dajashby's 2016 reads

I wonder, do books you've read before count? I have a Reading todo list in my ToDo app (Todo Cloud) which has 10 titles in it. 3 of those are rereads. The 3 books I've finished in 2016 that aren't rereads are Australia's second chance, by George Megalogenis, This changes everything, by Naomi Klein (okay, I read a lot of that in 2015) and Gently by the shore, by Alan Hunter. The last one is part of the Inspector George Gently omnibus, so I suppose strictly speaking it's only part of a book...
In the read before category I've started rereading the Aubrey and Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. It's all my wife's fault, since she bought me audiobooks of the first 4 volumes for Christmas. Read by Robert Hardy, but sadly they're abridged. So far I've read Master and Commander, Post Captain and HMS Surprise. Am two thirds through Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, by Suzanna Clarke. Two thirds of a very big book.

I should probably point out that I share this user name with my wife, Christine, but the books listed here will be ones read by me, Derrick. Well, it's a shared library. Having been married for 30 something years, how can you tell whose books are whose?

Hi, Derrick, and welcome! You can definitely count re-reads - your thread, your rules!

Hiya, Derrick. Welcome - retirement is a wonderful concept that I hope to explore soon.

As Amber says, your rules. I always count re-reads.

I liked Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell a lot. The recent BBC tv production was very well done, too.

Welcome! And good luck with your reading plans for 2016.
I'm a George Gently fan too, the books and the t.v. series.

Welcome! I'm about halfway through Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell...

mstrust-> I'm reading the books because I was interested to see what the original character was like, having watched the tv series. Martin Shaw is a good actor, but I don't remember him eating a single peppermint cream, or smoking a pipe. The written character is a bit more ponderous and phlegmatic. Having read the first 2 I'm interested to see how he develops, if at all...

scaifea, jnwelch -> There are 18 books in the Aubrey Maturin series, I seem to recall. That's a fair slice of the target that I can guarantee to read...

jnwelch, drneutron -> I've had a copy of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell for some years, but got somewhat put off reading it by the size. Having watched the series (which was excellent) I decided to take the plunge, but bought an ebook edition (cost me $2.99)

Welcome! >7 dajashby: There are 19 completed Aubrey-Maturin books, and "20", which was unfinished. I'm on number 7 in the series at the moment, but I only read 1 a year usually.

ursula-> Thanks. I remember I discovered the series some time in the late '90's when I was commuting to work on public transport. I got through all that had been published at the time (the first 17, I think) in about 3 months.

OK, here goes - a couple of numbered lists.

Books read, 2016

January

1. Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian ***Reread*** Aubrey-Maturin 1 - Started in 2015
   
2. This changes everything by Naomi Klein (Ebook) - Started in 2015
   
3. Post Captain by Patrick O'Brian ***Reread*** Aubrey-Maturin 2
   
4. Australia's second chance by George Megalogenis - Started in 2015
   
5. Gently by the shore by Alan Hunter (Ebook) - Purchased 2015
   
6. HMS Surprise by Patrick O'Brian ***Reread*** Aubrey-Maturin 3

February

1. Who cooked Adam Smith's dinner? by Katrine Marcal (Ebook) - Started in 2015
   
2. The Mauritius command by Patrick O'Brian ***Reread*** Aubrey-Maturin 4
   
3. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (Ebook) - Backlog - Started in 2015
   
4. Unnatural fire by Fidelis Morgan (Ebook) ***Reread*** - Started in 2015
   
5. Gravity, by Mary Delahunty (Ebook) - Started in 2014
   
6. Shieldwall by Justin Hill (Ebook) - Restarted in 2015
   
7. The Rosie project, by Graeme Samson - Restarted in 2015
   
8. Midnight at the Well of Souls by Jack Chalker (Ebook) ***Reread***
9. Amazing Stories, April 1963
   

March

1. Exiles at the Well of Souls by Jack Chalker (Ebook) - New in 2016
   
2. Quest for the Well of Souls by Jack Chalker (Ebook) - New in 2016
   
3. Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (Ebook)***Reread***
   
4. Astounding science fiction (British ed.), October 1957
   
5. Faction man by David Marr Quarterly Essay #59 - Purchased 2015
   
6. Desolation island by Patrick O'Brian ***Reread*** Aubrey-Maturin 5
   
7. Bad debts by Paul Temple (Ebook) Jack Irish #1 - Purchased 2016
   
8. The wave in the mind by Ursula K. Le Guin - Christmas 2015
   

April

1. Astounding science fiction (British edition), February 1958
   
2. Venus in copper by Lindsey Davis (Marcus Didius Falco 3) - Purchased 2015
   
3. The shepherd's crown by Terry Pratchett (Ebook) - Purchased 2015
   
4. The integral trees by Larry Niven - Hugo nominee, 1985
   
5. How to speak money by John Lanchester (Ebook) - Backlog
   
6. Econobabble by Richard Denniss (Redbook quarterly) - new in 2016
   
7. Balancing act: Australia between recession and renewal by George Megalogenis - New in 2016
   
8. Witch World by Andre Norton ***Reread*** Hugo Awards 1964
   
9. Neurotribes by Steve Silberman - Purchased 2015
   
10. A treacherous paradise by Henning Mankell - Backlog
    

May

1. Astounding science fiction (British edition), Jun. 1959 - Backlog
   
2. Doomsday book, by Connie Willis - Hugo Awards Best Novel 1993 (Tie) - Purchased 2016
   
3. The Robert Sheckley Omnibus by Robert Sheckley - Backlog
   
4. The rivers of London, by Ben Aaronovitch (Peter Grant #1) (Audiobook) - Backlog
   

June

1. Moon over Soho, by Ben Aaronovitch (Peter Grant #2) (Audiobook) - Purchase 2016
   
2. The demolished man, by Alfred Bester (ebook) - Hugo Award - Purchased 2016
   
3. The best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, 8th series, edited by Anthony Boucher - Backlog
   
4. Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition, November 1959
   
5. Swords and deviltry, by Fritz Leiber (Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser) - Hugo Award 1971
   
6. The year's best science fiction: second annual collection edited by Gardner Dozois - Hugo Awards - 1985
   
7. The war that ended peace by Margaret McMillan - Purchased 2015
   
8. The island of Doctor Moreau, by HG Wells - Project Gutenberg
   

July

1. Citizen of the Galaxy, by Robert Heinlein
   
2. Whispers underground, by Ben Aaronovitch (Peter Grant #3) (Audiobook) - Purchase 2016
   
3. The fossil monarchies, by Edmond Taylor - Had for 30+ yrs, not read
   
4. Broken homes, by Ben Aaronovitch (Peter Grant #4) (Audiobook) - Purchase 2016
   

August

1. Foxglove summer, by Ben Aaronovitch (Peter Grant #5) (Audiobook) - Purchase 2016
   
2. Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1951
   
3. Whoops!, by John Lanchester - Purchase 2016
   
4. Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1969 - Hugo Awards
   

September

1. Bradman's war by Malcolm Knox - Christmas 2014
   
2. The road to ruin, by Niki Savva
   

October

1. Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1952
   
2. Ancillary justice by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch #1) - Hugo Award 2014 (ebook) - purchase 2016
   
3. Investing with impact: why finance is a force for good by Jeremy Balkin (ebook) - purchase 2016
   
4. Why the future is workless, by Tim Dunlop (ebook) - purchase 2016
   
5. Inventing the future, by Nick Srnicek (ebook) - purchased 2016
   
6. To your scattered bodies go, by Phillip Jose Farmer ****Reread**** - Hugo Award 1972 (ebook) - purchase 2016
   

November

1. Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1960
   
2. Deryni rising, by Katherine Kurtz ****Reread****
   
3. Gently down the stream by Alan Hunter (George Gently #3) (ebook) - purchase 2015
   
4. Track changes, by Matthew C. Kirschebaum (ebook) - purchased 2016
   
5. Landed Gently by Alan Hunter (George Gently #4) (ebook) - purchase 2015
   
6. The year's best science fiction: twelfth annual collection, edited by Gardner Dozois - several Hugo Award stories - purchased 2016
   

December

1. Astounding Science Fiction (British edition), April 1960
   
2. Private island, by James Meek (ebook) - purchased 2016
   
3. Astounding Science Fiction (British edition), May 1960
   
4. Wolf Hall, by Hillary Mantell (ebook)
   
5. Astounding Science Fiction (British edition), June 1960
   
6. Name of the wind, by Patrick Rothfuss (ebook) - purchased 2016
   
7. The best Australian science fiction writing, edited by Rob Gerrand - purchased 2016
   
8. Agincourt: Henry V and the battle that made England, by Juliet Barker
   

>9 dajashby: Ah, I didn't realize they were rereads.

My dad loves those Aubrey Maturin books. I like them, but for some reason I'm more of a Hornblower guy.

