Fiction consumed in 2017

[firecat]

It was the year of gobbling long series. I usually don't read series straight through, but starting in March I read the Jurisdiction Universe (7 books), most of the Faith Hunter series (11 books total; I had already read 3 of them), the Lymond Chronicles (6 books) and the House of Niccoló (7 books).

50 e-books read—44.5 books by women, 6 by POC.
14 audiobooks listened to—7 by women, 1 by POC.

Comment if you want my opinion about any of these. The ones I especially recommend are in bold.

Books:
Nigel Bennett & P.N. Elrod, His Father's Son (Ethical Vampires #2)
Fiona Buckley, Queen Without a Crown (Ursula Blanchard #9)
Raymond Chandler, The Lady in the Lake (Marlowe #4)
Agatha Christie, They Do It With Mirrors; A Pocket Full of Rye; 4:50 from Paddington (Miss Marple #6–8)
Charlaine Harris, Night Shift (Midnight, Texas #3)
Dorothy Dunnett, The Lymond Chronicles (6 books); The House of Niccoló (7 books)
P.N. Elrod, The Hanged Man (On Her Majesty's Psychic Service #1)
Jeaniene Frost, Into the Fire (Night Prince #4)
Faith Hunter, Jane Yellowrock #4–11
N.K. Jemisen, The Obelisk Gate; The Stone Sky (Broken Earth #2–3); The Awakened Kingdom (Inheritance #3.5)
Laurie R. King, Locked Rooms (Mary Russell #8)
Ann Leckie, Provenance (Imperial Radch #4)
M. Louisa Locke, Maids of Misfortune; Uneasy Spirits (Victorian SF Mystery #1–2)
Susan R. Matthews, Jurisdiction Universe series (7 books)
Neil Gaiman, American Gods Tenth Anniversary Edition
Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death
Daniel José Older, Shadowshaper (Shadowshaper Cypher #1)
Matt Ruff, Lovecraft Country
Nisi Shawl, Everfair
Rex Stout, Too Many Women (Nero Wolfe #12)
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Hôtel Transylvania; The Palace (Saint Germain #1–2)

Audiobooks:
Rebecca Cantrell, The World Beneath (Joe Tesla #1)
M.R. Carey, The Girl With All the Gifts; The Boy on the Bridge
Agatha Christie, Lord Edgware Dies (Poirot #9)
Jasper Fforde, The Woman Who Died a Lot (Thursday Next #7)
Ian Fleming, Octopussy & Other Stories (Bond #14)
C.S. Harris, What Angels Fear (Sebastian St. Cyr #1)
T. E. Kinsey, A Quiet Life In The Country (Lady Hardcastle #1); In the Market for Murder (#2)
Walter Mosley, Six Easy Pieces
Loretta Ross, Death and the Redheaded Woman (Auction Block Mysteries #1)
Olen Steinhauer, The Tourist (Milo Weaver #1 of 3)
Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races
T. H. White, The Once & Future King (volumes #1–3 of 5)

Comments

[jazzfish]

Definitely curious what you thought of Once & Future King. My readaloud seems to have stalled out near the end of Sword in the Stone.

[adrian_turtle]

I agree that Sword in the Stone reads aloud better. I think it's aged a lot better than the other 3 books. I'm not sure White really knew how to write about women without making me cringe a little bit, but in Sword in the Stone he mostly doesn't try. (Marian is a girl, Morgan le Fay is meant to make the reader cringe.)

And I'd love to see what you thought of the Lymond story!

[jazzfish]

In this case it's that Sword in the Stone in particular is the book of my partner's heart. She's twice made me dig up her battered paperback when the e-copy I snagged was a later edit. (Morgan's castle and, um, something previous, I forget what.) I'd love to push through and read the rest of OFK but she doesn't want to come to the end of SiS, so here we sit.

[firecat]

I loved The Lymond Chronicles. I feel like I got to go on a trip around the world and through history without leaving my armchair.

I love all the obscure vocabulary Dunnett uses in these books. I got a subscription to the OED online so I could look up all the words I didn't know, and created a vocabulary list (1,140 entries—and I have a pretty big vocabulary so not knowing so many words was a really fun experience for me).

I bought the Dorothy Dunnett Companion books (extensive notes on the historical characters and references) and the next time I read LC I will have them in hand. (I didn't use them for my first read because they contain spoilers.)

I confess to having a hard time relating to some of Lymond's emotional struggles. I spent a lot of time saying "just [redacted] already!"

[firecat]

I absolutely love The Sword in the Stone. But The Queen of Air and Darkness and The Ill-Made Knight are quite different. They are darker and there's a streak of sadism through them. And in general I kept getting tossed out of feeling like I was being told a story and ended up feeling like was inside the author's head a lot while he mused about stuff like honor and romantic love and violence. He has some interesting ideas, but I didn't enjoy spending time in his head; I wanted to be told a story. Because of all that I decided not to read books 4–5. From reviews I got the impression that book 5 (published posthumously), is even more discursive.

The narrator of the audiobook I read, Neville Jason, is excellent.

[snippy]

I liked Stiefvater's The Scorpio Races so much! BUT DUNNETT WE MUST DISCUSS DUNNETT SOMETIME.

[firecat]

You recommended both of those to me! And yes we must!

[serene]

Who Fears Death is one of the best books I've ever read, I think.

[firecat]

It is pretty awesome!

[thnidu]

AAwright, I'm saving this list. AND I'm also about to go save Niccolò Rising from my giveaway box.

[firecat]

Yes do save it!

[wild_irises]

Unsurprisingly, our reading lists differ but our tastes are not so far apart.

I'm especially glad you read the Jurisdiction books and the Lymond Chronicles. I enjoyed a lot about Niccoló, but stalled out somewhere around the 4th book and have never gotten back to them.

The first of the Jemisin current trilogy is superb; I'm (reluctantly) waiting on the other two, because Alan and I read them aloud to each other, and we needed a break after the first one.

I'd be curious about why you didn't boldface Everfair.

And how is the audio on Girl with All the Gifts? I completely lost my heart to that book, which is so much not my kind of book.

[firecat]

I was bound and determined to finish Niccolò but I didn't enjoy it as much as LC. I thought the 4th book was the best one, so if you stalled out there, it's not worth going back to them.

My review of Everfair is here:
https://firecat.dreamwidth.org/885087.html
In short I liked a lot about it and think it's an important book, but a lot of stuff didn't get fleshed out as much as I wanted.

The narrator of the audiobook of GwAtG (Finty Williams) is EXCELLENT. I am really fussy about female narrators and she's one of the best I've heard. And "I completely lost my heart to that book, which is so much not my kind of book"—yes, exactly.

[wild_irises]

*nodnod* I didn't feel that way about Everfair but it might be because I know (a little bit) more about the context.

As for Girl with All the Gifts, I really wanted to like Fellside but didn't (and I think I know what would have made it a good book, which is kind of sad). I think he's working on a related book to Girl, which I will certainly read, but I decided that it was not my kind of masochism to see the movie.

[firecat]

I'm interested in the Everfair context if you are inclined/allowed to share it.

I read a prequel to Girl called The Boy on the Bridge, which is very good but not mind-blowing like Girl.

I talked to a friend at length about the movie and she said that except for one scene, it's not too gory. So I'm probably going to see it at some point.

Thanks for sharing your opinion about Fellside.