Right, beginning of a new year, so time to look at what I read in the last year and what of it I can recommend.<\/p>\n
Please ignore that it\u2019s almost February. I\u2019m going to pretend that the year starts with February, that way I don\u2019t have to think about where January went.<\/p>\n
First thing to mention is a change of tracking method. The blog plugin I was using to track my books doesn\u2019t work under HTTPS. It gives odd errors when adding or updating books. I wasn\u2019t in the mood for debugging php, instead the entire tracking of books and reading dates has been moved to GoodReads (with a few hiccups along the way)<\/p>\n
That does make it easy to get the retrospective of 2017 at least: https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/user\/year_in_books\/2017\/19743140<\/a><\/p>\n 77 books read, my goal was 75 and I was surprised that this time I made the goal (helped partially by a week vacation in December where I read 10 books)<\/p>\n There were a few of the year\u2019s books that I consider standouts.<\/p>\n The Expanse series is fantastic, and in these three books things go from bad (proto-molecule infested moon crashes into Venus) to worse, to weird, to really, really bad.<\/p>\n Complex characters, complex plot, very little black and white and every solution to a problem creates a few more problems along the way.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a sucker for paladins. A friend pointed out a few years back that most of my D&D characters have paladin tendencies. Case in point, my current character is a 5e LG Fighter with 2 levels of Cleric.<\/p>\n These are the story about a battle-weary knight who, after being chosen by a forgotten goddess, strives to become a beacon of hope to the war-torn world<\/p>\n Roman-type empire in a fantasy world. Junior legion officer thrown to the wolves and manages to change the world in the process.<\/p>\n I like the \u2018roman legions in a fantasy world\u2019 idea and, other than this and Codex Alera, I haven\u2019t seen good treatments of the idea.<\/p>\n Short stories by Brandon Sanderson in the Cosmere shared universe. <\/p>\n For 2018 I’m setting the same goal, 75 books. I have piles of unread books all over the house, so I’m not short on material, just on time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Caliban\u2019s War<\/a>, Abaddon\u2019s Gate<\/a> and Cibola Burns<\/a><\/h2>\n
Ordination<\/a> and StillBright<\/a><\/h2>\n
Stiger’s Tigers<\/a>, The Tiger<\/a>, The Tiger\u2019s Fate<\/a><\/h2>\n
Arcanum Unbounded<\/a><\/h2>\n
\nEnough said.<\/p>\n