I thought Neurotribes was terrific. Looking forward to hearing what you think of it.

jnwelch-> I remember reading a Hornblower or two in my extreme youth. Sorry, but I think O'Brian is a cut above Forester as a writer. So far a bit over 50 pages into Neurotribes. I think it's possible that there's a bit of Cavendish in Maturin... I have a nephew, a second cousin and an uncle that are or were on the spectrum. Uncle Cyril was born in the 1920's, so wasn't diagnosed. He was just locked up. I was diagnosed as "acute cerebellar disfunction" as a child - these days that's known as dyspraxia. It's a spectrum disorder, but with a different range of symptoms - short term memory problems, poor balance, poor control over the involuntary motor skills. Lucky for me I'm fairly high functioning, because although I was diagnosed there wasn't much treatment.

>7 dajashby: No, you're right, the book Gently is far more cozy than t.v. Gently. I've only read three or four of the book series and so far, not a single tale of incest or free love. ; ) And t.v. Gently seems to prefer his hard liquor over peppermint creams.

Rereads definitely count! Between 25 to 33% of my reads in a year are rereads! I haven't read Neurotribes yet but everyone here who has has been very impressed.

Just added The wave in the mind, by Ursula Le Guin to my currently reading list. I was lucky enough to be able to attend a live in writer's workshop taught by Ursula that was run in conjunction with Aussiecon, the 1975 World SF Convention held in Melbourne, Australia. Unfortunately, I didn't become much of a writer, but that wasn't Ursula's fault. In my case she didn't have much to work with. However, it stands out as one of the most enjoyable weeks I've ever spent. Ursula is a very intelligent, witty and pleasant person. That comes across well in this book of essays. 5 stars from me.

Who cooked Adam Smith's dinner? is an interesting piece of work by a Swedish feminist economic journalist. It takes the view that economics, and particularly neoliberal economics, suffers from pronounced gender bias that renders it virtually useless as a tool for understanding society. It doesn't even accurately model the behaviour of men. Couldn't agree more. The answer to the question posed in the title is "His mother". 4 stars.

Unnatural fire by Fidelis Morgan is a great read. First of a series of 4 historical crime thrillers that feature Anastasia Ashby (no relation), Countess of Ashby de la Zouche as an unlikely sleuth. Ashby is in her 60's, was once a mistress of Charles II, but in 1699 is on hard times. She scrapes a living writing for a scandal sheet with the assistance of her maid Alpiew. There's a lot of action, and a lot of laughs in this. Morgan knows a great deal about 17th century London in general and Restoration comedy in particular. I came across this quite a long time ago, and I'm now looking forward to reading the sequels.

According to my Reading List spreadsheet I've powered through 699 pages in the last 5 days. Going on the average page count of 417 for the books in my list that I have page counts for (41 out of 80), I ought to be able to get through 100 books during the course of the year. That assumes a steady rate of reading, of course...

That's a pretty good pace! 100 is do-able - I've been in the 105-112 books per year over the last 8 years or so.

drneutron->I got out of the habit of doing a lot of reading a while ago - too many other things to do - and I'm just trying to get back into it. I'm not a particularly fast reader, as it happens. I suspect it's something to do with lacking binocular vision. I attribute my increased reading to, among other things, giving up on Twitter.

Gravity: Inside the PM's Office During Her Last Year and Final Days, by Mary Delahunty

It’s hard to believe that this isn’t ancient history. Mary Delahunty has written an account of the last 12 months of the Prime Ministership of Julia Gillard, ending in September of 2013. For the non-Australians in the audience, think redhead and misogyny. If that doesn’t help do a YouTube search for her. It seems like ancient history to me, partly because there have been three Prime Ministers in Australia since.

This is an admittedly partisan account, written by a fellow Labor woman, a person who was Education Minister in Victoria close to 2 decades ago, but was still certainly worth reading. I am an admirer of Julia Gillard (so I guess this is a partisan review), but I can agree with Ms Delahunty’s sometimes critical judgements of her friend, and also with the reasons she advances for forgiving them. Many people who reach high office do so quite unprepared for the job they are taking on, but the best of them have the opportunity to grow in the role. Julia Gillard, leader of a minority government and the subject of blatantly sexist opposition from all sides, including her own, didn’t.

She must take great comfort from the fact that her two immediate successors both crashed and burned with much less to show for it than she.

I read Midnight at the Well of Souls so long ago, that it almost doesn't count as a reread...

This is Baggins, one of our cavaliers. We name them all after hobbits, since they are small, have furry feet and line up for second breakfasts. Don't know what was so attractive about the rosemary.

>23 dajashby: Great logic on the name! And about rosemary, I have no idea either but our dog will always rub on it when we go on walks. She comes home smelling delicious (at least parts of her).

ursula-> Baggins is cavie no. 5. Our first (Candy) we acquired as an adult, and didn't rename her. Our second was also not a puppy, but his name was Prince, which we didn't like, so we called him Pippin (Prince of the Halflings). Next came Sam, who we got to keep Pippin company, since he proved to be a bit on the neurotic side. After Pippin went to god we got Rosie (Cotton), who was a most beautiful Ruby cavie. She very sadly died at 7 of chronic heart problems, and we got Baggins from the same breeder. Our no. 6 is Bella, named for Belladonna Took, Bilbo's mother.

Rosemary is one of the few plants I can reliably grow, probably a sign that it's indestructible.

>23 dajashby: What a sweet face! He certainly does look like he's comfortable being in the rosemary. Maybe he enjoys flavorful stews?
My boxer, Coral, insists on stopping on our walks to smell the wild daisies that have bloomed. They don't have much scent so I think she's just enjoying how pretty they are.

mstrust-> Given a flavourful stew I'm quite certain he'd enjoy it. Both Rosie and Baggins will basically eat anything. Although it has two be said onion is poisonous to dogs, so you have to be a bit careful. As to dogs and scent, dogs live by their noses, and their sense of smell is much stronger than ours.

Edmond Taylor, in The fossil monarchies, says that the assassins who killed Franz Ferdinand of Austria were a bunch of juvenile fanatics (aged 16-19) who were armed and encouraged by older men. Sound familiar?

I was also struck by the fact that the Austrians were determined that the Serbian state was behind the crime, much as Bush was determined to blame Iraq for 9/11 with about the same standard of evidence.

Shieldwall by Justin Hill is an historical novel set in 11th century Anglo Saxon England which follows the earlier life of Earl Godwin, the father of Harold II (he who lost the Battle of Hastings). A lot of the details of Godwin's earlier career are speculative, making him a good subject for a novelist. Not particularly impressed with the way the book is structured, but there's plenty of action and also food for thought on the subject of loyalty & keeping one's word. 3 stars from me.

Still on track for 100 books in 2016. My spreadsheet tells me I'm averaging a little over 100 pages a day. I am attempting to keep to reading 10 books at any one time - 4 non-fiction (Economics & politics, history, science & technology, other), 5 fiction (crime, historical, science fiction, fantasy, other) and 1 sf magazine. I note from the completed books so far that there are 3 non-fiction and 11 fiction, so I'm doing something wrong. May be something to do with the mix of paper books (6) and ebooks (8), but maybe it's just that fiction books tend to be a quicker read. Also, all the rereads (6) are fiction.

Back in the day I used to collect science fiction magazines. I collected far more than I read, to be honest. At some point in the last 20 years I did a severe cull, mostly due to lack of space, and I've currently got about 200 issues. I decided recently that I really should make an effort to read them while I still can. The surviving issues are mostly Analogs and F&SFs dating between 1960 and 1980 or so.

Amazing Stories, April 1963, Vol 37 no. 4 features a "complete novel" by James H. Schmitz. Given that it can't be much more than 25,000 words, I'd describe it more as a longish novelette. Schmitz was more of an Analog writer, and I don't think "Beacon to elsewhere" is an example of his best work. There's also a slight Roger Zelazny short story ("Circe has her problems"), and others by David R. Bunch ("Somebody up there hates us" - typically weird), J.T. Bone ("For services rendered", an Unknown style fantasy) and Harrison Denmark (which it appears was a pseudonym used by Roger Zelazny, since "The stainless steel leech" made it into a collection of his stories). Has a Virgil Finlay cover, which is unfortunately missing from my copy.

My rating:
"Beacon to elsewhere", James H. Schmitz: novella, 3 stars
"Circe has her problems, Roger Zelazny: short story, 3 stars
"Somebody up there hates us", David R. Bunch: short story, 2 stars
"For services rendered", J.T. Bone: short story, 3.5 stars
The stainless steel leach", Harrison Denmark (Roger Zelazny): short story, 3.5 stars

LibraryThing lists two other copies of this issue, but wouldn't let me add mine to that work, so I added it manually as a new work. I used to know how to merge works together, but I've forgotten the details. (Clicking the "Add to your books" button doesn't help - as usual). Can anyone assist?

I'm rereading the Harry Potter series to see whether I'm right about my impression that the latter volumes were disappointing. So far I'm confirmed in my belief that Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (just finished) is the best of them. 4 1/2 stars.

The Robert Sheckley omnibus I acquired from a fellow sf fan probably 40 years ago, and have only just started to read (sorry, Bruce). It's one of those yellow Gollancz editions, and still in excellent shape. Back when I read science fiction voraciously, Sheckley was one of my favourites, so I'm hoping to enjoy it.

Astounding Science Fiction, October 1957. The masthead says this is Vol XV, No. 10 (British Edition), but the February 1958 issue is numbered as Vol XIV, No. 2, and the June 1959 issue is Vol XV, No. 6, so I think it must be wrong.

