Eight books?
Eight?
Eight?
I mean… come on. I know I spent an unusual amount of time with an earbud corked in this month, but that’s still kind of bananas. Though it does go to reassert that um, yeah, getting through 50 books in a year isn’t as big a challenge for myself as I had thought it would be. Particularly when I listen to more and more books via willingly ignoring doing much else in my spare time, like listening to podcasts or… well… writing.
Hrm.
Ok so yeah, gonna have to ease off the one-upping myself month over month to actually get in making some creative work instead of purely consuming it. Good note, self.
… but I mean, EIGHT?
Whew!
*ahem*
Anyway, here’s how it shook out:
Read
Elder Race – Adrian Tchaikovsky
Minor Mage – T. Kingfisher
Saturation Point – Adrian Tchaikovsky
Paladin’s Grace – T. Kingfisher
Ogres – Adrian Tchaikovsky
Walking to Alderbaran – Adrian Tchaikovsky
Johannes Cabal the Necromancer – Johnathan L. Howard
Johannes Cabal and the Blustery Day – Johnathan L. Howard
Started and stopped
Time Travelling With a Tortoise – Ross Welford
The Absence of Sparrows – Kurt Kirchmeier
Killer of Enemies – Joseph Bruchac
Reading
Made Things – Adrian Tchaivkovsky
How To Write Funny – Scott Dikkers
I’m finding a fair bit of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s books are pretty short, which suits me very well anyway, slow reader that I am, but in particular given that every one of the finished and started/stopped books this month was in audiobook form. Which means listening in an earbud. Which means some discomfort after long stretches of “reading”.
Most of his audiobooks tend to be around the four hour mark, which I can get through pretty easily over 2-3 days at most. Whereas Paladin’s Grace clocked at around 13 hours. Great writing or not (and Kingfisher is a great writer), that’s a haul to have an ear plugged up for. Mind you, popular fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson is known for writing outright tomes among his catalogue, some audiobooks of which weigh in at the mid-to-high 20 hour marks. No way I’d be able to endure that unless I was listening through a car’s speakers on long commutes, or somesuch.
Speaking of Paladin’s Grace, this month I realized I’m going to need to be a bit more selective about what Kingfisher books I read going forward. It’s all well written and enjoyable, but of the handful of her fantasy books I’ve read, three distinct series have stuck to the “broken paladin unexpectedly finds love in a woman he comes to work with/for, neither feel deserving of it but grow to find each other attractive and, despite waffling back and forth and giving sex a go, they still waver and doubt and self-flagellate and complications arise, but they finally wind up together” storyline. Again, it’s all envy-inducingly well done as far as style and technique and just plain good storytelling go, but after the third round of it, I’m good on that particular outline for a while.
I’m not big on reading horror — I’ve actually found my taste for horror as a whole declining over the years (minus zombies, which still seem, at risk of viscera-in-the-teeth sounding, to be firmly entrenched in my heart) in favour of humour — but Kingfisher has written a good amount of horror as well, so maybe I’ll give some of that a shot.
Alternately, there are
*does a quick calculation*
probably millions of writers whose work I’ve never even checked out yet. And while I’m all for grabbing new material from a writer I know I’ll enjoy reading, same as with music you haven’t heard before, you’ve got to open yourself up to new things in order to find new stuff you’ll like. It may take a lot of digging, but eventually you’ll find a diamond.
See you in April.