Minor Thoughts from me to you

Analog, June 2014
by Trevor Quachri

My rating: ★★★☆☆
Read From: 20 April 2014 - 21 April 2014
Goal: Flotsam & Jetsam

Two short stories and one essay stood out to me, in this issue.

Field of Gravity by Jay Werkheiser— This is a tale of one possible future for American football. Hundreds of gravity generators are embedded in each field, allowing coaches to dial the gravity up or down for specific plays. Coaches can use their energy budget to offset the gravity changes of the opposing coach, adding an additional level of strategy to the game. It was a clever concept and I enjoyed the execution.

The Region of Jennifer by Tony Ballantyne— Genetically modified humans are on the path to becoming slaves of a very patient alien race. And pretty much no one seems to care. It's a morality tale of what happens when disinterested people sit back and try their best to ignore what might inconvenience them.

"I can see your friend down there. He cares." "That's good. It sort of relieves me of the responsibility. I can sit back and do what I want and hope that other people sort out the mess we're in."

Alternate Abilities: The Paranormal by Edward M. Lerner—The real highlight, for me, was Lerner's non-fiction essay on the paranormal. It was an interesting look at what various experiments have—and haven't—proven. And he raised the question of whether the paranormal can ever truly be proven.

In another test, a CIA agent gave the coordinates of his private cabin in the woods. The test subject came back with a description with similarities to a nearby NSA facility. Was this experiment a success (the subject was drawn to a facility of claimed psychic significance to the CIA) or a failure (the viewed scene was not at the specified coordinates)? In the same experiment, the subject reported reading words and phrases out of file cabinets. Some of the vocabulary matched out-of-date NSA code words. Was this a success (real code words detected from a distance)? Or did those words popping up somehow reflect that those code words had been in effect when Targ, the interviewer in the room with the subject, had worked for the NSA?

And he finishes the essay out with a survey of what we know about quantum physics and how quantum physics may make some forms of ESP possible.

Local Custom
by Sharon Lee

My rating: ★★★★☆
Read From: 26 April 2014 – 28 April 2014
Goal: Series

Three years ago, Er Thom yos'Galan met and had a torrid relationship with Anne Davis. He hasn't seen her since and has spent the last three years acting as a Pilot for Clan Korval. Duty requires that he take a wife and produce an heir for yos'Galan. But he hasn't been interested in, or attracted to, any woman since Anne Davis.

In desperation, he decides to visit her one last time. He intends to declare his love (verbalizing it for the first time) and then return home. Once home, the Healers will dim his memories and he'll be able to move forward, as a dutiful son to the clan.

His good intentions quickly go awry and he's drawn right back into the torrent of emotion that he never left behind. Anne, it transpires, is still equally enthralled with him. She loves him too much to allow her love to stand between him and Duty. He loves her too much to allow Duty to take her from him without a fight.

The real problem is the fact that he's Liaden and she's Terran. He thinks he understands Terran culture and mores. And she, a professor of Comparative Linguistics, think she understands him and Liaden Culture. And, yet, they spend the entire novel never quite communicating on the same level. They're constantly misunderstanding each other and those misunderstandings threaten to tear them apart.

This is a romantic tale, almost a comedy of manners. At times, it put me very much in mind of the conflicts central to all Jane Austen novels. The real conflict is between two lovers who struggle to transcend two very different Cultures and two different conceptions of Duty. In the end, of course, they do. But the journey is the interesting part. This is another enjoyable story in the Liaden Universe.

Balance of Trade
by Sharon Lee

My rating: ★★★★☆
Read From: 21 April 2014 - 22 April 2014
Goal: Series

Young Jethri Gobelyn is a crew member on Gobelyn's Market, a Terran trade ship. It's a family owned ship. His mother is the captain, his uncle is the Trader. He's 17 years old and studying to be a Trader himself. He was born on Gobelyn's Market and he's lived there his entire life, with his family. But all of that's about to change.

Jethri was relaxing in a dockside bar, after successfully completing a Trade deal and earning a good bit of profit for the ship. He was approached by another Trader and learned of a too-good-to-be-true deal, if only the other Trader could raise a little bit of ready cash. Normally Jethri would have rejected the deal out of hand, as a sucker's bet. But this deal was backed by the word of a Liaden and Liadens are known to never break their word.

Jethri bit on the deal. When it fell through, he went directly to the Liaden involved, only to find that it was a scam after all and the other Trader had no right to use the Liaden's name. Because of Jethri, the Liaden were able to break up a group of con artists who were trading on their reputations. Because the Liaden owed Jethri Balance, she offered to take him on as an Apprentice Trader.

It just so happened that Gobelyn's Market was looking to send Jethri out on his own and his only other choice was to join the ship of a cousin that he hated. He'd always been fascinated by Liaden culture, so he jumped at the chance to join a Liaden ship.

So begin's Jethri's journey. He has to learn to Trade on his own and to navigate the many cultural minefields that exist between Terran culture and Liaden culture. He has to learn the language, the etiquette, and the expectations. It all ties into a very well executed coming-of-age story.

I always enjoy the Liaden Universe and this book is a welcome addition to the series.

After I posted my thoughts about literary fiction, I asked Adam to comment on them. After all, he was an English major and a quick look at our Goodreads profiles will confirm that: he reads far more literary fiction than I do. Two weekends ago, he commented and it turned into a discussion over Twitter. He certainly gave me a lot to think about. I'm open to mixing more Literary fiction into my reading.

Here's a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.

Adam:

My proposal: literary fiction is most interested in us and our world, nonliterary fiction in escaping those things. Plus: skill. Skill is what earns you the capital "L" in "Literature" and a place on a professor's syllabus. My suggestion is essentially in line with academia, I think, but they are much more fundamentalist about it.

Joe:

Where would that put, say, mysteries or Grisham style stories? I'd put Agatha Christie or Grisham in our world. I took skill as a given. I've seen very skillful SF/F authors that still get ignored by the academy.

Adam:

They are SET in our world, but Christie and Grisham write escapist novels. Let us grant that this is so. To what purpose do they employ those skills? What are they interested in? People? Rarely. It just so happens I have a case study handy for my personal principle of literature handy...