The story featured on the cover is "Ribbon in the sky", by Murray Leinster. This is a novelette from his Med Ship series, which features Calhoun, an intergalactic Flying Doctor and his pet tormal Murgatroyd. The Med Service flies around the galaxy visiting isolated space colonies. Leinster was a competent minor Golden Age writer with a convincing line in hard science details and a fairly good grasp of psychology. Unfortunately also a male chauvinist; 3.5 stars.

"Among thieves", by one of my favourite sf writers Poul Anderson, is a slight piece of space opera in which the effete civilisation of Earth is pitted against her more backwoods colonies. 2.5 stars.

"Needler", a short novel by Randall Garrett in which the human race is pitted against an alien civilisation in the race to develop a working death-ray. There's a lot of hard sciency stuff that went straight over my head and some fairly glib psychology that I didn't find particularly convincing. 2 stars

"Drift", is a short story by Bert Chandler, who slept on the floor in the share house that I was living in during the 1975 Melbourne Worldcon. He was a really nice bloke and this isn't a bad little story about a message in a bottle thrown overboard in outer space 3.5 stars.

I'm reading The fossil monarchies, by Edmond Taylor, which is a history of Europe that covers the period immediately before the First World War. It was published in the 1960's. I'm reminded that during that time Europe was awash with emigres from Russia, many of whom were bomb throwers of various sorts - bolsheviks, anarchists, etc. Also, Europe was mostly ruled by autocratic monarchical regimes that all boasted large secret police organisations.

The first point to be made is that the current wave of islamic fundamentalist terrorism is nothing new. The second point is that the autocratic regimes of that day had little success in combatting the problem, so that it's not particularly likely that stripping away the sorts of freedoms we enjoy today will accomplish much. Hopefully it won't require a world war to solve our current issues...

I've started a private challenge, which is to read as many of the Hugo Award fiction nominees as I can. It's a long time since I've kept up with what's what in science fiction, so I'm starting with 1985 (that was the year that I was last involved in running a convention - Aussiecon II - after which I retired...). It's kind of ironic that I can't buy an ebook edition of Neuromancer, the Hugo winning novel of that year, in Australia, so I've started with The integral trees, by Larry Niven. I'll start a list real soon.

>35 dajashby: I'm currently working - very slowly - through all of the Hugo winners, starting from the beginning, and I have to say that I'm really enjoying it, much more than I expected I would (my best friend cajoled me into reading through the list with him). I hope you enjoy the challenge, too.

>36 scaifea: scaifea: Are you sticking with the novels, or trying to find the shorter works too? For 1985, I've found ebook editions of only one of the 5 novels, but I was able to get Gardner Dozois' Years best sf for that year (currently in my TBR pile (yes, I have a digital pile...)).

>37 dajashby: For now I'm just working through the novels, which haven't been too difficult to find, yet. It helps that I'm only reading the winners and not the nominees.

>38 scaifea: I've been doing some research, and find that I appear to have read all but 3 of the Hugo awarded novels between 1960 and 1975, and only 3 since. I've identified 42 nominees and winners in all categories up until 1960, and appear to have read 2 of those (although memory does get a little hazy...). When I've finished my spreadsheet I intend to construct a list - it'll probably take a week or so at this rate. (I discovered a list of Hugo nominees by clicking on "Awards and Honors" in the Common Knowledge section of a story, but I can't find any other way to get to the list other than that.)

Here's where I found the list I'm working from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Novel

The Hugo Awards website would be my first choice, of course, but, kind of annoyingly, you have to click on a link for each separate year to see the winners; they don't maintain, it seems, a master list for each award.

Have either of you read The Three-Body Problem, the 2015 winner? I'm trying to decide whether to give it a go at some point.

>41 jnwelch: That would be a "no" from me, sorry. The only Hugo winning novels I've read after 1975 are the Harry Potter (the George Martin was far better...), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (probably my best book of 2016 so far), and Foundation's Edge (being an Asimov fan from way back). I'll get to it before I die, maybe.

>42 dajashby: :-) OK, thanks. It seems to have gotten mixed reactions from those who have read it.

>43 jnwelch: The Hugo's in 2015 were pretty much rorted by angry white males.

Derrick, nice to see you finding your way steadily in the group.

Your post >30 dajashby: would indicate that you have the same issues with stats and lists as so many of us in the group - welcome!

>45 PaulCranswick: I'm a bit of a stats junkie. How could you tell? :-) If you"d like an update, I've dropped to about 98 books a year just lately, 'coz Pages Per Day is down at about 80. Need to spend more time reading and less time working out lists... Now reading 13 books, however.

>46 dajashby: If you like stats Derrick, drop by my thread once in a while! I keep regular stats on posts to each 75er's thread (when the thread passes 40 posts) and this will be updated monthly as will a list of the numbers of books read by all those threads. You will appear on this month's list in a couple of days time.

By my reckoning at this moment 156 threads have passed 40 threads with Mamie (crazymamie) leading the way thus far with 2,628 posts spread over her 9 threads.

>47 PaulCranswick: Another stat: I started keeping track of Pages Read Per Day at the beginning of February, and since then I've totalled 10,024 pages...

>41 jnwelch: Nope, me neither, Joe. Sorry!

>48 dajashby: Wow 167.07 pages per day - way to go!

>49 scaifea: Thanks, Amber. I'm still curious, but in no hurry.

>50 PaulCranswick: (blush) misread my own spreadsheet. That's the total from beginning of the year. Still not bad, but...

Having decided that I am challenging myself to read all the Hugo Award winners and nominees in the fiction categories, it becomes necessary to track them down. A combination of LibraryThing and Google is working reasonably well. Between 1953 and 1958 I haven't so far found a list that includes nominees. Between 1959 and 1963 (as far as I've got), there are a couple of stories that I haven't found anthologies for. One of the short fiction nominees for 1963 is Myrrha, by Gary Jennings (yes, there are two works on LibraryThing with that title and Touchstones has picked the wrong one...). The Hugo Awards website tells me that the story was first published in F & SF for September 1962. Now I have the October and November issues for that year, but not the September one. Google reveals that this is the Ted Sturgeon special (damn, why don't I have it?), and that Amazon has 1 copy for sale. The issue also includes another short fiction nominee for that year When you care, when you love by Ted Sturgeon himself. The interesting part of all this is that amazon.com were offering to sell me the issue for AU$5.29 plus AU$23.11 postage (!!!), while amazon.co.uk reckoned that it was going to cost me GBP 2.51 and GBP 7.00 postage, which totalled AU$18.50 FOR THE SAME COPY FROM THE SAME SELLER. Go figure. What's more amazon UK claimed that the issue would be delivered between mid April and early May, while amazon US were offering May to June. Needless to say I ordered via amazon uk. I'll be interested to see what happens. I already have two of the other 1963 short fiction nominees (The unholy grail by Fritz Leiber and Where is the bird of fire, by Thomas Burnett Swann). I am only missing the actual winner, The dragon masters, by Jack Vance, but there's an ebook edition of that.

For anyone who is interested, may I recommend this webpage: http://www.tor.com/series/revisiting-the-hugos/ A whole series of summaries of the Award from 1953 to 2000, with comments.

>40 scaifea: Have a look at this: http://www.sfadb.com/Hugo_Awards

The Astounding science fiction issue I finished today included part 2 of Robert Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy, so that given there isn't much point in reading part 2 of a serial I bought an ebook copy of the book...

>55 dajashby: Oh, nice! Thanks for sharing!

I've created a thread for my Hugo Award nominations challenge here -> http://www.librarything.com/topic/221017#5540832

Astounding science fiction (British Edition), Vol 14, no. 2, Feb. 1958

Leads with a short novel by Murray Leinster The grandfathers' war, which is another story from his Med Ship series. The basic theme is generational conflict, which Leinster portrays in an imaginative and entertaining way. His stories always seem to have an interesting psychological angle. No more sexist than the previous story. 3.5 stars

Compensation by Christopher Anvil is a jokey short story about a couple of aliens with psi powers who land on Earth and figure that the non-psionic human population is ripe for the plucking. 3.5 stars

Gentlemen, please note by Randall Garrett purports to be an exchange of letters between Isaac Newton and others about the former's Theory of Relativity. Sounds like a daft idea, and it was (the story, I mean, not the theory). 2 stars

Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein (part 2 of 4 parts). Didn't read this, but will be reading the whole story later...

Finished reading this on 2nd April. I'm running way behind with these posts.

The Robert Sheckley omnibus, edited by Robert Conquest

The first story is the "complete novel" Immortality Inc that was nominated for a Hugo for Best Novel in 1959. The protagonist is a man who dies in a car accident in the 20th century and wakes up in the 22nd century, where both immortality and the after life are scientific facts. 4 stars.

