October book round-up
Nov. 3rd, 2013 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardSo much Star Wars, oh my god. SO MUCH STAR WARS. (Not just Star Wars, though.) (Okay, mostly Star Wars.)
The complete list (finished books):
Star Wars: Red Harvest, Joe Schreiber
Star Wars: Allegiance, Timothy Zahn
Star Wars: Death Troopers, Joe Schreiber
Carniepunk, Rachel Caine, Jennifer Estep, et al. (anthology)
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories, John Jackson Miller
Star Wars: Kenobi, John Jackson Miller
The Drunken Botanist: The Plants that Create the World's Great Drinks, Amy Stewart
Star Wars: Empire and Rebellion: Razor's Edge, Martha Wells
Bastion, Mercedes Lackey
Star Wars: Shadow Games, Michael Reeves & Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
The Republic of Thieves, Scott Lynch
Star Wars: Labyrinth of Evil, James Luceno
The Madness Underneath, Maureen Johnson
Wheel of the Infinite, Martha Wells
Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan, Drew Karpyshyn
Star Wars: Knight Errant, John Jackson Miller
Star Wars: Rogue Planet, Greg Bear
Dragonsbane, Barbara Hambly
All the Windwracked Stars, Elizabeth Bear
Jaran, Kate Elliott
The Given Sacrifice, S.M. Stirling
Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived, Paul S. Kemp
Among Others, Jo Walton
Star Wars: Republic Commando: Triple Zero, Karen Traviss
Steadfast, Mercedes Lackey
Star Wars: Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, Drew Karpyshyn
Star Wars: Riptide, Paul S. Kemp
Star Wars: Choices of One, Timothy Zahn
An Earthly Crown, Kate Elliott
Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans will Survive a Mass Extinction, Annalee Newitz
Star Wars: Darth Bane: Rule of Two, Drew Karpyshyn
His Conquering Sword, Kate Elliott
Dragonshadow, Barbara Hambly
Parasite, Mira Grant
Indexing, Seanan McGuire
Novellas and short stories:
Dancers in the Dark, Charlaine Harris
Someone Else's Shadow, Barbara Hambly
"Star Wars: Knight Errant: Influx", John Jackson Miller
"Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Labor Pains", John Jackson Miller
"Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Interference", John Jackson Miller
"Human Error", John Jackson Miller
"Star Wars: Republic Commando: Targets", Karen Traviss
"The Effigy Engine: A Tale of the Red Hats", Scott Lynch
Play with Me, Alisha Rai
TPBs/graphic novels:
Star Wars: Omnibus: Knights of the Old Republic: Volume 1, John Jackson Miller, art by Brian Ching
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Volume 4: Daze of Hate, Knights of Suffering, John Jackson Miller, art by Bong Dazo
Star Wars: Knight Errant: Aflame, John Jackson Miller, art by Federico Dallocchio & Ivan Rodriguez
Star Wars: Knight Errant: Deluge, John Jackson Miller, art by Ivan Rodriguez, Iban Coello, & David Daza
Star Wars: Vector: Volume 1 (KOTOR 5; Dark Times 3), John Jackson Miller (KOTOR) & Mick Harrison (Dark Times), art by Scott Hepburn (KOTOR) & Douglas Wheatley (Dark Times)
Star Wars: Vector: Volume 2 (Rebellion 4; Legacy 6), Rob Williams (Rebellion) & John Ostrander (Legacy), art by Dustin Weaver (Rebellion) & Jan Duursema (Legacy)
Saga: Volume 1, Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples
Saga: Volume 2, Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Volume 6: Vindication, John Jackson Miller, art by Bong Dazo, Alan Robinson, & Brian Ching
Books in progress (as of October 1):
Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Outcast, Aaron Allston (audiobook, read by Marc Thompson)
Those Who Hunt the Night, Barbara Hambly
Law of Becoming, Kate Elliott
Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy: Heir to the Empire, Timothy Zahn
The Terrorists of Irustan, Louise Marley
...so I read an awful lot of books last month. Thirty-five, to be exact, not counting any of the other stuff on this list. Seventeen of those are Star Wars novels (there are A LOT of Star Wars novels; I barely scratched the surface). In case you're looking at this list and going, "Wow, that's a really weird combination of SW novels and a really weird order to read them in," to answer your question, yes. Yes, I really am just reading through my library's collection of Star Wars novels as they become available, both in physical and ebook form; there's some order within series, but not really in the grand timeline of things. And yeah, I do have a lot of time on my hands, since I'm not in school and I'm not working, and I read really fast, and I usually have one physical book and one ebook on the go at any given point in time.
