The TBR Pile, 2015

As with any habitual reader, there are always more books on my "to be read" list than I can ever actually get to. Several of the ones I started over on Goodreads have not yet been finished (especially the writing books with exercises in them, which I hope to start remedying shortly), and I've added several more that I actually do have a shot at finishing.

So for 2015, here's my initial pass at a prioritized reading list, to be added to at will, with preliminary notes on why I'm reading what I'm reading, if anyone actually finds that of interest.

Nalo Hopkinson, "Midnight Robber"
Dan Wells, "Partials"

(I've signed up for the 2015 Out of Excuses Writing Workshop and Retreat. I"m already familiar with the work of Mary Robinette Kowal and Brandon Sanderson, and I'm perusing Howard Tayler's "Schlock Mercenary" online, so this is me catching up on what the other authors have been up to.)

Catherynne Valente, "The Habitation of the Blessed" (Audible)
E.E. "Doc" Smith "Triplanetary: Lensman #1" (Audible)

(I commute about a half hour to work each way, so I get a fair bit of listening time in - Audible and podcasts FTW...)

Jim Hines "Rise of the Spider Goddess"
Jim Hines "Unbound"
Anne Bishop "Written in Red"
Anne Bishop "Murder of Crows"
Cherie Priest "Maplecroft"
John Scalzi "Fuzzy Nation"
Elizabeth Bear "Karen Memory"
Gail Carriger "Prudence"

And more to come...

Vacation Reading

I'll probably write up the long story version later, but for now I'll just outline it - after Plan A for Thanksgiving went out the window, we settled on Plan B and were about to lay in supplies when we wound up going to Plan C, then ditched that and wound up in Moab instead (Plan D). Since I'm saving up my allowance for a side project, I only bought one book for the trip (Sandman Slim) after previewing several possibilities, and hit the library to fill in a proper holiday reading basket:

• Jailbait Zombie, Mario Acevedo
• The Blight Way, Patrick McManus
• Just After Sunset, Stephen King
• Mercy Thompson: Homecoming, Patricia Briggs
• Welcome to the Jungle, Jim Butcher
• Dreamsongs, Volume 1, George R.R. Martin
• Characters, Emotion, & Viewpoint, Nancy Kress
• Copy Editing, A Practical Guide, Karen Judd
• The Writer's Path: A Guidebook for Your Creative Journey, Todd Walton & Mindy Toomay
• The Everything Guide to Writing a Novel, Joyce & Jim Levene

And because no trip is complete without buying a book while on holiday, I acquired the Pantheon Fairy Tale & Folklore Library volume American Indian Myths and Legends, Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz.

Didn't actually finish all of them - I'm one story away from the end of the George R.R. Martin volume, and most of the craft books will require actual study rather than the somewhat cursory reading I gave Characters, Emotion and Viewpoint (though that was enough for me to decide I'll need to own a copy, possibly of the entire Write Great Fiction series, and probably subscribe to Writers' Digest sometime in the near future).

Back Catalog

As I mentioned earlier, my wife and I both have Kindles, and associated Amazon accounts. Since we have several devices each now that tie into said accounts, we decided to each use one of our devices (in my case, my Android phone) to access the other's Amazon accounts. Since sharing Kindle books is not particularly intuitive, it seemed the easiest way for me to read, say, Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series, and for my wife to (eventually) read The Dresden Files.

So - another urban fantasy/paranormal romance quick list. These are the books that I've read from her account:

• Soulless, Gail Carriger
• Blameless, Gail Carriger
• Changeless, Gail Carriger
• Heartless, Gail Carriger
• Moon Called, Patricia Briggs
• Blood Bound, Patricia Briggs
• Iron Kissed, Patricia Briggs
• Bone Crossed, Patricia Briggs
• Silver Borne, Patricia Briggs
• River Marked, Patricia Briggs
• Alpha and Omega, Patricia Briggs
• Cry Wolf, Patricia Briggs
• Hunting Ground, Patricia Briggs
• Magic Bites, Ilona Andrews
• Magic Burns, Ilona Andrews
• Magic Strikes, Ilona Andrews
• Magic Bleeds, Ilona Andrews
• Agatha H and the Airship City, Phil & Kaja Foglio
• Hexed, Kevin Hearne
• Hounded, Kevin Hearne
• Hammered, Kevin Hearne
• Tempest Rising, Nicole Peeler
• Tracking the Tempest, Nicole Peeler
• Tempest's Legacy, Nicole Peeler
• Eye of the Tempest, Nicole

Plus three of the Sookie Stackhouse True Blood novels, which series I've given up on. Can't stand the main character, so why waste time reading her story?

More Literary Popcorn

Still working out how to label things for future reference, sorting, etc - but "popcorn books" is definitely going into the mix. An awful lot of fiction writing is, for me, the equivalent of popcorn - I can chew through a ridiculous amount of written material (with a high degree of comprehension and retention) very quickly, if it's well-written, engaging, or otherwise fun to read. If it's highly technical, I can still get through it, but getting the data into short-term (and then long-term) memory takes some effort - and if it's just turgid, dull, or hard to "identify with" (I hate the phrase, but I haven't yet come up with a better one), I'll just give up (like I did on the True Blood series, whose protagonist has me rolling my eyes every couple of chapters).

So - this weekend, my popcorn bucket included the Nice Girls novels, written by Molly Harper - Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs, Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men, and Nice Girls Don't Live Forever. They cross the line into Paranormal Romance, with not only a romance arc to each book, but an overarching romantic arc across all three (and a lot of loose ends tied up neatly in the third) - but they're still a lot of fun to read, even as a not terribly romantically-minded guy (INTP for those who buy into Meyers-Briggs typing). I'll probably plow through her Naked Werewolf series over the next couple of days, and then I'll be relaxed enough for another foray into Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.

Working Backwards: The Dresden Files

I've set up a list of current books I'm reading (technically, there are more than three, but the other one I've actually started reading is for research purposes, and I've put that particular project on hold for a little while), but I'd also like to start listing the other books I've read recently. My wife and I picked up Kindle readers this year (after using the free software on our various phones and computers), so I'll probably start with the titles I've read there, along with the books we picked up on our vacation trip to DC this summer.

So - first up is the entire run of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files novels, plus the short story collection:

1. Storm Front
2. Fool Moon
3. Grave Peril
4. Summer Knight
5. Death Masks
6. Blood Rites
7. Dead Beat
8. Proven Guilty
9. White Night
10. Small Favor
11. Turn Coat
12. Changes
13. Ghost Story
14. Side Jobs (short stories)

I chewed through these pretty quickly - Butcher's protagonist, Harry Dresden, is a fun character to read. The series is selling well enough that Butcher can get away with cliffhanger endings (at least on the last 2 novels), so I'm looking at the short-lived TV series to fill in part of the gap while I wait for the 14th novel.