Und wenn nun auch Gregor durch seine Wunde an Beweglichkeit wahrscheinlich für immer verloren hatte und vorläufig zur Durchquerung seines Zimmers wie ein alter Invalide lange, lange Minuten brauchte – an das Kriechen in der Höhe war nicht zu denken –, so bekam er für diese Verschlimmerung seines Zustandes einen seiner Meinung nach vollständig genügenden Ersatz dadurch, daß immer gegen Abend die Wohnzimmertür, die er schon ein bis zwei Stunden vorher scharf zu beobachten pflegte, geöffnet wurde, so daß er, im Dunkel seines Zimmers liegend, vom Wohnzimmer aus unsichtbar, die ganze Familie beim beleuchteten Tische sehen und ihre Reden, gewissermaßen mit allgemeiner Erlaubnis, also ganz anders als früher, anhören durfte.
Because of his injuries, Gregor had lost much of his mobility—probably permanently. He had been reduced to the condition of an ancient invalid and it took him long, long minutes to crawl across his room—crawling over the ceiling was out of the question—but this deterioration in his condition was fully (in his opinion) made up for by the door to the living room being left open every evening. He got into the habit of closely watching it for one or two hours before it was opened and then, lying in the darkness of his room where he could not be seen from the living room, he could watch the family in the light of the dinner table and listen to their conversation—with everyone’s permission, in a way, and thus quite differently from before.
Well known, fascinating and awful; the story of a man who ceases to be a man, who finds that humanity, including his close family, collectively turns its back on him. Does his transformation represent disability? Sexual identity? Mental illness? Something else entirely? It doesn’t matter in a way; the writing is mesmerising.
It’s also thoroughly infused with a spirit of place. Kafka comprehensively conveys the feeling of those central European apartment blocks which you will find in Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava, Zagreb, Ljubljana, and dozens if not hundreds of other towns and cities throughout the former Habsburg Empire. And you really feel that you are in the city, with its trams, bureaucracy and social structure.
It’s a short story, but it packs a heck of a punch.
This was the top book by LibraryThing populatiry on my shelves that I had not yet blogged here. Next on that list is Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
Two trips out of Belgium that month, one to London where I also took in the Science Museum’s (somewhat disappointing) exhibit about science fiction, and a spontaneous excursion to Amsterdam with F to meet up with my brother and his daughter just before Christmas. Meanwhile I got in the moo for the office Christmas party, which had a “jungle” theme:
I read 30 books that month.
December 2022 books
Non-fiction 5 (YTD 97) Warriors’ Gate, by Frank Collins Zink, by David Van Reybrouck The Romans, by Jacob Edwards The Ahtisaari Legacy, ed. Nina Suomalainen and Jyrki Karvinen What If? by Randall Munroe
Non-genre 3 (YTD 18) A Darker Shade, ed. John-Henri Holmberg A Ship is Dying, by Brian Callison On Black Sisters’ Street, by Chika Unigwe
SF 17 (YTD 122) The Spare Man, by Mary Robinette Kowal Titan Blue, by M.B. Fox Filter House, by Nisi Shawl The Splendid City, by Karen Heuler Looking Further Backward, by Arthur Dudley Vinton Ion Curtain, by Anya Ow Barsk: The Elephant’s Graveyard, by Lawrence M. Schoen Bluebird, by Ciel Pierlot “Schrödinger’s Kitten”, by George Alec Effinger The Turing Option, by Harry Harrison with Marvin Minsky The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness “The Last of the Winnebagos”, by Connie Willis Shadows of Amber, by John Betancourt The Red Scholar’s Wake, by Aliette de Bodard Killing Time, by Caleb Carr The Free Lunch, by Spider Robinson Sewer, Gas and Electric, by Matt Ruff
Doctor Who 3 (YTD 34) Doctor Who: Origin Stories (ed. ?Dave Rudden?) Doctor Who and Warriors’ Gate, by John Lydecker Doctor Who: The Romans, by Donald Cotton
Comics 2 (YTD 20) Official Secrets, by Cavan Scott, Adriana Melo, Cris Bolson and Marco Lesko The Carnival of Immortals, by Enki Bilal
7,100 pages (YTD 66,500) 9/30 (YTD 109/298) by non-male writers (Suomalainen, Unigwe, Kowal, Shawl, Heuler, Ow, Pierlot, Willis, de Bodard, Melo) 4/30 (YTD 39/298) by a non-white writer (Unigwe, Shawl, Ow, de Bodard)
The best of these were the essay collection The Ahtisaari Legacy, which is out of print, and The Red Scholar’s Wake, which you can get here; the worst was Titan Blue, which you can get here.
2022 books roundup
I read 298 books in 2022, two more than in 2021, the fourth highest of the nineteen years that I have been keeping track, and the highest since 2011.
Page count for the year: 76,500, ninth highest of the nineteen years I have recorded, almost in the middle; there are some very short books in there.
Books by non-male writers in 2022: 109 (37%), second highest tally and fourth highest percentage of the years I have been counting.
Books by PoC in 2021: 39 (13%), second highest tally and third highest percentage since I started counting.
