January book round-up

[bedlamsbard]

Ack, I kept forgetting to do this, partially because I was in transit on February 1st, then just because I forgot, then because I never post within twenty-four hours of posting fic, and then I forgot again.



The complete list (finished books):
Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone
The Serpent Sea, Martha Wells (reread)
When Darkness Falls, Mercedes Lackey & James Mallory (reread)
Sup with the Devil, Barbara Hamilton (reread)
The Wizard Hunters, Martha Wells
The Ships of Air, Martha Wells
The Waking Dark, Robin Wasserman
Stargate Atlantis: Entanglement, Martha Wells
The Gate of Gods, Martha Wells
Overdraft: The Orion Offensive, John Jackson Miller
Stargate SG-1: Moebius Squared, Melissa Scott & Jo Graham
Days of the Dead, Barbara Hambly
Pirate Hunter of the Caribbean: The Adventurous Life of Captain Woodes Rogers, David Cordingly
Dead Water, Barbara Hambly
Dead and Buried, Barbara Hambly
Mixed Magics, Diana Wynne Jones (reread)
Traveling with the Dead, Barbara Hambly
Emilie and the Hollow World, Martha Wells
Rosemary and Rue, Seanan McGuire (reread)
The Silicon Mage, Barbara Hambly
The Maker's Mask, Ankaret Wells
Dog Wizard, Barbara Hambly (reread)

Novellas and short stories:
"Black as Blood", Seanan McGuire
"Houses of the Dead", Martha Wells
"Reflections", Martha Wells
"Virgins", Diana Gabaldon
"Warlock at the Wheel", Diana Wynne Jones (Mixed Magics)
"Stealer of Souls", Diana Wynne Jones (Mixed Magics)
"Carol Oneir's Hundredth Dream", Diana Wynne Jones (Mixed Magics)
"The Sage of Theare", Diana Wynne Jones (Mixed Magics)
"Finders", Melissa Scott (The Other Half of the Sky)
"Targets", Mercedes Lackey (Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar)
"Fire-Water", Samuel C. Conway (Elementary: All New Tales of the Elemental Masters)

Comics/TPBs/graphic novels:
Star Wars: Omnibus: Knights of the Old Republic: Vol. 1, John Jackson Miller, art by Brian Ching, Travel Foreman, Dustin Weaver
Black Widow: #1: Raison d'Etre, Nathan Edmondson, art by Phil Noto
Pretty Deadly: #2, Kelly Sue DeConnick, art by Emma Rios
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Vol. 4: Daze of Hate, Knights of Suffering, John Jackson Miller, art by Bong Dazo, Dustin Weaver
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Vol. 5: Vector, John Jackson Miller, art by Scott Hepburn
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Vol. 6: Vindication, John Jackson Miller, art by Bong Dazo, Alan Robinson, Brian Ching
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Vol. 7: Dueling Ambitions, John Jackson Miller, art by Bong Dazo, Dean Zachary, Brian Ching
Star Wars: Darth Vader and the Cry of Shadows: #2, Tim Siedell, art by Gabriel Guzman

In progress (as of February 1):
Star Wars: Knight Errant, John Jackson Miller (reread)
The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms, Connie Barlow
Wellington's Rifles: Six Years to Waterloo with England's Legendary Sharpshooters, Mark Urban
Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth, Karen Miller (reread)
Elementary: All New Tales of the Elemental Masters, edited by Mercedes Lackey (anthology)
The Time of the Dark, Barbara Hambly
"Amethyst, Shadow, and Light", Saladin Ahmed (Fearsome Journeys)
Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Omen, Christie Golden, read by Marc Thompson (audiobook)
Star Wars: Empire and Rebellion: Razor's Edge, Martha Wells, read by January LaVoy (audiobook)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Vol. 8: Destroyer, John Jackson Miller, art by Ron Chan, Bong Dazo, Brian Ching (TPB)

Did Not Finish:
Dead Reckoning, Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edghill
Cry Wolf, Patricia Briggs

So for the new year I revamped my reading spreadsheets to make them more precise -- Books, Shorts & Novellas, Comics, Audiobooks, and Articles all have their own pages, which is why things occasionally show up on here twice. That mostly has to do with anthologies, since if I'm going to read the anthology as a whole I put it on the "Books" spreadsheet, but each individual short story in it goes on the "Shorts & Novellas" spreadsheet. My spreadsheets include a lot of detail that doesn't make it onto these lists -- for Books, I have the start and end dates, author, title, page count, notes (RR, ANTH, DNF, etc.), format (new this year: EB, PB, HB, TPB), genre, and source. The shorts page includes columns for anthology and editor, if applicable, comics has the artist, audiobooks has the reader, articles has a bunch of stuff but is currently empty because I haven't read any yet.

...I'm really into these spreadsheets, by the way. I'm so happy with them, but as soon as you say "spreadsheet to track my reading habits" people's eyes glaze over, and by people, I mean my parents.

Hmm, not really sure what to say about this past month. I read a lot of Martha Wells and Barbara Hambly, who for some reason are looped together in my head as similar writers. (Which they aren't, except in that they're both women who write really excellent fantasy novels, and they both came out of fandom.)

It's not immediately evident on this list becuase I don't have the dates on here, but I did slow down as a reader the week and a half I was in Britain because I wasn't reading as much. (This was mostly made up for by the fact I read the entire Darwath trilogy on the plane, but that was in February.) That's the same reason my comics consumption (I was on a reread of Knights of the Old Republic) ground to a halt; I've got digital copies of KOTOR but I wasn't in the mood to read them when I was in England.

I'm trying to be harsher on DNF books and x them on the list once it becomes clear I'm not interested, rather than keeping their slots open for a long time, which pushes them back onto the monthly round-ups over and over again. (Although Knight Errant has been on this list for like three months now, but I'm doing a very, very slow reread of it.)