It's always weird doing the books in progress list, because I usually do these round-ups a few days after the beginning of the month and I read so fast that I've usually finished most or all of the books on that list (the Hambly and the Allston are still in progress; the Elliott, the Zahn, and the Marley were all finished on Nov. 1).
Back in June we saw what happens when I start trying to read an entire author's backstory; October was another one of those months, although it's been kind of interesting because John Jackson Miller is primarily a comics writer (Knights of the Old Republic is 50 issues with a five issue miniseries) with some more recent prose stuff. I wrote a fawning review of his Star Wars: Kenobi early on in the month; it was good enough that I actually did sit down and set out to systematically track down all of his Star Wars stuff that I could, because after Kenobi I trusted him as a writer. And so far this actually has worked out! He's probably one of the most thoughtful tie-in writers that I've seen working in the Star Wars EU, both in prose and in comics. Knights of the Old Republic, which takes place four millennia before ANH, and Knight Errant, which takes place a millennium before ANH, are both pretty great -- Kerra Holt, the heroine of the Knight Errant comics and novel, is a character I think would appeal to a lot of people in fandom; young female Jedi on her own behind Sith lines, waging a guerrilla war to save as many people as she can. She's a very different character than Zayne Carrick, the hero of KOTOR; she's the type of character who can be initially off-putting: young, driven, a little self-absorbed, selfless in such a way that can be carelessly cruel. I went through both the first volume of the comics and the novel before working out that I actually liked her in the second volume. (Interestingly, Miller didn't come out of fandom, the way a couple of other Star Wars tie-in writers have; what's really surprising to me is that some of his construction and world-building reads like he did -- but that would be the fandom of today, not the fandom of ten years ago, when KOTOR would have been in development, so I guess it makes sense.)
Star Wars: Vector is the big Star Wars crossover event from 2008 and as mentioned in my list, covers four different SW series (I think the four that Dark Horse had in production at the time): Knights of the Old Republic (3963 BBY), Dark Times (19 BBY), Rebellion (nine months ABY), and Legacy (137 ABY). (Weirdly, there's not time travel involved, just a Sith stasis casket. WHERE IS MY STAR WARS TIME TRAVEL STORY WHY DOESN'T IT EXIST. No, seriously, I'm puzzled by how I've seen five separate zombie storylines in Star Wars but no time travel.) KOTOR was the only one of these I was reading at the time; I'm loosely familiar with Dark Times because the last Republic/Clone Wars TPB intro'd the main characters, while Rebellion takes up shortly after ANH and seems to be pretty self-explanatory. Legacy I've been thinking about poking at for a while, since it's written and illustrated by one of my favorite writer/artist team-ups from Republic, John Ostrander and Jan Duursema. This is probably the most confusing of the four (unless you aren't familiar with KOTOR), since unlike Dark Times and Rebellion there aren't any movie characters to ease you into what's a pretty alien situation. I was intrigued enough by the look at Legacy to order volume one, anyway. There are a couple of scenes in the Dark Times and Rebellion chapters that managed to hit at my PT feels (ugh, that moment in Dark Times when Celeste has just woken up and is clutching at Vader and he puts his arm around her, and of course the old clone in Rebellion -- He is a man out of time. A ghost who does not belong here. The Clone Wars were his battles. The Jedi were his generals. Oh, what's that, are those my PT feels PLUS my man out of time feels? WHADDAYA KNOW). And of course the Leia in Rebellion was pretty fab. (I'm now getting into the circa and post OT EU, so I'm judging authors on how they write Leia, just like I judge PT era authors on how they write Anakin and Obi-Wan. You can tell a lot about a tie-in author by how they write canon characters, which is one in which tie-ins are like fanfic.)