Most-read author: a tie between two previous winners, Terrance Dicks and Kieron Gillen, with five each. The Dicks novelisations were all re-reads.
1) Science Fiction and Fantasy (excluding Doctor Who)
When I first wrote up my books of the year I didn’t name any of the Clarke submissions. I will now say that the three I enjoyed most which I read in 2022 were:
95 books (32%) – highest ever number, third highest percentage. I think this has been driven upwards by the excellent Black Archive series of short books about Doctor Who stories, but that’s not the only factor.
Duran Duran: The First Four Years of the Fab Five, by Neil Gaiman, early stufffrom a writer who went on to much better things; out of print.
3) Doctor Who
Fiction other than comics: 39 books (13%), 10th highest total (dead in the middle) of the last nineteen years and highest since 2017, 13th highest percentage
Including non-fiction and comics: 72 (24%), 7th highest total and 6th highest percentage, both highest since 2013
Snotgirl Volume 1: Green Hair Don’t Care, by Bryan Lee O’Malley and Lesley Hung, an encouraging start to a new series; get it here
Once and Futurevol 3: The Parliament of Magpies and vol 4: Monarchies in the UK, by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora and Tamra Bonvillain, continues to delightfully and brutally subvert Arthuriana; get them here and here
The 2022 winner of the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize was, for the first time, a book of poetry, The Sun is Open, by QUB-based writer Gail McConnell. In fact the 119 pages of text are one long poem broken into chunks, playing with text and with font colour, processing the writer’s reaction to going through a box of her father’s things, long after he died in 1984 at 35, shot dead by the IRA while checking under his car for bombs, in front of his wife and his then three-year-old daughter.
Gail McConnell barely remembers her father and has no memory of that awful day, but of course it has affected her whole life, and the poetry captures that disruption and the effect of engaging with her father through a box of personal souvenirs, most notably a diary and a Students Union handbook from his own time at QUB. There is some imaginative playing with structure – quotations from the box are in grey text, documents are quoted in fragments to let us fill in the blanks, at one point the page fills with vertical bars to symbolise the prison where her father worked. It’s provocative and unsettling, and meant to be.
I thought it was incredible and it’s my book of the year for 2022. You can get it here.
Previous Books of the Year:
2003 (2 months): The Separation, by Christopher Priest (review; get it here) 2004: (reread) The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien (review; get it here) – Best new read: Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, by Claire Tomalin (review; get it here) 2005: The Island at the Centre of the World, by Russell Shorto (review; get it here) 2006: Lost Lives: The stories of the men, women and children who died as a result of the Northern Ireland troubles, by David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton and David McVea (review; get it here) 2007: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, by Alison Bechdel (review; get it here) 2008: (reread) The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition, by Anne Frank (review; get it here) – Best new read: Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero, by William Makepeace Thackeray (review; get it here) 2009: (had seen it on stage previously) Hamlet, by William Shakespeare (review; get it here) – Best new read: Persepolis 2: the Story of a Return, by Marjane Satrapi (first volume just pipped by Samuel Pepys in 2004) (review; get it here) 2010: The Bloody Sunday Report, by Lord Savile et al. (review of vol I; get it here) 2011: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon (started in 2009!) (review; get it here) 2012: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë (review; get it here) 2013: A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf (review; get it here) 2014: Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell (review; get it here) 2015: collectively, the Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist, in particular the winner, Station Eleven, by Emily St John Mandel (get it here). However I did not actually blog about these, being one of the judges at the time. – Best book I actually blogged about: The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, by Claire Tomalin (review; get it here) 2016: Alice in Sunderland, by Bryan Talbot (review; get it here) 2017: Common People: The History of an English Family, by Alison Light (review; get it here) 2018: Factfulness, by Hans Rosling (review; get it here) 2019: Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo (review; get it here) 2020: From A Clear Blue Sky: Surviving the Mountbatten Bomb, by Timothy Knatchbull (review; get it here) 2021: Carrying the Fire, by Michael Collins (review; get it here)
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
This is the twelfth last of these posts; the last will be the October 2023 update.
My only trip outside Belgium in November 2022 was a work outing to London, which I have not otherwise recorded, but I had two interesting day trips; one with F to the sculptures at Borgloon:
And one with U to the Picasso exhibition in Brussels.
At work, I was honoured to greet a courageous woman:
7,400 pages (YTD 69,400) 9/32 (YTD 100/268) by non-male writers (Çerkez, Alderman, North, Scarborough, Newman, Jemisin, White, Hansen, McKeand) 2/32 (YTD 35/268) by a non-white writer (Jemisin, Hansen)
Four books that I really enjoyed this month:
Death of a Naturalist, the classic poetry collection by Seamus Heaney; you can get it here.
The Caucasus: An Introduction, by Tom de Waal, unfortunately out of date since the recent war but fantastic to understand the region; you can get it here.
Disobedience, by Naomi Alderman, a gripping study of an isolated culture in London. You can get it here.
The Flight of the Aphrodite, a hard sf Clarke submission that really grabbed me; you can get it here.
