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

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

Children of Dune by Frank Herbert

I was still out of things to read and I recently read Dune, so Children of Dune came next (I don't own the one between the two). This was okay, but not nearly as good as Dune.

Pages: 416

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Phillip Pullman

I read His Dark Materials years ago. The stories were interesting and I am generally unable to pick up on religious subtexts. Seriously, I read the Chronicles of Narnia in middle or high school without picking up on anything. I figured I should attempt to read some other works by Phillip Pullman and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ was the only one I'd heard of.

This book was really short. The pages number up to 245, but the margins are large, the book itself is small, and there are many blank or half pages due to new chapters. I was disappointed that the book was so short and lacked much of an original twist.  is part of the Myth series, wherein authors rewrite myths. Sort of like Little Red Riding Hood remake The Wolf's Side. I have not read the Bible in particular (small bits and Genesis only), so I don't entirely understand how this deviates. The idea is sort of interesting, but not interesting enough for an entire book.

Pages: 245