I reserve my five-star Goodreads rating for Literature and recently gave it to Hyperbole & A Half, a humor collection. Now one might reckon - and as a rule - the highest that, say, a side-splitting humour collection might get from me is 4. You can accomplish your mission of making me laugh in the hardest possible way and I'll give your book a 4-star rating. But included in the book are, among others, her 2-part piece on her depression. Clinical, that is. So she writes this half-prose/half-comic (modeled after "rage art", tho' she's actually a great artist) achieving a very specific effect, and talking about something very serious - well - while making us laugh. It's very impressive. The entertainment value in that 2-part series doesn't take precedence over her discussion of how it feels to be depressed.

This is also why I see an interest in Literature as an expression of maturity, and a diet of 100% geekery as stunting. To enjoy (& learn to enjoy) Literature is to show interest in others, in your world, in thought - to find them entertaining. In a sense, it comes to the adage "The less you find interesting, the less interesting you are." In film, tentpole films are meant to capture the most viewers by appealing to what even the boring find interesting.

Reckon I'm done. Am I making sense?

Joe:

Yes. Not surprisingly, I don't 100% agree. I think. I'll probably be considering for a while. But you are making sense.

Interestingly enough, my taste in TV shows is beginning to run strongly towards the Literary and away from mass market. At least, what I'd consider literary. Mad Men & Breaking Bad strongly caught my interest. I surprised myself with how much I like Mad Men. It's odd too. I suspect that if I read Mad Men as a book, I wouldn't like it. As TV, I love it.

One area where I disagree: I think hard SF can really open the mind to potentials yet unrealized and encourage optimism. I see many people who's focus is on our world who get obsessed with the negative in our world. True, it's there. But it doesn't have to be there forever. There are vistas over the horizon just waiting to be seen. I think people who are unable or unwilling to see those vistas, are very boring people indeed.

I see an interest in SF as an expression of maturity as well and a diet of 100% Literature as equally stunting. I think there needs to be a balance, which is why I disagree with elevating Literature to the top ranks and consigning everything else to a lower plane.

There, now I'm done. :)

Adam:

Well, don't forget I enjoy SF, F, et al. I often use the metaphor of a "diet" b/c I'm not dogmatic. But what you describe is escapism. And also, notably less challenging for the reader than Literature. That suggests something, to me. (although to be fair I generally use difficulty as a signifier of the better course, which is not always true)

So a balance? Yes. Just like there should be a balance between rest and study. And both have their benefits. But I think SFF fans like to pretend the former is the latter so they can avoid the latter altogether.

Your turn.

Ah, sorry, 1 more thing: I think the real world tends to look overwhelmingly dreary to people adrift in fantasy. No, I take that back. It's not what I meant. Badly said. And god, the world looks dreary to me often enough. When I think of a better way to say it I will.

Fin, for now.

Joe:

I'm going to accept your retraction but it did spark a half-though here. I sort-of agree with that statement. I think the real world offers both immense dreariness and reason for optimism. The Lit I read in college seemed more steeped in the dreariness side. So I tend to view Lit as overwhelmingly dreary. That it focuses on the dreary to build street cred and has a tendency to make the world look worse than it is. But maybe I'm just reading all of the wrong Lit books.

Back to the main thread. I could fairly easily rank some of my favorite authors along an escapism <-> reality scale. There's popcorn literature as much as there's popcorn film. More even, probably. I can definitely tell when I'm reading because I'm tired and I don't want to think and when I'm reading something that I know will make me think.

When I think of reality vs escapism, I think about the regulator pondering what regs to write. What's easier for him to envision? The world he lives and breathes daily, where everything must be spelled out in great detail, to prevent anyone from finding any loopholes for wrong doing? Or the world of tomorrow that might be and that his regulations of today might strangle stillborn and prevent from ever coming to be? For him, I think escapism is a necessary component of life.

If you can't imagine tomorrow, you can't make sure we're in a position to build tomorrow. I also think of all of the engineers who were inspired by 60's SF (written and visual) to invent what they did. Their inspiration, from their escapism, helped create the reality that today's Lit writers live in and write on. I think it would probably do some engineers good to read more Lit, to consider how their work might be used and abused. Contrariwise, it might do some Lit writers good to read some hard SF, to see not just how broken humanity loses themselves in tech now but to see why those who work on tech do so and to understand the what engineers gain from their escapism and how that drives them. I think taking SF seriously is a step towards understanding certain types of people better.

To, maybe, some up: I think what is rest and what is study may be in the position of the reader. For me SF is rest and Lit is study. Was is the same for Hitchens? Is it for Franzen? Or would understanding SF be study for them?

Over.

Adam:

I just spent a moment trying to think of SF/F books I would consider Literature, since I don't believe, in theory, the title excludes them. Came up w/ 1984 and Atlas Shrugged. Also The Handmaid's Tale. Other contenders?

Joe:

I haven't read all of these, but these are what I've heard. Some of them will probably end up on next year's reading goals. Gene Wolf's novels. Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policeman's Union. The Dispossessed, China Miéville's stuff. I'm less sure about that last one. But I've heard it could qualify.

Adam:

OK, I'll give you China Mieville's The City & The City, actually. In fact I gave that one 5 stars last year.

Joe:

See, I knew someone reputable had spoken approvingly of it. :)

Adam:

Chabon's The Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay actually won the Pulitzer. Ever check it out?

Joe:

No, but it looks like a definite candidate for next year's reading list.

Adam:

I don't think Yiddish counts for me. I mean, Yiddish is cute as hell and thoroughly entertaining, but it hasn't much ambition, really. Chabon's Telegraph Ave, now is a great thing. You would absolutely hate it, I think. Maybe I might make you read it after you lose this year's bet?

Joe:

Ha! I'm picking my bets more carefully this year. Wait 2 years for when my heart leads me to bet on Paul winning the Presidency.

Adam:

If Paul was the nominee I could conceivably see myself voting for him too. Without a hope in the world, likely, but I could.

Joe:

You've answered my unasked question though, on whether a story must be set in our world to be Lit. I would have said no and apparently you agree. A continuum between not of our world popcorn and character studies. Whereas "our world" stories can span the continuum from popcorn thrillers to character studies. Or, going back to my post, the difference between under the surface and above the surface plots. Your proposal was "interested in us and our world" vs "escaping those things". I'd argue for shortening it down to "interested in us", whether in our world or not.

Adam:

Thought of saying just "interested in us", but I dunno, didn't want to leave out something brilliant about environments, etc. Asimov's Foundation series, etc. always left me wondering if someone couldn't successfully write literature about a Thing. Say, the environment or a corporation. But without reducing them to themes.