Specialist is a charming story that concerns an intergalactic civilisation in which the mechanical civilisation of Earth is replaced by a biological one. A spaceship is made up of numerous co-operating living organisms that act as Walls, Engines, etc. The "Pusher" of this spaceship (aka pilot) has died, and it cannot accelerate to light speed. It turns out that the Earth is populated by Pushers that have forgotten their calling. 4.5 stars

Bad medicine features a future where psychiatrists have been replaced by machines. A man who has developed a homicidal mania towards his best friend goes out and buys a device that will cure the problem. Unfortunately he's sold the Martian model by mistake... 4 stars

Pilgrimage to Earth satirises consumerism, a fairly common theme with Sheckley. The inhabitant of one of the hard working colony worlds returns to Earth because he is told it's the only planet on which he can find love 3 stars

Ask a foolish question A race of hyper intelligent pan dimensional beings create a machine that will give the answer to the ultimate question, but only if you know what it is. Sounds familiar? Published in 1953, Sheckley beat Douglas Adams to the idea by 25 years... 4 stars

A ticket to Tranai A small but perfectly formed satire on American society in the 1950's. An Earthman travels to a distant planet on which he is told exists a perfect utopia. Turns out to be not quite what he thought. 5 stars

The battle is a short narrative of the Last Battle in which the Legions of Hell fight it out with the human race, which is represented by its throughly automated robot armies. The robots win, but I'll leave it you to guess who gets saved... 3 stars

Hands Off A group of interstellar villains in a clapped out spaceship come across an alien vessel with a crew of one that has landed on an uninhabited planet. They decide to steal it, but don't reckon on the problems they face dealing with the alien technology. Well, they're dumb interstellar villains. Highly amusing. 4.5 stars

The prize of peril The idea in this story is not that original with Sheckley, and he's used it elsewhere himself. The protagonist is a participant in a live television gameshow where the other participants use live ammunition. Reminds me a bit of those Japanese game shows that Clive James was so fond of. 2.5 stars

Hunting problem 2.5 stars

Ghost V 3 stars

Something for nothing 3.5 stars

The store of the worlds 3.5 stars

Doing an audit of this thread, I find that there are 14 books that I've read but haven't commented on. This is even worse than I thought it was!

In January I reread the first 3 books (Master and Commander, Post Captain and HMS Surprise) of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series. This is a long cycle of novels about British naval officer Jack Aubrey and his friend a naval surgeon Stephen Maturin set in the period of the Napoleonic Wars. In February I reread the fourth volume The Mauritius command, and in March Desolation Island, the fifth.

I first encountered these books over 20 years ago, and have read through the cycle a couple of times. I've come across reviews by readers on LibraryThing and elsewhere who claim that they prefer CS Forester, and even Alexander Kent. What the readers seem to fail to appreciate is that O'Brian is a serious literary novelist who just happens to be writing something that looks like an historical romance. These aren't just naval yarns, but serious novels. (My father, who liked naval yarns, didn't much like them either...)

At the beginning of the series Aubrey is a young naval lieutenant more or less marooned on the island of Majorca, then a British possession, because he doesn't have a ship. He has not yet met Maturin, who is a young man of mixed Irish and Catalan parentage, also stranded on Majorca because his employer, a sick man who had travelled there for his health, has died. Maturin is a qualified physician. The pair meet at a music evening given by the wife of a senior Naval Officer (who Aubrey happens to be having it off with), and after a small disagreement over the music Jack is able to offer Stephen the position of surgeon on his first command, the small sloop Sophie.

O'Brian raided genuine naval history for a lot of the action in all these books. Many of the sea fights undertaken by Aubrey actually occurred - often fought by Lord Cochrane. However, in my view the best writing in the series involve battles against the elements and the details of service life. The best of the five I've so far reread is Desolation Island, in which Aubrey takes an old 50 gun frigate on a voyage to Australia. His mission involves rescuing Governor Bligh from the Rum Rebellion, but the voyage is beset by Gaol Fever (they were transporting some convicts), extremely rough weather, and a Dutch three-decker, which he succeeds in sinking after being chased across half the Indian Ocean in the Roaring Forties. His ship is badly damaged in a collision with an iceberg, and is only saved by the discovery of a badly charted uninhabited island deep in the Southern Ocean.

Well, that's 5 out of 14...

Finished Econobabble: how to decode political spin and economic nonsense, by Richard Denniss.

Astounding science fiction (British edition), Vol 15, no. 6, June 1959

Despoilers of the Golden Empire, by David Gordon (aka Randall Garrett)

This is a retelling of Pizarro's conquest of the Incas as Space Opera. From what I remember reading of the historical event it's fairly faithful to what happened, but is there a point? The story is quite well told. 3 stars

The year's best science fiction, second annual collection, edited by Gardner Dozois.

We are told this is the best science fiction of 1984.

Salvador, by Lucius Shepard is a story about a US invasion of Nicaragua when it was ruled by the Sandinistas. Which alone shows you how some supposed science fiction can date really quickly. The story was nominated for a Hugo as Best Short Story in 1985, and came 4th. I certainly wouldn't have voted for it. By coincidence I've recently read another sf story about a homicidal maniac; Bad medicine, by Robert Sheckley, a story from 1956, which I enjoyed much more. 2.5 stars

Promises to keep, by Jack McDevitt, was much more to my taste. A story about a manned mission to Jupiter. It seems improbable to me that such an inherently risky mission is particularly likely, but if you ignore that the story worked. 3.5 stars

Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler is an excellent story, a worthy winner of the Hugo Best Novelette award for 1985. There aren't many science fiction stories that posit a future in which the human race is subordinate to an alien species. This is well-written, original and moving 4.5 stars

Blued moon by Connie Willis is quite different in tone to Bloodchild, but even better written in my opinion. A light-hearted fun piece, but could be said to be a critique of geo-engineering. It was nominated in the Hugo Best Novelette category in 1985. Came 4th, but I think I would have voted for it. 4.5 stars

A message to the King of Brobdingnag by Richard Cowper. Traditional hard science story about the dangers of genetic engineering. Minimum of characterisation necessary to forward the plot. 3 stars

The affair, by Robert Silverberg. A telepathic love affair. The ending was a bit unsatisfactory. 2.5 stars

Press enter, by John Varley won the 1985 Hugo Best Nebula award. I personally had trouble identifying it as science fiction. It's one of those "The Computers Are Coming To Get Us" stories. I bought my first microcomputer in 1983, and I have trouble believing that anything that primitive could evolve intelligence, malign or otherwise. The story is most memorable for me because in the Hugo Awards multimedia presentation at Aussiecon II the tech guys succeeded in misspelling the title as "Pless enter". On the other hand, it could have been an ironic comment on the story... 2 stars

New Rose Hotel, by William Gibson. Cyberpunk. 1 star.

The Map, by Gene Wolfe. Wolfe is not my favourite writer. I didn't like his The Book of the new sun at all. This story is set in that universe. 1 star

Interlocking pieces, by Molly Gloss. The protagonist is a Government Minister. She has a diseased cerebellum, which is affecting some of her motor functions. She is in hospital, and is apparently going to receive a transplant. The donor is also in the hospital, and she escapes from her room and goes to see him. I'm not entirely sure whether the idea is that the donor can survive without a cerebellum, but that seems a little unlikely. When this story is taking place is not at all clear, as is nearly everything else about the society in which the story is set. And the point of the story is? 2 stars

Trojan horse, by Michael Swanwick. Cyberpunk. The programmer as God. Apparently brain science has advanced to the point where human brains can be reprogrammed. People routinely interface themselves with computers to perform work of various kinds. A woman is involved in an industrial accident while doing this, which apparently scrambles her brain. She is reprogrammed with someone else's backed up brain, but somehow remains herself. The "brain surgeon" who did the reprogramming now claims to be in love with her, but it turns out he was in love with the person whose backed up brain was used. That person is still around, but has been turned into God by a bit of experimental programming. If you can do all this stuff with the brain using programming, why do you need to get drunk? 1 star

The lucky strike by Kim Stanley Robinson, Best Novelette, 1985 (7th). An alternate history that hinges on the Enola Gay crashing in a test flight and being replaced by another plane and crew for the Hiroshima bomb. Seen from the viewpoint of the bombardier. While the agonizing he goes through is certainly believable (he was an older man), I wasn't convinced by the plot. 2.5 stars

Finished Balancing act: Australia between recession and renewal, by George Megalogenis.

Finished Witch world, by Andre Norton, Hugo Best Novel, 1964 (3rd)

I don't think I read this when it was first published. At the time I don't believe I'd graduated to science fiction from Tolkien, Lewis and Garner - it was probably in the late '60's or early '70's when I came across it. I must have enjoyed the book, because I certainly read several of the sequels, although after about 5 I think I lost interest. Coming back to it it seems a bit clunky. The author is trying for the appropriate language style that seems effortless to Tolkien, but she hasn't really got it.

The protagonist is spirited off to a world where magic works. There's a mixture of mediaeval and futurist technology, and the usual battle between Good and Evil. 2.5 stars

Finished Neurotribes by Steve Silberman. Great book. Loved it.

>67 dajashby: Oh good, Derrick. I thought Neurotribes was a great book, too.

SO jealous of your week with Ursula Le Guin! And so ambitious with your Hugo challenge. I'm just trying to read the current year's nominees! (2015 just out today, and I've already read 2 and have 2 more in my tbr piles).

Finished A treacherous paradise. Very strange book, I thought, but in a good way. 3.5 stars

69 > The two most recent Hugo nominees I've read were both by George RR Martin (2012 and 2006), if you don't count The wheel of time, and who would... I'm way behind you!

