Books I Read in 2014 and End of Year Review

Since I re-booted my blog at the end of summer here is my full reading list for 2014. I've bold the exceptional reads, and italicized the boring and disappointing ones.  

I should also note that I have a few stories by Benjanun Sriduangkaew on my list, but this was before I found out she is supposedly a notorious hate blogger.  

Non-Fiction

Zealot, Reza Aslan

The Vanished Library, Luciano Canfora

Herculaneum: Past and Future, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill

Novellas

Return, Peter S. Beagle

Messenger’s Legacy, Peter V. Brett

The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate, Ted Chiang (re-read)

The Madonna and the Starship, James Morrow 

The Slow Regard of Silent Things, Patrick Rothfuss

Scale Bright, Benjanun Sriduangkaew

Dream Houses, Genevieve Valentine 

Anthologies/Collections

Upgraded, Neil Clarke 

Midnight and Moonshine, Lisa L. Hannett and Angela Slatter

Twenty-First Century Science Fiction, David G. Hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Conservation of Shadows, Yoon Ha Lee

Lowball, George R.R. Martin and Melinda M. Snodgrass

Dangerous Women, George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

Rogues, George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

Forever in the Memory of God, Peadar O’Guilin 

The Sword of Destiny, Andrzej Sapkowski

Reach for Infinity, Jonathon Strahan 

Lights in the Deep, Brad Torgersen

Beyond the Rift, Peter Watts

Novels

Foxglove Summer, Ben Aaronovitch 

Half a King, Joe Abercrombie

The Widow’s House, Daniel Abraham

Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

vN, Madeline Ashby

Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood

Ruin and Rising, Leigh Bardugo

Lexicon, Max Barry

Turbulence, Samit Basu

Resistance, Samit Basu 

A Fine and Private Place, Peter S. Beagle

The Innkeeper’s Song, Peter S. Beagle

The Tropic of Serpents, Marie Brennan 

Existence, David Brin

Red Rising, Pierce Brown

Hurricane Fever, Tobias S. Buckell 

Skin Game, Jim Butcher

A Darkling Sea, James L. Cambias 

Cibola Burn, James S.A. Corey 

Unwrapped Sky, Rjurik Davidson 

Enemies at Home, Lindsey Davis 

Terra Incognita, Ruth Downie

Food for the Gods, Karen Dudley

Kraken Bake, Karen Dudley

Zadayi Red, Caleb Fox

Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman

Full Fathom Five, Max Gladstone

Hild, Nicola Griffith

The Volunteer, Peadar O’ Guilin 

The Gospel of Loki, Joanne M. Harris 

The Secret of Abdu el Yezdi, Mark Hodder

The Mirror Empire, Kameron Hurley

The Memory of Water, Emma Itäranta

The Leopard, K.V. Johansen

The Way to Babylon, Paul Kearney

Riding the Unicorn, Paul Kearney

The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin

Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie 

The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu

A Taste fur Murder, Dixie Lyle 

The World of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin, Elio M. Garcia Jr., and Linda Antonsson

Travel Light, Naomi Mitchison

All Those Vanished Engines, Paul Park

The Bees, Laline Paull

Feet of Clay, Terry Pratchett

Hogfather, Terry Pratchett

The Causal Angel, Hannu Rajaniemi 

Swamplandia!, Karen Russell

Blood Song, Anthony Ryan

Tower Lord, Anthony Ryan

Veil of the Deserters, Jeff Salyards 

Words of Radiance, Brandon Sanderson 

The Last Wish, Andrzej Sapkowski (re-read)

Blood of Elves, Andrzej Sapkowski (re-read)

Time of Contempt, Andrzej Sapkowski

Baptism of Fire, Andrzej Sapkowski 

Wild Cards X: Double Solitaire Melinda M. Snodgrass

The Septembers of Shiraz, Dalia Sofer

Something More Than Night, Ian Tregillis

The Girls at the Kingfisher Club, Genevieve Valentine

Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer 

Echopraxia, Peter Watts 

The Great Glass Sea, Josh Weil

The Martian, Andy Weir 

Three Princes, Ramona Wheeler 

Benighted, Kit Whitfield

The People in the Trees, Hanya Yanagihara

Land of Love and Drowning, Tiphanie Yanique

Total: 90

Some Stats:

Science Fiction – 33                36.7%

Fantasy – 45                            50%

Fiction – 15                             16.7%

Anthologies – 12                     13.4%

2014 Releases – 46                 51.2%

Debut Novels – 20                  22.3%

New Authors – 32                  35.6%

Women Authors – 35               38.9%

Compared to last year I read a few less science fiction, fiction/literature, and anthologies/collections.  Debuts and new authors held steady.  Books I read more of include fantasy, new releases, and women authors.