I don't know, it's still a half-formed thought. The problem being that an inhuman Thing doesn't engage our empathy, which makes it damned hard to hook an audience. Anyway: was trying to be really inclusive and leave myself open to possibilities. But as a rule, sure: "interested in us".

Joe:

I can almost see it. Environment, yes. Corporations or nations would seem to boil down to the people who make them.

"Corporations are people, my friend".

Adam:

HA... OK. That's the first time I've laughed at someone using that damn line.

Joe:

I will say that I'm open to reading any Lit that isn't dreary. Or perhaps is only 50% dreary. I refuse to believe that it's impossible to write about humanity and only get dreariness out of it.

Adam:

I'd be willing to trade novel choices with you.

The Eye of the World
by Robert Jordan

My rating: ★★★☆☆
Read From: 8 April 2014 - 18 April 2014
Goal: Series

I've been thinking about reading this book—this series—for a couple of years now. Robert Jordan crafted one massive story, told through fourteen books. It's a singular achievement, as both a creative and commercial success. I've never read it, but I've been increasingly curious about it. Now I've read it and I am disappointed.

The story opens in the small, rural, village of the Two Rivers. Rand, along with his friends Perrin and Mat, is preparing for the spring festival of Bel Tine. That night, Rand's farm is attacked by a horde of Trollocs, led by a shadowman, a Myrddraal. Rand and his friends learn that the attack is focused on the three of them and, in order to keep their families and friends safe, they'll need to flee the Two Rivers.

The rest of the story details their flight north, through towns and cities, running from ancient evils, visiting ancient, long forgotten, dangerous places. Along the way, they learn more about the outside world than they ever dreamed, experience more, and change in ways they never would have imagined.

It's not so much that the story is bad. It's that the story felt derivative of The Lord of the Rings. The Two Rivers feels like the Shire. At the beginning of the story, everyone in the village is anticipating the arrival of a gleeman, to perform songs and stories, and a delivery of fireworks for a special performance. That felt exactly like Bilbo's birthday party, with the Shire waiting for the arrival of Gandalf.

The Trollocs looked different than orcs but fulfilled exactly the same role in the story. The fades (the shadowman or the Myddraal) evoked the same fear and played the same role as the Ringwraiths did. The race through the countryside felt the same as the race toward Rivendell and Weathertop.

When we did finally get to the climax, the boss battle was over incredibly quickly. It felt like we had a massive buildup and then, suddenly, it was over. Rand won, the enemy lost. Just like that. I felt cheated out of a dramatic ending.

The worst part was that The Eye of the World failed the most crucial test for the first book in a series: it didn't make me feel need to read more. I keep feeling like I should read the next book, out of a sense of duty and commitment. But I don't feel like I have to read it or that I'll regret it if I don't.

This book, this series, has legions of fan. After reading it, I discovered that I'm not one of them.

Words of Radiance
by Brandon Sanderson

My rating: ★★★★☆
Read From: 18 March 2014 – 30 March 2014
Goal: Awards

Brandon Sanderson has made it abundantly clear that he is, first and foremost, a fan of the fantasy epic. This really shows through in Words of Radiance. I've been looking forward to reading this book ever since I finished The Way of Kings. I was even more interested after I read Brandon's explanation of what he wanted to do with the book.

Words of Radiance and the Fantasy Epic.

Words of Radiance is a trilogy.

It’s not part of a trilogy. (I’ve said that Stormlight is ten books, set in two five book arcs.) It is a trilogy. By that I mean I plotted it as I would three books, with smaller arcs for each part and a larger arc for the entire trilogy. (Those break points are, by the way, after part two and after part three, with each of the three “books” being roughly 115,000 words long, 330 pages, or roughly the length of my novel Steelheart, or Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonquest.) When you read the novel, you’re actually reading an entire trilogy of novels bound together into one volume to encourage you to see them as one whole, connected and intertwined, with a single powerful climax.

Words of Radiance is also a short story collection.

I’ve blogged about my goal for the interludes in these books. Between each section of Words of Radiance, you will find a handful of short stories from the viewpoints of side characters. “Lift,” one of these, has already been posted on Tor.com. There are many others of varying length. Each was plotted on its own, as a small piece of a whole, but also a stand-alone story. (The Eshonai interludes are the exception—like the Szeth interludes in the first book, they are intended as a novelette/novella that is parallel to the main novel.)

Words of Radiance is also an art book.

Many book series have beautiful “world of” books that include artwork from the world, with drawings and descriptions to add depth to the series. My original concept for the Stormlight Archive included sticking this into the novels themselves. Words of Radiance includes brand-new, full-color end pages, as well as around two dozen new pieces of interior art—all in-world drawings by characters or pieces of artwork from the setting itself.

My dream, my vision, for this series is to have each book combine short form stories, several novels, artistic renditions, and the longer form of a series all into a single volume of awesomeness.

I want to mix poetry, experimental shorts, classic fantasy archetypes, song, non-linear flashbacks, parallel stories, and depth of world-building. I want to push the idea of what it means to be an epic fantasy, even a novel, if I can.

I think he nailed it. This book was long, but it never lost my interest. I loved the short story interludes. They added a ton of depth and breadth to his fantasy world. This world feels huge and it feels like it gets a little bit larger with each novel. He's setting the story up for world changing events and he's succeeding at making the world feel large enough that "world changing" actually means something.

I was moved by the Eshonai interludes. Sanderson successfully wrote a novella, interspersed with the main narrative, that brought the Parshendi alive as something more than just the enemies of the Alethi. I started out feeling sympathy for what the Parshendi were doing. I finished by feeling grief for what they had become. I've gone from thinking of them as the "bad guys" of the story to thinking of them as some of the biggest victims of events.

Moral ambiguity is another highlight of this story. There are multiple characters pursuing multiple goals, along divergent and parallel paths. At this point in the epic, I'm hard put to tell who is pursuing good goals with evil means, ultimately evil goals through good intentions, good goals from a pure heart, or evil goals from an evil heart. Right now, I think I know who the good guys are. But Sanderson has introduced enough ambiguity that I'm worried that that's just a trick of perspective and that I may ultimately end up sympathizing with one or more characters that I would despise right now.

And then there's the character arcs. My appreciation for just about every character deepened. Shallan proved to have surprising depths and an even sadder than we expected back story. We already knew she was strong and determined but I'm even more impressed after learning her history.

