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forgetmenotblues · 7 years

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52 in 52

So last year I tried to read 52 books in 52 weeks (aka a year, if you're nasty), and because I was a shiftless philosophy student, I managed and then some.

Here are the books I've read, with some thoughts on them, for posterity, or recommendations

1) Sandman Overture, Neil Gaiman

Pretty solid, usually I hate prequels, but sandman was always pretty meandering and non-linear, so it works well. Just annoying it doesn't fit in with my pretty leatherbound absolute editions

2) Radioactive: love and fallout, Lauren Redniss

Very cool artsy biography of Marie Curie, and glows in the dark!

3) XKCD What if?

Extremely fun science, makes some abstract concepts approachable, I mean it's Randall Munroe, it's solid

4) Rise to Rebellion, Jeff Shaara

Historical novel (gonna be a few of these, I'm dead into them) about the build up to the American revolution . Kinda dry for a lot of it, but can ratchet the tension up, taught me lots I didn't know, and there's a bit towards the end where John Adams' wife calls him out on his privilege and it's pretty rad

5) Dune, Frank Herbert

I hate myself for saying this, but I was expecting it to be a bit more... dry. But seriously, everything described it as complex philosophy and politics, ASOIAF in space, and then it was a pretty straightforward adventure. The dynastic politics boiled down to a family of cool beautiful good guys vs an evil family of "hilariously" fat perverts. It was a great read, but more Laurence of Arabia than anything else

6) Squirrel girl, Ryan North

Fantastic, fun, brilliantly written - it's Ryan North, nuff said.

7) Virgil, Steve Orlando

A cool, dark, "queersploitation" comic. Your basic "beaten and left for dead, wreaks vengeance" type story, brutal, but honestly pretty cathartic

8) the house that groaned, karrie fransman

A comic about a bunch of dysfunctional people. I didn't care for it, it was a lot of kinda shallow Freudian psychology and slightly tim burton esque "quirky" characters. It was kinda like the A Dolls House arc of Sandman, but... not good

9) The Last Continent, Terry Pratchett

Discworld is always fantastic, and I've got a real fondness for the classic travelogue style rincewind ones.

10) Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist, Russel McCormmach

The story of a German physicist who's dedicated his whole life to ether model physics and is realising his life's work is being disproved by recent advances... so a barrel of laughs. All about mortality, the fear of obsolescence, nationalism, and academia.

11) The Property, Rutu Modan

Indie comic about a girl learning about her family's heritage in Europe, lots of post war stuff and exploring "the old country". Very good

12) The Wake, Paul Kingsnorth

This was one of the real wins of this year, a story about the Norman occupation of Anglo Saxon England after 1066, and resistance thereof. Written in a conlang made to simulate old english, it seems totally unreadable, but you pick it up, and it makes the story infinitely more engrossing. A cool setting plus a whole other language wouldbe enough, but kingsnorth goes one further and makes it a savage deconstruction of nationalism and a beautifully painful exploration of tropes these sorts of books tend to embrace. Can't recommend enough.

13) Adventures of Hergé, Jean-luc Fromental

Biography of hergé written in the style of a tintin comic, a lot of fun

14) Carpé Jugulum, Terry Pratchett

Another Discworld, another classic. A lot of fun stuff with vampire tropes, although also a pretty serious discussion of "all evil comes from utilitarianism", which I felt didn't entirely fit, and I disagreed with. But again, the biggest criticism I've ever had of a Pratchett book is "his intelligent discussion of philosophy felt a little out of place", so not the end of the world

15) Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett

I went on a bit of a discworld binge here, another great one

16) Half a King, Joe Abercrombie

Great deconstructive low fantasy novel, one of the many ASOIAF-esque books out there, and one of the few I've really enjoyed

17) Batman and Robin Eternal, D.C. Comics

Fun story about the batfamily, one of the rare bat-titles to really say "hey maybe this should be fun, you guys?"

18) Magical Game Time, Zac Gorman

Brilliant comics about video games, capture the real magic and freedom you found in games when you're a kid, the epic narratives you'd weave out of very simple Zelda games on the NES. makes me happy on a fundamental level. A lot of its available as webcomics, look it up, you won't regret it

19) The Truth, Terry Pratchett

Another brilliant Discworld book. Not much to say as there's a lot of these another all just consistently amongst the best books ever.

