Tuesday, September 1, 2015

The List

(Updated Jan 6, 2016)

My usual intent of reading a book a week remains this year. So here's my tally:

Jan 13 Antiaircraft Action Summary, Suicide Attacks (US Navy) Yes, I read a lot of specialist stuff! This is details of the Navy's performance in warding off Kamikazes in WWII
Jan 18  Assault Troopers (Heppner) Book 1 of Extinction Wars. I'm finding I like Heppner very much. It's good that he's prolific!
Jan 24  The Lies of Locke Lamora (Lynch) a great fantasy story!
Jan 28  Planet Strike (Heppner) Book 2 of Extinction Wars. Also good!
Feb 4  The Republic of Thieves (Lynch)  a great follow-up to Lamora (above).
Feb 11 Castles of the World (Guadalupi & Reina) lush photography, and good text for a coffee table book.
Feb 15  Imperium (Harris) quite good!
Feb 21  The Lost Command (Heppner)
Mar 7  Red Seas Under Red Skies (Lynch) the 3rd in the Locke Lamora series. All are worth reading!
Mar 15  The Lost Fleet: Dreadnaught (Campbell) I found this poor.
Mar 17  A Wizard in Mind (Stasheff) I used to enjoy Stasheff. Recently I got hold of several of his books cheaply, so I'm reading him again!
Mar 21  A Wizard in Bedlam (Stasheff)
Mar 23  A Wizard in Peace (Stasheff) OK, this do-gooder series is starting to feel formulaic.
Apr 1  Fish Tales (Tepper) companion to her Waters Rising. I've read better Tepper.
Apr 4  Night Train to Rigel (Zahn) probably my surprise hit of the year! Really enjoyed this!
Apr 5  The Third Lynx (Zahn) also good!
Apr 9  Infantry Tactics of World War II (Bull & Rottmann)
Apr 13  Star Viking (Heppner)
Apr 20  The Human Legion: Marine Cadet (Taylor) Authors seem to like this theme of aliens recruiting their armies from a subjugated Earth.
Apr 21  The Human Legion: Indigo Squad (Taylor)
May 1  Coalescent (Baxter)
May 5  The Wizard in Chaos (Stasheff) You can see I had to give Stasheff some time to settle.
May 10  Proxima (Baxter) Good!
May 20  The Interstellar Age (Ball)
May 25  Early Meetings in Ender's Universe (Card) for people, like me, who can't get enough of Ender's Game 
May 28  Shadows of Steel (Brown)  meh.
May 30  The Dragon of Handale (Clark) A medieval mystery, similar to the Cadfael series
May 31  Rain on the Dead (Higgins)
June 12  Nothing Like It in the World (Ambrose) Ambrose is a wonderful historian; I greatly enjoyed this saga and wished I'd read it along with Empire Express by Bain a few years ago
Jun 17  Empire (Connolly & Ridyard) Liked this muchly... but the title is SO forgettable
Jun 24  Hangman Blind (Clark) another medieval mystery
Jul 6  The Law of Angels (Clark) aaannnddd yet another medieval mystery!
Jul 7  Conquest: How Societies Overwhelm Others (Day)  a good primer in how civilizations rise & fall. I found this in the card catalog while looking for the book below!
Jul 11  Conquest: The Chronicles of the Invaders (Connolly & Ridyard) Better name than Empire, above!
Jul 17  The Last Symbol (Brown)  Brown amazes me. I was ready to pack up and journey to DC to check out his facts. Excellent!!
Jul 18  Lost in Time I (Zandus)  Turns out to be soft-core porn which steals its premise from "Outlander"
Jul 20  Lost in Time II (Zandus) Guess I didn't mind the derivative nature TOO much!
Jul 28  The Long Earth (Pratchett & Baxter) OK, but I'm not interested in following the series
Aug 2  Echoes in Time (Norton & Sherwood) Narrated this for Bee Audio. Book 6 of Norton Time Trader series.
Aug 15  Atlantis Endgame (Norton & Sherwood) Narrated this for Bee Audio. Book 7 of the Time Traders.
Aug 27  The Time Traders (Norton) Since I've narrated books 3,4,6,& 7, it was time to go back and read book #1 for myself!
Aug 30  Galactic Derelict (Norton) Book 2 of Time Traders series. It's now clear to me the series got better as it went on.
Sep 11  The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Larrson) So I finally found out what the stir about Stieg Larrson was about.
Sep 19  Gates of Fire (Pressfield)  EVERY ONE of Steven Pressfield's books is a gem! This one is the story of the 300 at Thermopylae.
Sep 22  Battle Cruiser (Larson) entertaining scifi
Oct 2  The Last Destroyer (Heppner) This series, while good, may be running out of steam.
Oct 8  Swarm (Larson) 
Oct 15  Dark Sun (Rhodes) This is a well-received history of the development of hydrogen bomb.
Oct 18  An Acceptable Time (L'Engle) I read and loved A Wrinkle in Time back when I was maybe 10. It's good to have another L'Engle to read!
Oct 22  Into the Black (Currie) By now, I'm an Evan Currie fan! Book 1 of Odyssey One series.
Oct 25  Riders of the Purple Sage (Grey) An audiobook, read by my friend chocoholic. Very enjoyable.
Oct 25  The Big Time (Lieber) An audiobook, read by my friend Karen Savage.
Oct 26  The Heart of Matter (Currie) Did I say I was a Currie fan? Book 2 of Odyssey One.
Oct 27  Naval War Games (Carter)
Nov 1  Homeworld (Currie) Book 3 of Odyssey One.
Nov 9  Out of the Black (Currie) Book 4 of Odyssey One.
Nov 17  All the Light We Cannot See (Doerr) I don't often read best-sellers. This one, though, my wife recommended to me, AND, it was about St. Malo, where I spent the summer of 1970. The book was good!
Dec 13  Fall of Giants (Follett) 
Dec 14  Infantry Combat (Antal) How's this for an idea? Set up a military situation, let the reader choose a solution from a group of possibilities, then turn to another part of the book to see how that panned out If you got you or your men killed, you back up and choose another path. Repeat the pattern as the battle develops!
Dec 15  And Then There Were None (Christie) I planned to audition for a part in this play, so read it ahead of time. Didn't get the part.
Dec 21  On Silver Wings (Currie) Evan Currie starts a new series, amazingly called the On Silver Wings series!
Dec 28  The Quantum Thief (Rajaniemi)  ho-hum
Dec 30  Valkyrie Rising (Currie) Book 2 of On Silver Wings.


So my output this year was 63 books - a good year!
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