Several of the other Clarke submissions this month were frankly unreadable; specifically Momenticon, Azura Ghost and Prophets of the Red Night. You can get them here, here and here.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
I started October last year in London at a Glasgow 2024 Worldcon planning meeting; I don’t know who took this photograph but it catches the spirit well.
The next weekend we celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary with a weekend in Trier, Germany, stopping off in Luxembourg on the way back.
The most hilarious news story of the month was the resignation of Liz Truss as UK Prime Minister less than two months into the job. I can reveal now that on the morning it happened, I texted a member of her team who I knew that I hoped he might have a better day at the office than the previous day (which saw the chaotic House of Commons vote that sealed her fate). My friend, who must have already known that she had decided to resign overnight, replied “Doubt it but thanks for the thought!”
I read 24 books that month:
Non-fiction 7 (YTD 83) Doctor Who: A British Alien?, by Danny Nicol The Bad Christian’s Manifesto, by Dave Tomlinson (did not finish) Twelve Years a Slave, by Solomon Northrup The Face of Evil, by Thomas L Rodebaugh Love and Monsters, by Niki Haringsma Welcome to the Doomsphere: Sad Puppies, Hugos, and Politics, by Matthew M. Foster The Bordley and Belt Families, Based on Letters Written by Family Members, assembled and annotated by Edward Wickersham Hoffman
Plays 1 Juicy and Delicious, by Lucy Alibar
SF 12 (YTD 89) Lambda, by David Musgrave Empire Of Sand, by Tasha Suri Complete Short Stories: the 1950s, by Brian Aldiss Tell Me an Ending, by Jo Harkin Expect Me Tomorrow, by Christopher Priest La Femme, ed. Ian Whates Eversion, by Alastair Reynolds Goliath, by Tochi Onyebuchi The This, by Adam Roberts Mindwalker, by Kate Dylan Scattered All Over the Earth, by Yōko Tawada, tr. Margaret Mitsutani Life Ceremony, by Sayaka Murata (did not finish)
Doctor Who 2 (YTD 28) Lineage, ed. Shaun Russell Doctor Who and the Face of Evil, by Terrance Dicks
Comics 2 (YTD 16) Voorbij de grenzen van de ernst, by Kamagurka Weapons of Past Destruction, by Cavan Scott, Blair Shedd, Rachel Stott and Anand Setyawan
6,500 pages (YTD 62,000) 7/24 (YTD 91/236) by non-male writers (Alibar, Suri, Harkin, Dylan, Tawada, Murata, Stott) 6/24 (YTD 33/236) by a non-white writer (Northrup, Suri, Onyebuchi, Tawada, Murata, Setyawan)
I’m going to be nice and celebrate three very good books I read that month, and refrain from calling out any bad ones.
I really enjoyed Tell Me an Ending, by Jo Harkin, an sf novel set in the near future where memory editing has become a thing; but what happens when people want to reverse the process? You can get it here.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
I started the month in Chicago, where the Chicago River was reverse-engineered in the 19th century to flow out of Lake Michigan rather than into it. (Lake Michigan is roughly twice the surface area of Belgium.)
I was there of course for the 2022 Worldcon, at which I was once again part of the Hugo team.
The major point of drama surrounded the Hugo Awards Study Committee, which had been founded on my proposal in 2017, but which had unfortunately become dominated by a small self-appointed clique in 2021 and 2022 to the point that I successfully called for it to be abolished at the Chicago WSFS Business Meeting. This had been brewing for months, culminating when the people running the committee submitted constitutional amendments to the Business Meeting in the committee’s name, despite a previous consensus that they would not. There seemed to be no desire for course correction on the part of those concerned, and they certainly failed to persuade the Business Meeting to let them have another go. A shame; I had thought it was a good idea in principle, but it turned out not to work in practice.
The next week, Liz Truss became Prime Minister, and Queen Elizabeth II died.
The week after that, Anne graduated summa cum laude from her theology degree in Leuven.
We then went to a reunion in Clare College Cambridge, where we had met and married thirty years and more ago.
On the day of the Queen’s funeral, I went on my own quest to find my grandmother’s grave:
That evening I met up with three old friends from grammar school in Belfast who all now work in London.
I ended the month in England again, at a Glasgow 2024 Worldcon planning meeting; photos in the October update.
I read twenty books that month. When I first posted this list I disguised the Arthur C. Clarke Award submissions with Greek letters; the shortlist is now out and the winner will be announced next week, so there is no longer any need to be coy about what books I read when.