Kaladin. Wow. I thought I had his arc pegged after The Way of Kings. It looked like he'd survived adversity and turned into a hero of the story, on his way up. Then he spent almost the entire novel sliding right back down into the pit that he'd worked so hard to climb out of. He worked hard to alienate his friends and to betray the trust that he'd been given. He acted nothing like the hero that I had thought we were about to see.

Kaladin's arc through Words of Radiance was entirely necessary. After everything he's been through, it would have been far too easy for him to have ended up on the top that quickly. He needed to face the inner demons that he did. He'd banked a lot of hatred and anger during his life. Gaining magical powers couldn't immediately erase that. His success at the end of the book was all the more exciting because of it. It would have been exciting in any case. But given what he went through, it was fist-pumping awesome. As much as Kaladin grew in this book, I don't think he's done changing and learning. I'm looking forward to seeing where he goes next.

Sanderson's world is large. Gigantic forces are in play. Many different people are doing many different things, for many varied and complex reasons. This book was a non-stop, white-knuckle ride and I'm ready to pre-order the next installment.

Consider Phlebas
by Iain M. Banks

My rating: ★★★★☆
Read From: 1 April 2014 - 7 April 2014
Goal: Series

I might have had a better idea of what to expect from this story, had I first been familiar with T. S. Eliot's poem "The Wasteland".

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

This is a story of Bora Horza Gobuchul's last adventure. His story opens with his intended execution: tied up to drown in an enemy sewer, watching the waste rise around him, waiting for it to rise high enough to smother and suffocate. He survives that experience but things never really do get better from there.

The Culture is a society of anarchists. Indeed, it is more of an idea than an identifiable thing, with defined boundaries.

In practice as well as theory the Culture was beyond considerations of wealth or empire. The very concept of money — regarded by the Culture as a crude, over-complicated and inefficient form of rationing — was irrelevant within the society itself, where the capacity of its means of production ubiquitously and comprehensively exceeded every reasonable (and in some cases, perhaps, unreasonable) demand its not unimaginative citizens could make. These demands were satisfied, with one exception, from within the Culture itself. Living space was provided in abundance, chiefly on matter-cheap Orbitals; raw material existed in virtually inexhaustible quantities both between the stars and within stellar systems; and energy was, if anything, even more generally available, through fusion, annihilation, the Grid itself, or from stars (taken either indirectly, as radiation absorbed in space, or directly, tapped at the stellar core). Thus the Culture had no need to colonise, exploit or enslave.

The Culture was at war with the Idirans. The Idirans had been expanding through the galaxy on a religiously motivated quest to bring order to lesser species. The Culture was not involved in a war of defense. Indeed, the Idirans were explicitly not threatening the Culture. Culture declared war on moral grounds—that of protecting lesser species and peoples from outside aggression. The Culture declared war on the Idirans because they wanted to feel useful, to justify their otherwise hedonistic lifestyle.

The Culture consists of both humans and Minds. Minds are immensely sophisticated and powerful artificial intelligences, usually installed as the brain's of ships. On the fringes of the war, a new Mind was built and installed mere moments before an Idiran attack. The Mind fled and soon came under attack itself. In desperation, it left its exploding ship and used hyperspace to jump directly into the core of Schar's World.

It was good place to hide. Schar's World was a devastated planet that had been preserved by the Dra'Azon as a Planet of the Dead, a monument to futility. The Dra'Azon established a neutral boundary around each Planet of the Dead—almost no one is allowed in and no battles can take place inside of that boundary or on the planet itself. This then is the standoff: the fugitive Mind, hidden inside the core of Schar's World; the Idirans and Culture, both desiring to recover the Mind, unable to directly approach the planet or land on it.

Horza, although descended from Humans, fights for the Idirans. This is his story. How, on behalf of the Idirans, he made his way to Schar's World, to hunt for the Mind. This is the story of why he fights for the Idirans and why he despises the Culture. This is also the story of his complicated relationship with Perosteck Balveda, the Culture agent assigned to rescue the Mind. Horza and Balveda are on opposites sides but Horza seems to have more in common with—and sympathy for—Balveda than he does his own allies.

I've been ruminating lately on what literary fiction is. As a result, I can definitely say that this is not literary fiction. But it's a lot further towards that side of the continuum than most of the stories I read. Horza's motivations and beliefs are central to this story.

He hates the Culture and, as the story unfolds, we are given enough glimpses of the Culture to begin to understand why. They are decadent, undisciplined, and depraved. This is, perhaps, seen most clearly in the Damage game that Horza watches. By the end of the book, it's not hard to see why Horza would rather live with the Idirans than with the Culture.

There's action in this book, lots of it. There's the laser firefight in a crystal temple. There's a slowly crashing multi-kilometer luxury liner. And then there's the scene where Horza pilots a mercenary ship as it escapes from the inside of a docking bay that is itself just one of many that are inside of a truly massive transport ship. Even here, the focus is less on the action itself and more on Horza's reactions to it, as it's happening.

All of the above is just a windy way to say: this is a higher quality story than most I normally read or than most authors write. As a fan of the genre, it's definitely worth reading.

I've been haunted by a question since Adam bet me into reading Freedom. What is literary fiction? It's a surprisingly slippery designation. I gave one definition in my review of Freedom.

Literary novelists are typically supported by patronage via employment at a university or similar institutions, with the continuation of such positions determined not by book sales but by critical acclaim by other established literary authors and critics. Genre fiction writers seek to support themselves by book sales and write to please a mass audience.

I haven't been quite satisfied with that definition though. I felt comfortable applying it to Freedom. After all, I didn't like it much. But then I started reading books by Robert Silverberg, read Stephen King again, and discovered Guy Gavriel Kay. I increasingly noticed a difference in the tone of writing between these books and the books that I normally read. And I began to feel that my earlier definition didn't, quite, capture the essence of literary fiction.

Ever since, I've been struggling to find the language to express that storytelling otherness. What was it that was different about Silverberg's and Kay's stories? I found myself wanting to use words like "beautiful", "lyrical", "poetic", etc. Those descriptions weren't inaccurate but they didn't feel quite right either. But I haven't known how else to describe the separation. For the first time, I've found myself regretting that I didn't take more Lit classes when I had the chance.

That brings me full circle. I've been trying to figure out what it is that literary fiction is. I feel like it differs quite a bit from the fiction that I normally read, in vague and unspecified ways. It's not necessarily more formal, elevated, pompous, serious, or stylistic—though it can be any of those things at times. But what is it?

