2023 Year in Review

This is a summary of the books that I read in 2023. A couple of blog entries have not been made yet.

The following books were Pandemic Book Club books

  • Signal Fires - (This entry has not been written yet.
  • Clown in a Cornfield (Cesare)
  • Elder Race (Tchaikovsky)
  • A Terrible Fall of Angels (Hamilton)
  • Cult Classic (Crosley)
  • Wrong Place, Wrong Time (McAllister)
  • The Daughter of Doctor Moreau (Moreno-Garcia)
  • The Atlas Six (Blake)
  • Eggs in Purgatory (Childs)
  • What Moves the Dead (Kingfisher)
  • The Sea Beast Takes a Lover: Stories (Andreasen)

Of these, Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Eggs in Purgatory and A Terrible Fall of Angels were my favorites, but the latter was too much set-up with a lot going on. A couple were quite dreadful. The rest were interesting. Some of the other group members read more books by Blake or Kingfisher.

I've read three books in the Eggs series by Childs. I stopped after three because I couldn't get paper, ebook, or audio for book 4 from any of three libraries. I recently discovered that NYPL also uses SimplyE, which has rights to distribute some materials that Libby does not. So I started book 4.

Several of these books, I listened to as well as read, which helped get through some of them. Also, they were good to listen to as I was walking.



The following books were Pandemic Book Club alternatives, meaning that they didn't win the vote, but I reserved them from the library before I knew what the winning book would be. They looked interesting, so I read them as well.

  • The Library of the Unwritten (Hackwith)
  • Witches of New York (McKay)

I enjoyed both of these as well as the book of the month. It was a good month (or two).



These books were Audio Only. I listened to them while I was out for walks. I would like to read them at some point.

  • Gods of Manhattan -- audiobook (Mebus)
  • U is for Undertow (Grafton)
  • A Dead Djinn in Cairo (Clark)

Obviously, I will read the Sue Grafton book at some point. The other I will nominate for the book club the next time it's my turn. The Djinn novella is a reread. I searched for audiobooks and it popped up. There are, I believe, 4 novellas, of which I have read 2. Hopefully, I can listen to all four of them.



The following books were my own picks. Some were free downloads. Some were library books. Some were from Kickstarter campaigns.

  • Yeti Left Home (Rosenburg)
  • Pumpkin Blend (Layne)
  • The Fox's Fire (McPhail)
  • Bedeviled Eggs (Childs)
  • Harald's Adventure Wares (Redd)
  • Steampunk Leap Year / Steampunk New Year (Lucci)
  • Hobbies for Androids (Fenn)
  • Trial By Fire (Gannon)
  • Eggs Benedict Arnold (Childs)
  • Cibola Burn (Corey)
  • Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Doidge)
  • T is for Trespass (Grafton)
  • Fire With Fire (Gannon)
  • The Bookshop and the Barbarian (Stang)
  • ePulp Sampler, Vol 1

Oddly, almost all of those are series books. Two are Chuck Gannon (and I'm just finishing the third book). One is James S. A. Corey, which surprises me because I thought there were two of those. One Grafton mystery and two Childs cozy mysteries (Cackleberry club).

Magna

  • My Hero Academia Volumes 32-25 - up to date
  • My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Volumes 1-15 - the complete series (the first 13 books were read in 2022, but nothing was recorded in the blog. Libby has details.)
  • My Hero Academia: Team-Up Missions Volumes 1-2 - this is what I'd like to see more of in the series, side missions outside of the big picture story line.
  • One Piece Volumes 39-40 - I've been away from this for years and couldn't find where I left off, mostly because so of it was unfamiliar, but I remember Water 7.


Miscellaneous

  • More Gaming Books - mostly a bunch of stuff written by Phil Reed. I need to document this stuff so it can inspire my writing.
  • A Firkin of eSpec Books - this is not posted yet. I've been reading more Kickstarter freebies.
  • Some of the Best From Tor.Com 2016 Edition -- not finished yet, basically I'd forgotten about it from earlier this year, but I do have a draft file of what I have read so far.


Analog and Other Old Magazines

  • ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact March 1973 (not much read)
  • ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact February 1973
  • ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact January 1973

My three-year experiment ran out of steam. It couldn't survive my book club and my delving into the Expanse and the Caine-verse.



And that's about it: 27 books (plus my own book), 9 or 10 volumes of manga, 2 1/2 old Analogs, 3 audiobooks (only) and a smattering of short stories and gaming books.

Here's looking to 2024!

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