>61 dajashby: Wow Derrick that is a lot of books to slip under the net.

Have a great weekend.

>72 PaulCranswick: Somehow I just mostly gave up reading science fiction. Becoming a convention oriented fan had something to do with it, which happened around 1974 and my reading in general dropped when I moved from being a librarian (1987) to having a career in IT. I read a whole lot of computer books and magazines in the next 15-20 years, and spent a lot of time wrestling with computer programming. However, in April I've read or finished 2 sf novels, 1 novella, 5 novelettes and 8 short stories (7 Hugo nominated, 9 not), so there is hope. Of course in April the Hugo nominations for 2016 were published, which is 20 more stories to add to the list...

NeuroTribes by Steve Silberman was a very interesting read for a few reasons. Reason #1 is that autism / Aspergers runs in my family. I have a nephew and a cousin who are on the spectrum, and I'm pretty sure that an uncle, now dead, was also. There are some other unexplained oddities further back in the family tree also. Reason #2 is that I am a recovering science fiction fan, and I can confirm that sf fandom was and probably still is, a place where people on the spectrum can go and flourish. With this background it isn't surprising that I have examined my own behaviour and mental makeup for telltale signs. In fact, my parents were told many years ago that I had what the medical profession called "acute cerebellar dysfunction", which sounds both alarming and improbable ("acute" isn't really an appropriate term). These days this terminology has been abandoned, but I'm pretty confident that I could get a diagnosis of dyspraxia if I tried (but at 63, what would be the point?). Dyspraxia is another spectrum disorder that's different than but related to autism, dyslexia, adhd, etc, etc. Luckily for me I have been a reasonably successfully functioning dyspraxic, especially since I was never favoured with any sort of treatment program. I did, however, succeed in completing a 4 year degree (in librarianship), and I've been successfully employed for most of my adult life. Recognition and treatment of dyspraxia has followed a similar sort of trajectory to autism as set out in this book, but we never had a "Rain Man". My main symptoms are poor gross motor skills & balance, poor sense of direction and appallingly bad working memory.

The book presents an interesting case study of the development of scientific knowledge. There's an interesting comparison to be made with the gradual development of knowledge about climate change. (The anti-vaxxers and the climate change deniers are kindred kinds).

Overall I'm giving the book 4.5 stars, nothing being perfect.

Very interesting comments on Neurotribes, Derrick. (I liked it a lot, too, and gave it a similar rating). I hadn't heard of dyspraxia before. That had to have been challenging in your education and the job world.

I like the comparison between anti-vaxxers and climate change deniers. You're right, there's a similar willingness to deny facts in favor of unsupportable beliefs. I think Silberman mentions it in Neurotribes - the research doctor who started the anti-vax craze was investigated and his report was found fraudulent. He lost his medical license over it.

>75 jnwelch: I have a book Flat Earth: the history of an infamous idea, by Christine Garwood. It's in my TBR, but I have dipped into it. Fascinating history of supporters of wrong ideas.

I read that one. It was prett good, and it's amazing to me that there are still people out there still pushing these ideas.

Finished reading the Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition) issue for June 1959, except for the serial, since I only have one episode of The pirates of Ersatz, by Murray Leinster, and it's the middle one. I've added the novel to my lengthening TBR list. Am intending now to read a current sf magazine issue, probably one of the online ones: the other day I added Lightspeed to the home screen of my iPad.

Reading has taken a bit of a back seat in the last few weeks of my life. Three or four weeks ago we started renovating our bathroom. For me this meant getting up at around 6:30 am, because the builders turned up at about 7:30. Life was a bit disrupted. They finished at the end of last week, and the result is excellent. My wife is disabled, and she has been getting more so in the last few years, and the bathroom hadn't kept up. We acquired a temporary bathroom set up in the spare room, something I describe as a Tardis with plumbing - a box containing both a toilet and a shower plumbed into the house's water system. The new bathroom is the same size as the old one, but the space is much more intelligently used.

Hopefully I'll get back to reading in the next few days, although we are planning further renovations...

Glad the renovation turned out well. We'll be here whenever you can get back!

Yup, sometimes life gets in the way, but we'll be here.

Yesterday for the first time this year since I started this challenge I read not a single page. I spent the day going to my Mum's funeral. She died on Monday of last week. My brother did all the leg work and organising for the funeral, but I've had a deluge of texts and emails to deal with. She was 94, and there were at least 60 people at the service, which was gratifying. The fact that this coincided with the bathroom renovations made it the icing on the cake. Everything always happens at once.

So sorry about your mom. It's always amazing to me how stuff just hits all once in life.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

A while ago I contributed to a kickstarter campaign to pay for the post-production of a doco about Ursula Le Guin ("Worlds of Ursula Le Guin"). One of my "rewards" was "Ten Excellent Books to read or re-read this year", a list constructed by Ursula. I thought I'd share it:

1. The voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin (1839)
   
2. Falling from horses, Molly Gloss (2014)
   
3. Our souls at night, Kent Haruf (2015)
   
4. Flight behaviour, Barbara Kingsolver (2012)
   
5. Kim, Rudyard Kipling (1900)
   
6. The Elephant's journey, Jose Saramago (2010)
   
7. The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot (2010)
   
8. The last hundred years, Jane Smiley (2014/15)
   
9. Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner (1926)
   
10. To the lighthouses, Virginia Woolf (1927)
    

Anybody with any suggestions as to where one should begin? I read Kim many years ago, but none of the others. I think I have The voyage of the Beagle somewhere on the shelves.

>83 drneutron: >84 mstrust: Thanks for the thoughts. By amazing coincidence my Mum's favourite niece had a mild heart attack 3 or 4 days before Mum died - she was on the other side of the world in England - and my next door neighbour's dog was put down on the day Mum died.

>85 dajashby: Quite a list! Good for you for supporting that.

Our Souls at Night is short and terrific, but you may want to read some of his other books first. He just passed away recently, unfortunately. Plainsong, the first in a stellar trilogy, is a good place to start.

Taking a look at Lightspeed, one of the online sf magazines. The first contemp science fiction I've read for a number of years. The May issue begins with a short story by An Owomoyela called "Three points masculine". I confess that I skimmed a few pages in the middle, so I might have missed enlightenment. There are 2 ideas in it. The first idea is that there is some sort of civil war going on, presumably in North America (the Middle West as Iraq). No idea what the conflict is about. The second idea is that people sit some sort of psychological test to see what gender they are. The point of view character is a security contractor, who turns out surprise surprise to be a woman. She is providing security for a group of medics she refers to as "the girls', at least one of whom has a beard. The sort of story that no doubt gets the Sad Puppies fired up. I just thought it was a badly written story.

Just finished Doomsday book, by Connie Willis. Tied for the Hugo Award in 1993 and won the Nebula. I haven't read a book as good as this in quite a long time. 5 and a half stars.

I haven't read anything from Connie Willis but I suppose I should since I see reviews of her books often on LT. Five and a half stars is quite enticing!

I hope you're having a better week.

Derrick, my sincerest condolences on the passing of your mum.

>85 dajashby: I would read the Kent Haruf if you can find it. I have read two of his and found them both excellent.

Hope you have a peaceful weekend.

>90 mstrust: Thanks for your thoughts. My week has been OK. On the positive side we're really happy with the bathroom. I'm still waiting to hear from my cousin in England, but it's only been a week.

I've read 2 Connie Willis stories, and I'm a fan. There are people who criticise her for inadequate research, but on the whole I think they're misguided.

>91 PaulCranswick: Thanks. I will definitely look out a Kent Haruf or two.

The year's best science fiction, second annual collection, edited by Gardner Dozois.

We are told this is the best science fiction of 1984.

Salvador, by Lucius Shepard is a story about a US invasion of Nicaragua when it was ruled by the Sandinistas. Which alone shows you how some supposed science fiction can date really quickly. The story was nominated for a Hugo as Best Short Story in 1985, and came 4th. I certainly wouldn't have voted for it. By coincidence I've recently read another sf story about a homicidal maniac; Bad medicine, by Robert Sheckley, a story from 1956, which I enjoyed much more. 2.5 stars

Promises to keep, by Jack McDevitt, was much more to my taste. A story about a manned mission to Jupiter. It seems improbable to me that such an inherently risky mission is particularly likely, but if you ignore that the story worked. 3.5 stars

Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler is an excellent story, a worthy winner of the Hugo Best Novelette award for 1985. There aren't many science fiction stories that posit a future in which the human race is subordinate to an alien species. This is well-written, original and moving 4.5 stars

Blued moon by Connie Willis is quite different in tone to Bloodchild, but even better written in my opinion. A light-hearted fun piece, but could be said to be a critique of geo-engineering. It was nominated in the Hugo Best Novelette category in 1985. Came 4th, but I think I would have voted for it. 4.5 stars

A message to the King of Brobdingnag by Richard Cowper. Traditional hard science story about the dangers of genetic engineering. Minimum of characterisation necessary to forward the plot. 3 stars

The affair, by Robert Silverberg. A telepathic love affair. The ending was a bit unsatisfactory. 2.5 stars

Press enter, by John Varley won the 1985 Hugo Best Nebula award. I personally had trouble identifying it as science fiction. It's one of those "The Computers Are Coming To Get Us" stories. I bought my first microcomputer in 1983, and I have trouble believing that anything that primitive could evolve intelligence, malign or otherwise. The story is most memorable for me because in the Hugo Awards multimedia presentation at Aussiecon II the tech guys succeeded in misspelling the title as "Pless enter". On the other hand, it could have been an ironic comment on the story... 2 stars

New Rose Hotel, by William Gibson. Cyberpunk. 1 star.