At some point this month I stopped comparing Star Wars tie-ins to fanfic. I'm not sure when that was -- I know I was still doing it when I read Kenobi and Razor's Edge (easily the best interstitial OT tie-in: Martha Wells does great Leia, and she did apparently come out of fandom, for those interested), but at some point my brain pushed it off into its own category. It might have come out of reading a bunch of tie-ins that don't feature any movie characters at all, who knows. (I don't judge tie-in authors on whether or not they came out of fandom, though I'm slightly more likely to cautiously approve of them if they admit it; I do judge them on how they treat fandom, which you can't really avoid doing if you're working with Star Wars, which is one reason I've since recoiled really hard from Karen Traviss.)
Uh, let's see. I read some non-Star Wars stuff this month too. A lot of authors who are old favorites of mine put out new books this month or in September: S.M. Stirling, Mercedes Lackey, Scott Lynch, and Mira Grant, who also wrapped up the Kindle serial Indexing as Seanan McGuire. This wasn't a month where any of the originals really stood out as mind-alteringly fabulous, although Parasite stands out from the bunch as really damn great. Lackey's as badshit crazy as always; sadly I imprinted on Valdemar early and thus can never resist a Mercedes Lackey book, even when I know I should. I'm seriously irritated at Stirling, because I can't believe that this Emberverse story line is still going on after SEVEN BOOKS OH MY GOD YOU COULD HAVE WRAPPED IT UP IN THREE WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU. Republic of Thieves was good, but...not quite on par with The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies, with some additional batshit that made me sideeye parts of it.
Probably the best original I read this month wasn't a novel at all; it was Saga, which I've seen recced around but never really thought to check out before. I lucked out; my library had it! OH MY GOSH SAGA IS FANTASTIC Y'ALL SHOULD GO READ IT RIGHT NOW.
Also, I'm not done with my Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Outcast audiobook yet, but I'm kind of delighted with it because it includes THEME MUSIC and SOUND EFFECTS. Not just the Star Wars intro music at the beginning; it has themes for various scenes and characters, and it has sound effects like lightsabers, speeders, people getting punched in the face, blaster shots -- I am just really delighted by this.
...I could go on about the Star Wars EU but I'll try and restrain myself since most of this post is about Star Wars anyway.
The complete list (finished books):
Star Wars: Red Harvest, Joe Schreiber
Star Wars: Allegiance, Timothy Zahn
Star Wars: Death Troopers, Joe Schreiber
Carniepunk, Rachel Caine, Jennifer Estep, et al. (anthology)
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories, John Jackson Miller
Star Wars: Kenobi, John Jackson Miller
The Drunken Botanist: The Plants that Create the World's Great Drinks, Amy Stewart
Star Wars: Empire and Rebellion: Razor's Edge, Martha Wells
Bastion, Mercedes Lackey
Star Wars: Shadow Games, Michael Reeves & Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
The Republic of Thieves, Scott Lynch
Star Wars: Labyrinth of Evil, James Luceno
The Madness Underneath, Maureen Johnson
Wheel of the Infinite, Martha Wells
Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan, Drew Karpyshyn
Star Wars: Knight Errant, John Jackson Miller
Star Wars: Rogue Planet, Greg Bear
Dragonsbane, Barbara Hambly
All the Windwracked Stars, Elizabeth Bear
Jaran, Kate Elliott
The Given Sacrifice, S.M. Stirling
Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived, Paul S. Kemp
Among Others, Jo Walton
Star Wars: Republic Commando: Triple Zero, Karen Traviss
Steadfast, Mercedes Lackey
Star Wars: Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, Drew Karpyshyn
Star Wars: Riptide, Paul S. Kemp
Star Wars: Choices of One, Timothy Zahn
An Earthly Crown, Kate Elliott
Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans will Survive a Mass Extinction, Annalee Newitz
Star Wars: Darth Bane: Rule of Two, Drew Karpyshyn
His Conquering Sword, Kate Elliott
Dragonshadow, Barbara Hambly
Parasite, Mira Grant
Indexing, Seanan McGuire
Novellas and short stories:
Dancers in the Dark, Charlaine Harris
Someone Else's Shadow, Barbara Hambly
"Star Wars: Knight Errant: Influx", John Jackson Miller
"Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Labor Pains", John Jackson Miller
"Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Interference", John Jackson Miller
