Truth by Terry Pratchett

I picked this up because (when I started) things were going kind of crappy and Discworld is funny and not entirely depressing.

Pages: 368

The Merchants' War by Charles Stross

I wish I had realized that this was the fourth book in the series. All the same, it is very well written. There were enough clues about the main magic of this universe for me to figure things out reasonably, and the explaining parts were talking tactics for upcoming battles, so  I think it would have been fine even if I had read the books before. I am interested in the characters. I am sort of unhappy that this is a tightly linked series because I don't have time to read the following two books (or go back for the first three) until May or June. But they are high on my list.
Pages: 336

The Knight by Gene Wolfe

Annoying main character. Cliffhanger ending to make sure you read the next book. Wolfe made an error with that, because I am not going to pick up the next one even though it is at my normal library.
Pages: 430

To Rule in Amber by John Gregory Betancourt

This was a less than interesting end to the trilogy. It felt like a fast explanation of the remaining story, instead of telling the story. Perhaps the publisher figured out that no one really liked the books because they weren't by Zelazny. This technically finished the trilogy, but left a lot of loose ends. Also, this feels like a novella because the font, line spacing, and margins are all large.

Pages: 310

The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

The Laundry short story, Overtime, was nominated for a Hugo last year. Also, I read it on Tor.com. Finally, Charles Stross has a good blog and he pointed out the chronological order of the Laundry universe books a week or two ago. Luckily, the bookstore had exactly one copy of this book (it's the one to start with), and no others in the series.

This book had some dark moments, but was overall fun. I appreciated that (at least for now) the minor romantic subplot has been taken care of, as that would get in the way of the rest of the story. I used some of the historical knowledge from Cryptonomicon for some of the references to WWII code breaking. And it is sort of interesting to compare this universe to the Thursday Next universe--this one wins easily for me, and not just because the romantic subplot is a major part of the plot in the Thursday Next books. I'll be looking out for these books in the future.

Pages: 368

Warriors edited by George R. R. Martin

Yet another thing Martin is doing instead of working on his Song of Ice and Fire books. This collection was okay, but the best part was finally reading some David Weber and deciding that he is kick ass.

Pages: 736

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

I liked this book more than a lot of Sanderson's other books. The science of the universe's magic isn't as explicitly explained here as in other books. It feels a bit less like a lecture because the entire world is rediscovering everything it forgot generations ago. The main characters aren't as young as in some of Sanderson's other books, which makes their journeys of self-discovery less annoying. I don't like the interludes with the Truthless killer guy. I do like that there was one failed love story already in this book. I sort of don't look forward to the fact that this series will be something like 10,000 pages spread over 15+ years (extrapolation for both numbers). I wasn't reading epic fantasy when WoT started, so I didn't experience the years of waiting. This will be like WoT all over again, except more laid back. I hope it doesn't get the same sort of community as WoT. In another WoT comparison, I appreciate that there seem to be a limited number of main characters.

Pages: 1008

Lots of books in December

 I got behind in writing down what I'm reading, so here's everything I missed.

Gateway by Fredrick Pohl
Okay, but not that great. I prefer happier books

Pages: 278

Beyond the Blue Event Horizon by Fredrick Pohl
Not actually that interesting, not much happens, and leaves off annoyingly.
Pages: 336

Dragonseye by Anne McCaffery
Not much happened in this book. I didn't really care about most of the characters.
Pages: 416

Protector by Larry Niven
This book is enjoyable. I had read it before.
Pages: 224

The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach
This was interesting, but the towards the end things went far too slowly. Lots of plot threads were quickly introduced because they contributed to the ending.
Pages: 304

Misspent Youth by Peter F. Hamilton
Kind of weird, but okay. An awful lot of sex is implied, like if Heinlein had made sex a bigger plot point. Yes, sex can be a bigger plot point than in Heinlein and the book is still sci-fi. I'll give this author another try or two, but I don't particularly recommend this book. Some interesting commentary on politics and family relations though.
Pages: 416