Short Stories

“Without Faith, Without Law, Without Joy”, Saladin Ahmed

“Little Knife”, Leigh Bardugo 

“Gordon, the Self-made Cat”, Peter S. Beagle

“Exhalation”, Ted Chiang

“The Water that Falls on You from Nowhere”, John Chu

“The Weight of a Blessing”, Aliette de Bodard

“Ship’s Brother”, Aliette de Bodard

“In the Age of Iron and Ashes”, Aliette de Bodard

“Wakulla Springs”, Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages

“La Santisima”, Teresa Frohock

“The Angelus Guns”, Max Gladstone

“The Astronomer Who Met the North Wind”, Kate Hall

“The Ink Readers of Doi Salet”, Thomas Olde Heuvelt

“The Ninety-Ninth Bride”, Catherine F. King 

“The Lady Astronaut of Mars”, Mary Robinette Kowal

“Mountain Ways”, Ursula Le Guin

“The Pirate Captain’s Daughter”, Yoon Ha Lee

“Architectural Constraints”, Yoon Ha Lee

“Wine”, Yoon Ha Lee 

“The Contemporary Foxwife”, Yoon Ha Lee

“The Bonedrake’s Penance”, Yoon Ha Lee 

“The Plague”, Ken Liu

“Build-a-Dolly”, Ken Liu

“The Silk Merchant”, Ken Liu

“The Litigation Master and the Monkey King”, Ken Liu

“The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species”, Ken Liu

“A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel”, Ken Liu

“The Clockwork Soldier”, Ken Liu 

“Reborn”, Ken Liu 

“The Long Haul From the ANNALS OF TRANSPORTATION, The Pacific Monthly, May 2009”, Ken Liu 

“Seventh Day of the Seventh Moon”, Ken Liu

“Driftings”, Ian McDonald

“Observations About Eggs from the Man Sitting Next to Me on a Flight from Chicago, Illinois to Cedar Rapids, Iowa”, Carmen Maria Machado

“‘Possum Trot”, J. Harley McIlrath

“The Lost Sepulcher of Huascar Capac”, Paul Park

“I Met a Man Who Wasn’t There”, K.J. Parker

“The Things We Do For Love”, K.J. Parker 

“Heaven Thunders the Truth”, K.J. Parker

“Safe House”, K.J. Parker 

“The Last Log of the Lachrimosa”, Alastair Reynolds 

“Dawn and the Maiden”, Sofia Samatar

“Selkie Stories Are for Losers”, Sofia Samatar

“Wake-Rider”, Vandana Singh 

“Woman of the Sun, Woman of the Moon”, Benjanun Sriduangkaew

“Chang’e Dashes from the Moon”, Benjanun Sriduangkaew

“Silent Bridge, Pale Cascade”, Benjanun Sriduangkaew

“If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love”, Rachel Swirsky

“Sing”, Karin Tidbeck

“86,87,88,89”, Genevieve Valentine

“Six-Gun Snow White”, Catherynne M. Valente

“Salvage”, Carrie Vaughn 

“The Colonel”, Peter Watts

“Daedalum, the Devil’s Wheel”, E. Lily Yu

“The Urashima Effect”, E. Lily Yu

Review: two mini-reviews of Messenger's Legacy and The Dispossessed

Messenger's Legacy is Peter V. Brett's third limited edition novella set in the same world as his Demon Cycle series.  This one follows a young boy in a swamp after he loses his family in an accident.  It's a decent enough story at first, even with a secondary character from the main series getting his own POV, but then partway through there's a big time jump to a point past the timeline in The Daylight War effectively tying this story to the rest of the books.  None of the other two novellas were like this.  You could read them with the series or not without any difference.  If it wasn't obvious before, it should be by now that Brett has lost control of his series.  Disappointing.

Rating: 5/10.

The Dispossessed probably doesn't need an introduction!  It's another one of the classic sci-fi books by Le Guin I hadn't yet gotten around to and finally did.  There is a reason Le Guin is rightfully considered a Grandmaster of the genre.  This book is full of ideas, analyzing and deconstructing both capitalist and anarchist societies.  There is some really brilliant stuff here.  Highly Recommended. 

Rating: 8.5/10.

Thinking About Reading...

Blurb:
The year is 1949 and Valdimar Haraldsson, an eccentric Icelander with elevated ideas about the influence of fish consumption on Nordic civilization, has had the extraordinary good fortune to be invited to join a Danish merchant ship on its way to the Black Sea. Among the crew is the mythical hero Caeneus, disguised as the second mate. Every evening after dinner he entrances his fellow travelers with the tale of how he sailed with the fabled vessel the Argo on its quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece.

What unfolds is a slender but masterful, brilliant, and always entertaining novel that ranges deftly from the comic to the mythic as it weaves together tales of antiquity with the modern world in a voice so singular as to seem possessed.

Thinking About Reading...

