September 2015 Reading List

I started reading a lot of books this month than I not likely to finish.  In large part, this was due to a lack of focus because I found out my cat was dying of cancer on 15 September.  As of now, she is still alive, but tomorrow she won’t be.  This is also why I finished only 8 books this month.  In fact, I finished all 8 before 15 September.  (I also spent a lot of time reading trial transcripts this month.)  I will certainly finish reading some of the books over the next several months, but many will go uncompleted. 

Once again, the list is in chronological order.  By the way, I am not in the mood to proofread this post one last time so I apologize for any typos.

Books Finished

The Dragons of Dorcastle (The Pillars of Reality Book 1) by Jack Campbell

The Hidden Masters of Marandur (The Pillars of Reality Book 2) by Jack Campbell

I have nothing really to add to my brief comments in last month’s reading list when I had started, but not yet completed, the first book in the series.  It is an enjoyable fantasy series with some interesting twists in its magic system and the social structure of the world.  I am looking forward to the third book in the series coming out in November. 

The Girl in the Spider’s Web: A Lisbeth Salander Novel by David Lagercrantz

Shortly after I began reading this book, I was not particularly happy with it.  The main characters did not fully feel like the same characters I had read about in the first three books.  In a sense, this is understandable because the original author has been dead for over a decade and a new author will, of necessity, write in his own style.

By the time I finished the book, I was much happier.  Salander came to play a more important role in the book and her character did feel more consistent with her original character. 

I suspect anyone who enjoyed the first three books in the series will want to try this book.  I suspect many of those readers will feel less than satisfied.  I am one of those readers.  I am glad to have read the book and I will read the next one. I cannot fully explain why I am less than fully satisfied.

Possibly it arises out of the politics of this book.  There is no doubt that the original series was written from the prospective of a left wing Swede who spend a lifetime dealing with and fighting fascism in Sweden.  Given the recent National Security activities engaged in by the United States, there is no doubt that the original author would not have been pleased with the USA.  Nevertheless, the choice to make the plot so directly interact with America’s National Security Agency made the whole book seem considerably less plausible for me.  I do not mind the National Security Agency’s extensive surveillance being part of the plot but I simply do not believe that the plot, as written, was plausible in that respect.  Ultimately this is a mixed review of a book that I hoped to like very much.

John Scalzi is Not a Very Popular Author and I Myself Am Quite Popular:  How SJWs Always Lie About Our Comparative Popularity Levels by Theophilus Pratt

This very short book was written as a joke/satire of a major dispute—if not full-fledged war—going on in the science fiction community.  The details of the dispute are undoubtedly way too “inside baseball” for people likely to be reading my blog.  (For that matter, the term “inside baseball” might be too inside baseball for the English readers of my blog.  No matter.)  Suffice it to say that John Scalzi the actually author of this book, volunteered to write this book to raise money for charity—specifically a group devoted to raising racial and ethnic diversity in speculative fiction.  No doubt any regular reader of Scalzi’s blog (found here) will enjoy the humor but will have already heard of it.  The average person probably will not be interested.

Make Me: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel but it is somewhat difficult to explain why.  Jack Reacher is probably not a character I would like to meet in real life because it is too dangerous to be around him but that, of course, makes it interesting to read his adventures.  On the other hand, this book is nothing special in the context of the Jack Reacher series. 

If you have read all the other Jack Reacher books and intend to keep reading them, you will certainly want to read this one.  If you have read no Jack Reacher books, this is not where you should start but if you continue reading this is, for now, where you should end up.

A Season in the Red: Managing Man UTD in the Shadow of Alex Ferguson by Jamie Jackson

I was very disappointed by this book.  I thought it might be interesting to read an inside perspective of the past two years of Manchester United and its difficult transition following the retirement of Alex Ferguson.  I still think that but this is not that book.

This book read more like Jamie Jackson, a writer for the guardian, simply turned the information he already had from covering Manchester United into a book without doing that much additional research.

Certainly, from reading the book it appears that David Moyes was a source for Jackson and provided him with significant information.  On the other hand, Louis van Gaal almost certainly was not a source because there was nothing in this book that does not appear to have come from van Gaal’s public statements especially at press conferences. 