I finally found a description that makes sense to me. Nathan Bransford wrote a post about What Makes Literary Fiction Literary.

In commercial fiction the plot tends to happen above the surface and in literary fiction the plot tends to happen beneath the surface.

Here's what I mean.

Most genre fiction involves a character propelling themselves through a world. The character is an active protagonist who goes out into a world, experiences the challenges of that world, and emerges either triumphant or defeated. Think about every genre novel you've ever read: sci-fi, westerns, romances chick lit, thrillers.... They are all about a character with a certain level of mastery over the world in which they are in bumping up against the challenges of that world and trying to achieve their goal. Sure, the character might have an inner struggle and be a richly rendered character, but for the most part genre novels are about the exterior -- they are about how a character navigates a unique world.

... Now consider literary fiction. In literary fiction the plot usually happens beneath the surface, in the minds and hearts of the characters. Things may happen on the surface, but what is really important are the thoughts, desires, and motivations of the characters as well as the underlying social and cultural threads that act upon them.

This, intuitively, feels correct. Even better, it's in terms that I can readily understand. I get the difference between a character navigating through a world and a character navigating through his own mind and motivations. That's a definition that I can use to analyze a story and pick which bucket I want to put it in. I don't know if it will be my final definition of the distinction between literary and genre fiction, but it will work for now.

Asimov’s, June 2014
by Sheila Williams

My rating: ★★★☆☆
Read From: 1 April 2014 - 5 April 2014
Goal: Flotsam & Jetsam

Novelettes

Shatterdown by Suzanne Palmer—Cjoi was a child miner, a genetically modified slave, who dove into the atmosphere of a gas giant to harvest living diamonds. She was freed as a teenager. Now she's back at the site of her former enslavement. This is her swan song. The story is both sad and engaging. I enjoyed it.

There Was No Sound of Thunder by David Erik Nelson—Time travel is a tricky business. Who's past are you really changing? And can you predict the effects of your simple change? Suze, our narrator, is a member of an anarchist group. When they're offered the use of a time machine to make their mark, she has to struggle with the thornier issues of the ethics and efficacy of time travel. This was an offbeat, fun story. I'm always a sucker for time travel stories and this was a good one.

Murder in the Cathedral by Lavie Tidhar—Ugh. Steampunk. I'm really not a fan of the genre. Fans would probably like this story but space lizards, automatons, and gratuitous anachronisms really don't do it for me.

Short Stories

The Philosopher Duck by Kara Dalkey—"Spheres from Mars were bearing lowly Bangla fisherfolk to safety." This story involved an itinerant duck, a poor family living at the water's edge, a cyclone, and an inflatable sphere for riding out the cyclone (based on the design used for landing the Martian rover). I was more interested in the idea using crash spheres as storm safety devices than I was in the story itself. It's an interesting idea. I'd like to learn more about how practical it would be.

The Finges Clearing by Sylvain Jouty—The narrator documents an interesting area in the forests of France. It's apparently several square miles of forest that have never been walked in, visited, or used by humans. Some power or force kept people away for millenia. The story doesn't resolve the question of why the clearing is unique but does detail how it was discovered. The story has a very nice natural history tone to it, that reminded me a lot of Jules Verne.

Ormonde and Chase by Ian Creasey—A husband and wife team run a business selling designer plants. But this isn't your normal, run of the mail, cross-bred horticulture. These plants have been engineered to look like portraits. Have a flower that carries the image of your beloved mother. Order a dogwood that displays your favorite pet. Their business—and their marriage—hit a rough patch. This is the story of that rough patch and of how they handled it.

The Turkey Raptor by James Van Pelt—So you live in a one-exit dead-end hick town. And you're in high school. And you're bullied by the local bully and his crew. And all of the feral cats in the area annoy you with all of their rowling. But you have a pet turkey raptor. So that's cool. What could go wrong?

Sidewalk at 12:10 P.M. by Nancy Kress—An older woman reflects on her younger self, at a pivotal moment in her life. A moment that's literally on a sidewalk, at 12:10pm.

My Take

This was a decent issue although nothing in here really jumped out and grabbed me. My two favorites were the novelettes, "Shatterdown" and "There Was No Sound of Thunder".

The City on the Edge of Forever
by Harlan Ellison

My rating: ★★★★☆
Read From: 14 March 2014 – 17 March 2014
Goal: Non-Fiction

"The City on the Edge of Forever" — quite possibly the best Star Trek episode ever filmed. I always knew it was one of my favorites. I didn't know, until I read this book, that it's also been dogged by controversy. The script that was filmed was far different from the story that Ellison envisioned and the script that he wrote. Gene Roddenberry spent years telling everyone that Ellison's script was horrid, too expensive to shoot, and "had my Scotty selling drugs on the Enterprise".

Here, Harlan Ellison lays out his defense in great detail. The defense often veers into (and dwells in) cranky old man territory. But, reading the defense, Harlan Ellison is quite justified in his cranky anger and exasperation. His script wasn't horrid, didn't have to be expensive to shoot (and, in fact, wasn't), and definitely didn't feature Scotty selling drugs. In fact, Scotty never even appeared in the episode.

This book includes Ellison's original draft script and several revisions of the script. Any one of them is better than what actually aired. Ellison is right to say that the produced version is a butchered shadow of his original vision. His story was richer and more morally ambiguous.

Ellison's script featured a drug dealing Enterprise officer (not Scotty!), who changed human history during an escape attempt. It included Kirk who, paralyzed by love, was unable to let Edith Keeler die in order to save history. The drug dealing officer, evil throughout the script, stepped forward to save Keeler. Spock, more coldly logical and alien than ever, bodily stopped him, forcing Keeler to die.

The script forced you to ask whether, in this moment, Spock was the better Starfleet officer and Kirk the better man. Or was Kirk a worse man because he was willing to save the woman he loved and condemn everyone else he ever knew to oblivion? Was Kirk a hero or a monster? Was Spock a hero or a monster? And why was it that the drug dealing officer had to be prevented from doing his one selfless act of the episode?

The script didn't give easy answers and it didn't portray a perfect humanity, free from problems. Of all of the Star Trek episodes I've seen, this unaired version was the most ... human. I wish it had been aired and Harlan Ellison is absolutely right to have defended it as vigorously as he did. This book is worth reading even if you just flip directly to the scripts and read the various treatments and afterwards.