Non-fiction 6 (YTD 76) Political Animals, by Bev Laing Matt Smith: The Biography, by Emily Herbert Doctor Who (1996), by Paul Driscoll The Dæmons, by Matt Barber Richard of Cornwall: The English King of Germany, by Darren Baker Argo: How the Cia and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History, by Antonio J. Mendez and Matt Baglio
Non-genre 1 (YTD 14) Mr Britling Sees It Through, by H.G. Wells
SF 8 (YTD 77) The Traders’ War, by Charles Stross Brasyl, by Ian McDonald Jocasta, by Brian Aldiss Black Man, by Richard Morgan Braking Day, by Adam Oyebanji The Fish, by Joanne Stubbs Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card Poster Girl, by Veronica Roth
Doctor Who 3 (YTD 26) Fear of the Web, by Alyson Leeds Doctor Who – The Movie, by Gary Russell Doctor Who and the Dæmons, by Barry Letts
Comics 1 (YTD 14) A Matter of Life and Death, by George Mann, Emma Vieceli and Hi Fi
5,700 pages (YTD 55,500) 6/19 (YTD 84/211) by non-male writers (Laing, Herbert, Stubbs, Roth, Leeds, Vieceli) 2/19 (YTD 27/211) by a non-white writer (Mendez, Oyebanji)
Mr Britling Sees It Through was a real revelation for me, hugely enjoyed it. You can get it here.
The new biography of Richard of Cornwall was very disappointing, but you can get it here.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
A decent amount of travel this month, with ten days in Northern Ireland including a family gathering.
I also had a work trip to Belgrade, and finished the month at Worldcon in Chicago having spent a few days first at my brother’s near Boston where I did some further research:
A lot of Worldcon-related drama happened in August, but I’ll save recounting it to my September write-up.
I read 25 books that month:
Non-fiction 8 (YTD 70) Lenin the Dictator, by Victor Sebestyen Manifesto, by Bernardine Evaristo The Life of Col. Samuel M. Wickersham, ed. Edward Wickersham Hoffman The Curse of Fenric, by Una McCormack The Time Warrior, by Matthew Kilburn That Damn’d Thing Called “Honour”: Duelling in Ireland, 1570-1860, by James Kelly The Kosovo Indictment, by Michael O’Reilly Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, by Svetlana Alexievich
Non-genre 2 (YTD 13) Alaska Sampler 2014: Ten Authors from the Great Land, eds Deb Vanasse and David Marusek The Light Years, by Elizabeth Jane Howard
SF 9 (YTD 69) Swordheart, by T. Kingfisher The Initiate, by Louise Cooper Sprawl, ed. Cat Sparks The Massacre of Mankind, by Stephen Baxter Roger Zelazny’s Chaos and Amber, by John Betancourt The Harp and the Blade, by John Myers Myers “Tangents”, by Greg Bear The Light Fantastic, by Terry Pratchett The Carhullan Army, by Sarah Hall
Doctor Who 5 (YTD 23) Dalek Combat Training Manual, by Richard Atkinson and Mike Tucker The Lost Skin, by Andy Frankham-Allen Scary Monsters, by Simon A. Forward Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric, by Ian Briggs Doctor Who and the Time Warrior, by Terrance Dicks
Comics 1 (YTD 13) Doctor Who: The Seventh Doctor: Operation Volcano, by Ben Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel
6,100 pages (YTD 49,800) 9/25 (YTD 78/192) by non-male writers (Evaristo, McCormack, Alexievich, Vanasse, Howard, “Kingfisher”, Cooper, Sparks, Hall) 1/25 (YTD 25/192) by a non-white writer (Evaristo)
I enjoyed revisiting The Light Fantastic, which you can get here, and reading Bernardine Evaristo’s Manifesto, which you can get here, T. Kingfisher’s Swordheart, which you can get here, and the Dalek Combat Manual, which you can get here. I’ll draw a veil over those I liked less.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
We’re up to only a year ago now, a month which started for me in Sofia, Bulgaria:
Non-fiction 8 (YTD 62) The Darwin Awards, by Wendy Northcutt A Short History of Kosovo, by Noel Malcolm Stability Operations in Kosovo 1999-2000: A Case Study, by Jason Fritz The Smell of War, by Roland Bartetzko Presidential Election, by John Danforth et al Make Your Brain Work, by Amy Brann Heaven Sent, by Kara Dennison Hell Bent, by Alyssa Franke
SF 10 (YTD 60) Guy Erma and the Son of Empire, by Sally Ann Melia (did not finish) Victories Greater than Death, by Charlie Jane Anders The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden, by Catherynne M. Valente The Last Graduate, by Naomi Novik Moon Zero Two, by John Burke Redemptor, by Jordan Ifueko A Snake Falls to Earth, by Darcie Little Badger Winter’s Orbit, by Everina Maxwell Soulstar, by C.L. Polk (did not finish) Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie
Doctor Who 2 (YTD 18) The Unofficial Master Annual, ed. Mark Worgan The New Unusual, by Adrian Sherlock and Andy Frankham-Allen
It was great to revisit Midnight’s Children, which you can get here, and Noel Malcolm’s Kosovo, which you can get here. Also good to encounter the two Black Archives on Heaven Sent and Hell Bent, which you can get here and here. But I bounced off the leaden prose of Guy Erma and the Sons of Empire; you can get it here.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
I started the month with a couple of days of enforced silence after my throat oepration, but have made a full recovery. (Well, almost – I don’t think I’ll ever hit the high notes again.) I had three work trips, one to Berlin, where I visited the site of Rosa Luxemburg’s murder:
and London where I relived one of my favourite urban walks, from Tottenham Court Road to Westminster.
I ended the month in Sofia where I met (among others) Finnish politician Astrid Thors.