20) Wonder Woman Earth 1, Grant Morrison

Grant Morrison's always got a gift for finding the heart of a character, and he doesn't disappoint here. A lot of weird analysis of wonder woman as a feminist character, but he handles it pretty well overall.

21) & 22) Half the World, and Half a War, Joe Abercrombie

Parts 2 and 3 of the series, stays brilliant. Abercrombie is apparently best known for more adult stuff and this is more YA, but if anything that refines his writing - stops him being another grimdark game of thrones wannabe, and keeps it slightly more reconstructive and intelligent. Brilliant use of characters, the hero of the first book ends up almost the villain of the last, and all for entirely understandable reasons.

23) Machine of Death, various authors

A short story collection about a high concept: a simple blood test can tell you your cause of Death, but not the time or any specifics. A brilliant idea is explored in a lot of clever, beautiful, and hilarious ways.

24) The Last Hero, Terry Pratchett

Another brilliant Discworld, acting as a bridge between the classic fantasy of the older books, and the renaissance era politics and science of the later books - v poignant

25, 26, & 27) Harlequin, Vagabond, Heretic, Bernard Cornwell

Historical novels about the battle of creçy and the start of the 100 years war. Cornwells always good, although honestly these aren't his best. Pretty cool comparison between the chivalry of grain quests, and the reality of medieval warfare.

28) Long Halloween, Jeph Loeb

A classic batman, the story they based Dark Knight on, with a cool transition from down to earth organised crime of Year One to the zany madness of later batman

29) Little Brother, Cory Doctorow

A novel about post-911 culture, and counter culture rebellions against it. Fantastic novel, available as creative commons, so you can get it for free, so no excuses not to read! Very inspiring in that fuck Bush and fuck this war aesthetic, and Ihve a feeling it's gonna get real relevant in the coming years

30) Enders Game, Orson Scott Card

Pretty fantastic sci fi, analyses the psychological impacts of chosen one children saving the world, and the ethics of a "all the enemy are evil aliens" narrative. Obviously all this ethicality is a bit hypocritical from Orson Scott homophobia, so buy it second hand?

31) Black Guard, AJ Smith

Pretty cool fantasy, another faux ASOIAF type one, fairly straightforward, but plenty enjoyable

32) Deadpool vs Hawkeye

Pretty fun comic, read it on a plane back from Costa Rica, so I dont super remember it? But I enjoyed

33) The Sleeper and the Spindle, Neil Gaiman

Very cool twisted fairy tale type thing, Neil Gaiman's always good, and beautiful Chris Riddel illustrations on top

34) Dial H for Hero, China Miéville

Great comic series, takes a simple idea (guy finds magic phone, when he dials it, he becomes a randomised superhero) and explores it in every possible way, becoming a full blown epic. Plus a scene where he becomes old timey racist heroes from the 60's and has to balance the good of doing superheroics vs the offensiveness of going out as "super chief" or whoever

35) Ravenspur, Conn Iggulden

Historical novel about the war of the roses. Iggulden is always very good, makes extremely readable stuff, and his war of the roses series is fantastic, a complex story made into an awesome action story. However, this last book isn't his best, it spends about 2/3rds of the book on a 6 month period where not much happens, then blazes through 10 years of action in no time at all, the pacing just felt a bit off. Still very good.

36) Howard the Duck, Chip Zdarsky

Very readable, very fun, very witty

37) Stonehenge, Bernard Cornwell

Historical novel about the building of Stonehenge, this is cornwell at his best, at border of very well researched intelligent history and the slightest hint of fantasy, making a brilliant story that brings history to life.

38) Black Orchid, Neil Gaiman

Slightly deconstructive superhero story, reads very much like a companion piece to Alan Moore's brilliant Swamp Thing

39) The Hartlepool Monkey, Wilfrid Lupano

Historical comic about a northern English town that hanged a shipwrecked monkey as a Napoleonic spy. A brutal read, exploring idiotic nationalism, well recommended

40) Turned Out Nice Again, Richard Mabry

Cute non-fiction musings on the meanings of weather and it's effects on our day to day life

41) The Heroes, Joe Abercrombie

Another deconstructive low fantasy, this time part of his adult series, which actually kind of works against it. Without the lighter edge, it can be a little bit of a downer. Nonetheless, well written, solid characterisation, and an excellent take-down of fantasy's belief in the glorious nature of war.

42) Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett

Another fantastic Discworld, fun, funny, and clever

43, 44, 45, 46, 47) A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons

Reread all of ASOIAF, absolutely fantastic, better on a second read. The first 3 are great as last time, plus all the foreshadowing that now makes sense. And 4&5, which I felt bit more ambivalent about the first time round, I've since read various analyses of (check out @asoiafuniversity), and I'd now consider them some of the best books I've ever read.

48) Gettysburg Address, Jonathon Hennessey

Absolutely brilliant comic, dissecting the Gettysburg address, using each line of it as a jumping off point to explore the history and philosophy of the civil war, incredibly high recommendation

49) Lazarus, Greg Rucka

A fantastic sci fi comic series, brilliant writing and characters, rucka is always great, and this is some of his best

50) Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

Another Discworld, but this one is even better than usual, this is one of the ones that stand out as serious business, much less comedic and much more epic than usual

51) A Brief History of Vice, Robert Evans

Hilarious and informative book from a cracked.com writer about use of drugs and alcohol through history, with recipes and recommendations for legal highs and drink recipes

52) Just City, Jo Walton

Sci fi / fantasy /philosophical novel, where great thinkers from throughout history are brought together to build Plato's perfect city. All about the clash between high ideals and practical reality. Very enjoyable, the sort of book where action scenes are philosophical debates.

53) Goldie Vance, Hope Larson

Fun cool progressive detective comic

54) Temeraire, Naomi Novak

A really fun fantasy novel with a concept that seems so simple, you don't know how no one's done it before. Essentially it's just the classical trope of dragon riders, but updated from pseudo medieval to the Napoleonic era, with all associated tall ships and iron men and officer and a gentleman tropes

#me #Forgetmenotblues #52 in 52

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forgetmenotblues · 6 years

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52 in 52 (2017&

Did 52 (well, 46) in 52 again. Read if you like.

Didn’t make it to 52, but to be fair I did also have medical school to finish.

1) When Christ and All his Saints Slept, Sharon Penman – historical novel about The Anarchy (12th century England) – explores lots of the same themes as ASOIAF, I’d be shocked if GRRM had never read this. Also pretty decent exploration of women, POC, disabled people in the medieval world. Really really good. That said, pretty long and dense – not in a bad way, theres just a lot going on in pretty good detail. I think starting the year with this is part of the reason I didn’t reach 52.

2) Thud, Terry Pratchett – a discworld book, and one of the best. The Vimes ones keep building consistently, and this continues the trend.

3) XKCD What If?, Randall Munroe – pretty sure I read this last year as well, so see previous review, or just assume if I read the same book two years in a row it must be pretty good

4) Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman – norse mythology is always the best, because it doesn’t just have characters, it has a narrative direction. Neil Gaiman captures this perfectly and distils it to its best – he has a weird gift for writing the exact story you vaguely half remember from your childhood, and writes it for adult you. The sense of inevitable tragedy and all things barrelling towards an inevitable awful conclusion had me in tears on a train.

5) Welcome to Night Vale, Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cramor – the novel of the excellent podcast. Theyre still great writers, but the novel is trying so hard to connect the two that it’s to its detriment – you want it to stop with all the references and call backs and just tell its own story. The final 5th or so of the book finally does, and it’s fantastic – you just wish the whole story could’ve been like that

6,7,8,9,10,11) The Accursed Kings series, Maurice Druon – Absolutely brilliant series about medieval france. The books GRRM says are the biggest influence for ASOIAF – politics, war, religion, all based around character drama blown up to an epic scale. Also, the author was an actual knight and fought in the French resistance, which is pretty dope.

12) The Iliad, Homer – the marvel comics adaptation, from the marvel classics line. It works surprisingly well – the iliad is pretty inaccessible due to the language style, the writing designed for oral memorisation and performance, and the shout outs to tiny bronze age greek villages. The comic cuts all that out, and gets straight to the meat of the story

13,14) Attila, William Napier – never read the “about the author” bits – for Maurice Druon I found out Putin was a fan which made it uncomfortable, for this book I found out he wrote for the mail. That said, I probably wouldn’t have been a fan anyway – weird pacing, unexpected fantasy elements, a whole section following an entirely different protagonist for no reason, the whole second book is a travelogue from one group of huns to another – theyre not that different.

