Things I've read lately

So it was an outage for 89 days and I didn't read much and didn't update this with any of the books.

Absolution Gap--A reread, but good.
On Basilisk Station--Enjoyable
Bright of the Sky--Mostly interesting, but probably not enough to pay for the book on Kindle.
Installing Linux on a Dead Badger--Very funny. You should read it.
The Paradise War--Kind of interesting, but less so when I discovered that this is part of a long series. Neat that an established author put something out for free on the Kindle.
The Softwire: Virus on Orbis 1--Another free book. This was okay, but geared toward young adult or something.
The Paths of the Dead--I don't know why I keep reading these books. Plot is just fine, but the writing style annoys me.
The Jennifer Morgue--I liked The Atrocity Archives and some of the later works in this series better, but this one suffered by being read very slowly over a week or two.
One of Our Thursdays is Missing--I don't know why I keep reading these books.
How to Live in a Science Fictional Universe--Not that good.

A Clash of Kings--Partial reread to prepare for the upcoming 5th book.
The Color of Magic--I got about half way though one night before I needed to go to sleep.
Way too much stuff at work--I spent the first portion of the outage reading. Stuff about why the analysis done on nuclear fuel and nuclear cores and whatnot is done correctly. I think that got up to ~2000 pages not including graphs and the pages I skipped. But that doesn't count toward my total.

Hugo nominees thus far:
Novella
"The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen's Window" by Rachel Swirsky--This was rather good. If there weren't an Alastair Reynolds up in the same category, I would vote for this.
"The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang--I read this one a while back (during the nomination period) because it seemed likely to get a nomination. It was interesting, but a lot more about people's feelings than I liked.
"The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerophon" by Elizabeth Hand--This one didn't explain enough before the end. And just not that interesting.
Best Novelette
"The Emperor of Mars" by Allen M. Steele--I listened to this one on a podcast, StarShipSofa. But I read it again for now (because I couldn't remember whether the name was the same). This feels like a strong contender to me. Neat that this was largely meta-sci-fi.
"Plus or Minus" by James Patrick Kelly--Not actually that interesting. There is possibly potential in this universe, but this story was not compelling.
"That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made" by Eric James Stone--I think I want to reread this one during a non-outage time. There were definitely interesting ideas here and the religion aspect somehow didn't throw me off.

Pages: I'm saying 20 pages/novelette and 85 for novellas as I don't know the pagecount due to reading on Kindle.
4113

First Among Sequels by Jasper Fford

Better than the previous book, but not by all that much.

Pages: 484

Something Rotten by Jasper Fford

This one has a happy ending and everyone is back together. Very well.

Pages: 416

The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fford

I'm having a hard time typing today for whatever reason. I'm home alone, so I stayed up way too late last night reading this book and finished it this morning.

I'm not entirely certain why I'm still reading the Thursday Next series. It isn't great, but is okay. This book is also just okay. At least the ending was kind of happy, even if it isn't what I was hoping for.

Pages: 375

Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde

I don't like when the two characters clearly meant to be together are forced apart by the story. No. If people are happy together I don't care how cliched it may be, I want them to live happily ever after insomuch as they stay together no matter what happens.

I was also kind of disappointed that the original universe wasn't continued in this book. I really enjoyed the just slightly different world in the Eyre Affair. I just don't have nearly as much interest in jumping into books. Once the book jumping is postulated, a lot becomes possible. And I don't mean interesting plot lines become possible. If there is a hard situation, it is just required that someone read something and then there is no longer a problem.

I'll still keep on reading these books. I hope the next book is better, but I won't get to it for a long time. I think part of my flagging interest in Fford is that his stories aren't epic enough. I always feel like he has this wonderful universe, but uses it for young adult writing or something.
Pages: 399

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fford

I liked Shades of Gray, so I figured some other Fford novels might be good. I was very frustrated at the library because none of the books I looked at would tell me any other books that Fford wrote or the series order. I ended up using the library catalog.

I was a little disappointed and a little impressed. Fford does a good job of writing fantasy that isn't about good vs. evil. He takes the standard Earth and changes one major thing and then writes a story. This was a detective story. He even managed to work in vampires in a non-annoying way, though I won't mention how because that would give it away. But the writing in Eyre Affair was sometimes annoying. Sort of like Fford grew up reading Dan Brown and the horror was only mostly beat out of him. Some really stupid phrases and cliches. Annoying foreshadowing at times. But on the whole I liked this book. I have some more of the Thursday Next books on my reading list.

Pages: 384