And I discovered that my great-great-grandmother’s biological father was not her mother’s husband, but a distant cousin of President Grover Cleveland (also of Shirley Temple and Fritz Leiber).
I read 28 books that month.
Non-fiction 9 (YTD 54) Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985, eds. Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century, by Amia Srinivasan True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee, by Abraham Riesman Directed by Douglas Camfield, by Michael Seely Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism, by Elsa Sjunneson The Eleventh Hour, by Jon Arnold Face the Raven, by Sarah Groenewegen No-Nonsense Guide to Global Media, by Peter Steven The King of Almayne: a 13th century Englishman in Europe, by T.W.E. Roche
Non-genre 2 (YTD 11) Intimacy, by Jean Paul Sartre Q&A, by Vikas Swarup
SF 7 (YTD 50) Half Life, by Shelley Jackson The Happier Dead, by Ivo Stourton Queen of the States, by Josephine Saxton End of the World Blues, by Jon Courtenay Grimwood The Monk, by Matthew Lewis Nova Swing, by M. John Harrison Killdozer!, by Theodore Sturgeon
Doctor Who 1 (YTD 16) The HAVOC Files, Volume 4, ed. Shaun Russell
Comics 9 (YTD 12) Monstress, Volume 6: The Vow, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda Far Sector, by N.K. Jemisin and Jamal Campbell Lore Olympus, by Rachael Smythe Die, vol.3: The Great Game, by Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans and Clayton Cowles Die, vol 4: Bleed, by Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans and Clayton Cowles Once & Future, vol. 3: The Parliament of Magpies, by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora and Tamra Bonvillain Once & Future, vol. 4: Monarchies in the UK, by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora and Tamra Bon-villain Junker: een Pruisische blues, by Simon Spruyt Strange Adventures, by Tom King, Mitch Gerads and Evan “Doc” Shane
Half Life, by Shelley Jackson – I can’t believe that nobody recommended this to me before; you can get it here.
The King of Almayne: a 13th century Englishman in Europe, by T.W.E. Roche – ho many of you knew about the thirteenth-century English prince who captured Jerusalem and got elected Holy Roman Emperor? You can get it here.
The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century, by Amia Srinivasan – difficult but important reading; you can get it here.
On the other hand, as usual for this author, I bounced off Nova Swing by M. John Harrison. You can get it here.
The forest’s red floor was spongy from the long fall of pine needles, a slow accumulation through the years, but it was the steady soft pounding of Frank’s feet that the floor now supported. The tips of sunken stones and the ridges of slow-searching tree roots disrupted the clean line of the path, but Frank’s running shoes trod firmly upon them, finding their angles, their roughnesses, a momentary grip and release as he pushed on up the slope.
Glorious set of stories about the revolution in society caused by the invention of a teleporter. Strong thumbs up. Recommended. You can get it here.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
As the pandemic finally receded, I had two very interesting trips in May 2022: at the beginning of the month, to Northern Ireland for the coverage of the election to the Northern Ireland Assembly (which at time of writing has yet to resume sitting):
And a couple of weeks later to Geneva, Switzerland and Podgorica, Montenegro for work. The end of the month had me under the surgeon’s knife for a (benign) lump in my larynx.
With all the travel, I managed to read 35 books that month.
Non-fiction 16 (YTD 45) Carnival of Monsters, by Ian Potter Thursday’s Child, by Maralyn Rittenour Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd, by Mark Blake Queens of the Crusades, by Alison Weir A Norman Legacy, by Sally Harpur O’Dowd Tower, by Nigel Jones The Pilgrimage of S. Silvia of Aquitania to the Holy Places (circa 385 A.D.), trans. John H. Bernard, with an appendix by Sir Charles William Wilson. The Pilgrimage of Etheria, trans. M. L. McClure and C. L. Feltoe Signs and Symbols Around the World, by Elizabeth S. Helfman The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit, by Simon Bucher-Jones The Pilgrimage of Egeria: A New Translation, by Anne McGowan and Paul F. Bradshaw Terrorism In Asymmetric Conflict: Ideological and Structural Aspects, by Ekaterina A. Stepanova Marco Polo, by Dene October The Halls of Narrow Water, by Bill Hall Never Say You Can’t Survive, by Charlie Jane Anders CBT Workbook, by Stephanie Fitzgerald
Non-genre 1 (YTD 9) The Island of Missing Trees, by Elif Shafak
SF 11 (YTD 43) The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, by Becky Chambers Light from Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki A Master of Djinn, by P. Djélì Clark Flicker, by Theodore Roszak Stardust, by Neil Gaiman Demons and Dreams: Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror v. 1, eds. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling She Who Became the Sun, by Shelly Parker-Chan Mort, by Terry Pratchett Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card A Modern Utopia, by H. G. Wells Mythos, by Stephen Fry
Her experience with taking on passengers is, admittedly, limited. Mostly she only transports refugees, cramming as many people as possible into her ship and running as fast as possible to the nearest safe planet or moon or spacedock. Sometimes there’s a bit of a kerfuffle about food or room, but usually it’s pleasant and she gets to have a wide variety of interesting conversations about planets that she’s never set foot on.
