Finished reading The Citadel of the Autarch (as the second half of the Sword & Citadel compilation). This was far and away my favorite of the four books, with a narrator who finally seems human, and something of an explanation for some of the seemingly-irrational events of the earlier books. Was the payoff worth it? Yes; I’m still not a fan of the semi-inscrutability of the earlier books, but they had their own compensating virtues.
Finished reading The Sword of the Lictor by Gene Wolfe (as the first half of the Sword & Citadel compilation). The narrator seemed even more of a character, and less a pawn of the author, than in book two. Not coincidentally I enjoyed this book more than the previous two.
Finished reading Light Chaser, a novella by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell. A fun, short, fairly simple story about a woman traveling a route through colonized space at near–light speed.
Finished rereading The Surgeon’s Mate by Patrick O’Brian, book seven of the Aubrey/Maturin series. As usual, the book is split between sea and land, and on land, as with the previous book, Maturin’s spycraft is more foregrounded than had been typical of the series.
Finished reading The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker, the sequel to The Golem and the Jinni. I wasn’t sure it actually needed a sequel, and on the one hand, sure, it stood perfectly on its own, but on the other, it was great to spend a little more time with these characters, even if they made some bad choices. I think the rough edges of the first story were filed off, and the stakes were even more personal this time.
Finished reading Perhaps the Stars by Ada Palmer, the fourth and final book in the series.
A fitting end, perhaps a little more neatly tied off than I’d like, but perhaps that’s appropriate for a story of this length and intensity. I do sincerely appreciate that it barely hints at an answer to one of my big questions I’ve had since the first book — I don’t think an answer would have improved the books one bit.
The series is a little too weird for me to recommend whole-heartedly to just anybody, but I loved it, and will probably reread it one of these days.
Finished reading Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don’t Rhyme by Arika Okrent. Full of charming, bite-sized little pieces about why English is the way it is. I already knew much of it, but there was plenty I didn’t know, and a couple times it ventured deeper into linguistics than my dilettante self could quite follow. You know whether or not you would enjoy the book from the title.
Finished reading Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead, a delightful story (or, really, three stories) of crime and family, set in late ’50s and early ’60s Harlem. Highly recommended.
Finished reading My Real Children by Jo Walton. The book started very bluntly, but became much more nuanced well before the halfway point, and was heartbreaking at the end. Not a perfect book, but I very much enjoyed it.
Finished reading Game Wizards by Jon Peterson, one of those niche books I sometimes read about the history of role-playing games. This one focuses on TSR from before its inception to the ouster of Gary Gygax. It was mostly just sad: The two principal figures (Gygax and Dave Arneson) come across as bitter, insecure, and emotionally-stunted grudge-holders; the story is fascinating (with much more detail than I’d known before), but their animosity left me with a bad taste in my mouth long before the end of the book.
Finished rereading The Fortune of War by Patrick O’Brian, book 6 of the Aubrey/Maturin series. As foreshadowed in the previous book, the backdrop is the War of 1812. This one shines a spotlight on Maturin’s spycraft: It played an important role in the previous books, esp. H.M.S. Surprise, but Maturin is uncharacteristically the more active character for much of the novel.
Finished reading Where the Wild Coffee Grows by Jeff Koehler, about coffee and its origin in the Ethiopian highlands. Well-written and -structured, it covers (among other things) history, economics, biology, sociology, and climate change, but somehow isn’t too long. I’ll be thinking about this book for a while.
Finished rereading King of Sartar by Greg Stafford. It’s something of an anthropological study of Stafford’s RPG setting Glorantha, which inevitably reminds me of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home. But while the vast majority of game designers aren’t Greg Stafford, it’s also true that Stafford wasn’t Le Guin. I enjoyed the book, but can only recommend it to a vanishingly-small slice of readers.
Finished reading The Will to Battle by Ada Palmer, the third book of the series.
This was a faster, more intense, I think better book than the first two, which (aside from the faster part) is saying something. I don’t know if it’s due to my growing familiarity with the baroque setting, the improvement of the author’s craft, rigorous editing on the part of her and her editor, or the plot itself.
Very much looking forward to the fourth and final book, which will be published later this month.
Set aside The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon about a quarter of the way through. I wanted to like this, and probably would have finished it if I’d read it ten years ago, but today it feels more drawn-out and portentous than I’m willing to tolerate.