December books

Neal Stephenson, The System of the World
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Dudley Pope, Governor Ramage, R.N.
Fifth in the Ramage series, which is a poor substitute for O'Brian but not entirely unentertaining. Skulduggery in a Carribean convoy, combined with a hurricane, leaves our hero stranded on a desert island with a crew, a beautiful French girl, and a very large pirate treasure.

Martha Wells, The Ships of Air
Sequel to The Wizard Hunters, this is set mostly on a large ocean liner carrying a motley crew of refugees across a world where most of them don't belong. (The ones who belong to the world are not at all sure about the ship.) The protagonist, Tremaine, is rather hard to get attached to; she's obviously badly emotionally damaged, but very good at hiding and supressing her feelings; she's also very smart and competent, which helps to carry the story along. The ship makes a great setting.

Elizabeth Bear, Worldwired
Satisfying conclusion to the trilogy that started with Hammered
( spoilers )

Audrey Niffeneger,The Time Traveller's Wife
This is one of those things that's marketed as mainstream fiction, complete with heavy paper and a reading-group guide in the back. It didn't feel like SF to me, in the end. ( Read more... )

Anne Perry, Half Moon Street
This is labelled as a mystery (subtype: late Victorian London police procedural); but it's really a dissertation on Victorian censorship, repression, and freedom of speech, thinly wrapped in a chocolate coating of murder story. It was interesting, even thought-provoking, but it wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I picked it up.

Alma Alexander, The Hidden Queen, Changer of Days
Competent fantasy debut by the author of The Secrets of Jin-Shei; the first volume felt a little weak and unoriginal in places, but the second fixes most of the problems I had with the first.

2005 in review

More than anything, for me, it's been the year of photography; since I bought my little digital camera at the end of January, I've taken more than 3800 shots, mostly of vegetation, and enjoyed it thoroughly. I've learned to identify hibiscus (thanks to gwyneira) and lantana (thanks to pollyc), and rambling milkweed and several cacti (from a book).

I've read 84 books (two more finished since I posted the yearly list), discovered a few new authors, given up on one old one, and beaten the backlog of unread books down into the low forties before deciding not to worry about it any more, but not done nearly as much rereading as I aimed to do this year. I've also seen three movies and one play in theatres, which is a personal record.

I finished a short story sometime in the early summer, but haven't done any real writing other than that. I haven't done a whole lot of knitting or crochet either; it seems I can only keep one hobby going full-tilt at any given time, and this year it's been photography.

I've been to Stanford, Washington, Boulder (twice), and New Orleans (pre-Katrina), and spent six happy weeks in my home town. That isn't a record for time away from Tucson in a year, by a long chalk, but it isn't exactly sedentary.

My first boss died, and two of my cousins became fathers.