The Year in Review

Well its been quite a year. I started a blogger account to be able to comment on other blogs. Then I figured as long as I had it I might as well make some use of it and thought. I'd start writing up a brief review of the books I read. Even though its still a relatively small readership, I never imagined that I'd have hundreds of people all over the world checking this out. Its really amazing.

We did lose some great authors this year. John M. Ford, Octavia Butler, David Gemmell, Peter Benchley, Mickey Spillane all passed this year.

There were also some tremendous debuts this year. The best of which in my opinion was the Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch.

I didn't get as many books read as I wanted to this year. The final count was 31. Just past the minimum goal of 30 I'd set for myself. I'm shooting for 40 in 2007

Here is a recap of what I read in 2006

The Warrior-Prophet by RS Bakker 9.5
Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson 6.5
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold 8.0
The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford 9.0
The Thousandfold Thought by RS Bakker 9.0
Dune by Frank Herbert 8.5
Supreme Power by JM Stryzinzki 9.0
Shadow Twin by Martin, Doziois, & Abraham 7.0
A Shadow in Summer by Danial Abraham
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card 9.0
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny 8.5
Dying of the Light by GRR Martin 8.0
The Clan Corporate by Charles Stross 7.5
The Man in the High Castle by PK Dick 9.0
The Forever War by Joe Haleman 9.5
Paladin of Souls by Lois M Bujold 7.0
Neuromancer by William Gibson 8.0
Lamb by Christopher Moore 9.0
River of Gods by Ian MacDonald 8.5
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch 9.5
Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link 8.0
Fevre Dream by GRRM 7.5
The Blood Knight by Greg Keyes 7.5
Ultimate Iron Man by OS Card 8.0
One More For the Road by Ray Bradbury 5.0
Tripping to Somewhere by Kristopher Reisz 6.0
Dragon Champion by E.E. Knight 7.5
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan 9.0
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay 8.0
Starship Troopers 9.0
Blindsight by Peter Watts 8.5


My book of the year would have to be The Lies of Locke Lamora, and the Best book I read this year would be The Warrior Prophet by R. Scott Bakker.

I'm looking forward to a lot of new books in 2007. Red Seas under Read Skies by Lynch, Thirteen by Morgan, A Sword from Red Ice by JV Jones, Brasyl by MacDonald, as well as hopefully A Dance with Dragons by GRRM.

In additions I still have a huge backlog of genre classics to get to as well as a lot of newer releases by authors I've been meaning to get to such as John Scalzi, Elizabeth Bear, and Jo Walton. It seems lie there is never enough time to read everything I'd like.

Thanks to all of my readers, and hopefully I'll have a lot more to bring you in 2007!

LibraryThing

I signed up for a lifetime account with LibraryThing recently and ordered the :cuecat scanner which arrived yesterday. So I spent the evening scanning in my collection. So far I got my hard covers and trades scanned in. I'll probably get to the mmpbs this weekend.

Its a pretty nice inventory system, and is customizable. I really like it. Its free to try $10/yr or $25 for life. That's cheaper than many other software based applications I've seen. Out of over 200 books I only had trouble finding a couple, mainly with non US editions.

Here are the links.

my profile
my catalog

New Look

I got tired of the dark look so I decided to change template to go along with the switch to Beta.

Let me know what you think.

64th Annual Worldcon

I just got back from Worldcon today and I'm incredibly glad I went. I had a great time as a collector and a fan. My fan report is posted in my LJ.

For my official con experience, I spent most of it in lines to get books signed. Over the course of Friday through Sunday I managed to get books signed by the following.

George R.R. Martin
Ray Bradbury
Anne McAffrey
Joe Halderman
Robert Charles Wilson
P.C. Hodgell
Larry Niven
Tim Powers
Barbara Hambly
Glen Cook
Vernor Vinge

I also neglected to bring A Shadow in Summer and River of Gods but Daniel Abraham and Ian MacDonald were gracious enough to sign bookplates for me.

Due to all the queuing, I missed all of GRRM's panels. The only other official events I went to were the BwB's Human Chess Match between Martin and Abraham, in which I was a participant, the Hugo Awards ceremony, and Ray Bradbury "Himself".

I picked up a few Books in the Dealers Room. I bought the first Black Company book from Glen Cook himself. I also picked up a trade edition of Dhalgren by Delany. Finally I hadn't gotten around to Reading Spin yet, and I was going to pick up a copy for Wilson to sign, but after it won Hugo, all the dealers seemed to sell out of that book. Instead I picked up a short story collection of his to have him sign.

I will write up a Hugo awards report later.