The lucky strike by Kim Stanley Robinson, Best Novelette, 1985 (7th). An alternate history that hinges on the Enola Gay crashing in a test flight and being replaced by another plane and crew for the Hiroshima bomb. Seen from the viewpoint of the bombardier. While the agonizing he goes through is certainly believable (he was an older man), I wasn't convinced by the plot. 2.5 stars

I've finished The Robert Sheckley Omnibus, a collection of 13 stories including the novel Immortality Inc. that was nominated for Best Novel Hugo in 1959. Sheckley had aa nice line lighthearted short fiction with a clever twist at the end.

I'm half way through The war that ended peace which I started on 19th March. It's 730 pages long, and the print is quite small...

Am also listening to Rivers of London, by Ben Aaronovitch. Aaronovitch wrote scripts for Dr Who and Blakes 7 in the '80's. This is volume 1 in a series about the department of the Metropolitan Police that deal with magical crimes. Finding it really enjoyable.

The best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: 8th series, edited by Anthony Boucher is a paperback I've owned for years. I don't remember reading it, but may well have done. It's got very oxidised. It includes four Hugo nominated stories.

Ministering angels, by C.S. Lewis. Short story about the first manned mission to Mars. As usual with Lewis it's heavily allegorical, which isn't really my cup of tea. 2 stars

Backwardness, by Poul Anderson 4 stars

The wait, by Kit Reed 3.5 stars

A deskful of girls, by Fritz Leiber, Best Novelette category, 1959 (5th). This is a weird story about a nasty little fellow that was a psychiatrist and a psychic who preyed on women, extracting what I can only describe as pieces of their soul, which he kept in a set of filing cabinets. The protagonist is a lawyer who represents the ex-husband of one of these women, who seemed to me to be modelled on Marilyn Monroe. The story keeps you on the edge of your seat for 30 or so pages. Leiber is one of my favourite sf writers. He was beaten in this contest by Clifford Simak with The big front yard. 4 stars'

Theory of rocketry, by C.M. Kornbluth, Best short story, 1959 (7th). This is a peculiar little story whose protagonist is a high school teacher. 1950's science fiction seems to have been very interested in psychology, and I think Kornbluth had a very low opinion of US public education. The powers that be take psychometric testing very seriously, and expect teachers to display nothing but dedication to the cause. Didn't really grab me. 2 stars

Captivity, by Zenna Henderson, Best Novelette, 1959 (3rd). This is part of her People series about a race of alien beings stranded on the Earth by a space ship accident, They are a small group, but have super powers. They live in hiding. This is a theme that is pretty common in science fiction in the 40's and 50's. It appealed strongly to science fiction fans at the time,many of whom were undiagnosed Aspergers. The story is of a young boy in a rural township who is one of the People, but doesn't know it. He's an outsider who is cordially disliked by the rest of the village, but is befriended by a teacher at the village school, and eventually is rescued by a community of the People. 4 stars.

The men who murdered Mohammed, by Alfred Bester. Best short story, 1959 (3rd). This is really clever. Time travel paradox story with an interesting twist. 5 stars

I've set up a database of short fiction read so far this year. There are 48 stories. Slightly weirdly, two of them are called "Bad medicine" - one by Robert Sheckley, published in 1956, and one by Jack Dann, published in 1984. The two stories with the highest rating of 5 are The men who murdered Mohammed, by Alfred Bester, and A ticket to Tranai, by Robert Sheckley. 13 of the 48 are in fact by Robert Sheckley, with the next highest count being 3 from Murray Leinster. I really must broaden my range.

I finished listening to The rivers of London, by Ben Aaronovitch, and am part way through the second in the series: Moon over Soho. They're read by Kobna Holbrook-Smith. The protagonist is a Constable in the Metropolitan Police's magical crimes investigation unit. Highly recommended.

Astounding science fiction, British edition, November 1959

Cat and mouse, by Ralph Williams was nominated for Best Short Story Hugo in 1960. Came 5th. Beaten by Flowers for Algernon, and stories by Philip Jose Farmer, Bester and Sturgeon, so no shame in that.

A backwoodsman in Alaska finds a gateway between our world and another world that's been opened up by an alien being called the Warden who is responsible for the environmental protection of planets in his sector. He has discovered that a hive like creature has invaded his territory and needs some assistance in pest extermination. Well written and entertaining. 4.5 stars

The short fiction database is now up to 64 stories. I have a pivot table that summarises story by Source (i.e. Magazine, collection or anthology title), and another by Publication Year (original publication, if I know it). I find further proof that I'm a BOF, in that the average rating for both Source and Publication Year seems to increase the further back in time I go.

1. The Robert Sheckley Omnibus (1953-1959), 13 stories, ave rating 3.61
   
2. The best Australian science fiction writing (1955-1957 so far), 2, 3.5
   
3. The best from F&SF #8 (1959), 15, 3.3
   
4. Astounding science fiction (1957-1959), 13, 3.04
   
5. Amazing stories (1960), 5, 3.0
   
6. The year's best science fiction, second annual collection (1984), 12, 2.79
   
7. Lightspeed (2016), 4, 2.13
   

1. 1953, 2 stories, ave rating 4.25
   
2. 1954, 3, 3.66
   
3. 1956, 2, 3.5
   
4. 1955, 3, 3.5
   
5. 1959, 22, 3.33
   
6. 1957, 6, 3.08
   
7. 1963, 5, 3.0
   
8. 1958, 5, 2.875
   
9. 1984, 12,2.79
   
10. 2016, 4, 2.13
    
    

Probably a bit too early to judge, I suppose...

The year's best science fiction, second annual collection, edited by Gardner Dozois.

The pursuit of excellence, by Rena Yount

This is a very good story about the probably not too distant future when human genetic engineering is commercially available to anyone wanting a child. Think of what you know about IVF treatment today and add to that the complication of some children being engineered and others not, depending on what their parents could afford. The story rings painfully true. 5 stars

Finished listening to Moon over Soho. Now I have to wait until I get my next credit on Audible.

Astounding science fiction, British edition, November 1959

Disturbing sun, by Philip Latham (Robert Shirley Richardson)

This is in the form of an interview between the author and a physicist specialising in studying the Sun. The point of the interview is that the physicist has discovered evidence that sunspot activity is the cause of various psychotic conditions. As ridiculous as this sounds, there are people who believe it, and maybe John W. Campbell was one. 1 star.

Finished The demolished man, which I thought was an excellent book. Strange really, because it occurred to me that it is a direct ancestor of cyberpunk sf, and I really dislike that. It's basically a police procedural set in an indeterminate future, complicated by the ubiquitous existence of psionic powers. It's one of those murder mysteries where you know who did it right at the beginning, and the interest is in whether or not the killer is brought to justice. The protagonist is an Esper policeman, the villain is a "normal" extremely wealthy businessman who murders a business rival. 4.5 stars

>104 dajashby: "businessman who murders a business rival" - yikes I don't like the sound of that! My business partner Charlie got himself bitten by a diseased dog last week and has returned to the UK to have a series of rabies injections (scarily unavailable her in Kuala Lumpur). I can assure the group that I had no prior arrangements made with said dog!

Have a great weekend.

>!05 You're probably safe, I doubt there are many policemen with telepathic powers in Malaysia

I've succeeded in taking a small chip out of the edge of my one scleral contact lens, so I'm currently reduced to reading with a pair of pretty inadequate glasses. The war that ended peace is quite out of the question. The print is far too small. I knew buying the large format iPad Pro was a good idea!

Swords and deviltry, by Fritz Leiber is a trio of novellas that cover the beginning of the careers of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, two heroes that Fritz Leiber uses to poke gentle fun at the sword and sorcery genre. Amusingly, it was probably these stories that inspired Terry Pratchett to start his Discworld series. First read these stories in the very early '70's

The snow women tells how Fafhrd left his ancestral Northern Waste home to travel to Lankhmar with Vlana the culture dancer. 4 stars

The unholy grail is the Grey Mouser's first adventure. He uses dark magic to take revenge on the lord who killed his sorcerer master, and carries off Ivrian, the lord's daughter. 4 stars

Ill met in Lankhmar is the duo's first adventure together in which they run afoul of the Lankhmar Thieves Guild, which doesn't approve of freelancers. It won both the Hugo and Nebula Best Novella awards for 1971. 4.5 stars

Added note: Leiber's first Fafhrd & Grey Mouser story was published as early as 1938, so these are actually prequel tales - The unholy grail is from 1962, the other two from 1970.

>108 dajashby: Now there is a classic!

>109 ronincats: Yup, my copy is heavily oxidised.

Definitely classics! I need to reread them at some point.

Talking of classics, I've started reading The island of Doctor Moreau, to celebrate the fact that 21 September is HG Wells' 150th birthday. Downloaded from Project Gutenberg.