Bluebird is a debut novel, and I felt it showed; quite a complex universe and political set-up which didn’t always hold up to examination, and some odd choices of pacing. A promising start to the author’s career, though. You can get it here.
Those godsdamned corsairs had stolen the cruiser’s Eva core.
Ion Curtain is a nicely assembled MilSF story featuring a ruthless intelligence agency and rogue AIs in control of space battleships. But I’m afraid this year in particular, I’m uncomfortable with a book about the glorious Russian space navy. You can get it here.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
The highlight of the month for me was Reclamation, the 2022 Eastercon, at which I was one of the Guests of Honour.
We got the Hugo ballot out; I celebrated my 55th birthday in a pub on Place Lux (the same place where I had celebrated my 50th, five years before); and I took little U to the Magritte Museum in Brussels.
Non-fiction read in April 8 (YTD 29) Human Nature / Family of Blood, by Naomi Jacobs and Philip Purser-Hallard Diverse Futures: Science Fiction and Authors of Colour, by Joy Sanchez-Taylor The Ultimate Foe, by James Cooray Smith Worlds Apart: Worldbuilding in Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Francesca T Barbini Hergé, Son of Tintin, by Benoît Peeters Stucwerk, Hechtwerk van het Kasteel te Boxmeer, by W.V.J. Freling The Limbless Landlord, by Brian Igoe Full Circle, by John Toon
Non-genre fiction read in April 1 (YTD 8) No Country for Old Men, by Cormac MacCarthy
SF (non-Who) read in April: 11 (YTD 32) Blackthorn Winter, by Liz Williams Purgatory Mount, by Adam Roberts Air, by Geoff Ryman Hive Monkey, by Gareth L. Powell L’Esprit de L’Escalier, by Catherynne M. Valente Valley of Lights, by Steve Gallagher Elder Race, by Adian Tchaikovsky Across the Green Grass Fields, by Seanan McGuire A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers The Past is Red, by Cat Valente A Spindle Splintered, by Alix E. Harrow
Doctor Who books read in April: 4 (YTD 15) Doctor Who: The Ultimate Foe, by Pip and Jane Baker Legends of Camelot, by Jacqueline Rayner The Man from Yesterday, by Nick Walters Doctor Who: Full Circle, by Andrew Smith
“He’s a wonderful man. So homely, so sincere. And look what he’s done for us!” Eleanor nodded politely at the store clerk who was staring out his window to the president and his bodyguards and the carefully selected citizens who were allowed to go up to him and chat.
I really enjoyed The Splendid City and read it to the end, a charming and slightly subversive suburban fantasy, but I don’t think there’s any way it could reasonably be classified as science fiction. All the technology is contemporary, and there is lots of magic. You can get it here.
I saw Cooper alongside pad 21. He had changed and was now dressed all in black separates with a long trench coat with shiny black boots that came up to his knees. Dark glasses and a baseball cap turned back to front finished the look. I think he tried to give the impression he was some sort of gangster. I think it gave the impression of a moron.
Real Nutty Nuggets stuff, with a shortage of commas and other punctuation. In the future, all astronauts have firmly Anglo-Saxon names – not even a token Celt, let alone anything more exotic. The first named woman character to speak does so on page 48, and again on page 60; she is clearly being set up as the protagonist’s love interest. I stuck it out to page 100. You can get it here.
Her grandmother had taught her that, when Tesla’s rage turned a room incandescent red, the best thing to do was to stay very, very still. The time her elementary school science teacher had marked her correct answer anout the most recent supernova as wrong “because it wasn’t in the textbook” had impressed in Tesla’s mind how effective that stillness could be. It was also the first time she used any version of “I want to speak to the manager” when she asked to go to the principal’s office in a voice that was, in hindsight, too cold and flat for a ten-year-old.
This was very interesting – a detective novel set on an Earth to Mars space cruise. Intricate plotting, lots of good stuff about gender diversity and invisible disabilities, and a very cute dog. And cocktail recipes. I was not quite sure about the ending, though. You can get it here.
Groaning, I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand, squeeze my eyes shut, and gently rest my pounding head against the window. Rain patters against the roof. My clothes are wet, and my skin feels oddly sticky. The faint, sharp scent of rubbing alcohol drifts around the interior of the truck. My mouth tastes earthy, fishy, like I’ve guzzled overly chlorinated water.
This is a tale of uploaded intelligence and parallel realities. It started well, but lost me a bit in the middle because all of the characters sounded increasingly like John Scalzi (or like John Scalzi characters, it’s the same thing), and then lost me even more at the end with the revelation of vital plot information that I felt had been unfairly kept from us readers. So I’m not especially recommending it. You can get it here.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
This was another month when I did not leave Belgium, though such months are again becoming increasingly rare. I compensated with a couple more trips to see Hansche stuccos:
I had planned to travel to Belfast to give a lecture at the end of the month, but pressure of work in Brussels compelled me to do it virtually. Here is the preview interview I gave with Alan Meban.
The big excitement at home was the installation of a bee hotel at the end of our drive.
