other ways it's aged well. People living in "violent" neighborhoods (whether actual war zones or just poor) are still treated as disposable by occupying forces. Anti-government militias are even more of a thing than they were 10 years ago.

I like that the story re-humanizes the people who get caught in the middle when wars are fought over their neighborhood. And that the way things are in "dangerous" neighborhoods is the result of rational choices people made to protect themselves, not just faceless "crime" and "violence". There are no easy answers in here, just more questions of what should be sacrificed, what should be protected.

Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks

This didn't fit into any of my categories either. I've been wanting to get into the Culture series, so I decided to start at the beginning. I'm... not sure that was the right choice. This book mostly takes place outside the Culture, featuring a protagonist who hates it for reasons I think are foolish. He's also a sexist, selfish asshole. I spent the entire book hoping he would fail miserably. Also, the book often gets bogged down in lengthy descriptions or side tangents that I couldn't care about at all. And there are a few scenes in there (particularly a disgusting one on an island) that serve no purpose at all and seem to be just jammed in there for no reason. I'll probably try another Culture book sometime, but I won't be recommending this one.

The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin

I loved this book. Jemisin's worldbuilding -- both about the physical world, and about the complex society that lives in it -- continues to be amazing. I'm glad we found out what's been going on with Nassun. I was kind of surprised that a certain important plot didn't advance further by the end of the book, but I assume it will in the next book... The main characters are all complex, well-drawn people with their own motivations.

Some of the stuff about stone-eater factions was confusing/frustrating, as people kept discussing it in super-vague terms, insisting it was ~~so important~~ but refusing to say anything useful like who's on what side or what some of the sides even are. It seemed like the story would have been just fine without the factions talk. But this is a relatively minor quibble.

Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen

I decided to read this book next after seeing the excerpt in the back of The Obelisk Gate. I liked it a lot. The protagonist is not the sort of person who usually gets to be a protagonist in an Old West setting (she's biracial, trans/non-binary gendered, and bisexual). Since she starts out so isolated, her understanding of many things about the world develops over the course of the book. Sometimes this makes for uncomfortable reading -- she starts out with some crappy ideas about women, which makes sense in the story, but it often felt like the author was flirting with the "transmasculine people are only that way because sexism / because they didn't have good woman role models" trope. By the end I don't /think/ that was her intent, but...

The world is full of moral ambiguity; few people are all good or all bad. Refreshingly for a story with "monster hunter" elements, the supernatural creatures also have moral complexity to them, and it's not always clear who's in the right. I look forward to the sequel.

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

I liked this book OK, but wasn't overly impressed by it. For the first half to two thirds of the book, it felt like we were waiting for anything to actually happen, and the protagonist seemed really dense about the truth of his situation. Granted, this may be because the protagonist is a child and the book is intended for a juvenile audience... but it was obvious to the reader what was happening, which made it frustrating waiting for the protagonist to figure it out.

OTOH, it explored some interesting ideas and had intriguing worldbuilding. Once things finally started happening, it was an interesting story. The section with the Keepers was especially harrowing. The ending was a bit too neat, but that might be the juvenile category again.

Crux by Ramez Naam was just as amazing as the first book in the series, Nexus. The tech is super cool, sure, but the book also explores the societal implications of the Nexus technology in a whole bunch of directions -- this is science fiction at its best. There are a whole bunch of POV characters, and it's a bit tricky at first to follow all the plot threads, but they all have satisfying character arcs and it comes together nicely. I look forward to reading the next book in the series!

Apex by Ramez Naam is also awesome, in the same vein. Reading it right after Crux, I didn't have as much trouble keeping track of everyone. It's a great conclusion to the trilogy, wrapping everything up in a way that's both surprising and satisfying.

I loved Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. The premise is interesting. The story explores some of the implications of fantastic worlds colliding with the "real world" and the people who inhabit both. The people at the school feel like real teenagers dealing with real issues, not cardboard cutouts of teenage stereotypes. There's an explicitly asexual character as well as a trans character. The ending is satisfying without tying everything up too neatly.

Started reading the Runaways comics (the ones from 2003). I really like this concept! And the characters are interesting, and the art makes it easy to tell them apart.

Lizard Radio by Pat Schmatz

This is a really great story of how a young person learns to take control of her own life in the face of personal bigotry, an authoritarian "troubled teens" program, and a literal dystopian government. It's also interesting to see a setting (other than Iran) where binary trans youth are treated relatively well, but LGB and non-binary folks are on the wrong side of the law. There's a lot of setting-specific jargon in this book, but most of it is pretty easy to figure out. My only complaint is that I wish the ending had been a little less ambiguous. I want to see Lizard win, at least a little! But this may be intentional.

I've started reading Slavery by another name : the re-enslavement of Black people in America from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon. I was surprised to learn that some trends that exist now started in the late 19th century, such as exploitive plea bargains, and excessive court fees tacked onto official fines.

Squeezed in one more book before the end of the year: The Drowning Eyes by Emily Foster. I liked the well-drawn protagonists, who each clearly had their own personality, goals, and priorities. I'm intrigued by the magic system and world -- I'd love to read a longer work in the same world. The ending wasn't what I expected, but it works.