Charlie Wilson's War
by George Crile

My rating: ★★★★☆
Read From: 27 February 2014 – 12 March 2014
Goal: Non-Fiction

This is a well-written book about a sequence of events that strains credulity. If I'd seen a movie or TV show that featured the events of this book as plot points, I'd attack the effort as contrived and unrealistic. Yet it apparently all happened. It's enough to further shake my already shaken faith in democracy.

Crile goes through great effort to portray Charlie Wilson as a lone wolf, pulling the strings of power to achieve his singular aim. That makes the book more interesting but I think it obscures the fact that a great many other people were involved in this conflict and very much wanted it to succeed. Charlie took a pre-existing conflict, already tepidly supported by the Congress and the White House, and pursued it with more creativity and vigor than anyone else could seemingly muster. He pushed his Congressional authority to the limits and beyond. In that sense, it was very much "Charlie Wilson's War". But he didn't single-handedly start or run the war.

The CIA was already involved in Afghanistan when he discovered the plight of the mujahideen. It's true that he sought extra funding for the effort and forced the CIA to step up its efforts. That extra funding, however, was voted on by the entire Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, the entire Appropriations Committee, and the entire Congress. Charlie was a likable Congressman with many friends and he was owed many legislative favors. But "his" war never would have happened if the other members of his committee, the Congress, or the White House had seriously opposed what he was doing. I think that the book errs by giving too much credit to Congressman Wilson and downplaying the support he had from others. It was otherwise engaging, horrifying, and educational.

Many people credit the downfall of the Soviet Union to its loss in Afghanistan. Many people also blame 9/11 and the rise in Islamic terrorism on America's training and equipping of the mujahideen. I'm prepared to believe that both are true. After reading this book, I'm left with many more questions than answers. Was the rise of terrorism inevitable and a necessary component of defeating the Soviet Union? Could we have prevented 9/11 by using more discretion about which tribal leaders to back? Was Charlie right or foolhardy to push for the escalation of America's involvement in Afghanistan?

Charlie Wilson's War illustrates the folly of believing that we can predict the effects of America's foreign policy moves. What seems right today may seem disastrous tomorrow. A certain humility would seem to be in order. You can read the book as a celebration of the American can-do spirit. I read it as a statement that we would be wise to pursue a foreign policy of non-intervention.

Slanted Jack
by Mark L. Van Name

My rating: ★★★☆☆
Read From: 25 February 2014 – 27 February 2014
Goal: Series

It's been about 2 years since I read One Jump Ahead, the book that introduces Jon Moore and his ship, Lobo. I liked that story because of the technology it introduced, especially Jon's ability to control the nanotech embedded in his body. Also, you just have to like a planet named “Pinkelplonker” (named by the 5-year old son of the captain that discovered the planet).

For the past two years, I've been thinking about reading more in the series. I've just never done it. I decided to do it this year, as part of my reading goals. Unfortunately, once I did read it, I was disappointed in this book.

The plot revolved around a boy that multiple people wanted, a possible survivor from Pinkelplonker. He was protected by Slanted Jack (a con-man so named because nothing he did was ever straight and on the level). Jon was brought in as Jack's one-man security force. Of course, things went south and Jon ended up trying to double-cross three different groups simultaneously.

Throughout the book, Jon spent a lot of time being despondent about his job, his past history, and his future prospects. The mood was rather bleak throughout. Either I don't remember the first book as well as I thought I did or the tone shifted substantially. My favorite part of the first book was the way Jon used his nanotech. In this book, he barely used the nanotech at all. Between the gloomy atmosphere and the absence of the most interesting tech, I didn't see a lot to really enjoy.

I'm hoping that the next book in the series is a little bit better. If not, I may not finish it.

Crystal Soldier & Crystal Dragon
by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

My rating: ★★★☆☆
Read From: 21 February 2014 – 24 February 2014
Goal: Series

I read these two books back to back and they easily combine to form one large story. I'll review them together. These books (the "Migration Duology") form an origin story to the entire Liaden Universe. They literally explain how the universe came into being.

The story starts in the misty depths of history when a group of humans began genetically modifying themselves. They continually modified themselves until they no longer remotely resembled humanity or considered themselves human. These "Sheriekas" then decided to cleanse the universe of every less perfect being, destroying entire star systems as they went.

Humanity fought back, though generally not very successfully. The novels focus on two characters: M Jela Granthor's Guard and Cantra Yos Phelium. They become reluctant partners and eventual lovers. Together with a sentient, telepathic Tree (possibly the best part of the story) and the dramliza (escaped creations of the Sheriekas), they fight a desperate rear guard action. They eventually succeed in creating an entirely new universe for humanity to escape to, one where the Sheriekas can't reach them.

These books were okay but I didn't feel like they really fit in with the rest of the Liaden Universe novels. I had a hard time caring about a war that occurred thousands of years before the rest of the series—and that was fought in a completely separate universe.

I kept thinking "so what?" and wondering what impact all of this really had on the rest of the series. (It seemed like a tale that would be an interesting origin myth for Clan Korval but not something that would affect ongoing events in the new universe.) Additionally, the plot events and relationships reminded me a lot of events and characters in both Conflict of Honors and Agent of Change.

The novels were fun but seemed both somewhat pointless and somewhat of a retread of earlier novels. I think they're good to read if you're really interested in the origin of some of the recurring themes of the series. I wouldn't start reading the series with these novels though.

Showdown at Gucci Gulch
by Jeffrey Birnbaum & Alan Murray

My rating: ★★★★☆
Read From: 12 February 2014 – 21 February 2014
Goal: Non-Fiction

Birnbaum and Murray — two Wall Street Journal reporters — wrote this book just after Congress passed the 1986 Tax Reform Act. The Washington Post's political reporter said it "reads like a thriller, which it is, with a remarkable cast of characters and a payoff in billions". I'm not sure I'd go quite that far, but it was interesting and informative.

Birnbaum and Murray narrate the history of the tax reform effort, starting with Senator Bill Bradley's initial doomed efforts. From there, we move to Reagan's desire to dramatically lower tax rates and (House Ways and Means Committee) Chairman Rostenkowski's desire to eliminate hundreds of tax loopholes. No one else really wanted tax reform.