That's a pretty freaky story, even now!

Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1969

This issue contains two Hugo nominated stories. I have read the novelette Deeper than the darkness, by Greg Benford, which was also nominated for a Nebula. There wasn't a Hugo Novelette category in 1970, but this was nominated in the Short Story category.

It's an interesting story which posits a future in which mankind has gone down the communitarian road and away from individualism. Humans have developed FTL space flight and have established interstellar colonies. Then they encounter a highly individualistic alien race. In the resulting war a human colony is attacked, and the population is affected by a peculiar psychotic condition, which the protagonist, one of the few surviving descendants of the American civilization, suggests is the result of an infection introduced by the aliens which attacks communitarianism. No, it isn't called neoliberalism. Rating this at 3.5 because it's thought provoking, not because it makes sense.

The year's best science fiction, second annual collection, edited by Gardner Dozois.

Black coral, by Lucius Shepard

I really disliked this story most of the way through, but it kind of redeemed itself at the end. There are two stories by the author in this anthology. Both are about violent, drug-addicted US Army veterans, and both deal with pretty unpleasant subjects. In this one at least the vet comes to some sort of harmless accomodation with his surroundings. 3.5 stars

Friend, by James Patrick Kelly & John Kessel.

I think this story is a satire about something, but I'm not sure what. The viewpoint character is some sort of flight attendant on a starship. He is responsible for keeping the passengers happy, which seems to involve a fair amount of sex, although it all appears to be hetero. There's some sort of issue about who gets to travel and who pays. I couldn't work it out, to be honest. 1 star.

Lightspeed Magazine, May 2016

North over empty space, by Tim Pratt

I really liked this story. It's about a pair of weirdly talented characters (one can see into the past, the other has superhuman strength) who are members of a secret society dedicated to finding something that sounds like the Holy Grail, but maybe not. They come across a woman with no past. 5 stars

Pratt has written quite a lot, and has a Hugo for best short story to his credit. I'll be looking for more.

The year's best science fiction, second annual collection, edited by Gardner Dozois.

Foreign skins, by Tanith Lee

This is a story set in 19th century British India that involves an encounter between a hide-bound English family and Indian mythological creatures. Well written, and one is really engaged with the characters, but I thought there was insufficient dramatic tension as one was pretty sure what the conclusion would be from fairly early on. 4 stars

Company in the wings, by R.A. Lafferty

One probably has to be in training for Lafferty, and this is the first thing of his I've read for a long time. Sort of an Irish comic take on quantum physics. 4.5 stars

A cabin on the coast, by Gene Wolfe

A retelling of the old fairy tale trope of being spirited away by fairies and returned a century later (or in this case 20 years). OK, but no more than that. 3 stars

That's it for this anthology. 24 stories, average story rating from me 2.9375. That isn't particularly impressive, given that for the 92 stories read so far this year I've got a rating of 3.1889, and this is supposed to be the best stories of 1984. There was one 5 rating story: Pursuit of excellence, by Rena Yount, and 3 4.5 rated stories: Bloodchild (Octavia Butler), Blued moon (Connie Willis) and the Lafferty. There are 2 Hugo winners Bloodchild and Press enter, by John Varley, and 3 other Hugo nominations in the anthology (so 5 out of 18 for the year). There are 2 Nebula nominated stories that weren't Hugo nominated here: Bad medicine and the Gene Wolfe.

I've now started reading the editor's twelfth annual collection (for stories published in 1994)

I've finally finished The war that ended peace. An excellent book, but both long and dense. 103 days to read at 7 pages a day! I'm still reading The fossil monarchies, which covers much of the same territory, but with a slightly different focus. Also still reading Bradman's war, which is about a somewhat different conflict.

The best Australian science fiction writing: a 50 year collection, edited by Rob Gerrand

There is a crooked man, by Jack Wodhams, is a really clever piece of writing made up of numerous short snippets of various subplots. It suggests a future in which common or garden crime has largely been abolished, but has been replaced by really clever crimes using new science and technology. The focus of the piece is the possibilities opened up by matter transmission and transplantation technology. Wodhams was a quite prolific Australian author whose stories mostly appeared in Analog in the sixties and seventies. This was his first published story. 4.5 stars

Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1951

The one who waits is a short science fiction horror story set on Mars. Suitably creepy. 5 stars

My brother's wife is a well crafted piece about a Chicago gangster who is worried about a woman his brother brought home from Burma. 4 stars

The friendly demon is a bit of a curio. 2 stars

The roommate leaves you wondering just how psychotic the viewpoint character actually is. 3.5 stars

Finished Citizen of the Galaxy, which I ended up being rather disappointed with. Mostly the ending, which was far too abrupt and left too much up in the air. 3 stars

Finished The fossil monarchies - 169 days to read 571 pages! Quite a good read, and interesting to compare and contrast the pre and post WWI period with current events. You think we are living through a violent terrorist-infested period! The copy I was reading is a Penguin that my wife brought into the marriage nearly forty years ago, and it's extremely oxidised. I'm now throwing it out.

Recently finished listening to Whispers underground, and am now into Broken homes. Greatly enjoying this series about a member of the Metropolitan Police magical crimes unit. The Bill meets Harry Potter. Really amusing.

Yep, They're pretty good!

I've now finished listening to Foxglove summer, and ##sob## have to wait until next year for the next Peter Grant volume. Like George Martin, Ben Aaronovitch should both write faster and stop all other extraneous activity (in his case, this includes a whole series of #@! graphic novels #@!). I have to report that my reading has been suffering from a mid-year slump, what with home renovations, income tax returns, elections and other interruptions. I've also recently signed up to Facebook for about the third time, which means I'm reading a fair bit more online...

Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1951

The railway carriage is a short story by F. Tennyson Jesse, who I gather from Mr Boucher's introduction wrote mystery stories that featured ESP. This isn't a mystery, exactly, but features Ms Jesse's usual heroine taking a train journey with a couple of rather creepy fellow passengers. It's a reprint of a reprint. 4 stars

A whole month between posts. I seem to have been busy, but is that an excuse? I've read Whoops! by John Lanchester, which clearly had another title in the U.S. Since reading that I've started How mumbo-jumbo conquered the world and Private Island, both of which explore the same issues. The roots of the GFC go right the way back to the beginning of the neoliberal experiment. Regrettably, it looks as though the lessons haven't been learned. I'm also reading Investing with impact, in which the author tries to make the case (I think) that capitalism really isn't the problem, it's the people that practice it. Well, duh!

Track changes, is a fascinating piece of work about how word processing has affected the creative writing process.

Started reading Ancillary justice, by Ann Leckie. I got really annoyed a month or so ago when I chanced on an episode of the ABC TV (that's the Australian Broadcasting Commission, guys) show "The book club" (used to be "The first Tuesday book club"). Jennifer Byrne has been hosting this for ten years. The ep. featured as a guest an Australian woman writer of science fiction / fantasy (sorry, didn't catch her name...), and Ms Byrne graciously allowed her to pick a science fiction title to review for about 10 seconds. The rest of the panel claimed that they hadn't been able to work it out at all, and who reads this science fiction stuff anyway, and couldn't finish it, yada yada yada. The poor woman doing the review sounded almost apologetic. The book in question was Ancillary justice, which won both Hugo and Nebula awards. Byrne is one of those snobs who are really into magical realism but can't get their heads around genre sf and fantasy. I'm enjoying it. Can't cope with magical realism at all...

I'm now up to 128 pieces of short fiction for the year.

Well, if Ancillary Justice is too hard for them to figure out, we don't want their opinion anyway, right? :)

>128 drneutron: Can't abide double standards. It took me a couple of chapters to work out the way Hillary Mantell always refers to Cromwell as "he" in Wolf Hall. Didn't alter the fact that it's a fantastic book.

Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1952

Love, by Richard Wilson. A blind girl falls in love with a Martian, and what might happen if she were to regain her sight. New twists on a number of classic elements. 3.5 stars

The causes, by Idris Seabright. The end of the world, as discussed in a bar. Amusing. 3.5 stars

The desrick on Yandro, by Manly Wade Wellman. A morality tale using Appalachian folklore. I've come across a bit of this lately. The ending was a bit lame. 3 stars

The moon maiden, by Hannibal Coons. An amusing tale about a Hollywood marketing man trying to use a moon mission being organised by an eccentric scientist as a publicity tool. 3.5 stars

The brothers, by Clifton Dance. The undead are "living" among us. This is creepily good. 4 stars

Finale, by R. Bretnor. The last trump is about to be blown. Short, but good, as is usual from Bretnor. 4 stars

The beach thing, by Ralph Robin. Retribution catches up with a philanderer in the form of a monster lurking around off stage. Didn't find it particularly convincing. 3 stars

Dragon on Somerset Street, by Elmer Roessner. Lightweight piece about finding a dragon in the street while on the way to work. 2 stars

Underground movement, by Kris Neville. Short story inspired by the Cold War and nuclear testing, with telepathic powers and aliens thrown in. Very 1950's story, in other words. Wasn't impressed with the overall effect. 2.5 stars

Finished reading The road to ruin, Niki Savva's book about the downfall of Tony Abbott. As Savvy reports this, it was largely through the agency of his chief of staff Peta Credlin. Savva's viewpoint is interesting, She's an unashamedly right wing journalist who has an obvious axe to grind with Credlin, but she has a lot of contacts in the Liberal and National Parties who are prepared to put their names to the stories they tell. As bizarre as some of what she reports reads, her reporting is credible.

