Pete's Log: I Read Some Stuff, Then Didn't For a While, And Have Now Started Again

Entry #2573, (Books, Writing, n such)
(posted when I was 46 years old.)

Haven't done a reading update in a while, in part because I hit a bit of a reading slump starting in July. Most of the books below I read before then.

  • Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O'Keefe

    I bought this book several years ago and then set it aside after starting it. I have no memory of disliking it at the time, so I think I just got distracted by life. Then Jamie picked up The Blighted Stars by Megan E. O'Keefe and I thought "hey, that author's name sounds familiar." So when Jamie ended up enjoying The Blighted Stars I started up Velocity Weapon again.

    It's a frustrating book because the first chapter is great and the first half is good. But then way too much just starts happening. And then by the time I was three quarters of the way through the realization dawned on me that there wasn't enough book left to wrap everything up. And then I realized this was book one of a series. Sigh.

    There should really be a law that if a book is a part of a series, it should say so in big letters on the cover. I've gone back and looked and neither the front nor back cover mention that it is part of a series. The spine does say "The Protectorate 1" but I did not notice that until I was three quarters through the book.

    But that frustration aside, even knowing that it is part of a series, I think there is just too much happening in the second half of the book. And that's a shame because the book started out with so much promise. I don't intend to read any further books of this series.

  • The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, narrated by Andy Serkis

    It's been five or six months since I finished the audiobook trilogy, so I don't have many notes. I do remember thinking at the time about the contrast between Tolkien's world-building and the world-building in Velocity Weapon. It feels like O'Keefe tried to fit every bit of world-building into her book, while Tolkien had so much he left out. And I think good world-building requires you to leave much of it left unwritten. I also had never read the appendices to Return of the King, but let Andy Serkis read them to me. Somewhat distracting was that he constantly kept changing the voice he used. But I enjoyed it.

  • Doom Guy by John Romero

    For a long time, John Romero to me was just one of the characters on True Meaning of Life, but I saw good reviews of this book, so I gave it a go.

    The book is a remarkable combination of hubris and humility, and with an endorsement from John Carmack on the cover, it feels like it must be a fair recollection of events. It veers between well-crafted story and extended bits of not-quite-word-vomit, but overall it was a quick read that I tore through and quite enjoyed. My main complaint is I would have liked more from the post-Quake era.

  • Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers

    This book was both delightful and way beyond my grasp. A detective story both written and set in 1930s England, the target audience is well-educated people of that time. Various passages in Latin are left untranslated and there is a definite expectation of having read various works that are referenced.

    But ignoring the fact that there were layers of this book that were most certainly lost on me, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was an interesting, if somewhat cliched mystery. It was an interesting view into that era as seen in its own time: the use of automobiles and the telephone, the discussions of current events in pre-war Nazi Germany. It was full of delightfully sassy dialog. And it was an interesting perspective into women's rights of the time.

    J.R.R. Tolkien apparently felt differently, writing to his son "I could not stand Gaudy Night." But I'm going to disagree with Tolkien and recommend it.

  • The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein

    This is the first book I've started since my July slump hit. It was recommended by Randall Munroe to Cory Doctorow and in turn by Cory Doctorow to me. I read it on my flights to and from Houston and enjoyed it. There are more in the series and I've already bought the second book. I don't know that I can say much more about it until I've read more.