Riverworld and other stories by Philip José Farmer
Riverworld was okay, I wasn't super fond of some of the other stories because they dealt more with religion and crazy people than I was interested in. I would like to read more in his Riverworld series.
Pages: 264

The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories by Ray Bradbury
This wasn't very good. I only kind of like Bradbury, so that isn't surprising. I thought it was silly to include scanned copies of the manuscripts for two of the stories.
Pages: 247

The Dawn of Amber by John Gregory Betancourt

So I read this a couple weeks ago and should probably have written something then
Pages: 304

Chaos and Amber by John Gregory Betancourt

Surprisingly good. I want to hear the rest of the story.
Pages: 313

A Tower of Midnight by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan

I am really glad that I was very high on the hold list for this book. Tor and Brandon Sanderson did a good job getting interest up for this book between the sale of the prologue for $2.99 (I didn't buy it though) and the Great Hunt where Sanderson hid chapter titles for ToM with his Way of Kings books. The chapter titles then decoded a chapter of ToM on Sanderson's website. I only kind of enjoyed the chapter because I am only willing to read a certain amount about how Mat is now married and only looks at women to offer them to his men. Yeah.

Well, this one seems just slightly better than book 8. I don't care for Perrin develops as a wolf person.

Pages: 784

New Spring: The Novel by Robert Jordan

I read this one pretty close to when it came out. By that time, I was sort of impatient that Jordan hadn't written another book for WoT. I enjoyed understanding more of the back story. I had recently (within a year or so) read earlier books in the series where Moraine and Lan had larger roles, so it was more interesting on the first read than it was this time.

Pages: 334

Mort by Terry Pratchett

I am rather fond of any Discworld book that contains DEATH. 
Pages: 243

Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan

I'm getting ready for A Tower of Midnight and therefore reading some of the books earlier in the series in a random order. It isn't actually that useful because now I'm kind of confused about what happened when.

I liked that a lot happened in this book. Perrin rescued Faile, Mat actually got married, Rand lost his hand, and Elayne won the throne. It seems action packed (in terms of moving the plot along), though Gathering Storm has even more actual events. Initially, I thought I was reading book 9, which is a very sucky book. But Knife of Dreams is worth reading as more than a time filler. And I'm kind of swamped with books right now so I don't need any time fillers. I'll probably read one more WoT book before November and it will probably seem slow in comparison.

Pages: 880

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

The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett

Work has been alternating between really annoying and interesting for the past couple weeks, so I stocked up on lighter reading at the library. I read The Light Fantastic years ago (late high school, I believe). This book doesn't have as many funny footnotes and there aren't quite as many puns for names as in other books. However, I love Rincewind and the Luggage. I don't particularly care for the part with Conan because it gives less time for Rincewind.

Pages: 241

The Gathering Storm by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan

So maybe I should have read some of the other WoT books before jumping ahead to the one published last year, but I got ahold of an ebook and it was only a few days to finish it. I was very impressed with Gathering Storm on the first read because so much happened and there weren't as may repetitive statements ("she tugged her braid"). I'm very excited for the next book to come out in November.

Pages: 1120

Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan

In preparation for the next WoT novel in November (I'm 17 on a hold list for 25 books) I'm rereading some of the older books. Also, I have run out of books to read and the library has been closed all of Labor Day weekend. This book was moderately annoying the first time I read it. I really disliked the Halmia character and I thought it was stupid that Egwene didn't think to connect Halmia to the headaches. Also, not much happened in this book. The neat parts of cleansing the source happened in an earlier book. Eh. This was okay reading for a long weekend, even if I was distracted by the internet every twenty minutes.

Pages: 680

Also, wonderful that StarShipSofa won a Hugo. I got the supporting membership just so I could vote for them.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

In my quest for anything to read, I picked up Anathem again. I wish Anathem were more interesting, but it does an excellent job of pulling me in. Even though I've read it before, I still enjoy re-reading the entire book. The various words that Stephenson invented were nifty the first time, but now I just gloss over them and substitute the normal words without thought. The Anathem world is a very interesting place.

Pages: 1008