Started reading Why the future is workless, by Tim Dunlop. Dunlop is an Australian economist, one of the un-neoliberal economists who are starting to stick their heads above the parapets since the GFC proved what a disaster the prevailing wisdom has delivered. His thesis is that increasingly technological change will destroy far more jobs than it creates, that this ought to be a good thing, but that in order for it not to be a disaster the human race needs to plan for it. It is going to happen far quicker than you think.

Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1952

Artists at work, by Harold Lynch Jr. Involves a tall story about a composer who produces music for orchestra and bees. Promises rather more than it delivers. 2.5 stars

The call of wings, by Agatha Christie. An allegorical tale about a man with a lot of money. Allegory isn't my favourite mode of story telling. 2.5 stars

The business, as usual, by Mack Reynolds. A jokey time travel story. There were a lot of them around in the '50's, it seems. 2.5 stars

Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1952

Lambikin, by Sam Merwin jr. One of those science fiction stories about a "special" person that's really about autism. Very common in sf back in the day. Not convinced about the ending. 3 stars

13 stories in the issue, which I have rated at an average 2.884615385

>132 dajashby: Interesting book by the look of it Derrick. I must own to little knowledge of Australian economics but the world is so small these days that what applies in your country applies much everywhere else.

Have a great weekend.

>135 PaulCranswick: Yes, the workless future is going to be pretty much universal. Among other things it's going to really disadvantage the countries that the West has been exporting manufacturing jobs to for the last few decades, because businesses are starting to wake up to the advantages of manufacturing locally using robots. This in turn will lead to a reduction in international trade, since it will be cheaper for Apple (for instance) to manufacture their phones using 3D printers in any market they sell in, rather than have them all made in China and shipped from there. One thing that is a real concern is that the demand for cheap labor, which has been responsible for lifting a lot of people in Asia out of poverty, will never make it to Africa. However, the major concern is that this stuff isn't on any politician's radar - it's too long term.

>136 dajashby: That sounds like an interesting book - I wonder if I can find it here.

>136 dajashby: I am spending increasing amounts of time in Africa, Derrick, and certainly the concern is that the natural resources there are being plundered without there being any lasting material gain for the people there. Our house building programme in Ghana and our other proposed projects there involve levels of pre-fabrication and our model is premised upon setting upon manufacturing centres in the country, training and equipping the local people with the skills and technologies such that the ownership of the same becomes African and not a form of commercial colonialism.

>138 PaulCranswick: What happened in first Japan, then Korea and now China is that global capital moved into those countries in pursuit of cheap labour, which has led to lifting those countries into the developed world. It's hard to see that sort of thing happening in any African country, particularly if manufacturing moves steadily towards a roboticized labour model. What I hope will help save Africa is the move away from scarcity and towards abundance (Abundance: the future is better than you think), which will hopefully make the transition to a developed economy status a lot cheaper. Incidentally, the latest shot fired in the future is workless war is the existence of ImpossibleFoods, a company that has created a burger entirely out of plant material so successfully that you apparently can't tell the difference. They say that their product uses 25% less water, 5% of the land and I'm betting a fraction of the labour.

Derrick

Finished Ancillary justice, which is really a terrific book. A first novel and winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards in 2014. Ann Leckie proves that you can write a good readable book about AI that isn't bloody cyberpunk. 5 stars. Looking forward to the sequels. Have moved onto (re)reading To your scattered bodies go, which won the Hugo for best novel in 1972. A few quibbles so far - I don't think that Sir Richard Burton would have referred to people as "bare-ass naked", and I don't think he would have thought of an "alien" as an alien. It would have more likely to have been a "strange creature"... I think the differences between the two books is a good indication as to the increased sophistication of sf these days.

Derrick

Finished 2 books in the last couple of days: Investing with impact and Why the future is workless. I've read a number of books in these spaces lately. Balkin is being an apologist for the global finance industry in the wake of the GFC, and Dunlop is speculating on the future of the job market in the face of rampant automation and technological change generally. I found Balkin to be almost completely unconvincing, and Dunlop the opposite.

Balkin is a youngish man who has been a banker and a philanthropist. He believes that finance can be a force for good. He reckons that Millennials are more ethical than we that have gone before, and that they will insist on ethical corporate behaviour. I reckon that they were saying the same thing in 1968. Impact investing is a technique for ensuring that any investments you make in public companies is ethical. Balkin didn't explain it in as much depth as I would have liked and he used the term "enlightened self interest" far too much for my liking.

Dunlop is an Australian economist whose thesis is that technological change will not deliver more jobs than it destroys, and that in order to avoid the sort of dystopian future that that would deliver we need to actively plan for a time when jobs are scarce. It's a rather more readable book than Nick Srnicek's Inventing the future, in which I'm also reading. Both authors discuss the idea of Universal Income, which is a mechanism for redistributing the wealth created by capitalism that doesn't involve having a job. There's a lot to recommend it.

Derrick

>141 dajashby: I would edge towards Dunlop's view of things too, I think, Derrick.

In the meantime though have a great weekend.

Finished Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1960 and Gently down the stream, by Alan Hunter yesterday. The George Gently story is book 3 in an omnibus ebook, the parts of which I am counting separately. So far completed 63 books in 2016. Started the year like a train, and then had a few fairly sparse reading months. If I concentrate on fairly short easy reads between now and Christmas, I might still get to 75...

Finished Deryni rising, by Katherine Kurtz and Track changes, by Matthew C. Kirschenbaum in the last couple of days. I first read Deryni rising over 40 years ago, and I didn't find it as good as I remembered. I picked it up from used bookshop at the South Melbourne market, having looked in vain for an ebook version. Track changes is a really interesting work about the history of word processing with specific emphasis on creative writing.

Finished Landed Gently, the last part of George Gently omnibus, which I'm counting as 4 books. A bit different in tone to the first 3 books in the volume, but I'm still having trouble reconciling the TV Gently to the Book Gently.

I will be interested to see how close you do get to the 75 Derrick. Good luck with it as you had ten to go in a month and a half.

>146 PaulCranswick: Well, I've so far finished 69 books this year, 10 of which I was reading on Jan 1 already. I'm currently reading 10, 4 of which are more than 50% finished, so I'm confident of at least 73. I had a bit of a slow patch in the middle of the year...

Yesterday finished reading Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition), May 1960, which among other writing, included Part 2 of the serial version of Deathworld, by Harry Harrison. Today I finally succeeded in finishing Wolf Hall, by Hillary Mantell, that I began reading in March. That isn't a criticism of the book, merely a statement of its length.

Finished reading Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition, June 1960, with the third part of Deathworld. In the last couple of days I've embarked on The voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin, a book I've owned for about 40 years but not read, and Niccolo Rising, by Dorothy Dunnett. The latter is a reread. I'm determined that this time I'll get through the entire House of Niccolo series. I've read her Lymond series of books several times, but somehow I've not got beyond about the 3rd book of the newer series on the number of previous times I've tried. It's excellent writing, but as with Hillary Mantell, there's a lot of it.

>146 PaulCranswick: On doing an audit I note that I failed to include a couple of books read in my list...

>150 dajashby: That's great Derrick so 75 is still on!
Have a lovely and bookish weekend.

>151 PaulCranswick: In the last couple of days I've finished The name of the wind and The best Australian science fiction writing, nos. 73 & 74. No 75 is Agincourt: Henry V and the battle that made England, of which I've so far read 202 of 445 pages. I'm fairly confident of getting through this in the next 7 days, even after eating Christmas lunch tomorrow... I started into Red Mars yesterday, and I may succeed in finishing that also.

Wouldn't it be nice if 2017 was a year of peace and goodwill.
A year where people set aside their religious and racial differences.
A year where intolerance is given short shrift.
A year where hatred is replaced by, at the very least, respect.
A year where those in need are not looked upon as a burden but as a blessing.
A year where the commonality of man and woman rises up against those who would seek to subvert and divide.
A year without bombs, or shootings, or beheadings, or rape, or abuse, or spite.

2017.

Festive Greetings and a few wishes from Malaysia!

I think I'd be satisfied if 2017 was a year when our politicians and other leaders told the truth, and in which people respected facts over opinion. Merry Christmas.

This is the Christmas tree at the end of the Pacific Beach Pier here in San Diego, a Christmas tradition.

To all my friends here at Library Thing, I want you to know how much I value you and how much I wish you a very happy holiday, whatever one you celebrate, and the very best of New Years!

I finished my 75th book today. Huzzay.

Congrats!

>156 dajashby: Well done, mate.

Looking forward to your continued company in 2017.
Happy New Year, Derrick.

Somewhat to my surprise, made it to 76. Just finished reading Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey. The book includes Weyr search, that won a Hugo for best novella in 1968. Got through it in 2 days, and found it as enjoyable as I remembered from back then.

Congratulations on hitting that 75 book mark just in time!