Literary Progress: Second quarter, 2009
Time again for a delve into my reading of the last three months, folks - and an interesting time it has been. With our jobs falling through and a house becoming available near Kim’s family, we’re set to move back into the Herefordshire countryside sometime soon. It can be unsettling, moving home. I’m just glad I take my books with me whenever I have to do it…
On to the summary, then! In the 91 days of April, May and June, I consumed no less than ten thousand, five hundred and forty-eight pages of fiction. No non-fiction this quarter, I fear, just forty fiction works from a variety of authors. This works out to me reading about a hundred and fifteen pages a day, which is quite respectable.
Looking more closely, though, the variety of authors is a little on the misleading side. This is because five of the forty were written by James White, 6 by Harry Harrison, and a staggering fourteen written by Peter David. Add the trilogy of fantasy novels with which I ended the quarter and a little over two thirds of my reading matter for the last three months is made-up of series, or is material written by the same author. I’m not too bothered about this - I firmly believe that if one finds an author or series to one’s liking then one should go ahead and like it. Hopefully, having found this trend, I will be able to diversify my list somewhat for the next update.
Let’s have a look at averages again. Either I’m becoming more normal, or the community is starting to bow to my brilliance. My average rating for the books this time was 3.7, and the average by everyone else was 3.8. the delta isn’t too overwhelming this time.
With that in mind, there aren’t too many titles which stray from the norm, either. I gave Robin Hobb’s Farseer trilogy a combined rating of 13. Community consensus was 12.4, so even that’s not too different. The only other disparities were in some of the peter David novels - I gave some 5 stars whereas the community held a 3, and alternately gave some 3 or 4 when the community thought they should be higher. That’s all I’ll say in this paragraph, except to point out the average rating for a Kevin J. Anderson title (which was 2.69). the reason will become apparent…
With the facts and figures out of the way, then, it simply remains to go through the books I particularly enjoyed this quarter. I gave five 5 star ratings, twenty-one 4’s, and 11 3’s this time around, so on the whole you see I enjoyed quite a few. I’ll just mention a subset, as usual.
The first two things that deserve mention are James White’s Sector General series, and Peter David’s New Frontier. Both sci-fi, both enthralling, the first with a fascinating alien outlook and the latter with a raiser-sharp sense of humour and fun, neither of these long-running, short-booked series’ should be missed.
After survivors, I wanted to read a little more Star Trek. Peter David falls very well into that category, but I extended myself to read a little Original Series, some Voyager, and of course the novelisation of the latest Star Trek film (which I read and gave 4 stars on May 16). I also gave 4 stars to The Kobayashi Maru and the Hologram’s Handbook; both fine Trek works in their own right. The only Trek title that didn’t work for me was echoes, a voyager story. But what’s one afternoon?
I also enjoyed harry Harrison’s stainless Steel Rat series, for although I’d read them before, they have such a sense of light amusement about them that it’s hard not to enjoy them. Realtime Interrupt, by James Hogan, utterly gripped me - but then I’m a sucker for Virtual reality romps. Nick Sagan’s idlewild was different and enjoyable, although painted quite a grim picture of the future; and Mall Purchase Night, by Rick Cook, is something I’d wanted to read for years but never found in print.
I gave 4 stars to Hopscotch, by Kevin J. Anderson. As I feared, the future he paints is quite samey from one of his titles to the next, in theme, if not substance. But despite that, the story, the idea, the people and most of all the personalities made this one well worth the mention here. James White’s standalone novella Second Ending is also worth a look.
But finally, topping off the week, the month, the quarter and indeed, thus far, the year, is the Farseers. Robin Hobb’s writing compelled me to read, night after night after night. For over two weeks I’d go to bed and pick up one of these epics, and with the shortest clocking in at just under 500 pages and the largest easily half that again, it’s easy to call them epics,, believe me .But size isn’t everything, or indeed anything. It’s all about tone, immersion, and feeling. One of my favourite series this year was Dave Duncan’s seventh sword, and I enjoyed them as light-hearted fantasy. Hobb’s gone in the other direction - the torment, suffering, and pain her character’s undergo is nothing short of horrific to observe. Hobb’s got this huge, cruel yet beautiful world in place, where dangerous things happen so often and yet the characters are so real, so Human, and so normal - normal in the ways that matter - that you can forgive the odd magical ability or adroitness with animals because it’s not that at all that makes the character’s who they are. The whole saga is grand and sweeping, melancholically beautiful and heart-warmingly tortuous; so much so that I couldn’t but help be drawn in.
Well, folks, there you have it. Another slice of the year has flown by and I’m 40 books better off. It’s still scorching sunny outside: so what else am I going to do after finishing up here than go read in the garden?
Pop back in October for more news on the book front. Until then, happy reading to you all.