I mourned Erhard Busek, and did the last of my ten-day plague posts as life returned to normal.
And this humble blog moved from Livejournal to WordPress; probably not before time.
We were also busily working on the 2023 Hugo Awards, my sixth time of overseeing the process, so I read only 15 books (and was still getting to grips with WordPress).
Non-fiction 5 (YTD 21) The Twinkling of an Eye, by Brian Aldiss The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe in Contemporary Culture, by Mark Bould Cyberpunk Culture and Psychology: Seeing Through the Mirrorshades, by Anna McFarlane Elles font l’abstraction/Women in Abstraction, by Christine Macel and Laure Chavelot Nine Lives, by Aimen Dean
SF 6 (YTD 21) The Green Man’s Challenge, by Juliet McKenna Skyward Inn, by Aliya Whiteley Light Chaser, by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell The Space Machine, by Christopher Priest Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhao Shards of Earth, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Doctor Who 3 (YTD 11) The Unofficial Doctor Who Annual 1972, ed. Mark Worgan A Very Private Haunting, by Sharon Bidwell Human Nature, by Paul Cornell
Comics 1 (YTD 3) Snotgirl Volume 1: Green Hair Don’t Care, by Brian Lee O’Malley and Leslie Hung
4,300 pages (YTD 16,600) 7/15 (YTD 21/63) not by men (McFarlane, Macel/Chavelot, McKenna, Whiteley, Zhao, Bidwell, Hung) 3/15 (YTD 10/63) by PoC (Dean, Zhao, Lee O’Malley/Hung)
Greatly enjoyed rereading Brian Aldiss’ autobiography The Twinkling of an Eye, which you can get here; greatly enjoyed first acquaintance with The Space Machine, which you can get here, and volume 1 of Snotgirl, which you can get here. I will draw a veil over the ones I didn’t like so much.
I’m in my desk chair, turned to face the bed. Eight is sitting up now, leaning forward with his head in his hands. I know how he feels. Waking up straight out of the tank is like the world’s worst hangover, with little bits of leprosy and the bends mixed in for flavor.
From the front cover, spine and headers, it looks to me like the number in the title is intended to be superscript – Mickey⁷ – though the narrator is always referred to as Mickey7 in the text, with no superscript.
I enjoyed this. If you ever played the RPG Paranoia at any stage you’ll appreciate the premise; the narrator is the latest in a series of clones established to help colonise a hostile planet, and faces lethal challenges from his fellow colonisers. The ending left some things unresolved, but I found it satisfactory all the same. You can get it here.
REbooT// extension 31592 examine examine R3FORMAT / critical warning / critical thought processes are superseding agreed parameters. Exit thought – enter sleep. REbooT// Error close > > 56129
A sequel, has a lot of invented vocabulary; earnestly arguing a political agenda, with poetry and computer code; the “Ten Principals” are not head-teachers but guiding concepts. You can get it here (I think).
Untethered, her spirit blasted like a lightning bolt back to her real flesh-and-blood body in the Dynast’s palace on the planet Solthar, the center of Unity. Leta crossed the immensity of galaxies and the laborious curve of time between her Proxy and her real body, the two vessels she could inhabit though only one at a time.
Simply too much invented vocabulary, which I found a real barrier to understanding. Also, second book of a trilogy and I felt the lack of having read the first volume. You can get it here.
No attempt has been made at decor and little at comfort, but the technology is efficient. Its movement is smooth and the quiet hum of whatever propels it unintrusive. Matilda’s library is an old-world collection, and Genrich craft do not figure anywhere.
Seemed more obsessed with getting references to famous artworks into the book than in having coherent characters or plot. You can get it here.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
With pandemic numbers decreasing, I had my first post-COVID trip to the United States, visiting Gallifrey One again in Los Angeles, as I had done just before the plague struck two years before, and staying with one of my oldest friends in Seattle; also doing tourism and catching up with various cousins, some of whom I had never met before.
In the wider world, Russia brutally invaded Ukraine, and I started the necessary steps to transfer this humble blog from Russian-owned Livejournal to its present home.
I also visited Gent with F to see two more stucco ceilings, though I now think that one of them is not after all by Jan Christiaan Hansche (and I was not allowed to photograph the other):
Non-fiction 5 (YTD 16) Roger Zelazny, by F. Brett Cox Duran Duran: The First Four Years of the Fab Five by Neil Gaiman The Evil of the Daleks, by Simon Guerrier Pyramids of Mars, by Kate Orman Lost in Translation, by Ella Frances Sanders
Non-genre 1 (YTD 7) The Postmistress, by Sarah Blake
SF 8 (YTD 15) Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones Indigo, by Clemens J. Setz The War in the Air, by H. G. Wells Chaos on CatNet, by Naomi Kritzer Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir Fireheart Tiger, by Aliette de Bodard After Atlas, by Emma Newman 84K, by Claire North
Doctor Who 5 (YTD 8) The [Unofficial] Dr Who Annual [1965], by David May The Flaming Soldier, by Christopher Bryant The Dreamer’s Lament, by Benjamin Burford-Jones Doctor Who: The Evil of the Daleks, by John Peel Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars, by Terrance Dicks
Comics 1 (YTD 2) Scherven, by Erik de Graaf
5,000 pages (YTD 12,300 pages) 8/20 (YTD 14/48) by women (Orman, Sanders, Blake, Jones, Kritzer, de Bodard, Newman, North) 1/20 (YTD 7/48) by PoC (de Bodard)
To be brief: I loved Aliette de Bodard’s Fireheart Tiger, which you can get here; I found The Dreamer’s Lament the worst so far of the Lethbridge-Stewart books, but you can get it here.