How did we get tax reform? The authors walk us through it one roadblock at a time. Treasury Secretary Don Regan wanted the credit for pushing forward one of Reagan's major goals. Chief of Staff Jim Baker wanted to loyally carry out the President's requests. Chairman Packwood (of the Senate Finance Committee) wanted to win re-election and wanted to avoid being seen as an enemy of tax reform. The tax reform effort almost died three or four times during its three year incubation. Although it was the bill that no one wanted, it was also the bill that no one wanted to publicly oppose.

I learned a lot while reading this book. I was surprised by how uninvolved President Reagan was in the details of the bill. I was surprised by how many Republicans wanted to bury the bill and how many Democrats supported it. I reconfirmed my own lack of faith in government as I saw just how many "special interests" (and Congressman and Senators) fought for the survival of their own specific tax breaks (loopholes) in defiance of the common good.

This would make a great book for any high school civics class. Students would learn far more about how our government works (or doesn't) from this one book than they would from any number of Schoolhouse Rock videos. You might be surprised at how few people are involved in writing large, complex bills. You might be surprised at how much power the White House staff exercises independent of the President himself.

This book was interesting enough to be engaging and educational enough to be a valuable resource on the way American government really works.

The Reagan Diaries
by Ronald Reagan

My rating: ★★☆☆☆
Read From: 5 August 2013 – (unfinished)
Goal: Non-Fiction

It's time to throw in the towel on this one. It's been on my "currently reading" shelf for 7 months now. It's time to move it to the "started-not-finished" shelf.

I bought this book last February, when Amazon had it on sale for just $1.99. I'd heard other conservatives reference it, as a good insight into the Reagan years and the problems President Reagan dealt with. I'd hoped it would be both entertaining and informative. It wasn't.

At the outset, I thought the diaries were bland and mechanical but I kept pressing through. I had a moment of optimism when I read the January 18 1983 entry. Reagan said: "I think I've been doing wrong in these diaries for 3 yrs. I've made them a logbook of the days schedule & those schedules are all in the archives. I guess I should be noting other things so I'll start now." The entries got a little bit better but they still weren't what I was looking for.

Mostly, I found the entries to be short on real detail and repetitive. I was looking for vivid pictures of the various world leaders and important figures that Reagan interacted with. What I got were generalities ("We got along well and I think he'll be a true friend"). Most of the entries seemed to fit into one of several templates. For instance, while visiting a foreign nation he'd often write: "We drove the streets and the people lined the side for miles each way. We were told it was the most enthusiastic reception any American had ever been given." On domestic politics, he'd frequently write: "Meet with House R's. They're for us but powerless against the D's". Or: "Met with Senate R's. Sometimes I think they're more against us than the D's are". Or: "Gave a speech. Calls have been coming in 10-1 in our favor".

I learned some things while reading the book. It was especially interesting to see early mentions of people like Donald Rumsfeld, who would later have much more prominent roles in other administrations. But in the end, it felt like I was wading through a lot of uninteresting, repetitious entries to get to those nuggets. I hardly ever picked it up and read it. I finally decided that I should admit defeat and concentrate on something else.

Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, September 2013
by Sheila Williams

My rating: ★★★★★
Read From: 1 February 2014 – 7 February 2014
Goal: Flotsam and Jetsam

When I've reviewed magazine issues in the past, I've always attempted to review every single story in the issue. That's a noble goal but it's also a little overwhelming and off putting. For this issue, I decided to do something different. I decided to just review the stories I liked and to ignore the rest. And, wouldn't you know it, this turned out to be the issue that I really liked almost everything.

Novelettes

The Unparallel'd Death-Defying Feats of Astoundio, Escape Artist Extraordinaire by Ian Creasey—For my next trick, I'll fall into the event horizon of a black hole and then escape back out again. And, it's obvious (of course!) when you know the trick. That's one thing. But escaping from utopia? That's another matter altogether.

A Hole in the Ether by Benjamin Crowell—Living in a world where intellectual property law has metastasized and is now the only thing that matters, a small family preserves the last free library left on earth. I don't understand why various cities and populations were getting destroyed throughout the story, but that's a minor nit about a minor point in the story. The main point, the struggle to preserve art from commercialism, was very good.

Short Stories

What We Ourselves Are Not by Leah Cypess—What if you could have cultural memories and knowledge implanted via chip? What would that do to your relationships and the whole structure of society? In this story, a seventeen year old boy faces exactly that choice as he struggles to figure out who he is, where he came from, and where he's going in a multicultural society that highly values heritage.

This is one of the best and most thought provoking stories I've read in a long time. I found myself agreeing with points on both sides of the argument (to implant or not to implant) and I still don't know which way I'd go if I had to make the decision.

As Yet Untitled by James Sallis—The central character in this story is, in fact, an actor. Not a movie actor but a book actor. Someone who appears in different books as different characters, according to the whim of the author. He faces a tough transition as he's forced to move on from his longtime genre and tackle the Western.

Non-Fiction

On Not Dying of the Light by Sheila Williams—This is a familiar feeling old school science fiction magazine editorial. Ms. Williams puts forth a call to arms: we must build a defense against incoming asteroids. It would be stupid to be able to fully comprehend what an asteroid did to the dinosaurs but still die anyway because we were too complacent to take the danger seriously. We must not die quietly of the light.

Translations by Robert Silverberg—This is an essay about it means to create science fiction. Science fiction isn't just "calling a rabbit a smeerp". Silverberg reflects on his introduction to collaborative novel Nightfall, where he made exactly that point:

The essence of this story doesn't lie in the quantity of bizarre terms we might have invented; it lies, rather, in the reaction of a group of people somewhat like ourselves, living on a world that is somewhat like ours in all but one highly significant detail, as they react to a challenging situation that is completely different from anything the people of Earth have ever had to deal with…".

Note that phrase, a world that is somewhat like ours in all but one highly significant detail. A science fiction story needs to have some underlying speculative concept, or isn't science-fiction no matter how many smeerps and greeznaks it has.

That's exactly what I look for in science fiction. (And, now that I've been reminded of it, I may have formulated my preferences based on my own reading of Nightfall, many years ago.) I love fun space stories. But what I really like is a story that can change something about our world and, in so doing, reveal things I'd never noticed before. A good SF story will move the camera a few degrees off center, giving us a totally different perspective on the familiar, revealing the commonplace to be anything but.

My Take

This is one of the best issues of Asimov's I've read yet. It makes me glad to be a subscriber and to stay one.