This book contrasts poorly with The Game by Jon Pessa, a book I read in July.  After reading The Game, I felt I understood what happened in Major League Baseball from the early 1990s to the near present because the author had, quite clearly, spent a lot of time talking to many different people to find out what really went on.  I had hoped for the equivalent book about Manchester United’s recent history but that is not what I got.

If you are a Manchester United fan (why are you reading my blog) you might be interested in this book in the same way you would be interested in anything about Manchester United.  If, however, you are someone who follows the Premier League without any particular focus on Manchester United, there are, I assume, better things to read. 

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

This novel won the 2015 Hugo Award for best Science Fiction Novel of the Year.  It is first in a trilogy translated from the Chinese and it made the final Hugo ballet only because another nominee withdrew as part of the controversy over this year’s Hugos which I have avoided discussing in any detail.

Anyway, the book is a worthy winner.  It details the problems scientists, mostly, located in China, encounter when the most recent scientific research begins to show that science is no longer working like it should.  By the end of this novel, we know what is going on and why but there is still plenty of room for the rest of the trilogy to advance the plot. 

I found it interesting that even though this book dealt with problems of worldwide importance, it was nearly entirely focused on what was going on in China.  This slightly parochial view of events reminding me of virtually every American science fiction novel which assumes that events of worldwide importance are dealt with primarily in the United States.  I am not suggesting that it is either surprising or wrong that a Chinese author would treat events similarly.  In fact, it was good to remind me that that is what a Chinese author would do.  That being said, I assumed that the subsequent two books will have a wider international scope.

If you are someone who likes to read a story from start to finish at one time—unless you can read Chinese—you might want to wait until the third volume in the trilogy is published in English next year. 

Reviews have compared this work to Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series or Frank Herbert’s Dune.  The comparison is not unreasonable but I will have to read the final two books before I can put the books in the same category myself.  However, the mere fact that I am not rejecting the comparison out of hand tells me how much I appreciated this book.  I am having difficulty deciding whether to finish reading the second book now or to wait until the third book comes out. 

Rivers of London—Body Work #1 by Ben Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel

This is a graphic novel set in the Rivers of London Universe.  I am not the biggest fan of graphic novels although I enjoy both movies and television shows based upon them.  In fact, I did not pay that much attention to what I was buying when I ordered this book on my Kindle and had not realized I had bought a graphic novel until I first opened it.  If you like Ben Aaronvitch’s Rivers of London Series you will probably want to read this and the additional graphic novels when they come out.  (Two are already available.)  However, unless you prefer graphic novels to regular books, I would suggest reading the novels, in order of publication, before reading this.

Books Started

Due to the distractions, this month I started a lot of books I did not and will not finish.

The Hidden Masters of Marandur (The Pillars of Reality Book 2) by Jack Campbell

A Season in the Red: Managing Man UTD in the Shadow of Alex Ferguson by Jamie Jackson

John Scalzi is Not a Very Popular Author and I Myself Am Quite Popular:  How SJWs Always Lie About Our Comparative Popularity Levels by Theophilus Pratt

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

This is the best Science Fiction novel I have read this year.  I felt like rereading the beginning of it for some reason.  I don’t anticipate finishing the book again so soon.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

I also wanted to reread the beginning of this Stephenson novel.  There is a slightly greater chance I will finish rereading it.

Make Me: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child

I, Asimov by Isaac Asimov

I thought I was in the mood to reread this volume of Isaac Asimov’s autobiography.  It turns out I wasn’t.

Buried Secrets (Nick Heller Book 2) by Joseph Finder

The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu

A Blaze of Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Shiloh by Jeff Shaara

Kittens for Dummies by Dusty Rainbolt

I started reading this to help me plan for my next cat.  It was helpful and I suspect it will be a good reference for dealing with new cat issues.

The Orpheus Clock:  The Search for My Family’s Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis by Simon Goodman

The Game of Our Lives:  The English Premier League and the Making of Modern Britain by David Goldblatt

Pacific Crucible:  War at Sea in the Pacific 1941-1942 by Ian W. Toll

A Call to Arms (Manticore Ascendant series Book 2) by David Weber; Timothy Zahn; Thomas Pope

Rough Crossings by Simon Schama

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

This is one of my favorite books of all time.  It allowed me to realize that I was an atheist not an agnostic.  I highly recommend it to everyone but, of course, some people will not want to read it if for no other reason than they do not want to have their faith challenged.