15) Making Money, Terry Pratchett – another great discworld novel, introduces a new protagonist, and he immediately feels like a classic part of the world.

16) A Village Without Stories, Nate Currier – a book by my uni friend – if I had to sum it up, I’d say rambling, but in the best way possible – it feels like an old jewish folk tale told round the campfire for generations. Beautifully sets up 20th century Europe as a fairytale setting, with penicillin being passed down as a magical cure people quest for

17, 18) Fables Deluxe vol #9 and #10, Bill Willingham – a consistently great comic series, although these volumes struggle a little after killing off the main antagonist. Ive always admired their willingness to destroy the status quo (far too rare in comics), but here it’s slightly shooting themselves in the foot.

19) Smoke and Mirrors, Neil Gaiman – series of short stories by the ever-great Gaiman. That said, it’s his early work, and it shows – there’s a lack of finesse and polish, and it’s frankly fantastic how often he goes to the well of “You see a magic act, you’re a sarcastic bitch, you get ironically punished”. All that said, I like seeing early works – its like how seeing a garage band inspires you more than seeing a professional – you think “I could do that”.

20) Dead Trees Give No Shelter, Wil Wheaton – great novella by Wil Wheaton, excellent pacing and creepy atmosphere, then solid twist. It was a lot of fun to see him writing it and then read it.

21) Kingsfountain, Jeff Wheeler – fantasy series set in a pseudo historical war of the roses where Richard III wins at Bosworth hill. A solid enough fantasy exploring some good themes. I spent the whole time expecting a big twist that never quite came, so I don’t know if it was ethically ambiguous or just very protagonist-centred morality.

22,23,24) The Dunk & Egg comic editions, GRRM – comic adaptations of the ASOIAF prequel stories. Theyre already excellent stories (see last years review), and adapt nicely to the new medium.

25) The Great God Pan, Arthur Machen – Victorian story credited with starting the cosmic horror genre and inspiring lovecraft in a big way. Also credited (by me, right now) with showing why I don’t like the cosmic horror genre – the whole “if I told you what I saw, you’d go mad from horror” is essentially the same as “I can’t tell you what happened, but I promise it’d be super scary and well written you guys”. Also extremely Victorian – they decide it’s fair to do exploratory brain surgery on a woman because they’ve financially supported her; the unimaginable cosmic horror is essentially a liberated woman; and multiple scenes open with the narrator reassuring his friends that he’s still rich and doesn’t ever need to work.

26) Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bierce – short story from the civil war. It kind of invented the twist ending, but it’s a Seinfeld is Unfunny situation – the twist is, by modern post-shamalan standards, weak as hell. Also the main character is a confederate plantation owner, so I’m rooting strongly for his death. That said, it’s pretty well written and atmospheric.

27) Shogun, James Clavell – long, semi historical novel about the Japanese samurai period. This one is a other big contributor to my not reading the full 52 – it’s long as hell, and unlike the Sharon Penman one, you’re not sure it’s earned it. It’s preeeeeeeeeeeeetty racist, and some of that can be written off as in-universe, but a lot can’t. That said, it won a lot of goodwill from me by having one of the most interestingly structured endings I’ve ever read – the big climactic battle the whole book has been building to doesn’t actually happen, the whole climax is just people planning for it, then a one page epilogue saying “and that’s how it happened”

28) To Build a Fire, Jack London – a short story about someone freezing to death in the Yukon because they failed to adequately prepare. AKA the most Jack London-y book to ever exist.

29) Beren and Luthien, Tolkien – absolutely beautiful book. One of the big stories Tolkien was always working on, he never completely finished it, so this book collects fragments to tell the story – it starts out as very Hobbit-y fairytale, then epic poetic verse, then very dry Silmarillion narration, then more LOTR-esque, all adding up to tell the story. Can’t recommend strongly enough, and made me retroactively like the Silmarillion a lot more.