Side Jobs
by Jim Butcher

My rating: ★★★★☆
Read From: 29 January 2014 – 5 February 2014
Goal: Series

I've now completed my goal of reading the entire Dresden Files series (everything except the graphic novels). This is not a novel, like the other books in the series. Rather, it's all of the Dresden short stories that Jim Butcher has written.

Each story is told in the familiar first-person narrative. However, they're not the end-of-the-world apocalypses that the novels tend to be. Rather, they're the small cases that you always thought "Chicago's only professional Wizard" would have. Most of the stories have an element of simplicity and fun that can be lost in the larger events of the novels.

There's one of Harry's first cases, when he was still an apprentice P.I. There's the time he saved a bride from a vengeful faerie, the time he had a run-in with one of Grendel's descendants, or the unfortunate vampire-LARP-turned-deadly that ensued when he tried to give his brother, Thomas, a birthday gift. There's even a story told from Thomas's point of view and one from Murphy's point of view.

This wasn't a page turner the way the full-length novels have been. But it was still fun and it did make Harry more well-rounded in a way that the novels don't.

The Emperor's Soul
by Brandon Sanderson

My rating: ★★★★☆
Read From: 27 January 2014 – 28 January 2014
Goal: Flotsam & Jetsam

I'm feeling lazy tonight, so I'll borrow the Goodreads plot summary.

Shai is given an impossible task: to create—to Forge—a new soul for the emperor in less than one hundred days. But her soul-Forgery is considered an abomination by her captors. She is confined to a tiny, dirty chamber, guarded by a man who hates her, spied upon by politicians, and trapped behind a door sealed in her own blood. Shai's only possible ally is the emperor's most loyal councillor, Gaotona, who struggles to understand her true talent.

As I've grown to expect, Brandon Sanderson delivers the goods. The magic system in this novella, Forging, is innovative. Forger's can transform raw materials or existing objects into something else. But they have to know the history and character of the object first. If they don't get the soul of the object right, their Forgeries won't last. A good Forger has to have a very close, very intimate knowledge of that which they would Forge. And that's the soul of this novella: in order to Forge a new soul for the emperor, Shai will have to learn more about him than anyone else knows, even his closest friends. That developing relationship — between Shai and a brain dead ruler — is what drives this story.

This story won a Hugo award last year. I can see why. The magic system is interesting. As is usual in Brandon's stories, the limitations of the magic system are more interesting than the magic system itself. But the magic takes a back seat to the relationships and that's what makes this story good.

I'm happy with what I read last year. But I want more out of 2014. I'd like to have some structured goals for this year's reading. I've got a few thoughts.

Series

I've already started off by reading 10 books in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. That gave me an idea: why not make 2014 the year I focus on reading different series? There are several that I've been interested in but I've always been leary of tackling. Now that I've caught up on the Dresden Files, I like the idea of devoting a year to mowing through several others and finally indulging myself.

Here are some of my top choices:

• Iain M. Banks: Culture
• Robert Jordan: Wheel of Time
• Terry Pratchett: Discworld
• Sharon Lee & Steve Miller: Liaden Universe
• Mark L. Van Name: John & Lobo.

Non-Fiction

I also want to read some more non-fiction. I have several choices in mind. I already own a copy of Coolidge by Amity Shlaes. I've been interested in Silent Cal for a while. It's time to finally learn more about him. Likewise, Showdown at Gucci Gulch has me intrigued. It's the inside story of how Reagan's 1986 tax reform made it through Congress. I've heard good things about The Rebirth of Education, Days of Fire, and The Gamble. Moving away from politics slightly, The Last Battle sounds like a good history book while Design Crazy is a look at Apple and its design studio.

Awards

I have some other goals too. This year, I bought a supporting membership to Worldcon, the premier convention for science fiction and fantasy fans. Worldcon members get to nominate works for the Hugo awards (this year and next year) and get to vote on this year's nominees.

During the year, I'd like to read some books actually published in 2014, in hopes of finding something that I like well enough to nominate for next year's Hugos. In addition, Worldcon members generally get free copies of the current year's nominees. I'd like to read through several of this year's nominees, to be able to cast informed votes for the awards. I've been a fan long enough. This year, I'd like to exert a tiny bit of influence on the genres.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Of course, I reserve the right to throw in other things as well. I have a large number of books that I've bought or borrowed over the last several years and then never read. I'd like to try whittling down that down so that I feel like I'm actually getting some value from my purchases. Things that don't fit the other categories but that intrigue me enough (like George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois’s anthology Dangerous Women) have a chance of being read too.

The End

For the past several months, I've been blogging my book reviews here. I intend to continue doing that this year. I'll probably add a new snippet of information to each review: which goal each book fits into. That'll let me track my progress, keep me honest, and keep me focused on the goals.

I think these goals are fairly ambitious, but I'm excited about tackling them this year. The real fun is in the trying, whether or not I meet all (or any) of them.

I've been mentally reviewing the books I read last year. In all, I read 51 books, a 20% drop from what I read in 2012. I don't really like counting books though, as it doesn't account for the fact that some books are really short and others are really long. The better measurement is pages.

Last year I read 19,262 pages. That was a 10% drop from the 21,540 pages that I read in 2012. I'd like to think that I had a good excuse. We bought a new house and moved. My wife broke her leg and I took over almost all household responsibilities for the 2.5 months it took her to regain some mobility. There just wasn't that much free time left for reading.

Of the books I read, 47 were fiction — mostly science fiction or fantasy.

The four non-fiction books were mostly good choices. Salmon Rushdie's Joseph Anton, William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Robert Dallek's Nixon and Kissinger, and John Medina's Brain Rules. I'm glad I read them but my overwhelming impression is that of taking a long slog through thick mud. That probably explains why I didn't read more non-fiction last year. I need to do a better job of picking non-fiction that I can enjoy more.

Of the fiction, I read more older books than I would have thought. I read old stories from Ben Bova, Frank Herbert, Robert Silverberg, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Ted Sturgeon. Of those, the Silverberg and Heinlein stories were a particular treat. I love Heinlein's novels and was happy to be able to read so many that I'd never read before.

There were some definite highlights to my year. I'd never heard of Elleander Morning before. It turned into my biggest pleasant surprise of the year. I usually enjoy Peter Hamilton's novels and Great North Road was no exception. I thought Guy Gavriel Kay's The Lions of Al-Rassan was beautiful and it gave me another author to track and to read. I also enjoyed finally reading David Brin's Uplift trilogy.

Overall, I'm happy with what I read in 2013. I think the second half of the year was particularly good.