It did, and Mariucci spent a moment silently apologising to Forsyth for thinking ill of him: the man’s faults might run deep, but he wasn’t deliberately malicious.
A very Clarkean book, very reminiscent of 2010 in that it’s about astronauts investigating strange stuff in the outer solar system in the middle of a massive crisis on Earth. I thought it was very well executed, with two believably flawed viewpoint characters and an intriguingly grim ending. Apparently it is a loose sequel to a previous book, Gallowglass, which I have not read, but I don’t think I missed much by not having read it. I liked this a lot. You can get it here.
I enjoyed this a lot. Great sequel to the first volume, which I voted for for the Hugo last year. Fantasy, so not eligible for the Clarke Award. You can get it here.
The nearest town was a little tourist place that was just one street of stores. Both ends of the street led to mountains that rose in layers of dark green forest and bleached brown rock, until the farthest peaks were misty blue, as if heaven were visible from this town and its citizens could just walk out their front doors and hike into the afterlife. There was no one out and nothing was open. No cars. I drove through the streets alone.
I remember from Newman’s first book, The Country of Ice Cream Star, that there were some very good ideas let down by the execution. I felt that here too. Strong images and thoughts but badly let down by the ending. And I’m very bothered by the transphobia. But you can get it here.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
On 27 January 2002 I turned 20,000 days old (54 years, nine months and a day). We were still in the uneasy post-COVID restrictions, so I had no special commemoration apart from a blog post.
Another month when I did not leave Belgium, but I toured two more of the stucco ceilings of Jan Christiaan Hansche, a rather modest one near Namur and a much more ornate one in Antwerp.
Non-fiction 11 A Radical Romance, by Alison Light Where Was the Room Where It Happened?: The Unofficial Hamilton – An American Musical Location Guide by BdotBarr [Bryan Barreras] Calvin, by F. Bruce Gordon Twice a Stranger: How Mass Expulsion Forged Modern Greece and Turkey, by Bruce Clark The Wandering Scholars, by Helen Waddell The Doctor – his Life and Times, by James Goss and Steve Tribe Neither Unionist nor Nationalist: The 10th (Irish) Division in the Great War by Stephen Sandford The God Complex, by Paul Driscoll Why I Write, by George Orwell Scream of the Shalka, by Jon Arnold The Complete Debarkle, by Camestros Felapton
Non-genre 6 Animal Dreams, by Barbara Kingsolver The Gift of Rain, by Tan Twan Eng Embers, by Sándor Márai Million Dollar Baby, by F.X. Toole Breasts and Eggs, by Mieko Kawakami High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby
SF 7 Peter Davison’s Book of Alien Monsters Peter Davison’s Book of Alien Planets The Three Body Problem, by Cixin Liu “Bloodchild”, by Octavia E. Butler “Press Enter ◼️”, by John Varley The Dark Forest, by Cixin Liu Neuromancer, by William Gibson
Doctor Who 3 Of the City of the Saved…, by Philip Purser-Hallard (did not finish) The Daughters of Earth, by Sarah Groenewegen Scream of the Shalka, by Paul Cornell
Comics 1 Carbone & Silicium, by Mathieu Bablet
7,300 pages 6/28 by women (Light, Waddell, Kingsolver, Kawakami, Butler, Groenwegen) 6/28 by PoC (Barreras, Tan, Kawakami, Liu x2, Butler)
A lot of good books this month – I see that I have given five out of five to six of them, only one of which was a reread; the other five were all non-fiction. They were:
I remember learning about people of this type in a class on historical geography; how long ago, when our country India was called South Asia, they lived in a place that was also called Asia, but specifically Far East Asia. These Far Eastern people apparently shared a number of bizarre characteristics. One was an inability to distinguish between the virtual and real world: stories were told of people who, when severely beaten by an Internet gang, would die of their wounds, and of youngsters in love with online stars diving into their computer screens, never to be seen again. There were even tales of laborers who worked eighty-hour shifts without sleeping, which would astound even our most ascetic yogis.
A really interesting read, several characters interlocking their lives in a world where Japan has mysteriously vanished – in fact, never existed, though there are plenty of Japanese people. Lots of challenging stuff about languages and the Japanese experience of Europe. Especially liked that some of the action is set in the German city of Trer, which I visited last October). You can get it here.
“Jarvis, give me some music,” I growl. The gym is far too quiet at four in the morning. Unnervingly so. And my nerves have already had their fill of nerves today.
YA, fast paced, apparently doomed protagonist overthrowing the unnatural order of things, doesn’t quite deliver on the premise. You can get it here.