"Human Error", John Jackson Miller
"Star Wars: Republic Commando: Targets", Karen Traviss
"The Effigy Engine: A Tale of the Red Hats", Scott Lynch
Play with Me, Alisha Rai
TPBs/graphic novels:
Star Wars: Omnibus: Knights of the Old Republic: Volume 1, John Jackson Miller, art by Brian Ching
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Volume 4: Daze of Hate, Knights of Suffering, John Jackson Miller, art by Bong Dazo
Star Wars: Knight Errant: Aflame, John Jackson Miller, art by Federico Dallocchio & Ivan Rodriguez
Star Wars: Knight Errant: Deluge, John Jackson Miller, art by Ivan Rodriguez, Iban Coello, & David Daza
Star Wars: Vector: Volume 1 (KOTOR 5; Dark Times 3), John Jackson Miller (KOTOR) & Mick Harrison (Dark Times), art by Scott Hepburn (KOTOR) & Douglas Wheatley (Dark Times)
Star Wars: Vector: Volume 2 (Rebellion 4; Legacy 6), Rob Williams (Rebellion) & John Ostrander (Legacy), art by Dustin Weaver (Rebellion) & Jan Duursema (Legacy)
Saga: Volume 1, Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples
Saga: Volume 2, Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Volume 6: Vindication, John Jackson Miller, art by Bong Dazo, Alan Robinson, & Brian Ching
Books in progress (as of October 1):
Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Outcast, Aaron Allston (audiobook, read by Marc Thompson)
Those Who Hunt the Night, Barbara Hambly
Law of Becoming, Kate Elliott
Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy: Heir to the Empire, Timothy Zahn
The Terrorists of Irustan, Louise Marley
...so I read an awful lot of books last month. Thirty-five, to be exact, not counting any of the other stuff on this list. Seventeen of those are Star Wars novels (there are A LOT of Star Wars novels; I barely scratched the surface). In case you're looking at this list and going, "Wow, that's a really weird combination of SW novels and a really weird order to read them in," to answer your question, yes. Yes, I really am just reading through my library's collection of Star Wars novels as they become available, both in physical and ebook form; there's some order within series, but not really in the grand timeline of things. And yeah, I do have a lot of time on my hands, since I'm not in school and I'm not working, and I read really fast, and I usually have one physical book and one ebook on the go at any given point in time.
It's always weird doing the books in progress list, because I usually do these round-ups a few days after the beginning of the month and I read so fast that I've usually finished most or all of the books on that list (the Hambly and the Allston are still in progress; the Elliott, the Zahn, and the Marley were all finished on Nov. 1).
Back in June we saw what happens when I start trying to read an entire author's backstory; October was another one of those months, although it's been kind of interesting because John Jackson Miller is primarily a comics writer (Knights of the Old Republic is 50 issues with a five issue miniseries) with some more recent prose stuff. I wrote a fawning review of his Star Wars: Kenobi early on in the month; it was good enough that I actually did sit down and set out to systematically track down all of his Star Wars stuff that I could, because after Kenobi I trusted him as a writer. And so far this actually has worked out! He's probably one of the most thoughtful tie-in writers that I've seen working in the Star Wars EU, both in prose and in comics. Knights of the Old Republic, which takes place four millennia before ANH, and Knight Errant, which takes place a millennium before ANH, are both pretty great -- Kerra Holt, the heroine of the Knight Errant comics and novel, is a character I think would appeal to a lot of people in fandom; young female Jedi on her own behind Sith lines, waging a guerrilla war to save as many people as she can. She's a very different character than Zayne Carrick, the hero of KOTOR; she's the type of character who can be initially off-putting: young, driven, a little self-absorbed, selfless in such a way that can be carelessly cruel. I went through both the first volume of the comics and the novel before working out that I actually liked her in the second volume. (Interestingly, Miller didn't come out of fandom, the way a couple of other Star Wars tie-in writers have; what's really surprising to me is that some of his construction and world-building reads like he did -- but that would be the fandom of today, not the fandom of ten years ago, when KOTOR would have been in development, so I guess it makes sense.)