30,31) Lumberjanes – Excellent upbeat fun story, building up a pretty hefty mythos as well

32) Journal #3, Alex Hirsch – talking of fun, family-friendly stories about the paranormal set in the pacific northwest! Essentially a novelization/expansion for Gravity Falls, if you like the show you’ll like the book, if you don’t like the show, why the hell not?

33) Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett – another discworld novel, honestly not my favourite though. Has some of the best ideas and concepts, but never quite brought it together.

34) Wild Animals of the North, Dieter Braun – very beautiful book of… well, what it says on the tin. More aesthetic than encyclopaedic, but nothing wrong with that

35,36) Squirrel Girl, Ryan North – continues to be all that’s good in comics

37) Gardens of the Moon, Steven Erikson – saw this on a million “If you liked ASOIAF, you’ll like this” lists, and I can see the comparison – big complex world, grey morality, loads of characters – but I didn’t care for it. ASOIAF feels like a big complex world that GRRM wants to help you understand because it’s necessary for the story, Malazan feels like a big complex world because the author wanted to show off how big and complex he can make it. In the foreword he says he deliberately made it hard to follow to put off casual readers, which is the most obnoxious thing I’ve ever read. Beyond that, I never particularly cared about most of the characters, and the big evil is defeated by a heretofore unmentioned species that apparently exists just to eat big evils. That’s pretty much a cartoonish parody of obvious deus ex machinas.

38) Sword at Sunset, Rosemary Sutcliffe – Historical novel about the real King Arthur. I love Rosemary Sutcliffe, I love anything about the historical Arthur, so this was an easy win. Sure enough, great story, beautifully written. That said, it had some difficulty for me because I read a similar series a few years ago by Bernard Cornwell that were some of my favourite books of all time – it was different enough to be enjoyable, but close enough to be distracting. It also had the opposite problem of the Attila books – that was a trilogy that should’ve been one book, this was one book that easily could’ve been three.

39) Northern Lights Vol 1, Phillip Pullman – the comic adaptation of my favourite books of all time, with beautiful and fitting artwork – what’s not to like?

40) Dreamsongs, GRRM – some of GRRM’s short stories – similar to Neil Gaiman’s stuff, it’s very early work more about the novelty of seeing them develop than about actually reading the stories.

41) Vision, Tom King – excellent miniseries about the vision. It’s basically exactly what you want from superhero comics – a fantastic self-contained story that uses existing characters and universe for depth. Beautiful writing and art, way better than the weird purple deus ex machina from the weakest avengers movie.

42) What the Hell Did I Just Read?, David Wong – part of the John Dies at The End series, excellent paranormal detective series – think if supernatural was intelligent and/or funny. That said, this was probably the worst of the three books so far, weirdly because technically speaking it was the best. It was well polished, but that robbed it of a lot of the passion the earlier ones had – the first had about 8 acts, but that gave it the feeling of a new writer bursting with ideas, whereas this book had much less in the way of new ideas. Still, pretty great book.

43) Ship of Magic, Robin Hobbe – Robin Hobbe always does slightly off the beaten track fantasy, I’m still not sure if I liked the assassin’s trilogy, but this book I know I liked. Interesting, albeit not particularly likeable, characters exploring the parts fantasy usually ignores – merchants, women, the working class.

44) La Belle Sauvage, Phillip Pullman – A new trilogy in the His Dark Materials world. Very interesting – His Dark Materials got very epic high fantasy towards the end, but this book is closer to Northern Lights – barely fantastical at all, beyond the alternate universe setting. Then, fantasy slips in as the story goes on, but it’s more fairytale than fantasy. HDM has always been something of a mirror to Narnia, and the second part of this book is very Dawn Treader.

45) Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss – this was one of the best books I read this year. Fantastically written – every single word is perfectly placed. You can (and I do) analyse the hell out of everything in there and mine a lot of depth. I don’t know if it’s a deconstruction of fantasy, a reconstruction, or just so well written that it breathes new life into the whole genre.

46) Klaus, Grant Morrison – A gritty reboot of Santa’s origin story, which should be the worst thing imaginable, but then you see who wrote it. A beautiful story and artwork, every part of it could be ridiculous, but as Morrison always does, he treats it with such earnestness that you can’t object to it. Read the whole thing through at midnight on Christmas eve, think it might become a tradition.

#52 in 52 #me #mine #books #forgetmenotblues

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