Blurb:

In Greek mythology there's a story of King Lykaonas of Arcadia and his fifty sons who were cursed by the father of the gods, Zeus, to become wolves. The very first Lycanthropes.

Forensic pathologist, Sophia Katsaros, receives a cryptic phone call from Greece telling her that her brothers are missing and leaves to search for them. With the help of Illyanna, her brother's girlfriend, Sophia examines the evidence but cannot accept a bizarre possibility: Has one or both of her brothers been transformed during the Lykaia, the ceremony where Man is said to become Wolf?

Who is Marcus, a dark stranger that both repels and excites her? And what is the real story behind the 5000 year old curse of King Lykaonas?

Review: two mini-reviews of Upgraded and Zadayi Red

Neil Clarke, editor of Clarkesworld magazine, edited this Kickstarter anthology about the positive and negative impacts of cyborgs in science fiction.  As a cyborg myself, I was curious enough to contribute to the project.  There quite a few big-name authors involved, and the anthology is quite well written with very few duds.  A few stories, while good, seem a better fit for a more general sci-fi anthology, but most do a good job presenting a more thoughtful look at the cyborg experience itself. 

Rating: 8/10.

Zadayi Red is a mythical, fantasy story about the ancestors of Native Americans.  The author, Caleb Fox, is himself a Native American of Cherokee descent and this story was inspired by his ancestral legends and myths.  Indeed, there are mythical fantasy elements including shape-shifting, spiritual journeys, spirit companions, and ritual magic.  It's a good lyrical quest story, though not near as good as say, The Last Unicorn.

Rating: 7.5/10. 

Thinking About Reading...

Blurb:
Award-winning author Philip Murdstone is in trouble. His star has waned. The world is leaving him behind. His agent, the beautiful and ruthless Minerva Cinch, convinces him that his only hope is to write a sword-and-sorcery blockbuster. Unfortunately, Philip - allergic to the faintest trace of Tolkien - is utterly unsuited to the task. In a dark hour, a dwarfish stranger comes to his rescue. But the deal he makes with Pocket Wellfair turns out to have Faustian consequences.

Review: The Three-Body Problem

The Three-Body Problem
by Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu

Format: Hardcover, 399 pages

Publisher: Tor

Cover Art: Stephen Martiniere

Release Date: November 11, 2014

ISBN-13: 978-0765377067

Wang Miao is a Chinese researcher working on nanomaterials with the eventual goal of creating a space elevator.  He seems to be living in strange times however, as scientists are committing suicide and the military asks him to join a secretive scientific organization as a double agent.  He also comes involved in an online video game that seems deceptively simple at first, but turns out to be incredibly complex and may be have staggering implications to the real world and mankind’s place in the cosmos. 

The name Cixin Liu, or more properly Liu Cixin, is probably not familiar to most Americans or other English speakers and that’s because the author is Chinese.  To others, he is one of the biggest authors of speculative fiction in China, and his Three-Body trilogy, of which The Three-Body Problem is the first book, is China’s biggest-selling hard sci-fi series, spanning time from the chaos of the Cultural Revolution to the end of the universe.  This is not the first time Liu’s work has been translated, but The Three-Body Problem is his first novel to have been so. 

One of the first things someone might ask about this book is how well was it translated and how does it stand up.  To my eyes, it does so extremely well.  The translation was superbly handled by Ken Liu, one of the best emerging sci-fi authors of the last few years.  In his translator’s postscript, Liu mentions that very slight changes, with the author’s permission, were made to help explain background detail of China and to streamline the storytelling differences between Chinese and English. 

So what is different about the story than most Western readers would expect?  It’s actually a little hard to put my finger on it.  If I were pressed, I’d say one thing is that while the plot is very straightforward and linear, the structure is somewhat unusual in that it jumps around a lot focusing on bits here and there that contribute to the story.  In other words, the plot may be pretty direct but the story is not.  Those who prefer a simpler novel may be put off, but those used to unconventional narratives should be fine.

One thing in particular I want to mention about this book is that I think it works better if you don’t know much about it going in.  I believe the story reads much better if you ignore the official blurbs in order to avoid spoilers.  That’s why the synopsis I provided above is fairly minimal, and it’s therefore why I won’t say much other than that the novel involves aliens, complicated physics, and an interstellar struggle for survival. 

The final point I do want to make is that this book, and the trilogy by implication, is quite complex.  It has many of historical and literary aspects that would appeal to Literature readers while also covering many philosophical, mathematical, scientific issues in often mind-numbing detail.  A rudimentary understanding of physics is not just recommended, it’s required.  It’s easy to see why these books have garnered so much popularity and acclaim in China.

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu is a great, enthralling book and I’m glad it’s now available in English.  It is a complex science fiction book and it’s easy to see why it is so popular in China.  It is a welcome addition to world speculative fiction.  Strongly recommended. 

Rating: 8.5/10.