Star Wars: Vector is the big Star Wars crossover event from 2008 and as mentioned in my list, covers four different SW series (I think the four that Dark Horse had in production at the time): Knights of the Old Republic (3963 BBY), Dark Times (19 BBY), Rebellion (nine months ABY), and Legacy (137 ABY). (Weirdly, there's not time travel involved, just a Sith stasis casket. WHERE IS MY STAR WARS TIME TRAVEL STORY WHY DOESN'T IT EXIST. No, seriously, I'm puzzled by how I've seen five separate zombie storylines in Star Wars but no time travel.) KOTOR was the only one of these I was reading at the time; I'm loosely familiar with Dark Times because the last Republic/Clone Wars TPB intro'd the main characters, while Rebellion takes up shortly after ANH and seems to be pretty self-explanatory. Legacy I've been thinking about poking at for a while, since it's written and illustrated by one of my favorite writer/artist team-ups from Republic, John Ostrander and Jan Duursema. This is probably the most confusing of the four (unless you aren't familiar with KOTOR), since unlike Dark Times and Rebellion there aren't any movie characters to ease you into what's a pretty alien situation. I was intrigued enough by the look at Legacy to order volume one, anyway. There are a couple of scenes in the Dark Times and Rebellion chapters that managed to hit at my PT feels (ugh, that moment in Dark Times when Celeste has just woken up and is clutching at Vader and he puts his arm around her, and of course the old clone in Rebellion -- He is a man out of time. A ghost who does not belong here. The Clone Wars were his battles. The Jedi were his generals. Oh, what's that, are those my PT feels PLUS my man out of time feels? WHADDAYA KNOW). And of course the Leia in Rebellion was pretty fab. (I'm now getting into the circa and post OT EU, so I'm judging authors on how they write Leia, just like I judge PT era authors on how they write Anakin and Obi-Wan. You can tell a lot about a tie-in author by how they write canon characters, which is one in which tie-ins are like fanfic.)
At some point this month I stopped comparing Star Wars tie-ins to fanfic. I'm not sure when that was -- I know I was still doing it when I read Kenobi and Razor's Edge (easily the best interstitial OT tie-in: Martha Wells does great Leia, and she did apparently come out of fandom, for those interested), but at some point my brain pushed it off into its own category. It might have come out of reading a bunch of tie-ins that don't feature any movie characters at all, who knows. (I don't judge tie-in authors on whether or not they came out of fandom, though I'm slightly more likely to cautiously approve of them if they admit it; I do judge them on how they treat fandom, which you can't really avoid doing if you're working with Star Wars, which is one reason I've since recoiled really hard from Karen Traviss.)
Uh, let's see. I read some non-Star Wars stuff this month too. A lot of authors who are old favorites of mine put out new books this month or in September: S.M. Stirling, Mercedes Lackey, Scott Lynch, and Mira Grant, who also wrapped up the Kindle serial Indexing as Seanan McGuire. This wasn't a month where any of the originals really stood out as mind-alteringly fabulous, although Parasite stands out from the bunch as really damn great. Lackey's as badshit crazy as always; sadly I imprinted on Valdemar early and thus can never resist a Mercedes Lackey book, even when I know I should. I'm seriously irritated at Stirling, because I can't believe that this Emberverse story line is still going on after SEVEN BOOKS OH MY GOD YOU COULD HAVE WRAPPED IT UP IN THREE WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU. Republic of Thieves was good, but...not quite on par with The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies, with some additional batshit that made me sideeye parts of it.
Probably the best original I read this month wasn't a novel at all; it was Saga, which I've seen recced around but never really thought to check out before. I lucked out; my library had it! OH MY GOSH SAGA IS FANTASTIC Y'ALL SHOULD GO READ IT RIGHT NOW.
Also, I'm not done with my Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Outcast audiobook yet, but I'm kind of delighted with it because it includes THEME MUSIC and SOUND EFFECTS. Not just the Star Wars intro music at the beginning; it has themes for various scenes and characters, and it has sound effects like lightsabers, speeders, people getting punched in the face, blaster shots -- I am just really delighted by this.
...I could go on about the Star Wars EU but I'll try and restrain myself since most of this post is about Star Wars anyway.