It’s December, so time to show off some of the novels I’ve read this year! For the second time.
My plan this year was simple: read 24 books (double what I read last year), and only pull books I already own but haven’t read yet. One, to actually get to some of the books I’ve been gifted over the past couple decades, and two, because money.
You can read how the first six months went here.
Overall, for the back half of the year, I didn’t remotely reach my goal. Neither in number nor in sticking to only books I already owned. But as they say, it is in how we strive that our soul is revealed or something don’t listen to me I failed.
Alright, here we go:
QUEEN OF THE DAMNED – Anne Rice
I’ve been a fan of the 1994 INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE movie since I attended the original midnight showing. Now if you’re a math person or know me at all, yes, that does mean I was at the midnight showing of the violent sexy vampire movie at the tender age of nine-years-old. There were a lot of goth women there, it was an extremely formative experience.
The new show kicked ass, I read THE VAMPIRE LESTAT last year and loved it, and it was time at last to check out QUEEN OF THE DAMNED. I’m a fan of the Stuart Townsend flick, even while recognizing it’s pretty weak as a movie, just because there are enough moments in the running time that work (even if it never comes together). The soundtrack bangs as well and is still in my regular rotation.
What’s it About: QUEEN OF THE DAMNED breaks from the first two books’ tight one-person perspectives (Louis and Lestat, respectively) and instead follows characters new and old from all around the vampire globe. It’s a much bigger, more epic story of the rise of the vampire queen Akasha and how elders and fledglings alike fight to survive her new reign.
Recommendation: I enjoyed it, mostly for how many interesting new vampire characters Anne Rice stirs into the pot. Standouts include Pandora, Khayman, Maharet, and Mekare. Special ups to Baby Jenks for having one of the best chapters in the novel.
The climax is a little weak, and Lestat being absent for half the story makes his return as lead character hard to parse narratively, but overall it’s a good time. It’s a bit sad that Louis’ role has been reduced to “quiet Lestat supporter” and “guy who asks clarifying questions in the vampire council,” but it’s a busy book and I get it may have been hard to find a spot for him.
PROVIDENCE – Max Barry
This one I picked up at the library having never heard of it, pure vibes, full hearts, can’t lose, etc.
What’s it About: PROVIDENCE imagines a future where AI does all the thinking and humanity’s only remaining contribution is being influencers on social media feeding propaganda to the masses to bolster the hyper capitalist military/industrial complex, WOULDN’T THAT BE WEIRD. It’s also a sci-fi story about a mysterious race of super hostile, inscrutable aliens whom humanity is battling in city-sized automated battleships that are launched into deep space with a crew of only four people aboard.
Recommendation: I devoured this book in like a day and a half, which is saying alot because I’m a pretty slow reader. Not that I can’t read text fast, more that my cataclysmic ADHD (and being an actively involved dad) makes it hard to read more than fifteen minutes at a time with any regularity.
This is a harrowing, lightning-paced story that follows four excellently drawn, interesting characters. It’s got a lot to say about both the future and the present, as all good sci-fi does, and it also manages to be a rollicking adventure on top of it. It doesn’t get too bogged down in technobabble, and yet still feels well thought-out and believable.
If you enjoy sci-fi even a little, grab it. Full recommendation to any human.
THE WAY OF KINGS – Brandon Sanderson
If you’re wondering why I fell so short on my goal (14 books out of 24), this book—and Brandon Sanderson—are to blame. It can’t be my fault, that doesn’t make any sense. THE WAY OF KINGS should count as five-to-seven books.
This thing is a brick. It’s so big that it physically cannot exist as a trade paperback: my brand new copy started falling apart halfway through my read. Until they start making paperback spines out of some kind of vibranium weave, I don’t think there’s any help for it.
What’s it About: Brandon Sanderson loves worldbuilding and he’s making it your problem.
Recommendation: I enjoyed it, despite all my snark, though it definitely took a few hundred pages to get going. Which, and I say this as an author myself, is totally understandable. When you’ve got a machine this big, it takes some time to pick up speed.
Ultimately the table-setting is worth it, and the world is vibrant and unique once you start catching onto the lingo. Kaladin was definitely the character that hooked me the hardest, and I’ll read the next book in the series…in a bit.
SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE MISKATONIC MONSTROSITIES – James Lovegrove
I received the first book in the series, SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SHADWELL SHADOWS as a gift and devoured it pretty quickly. As an avowed Sherlock Holmes AND eldritch horror fan, a mashup was an easy sell for me as a reader.
What’s it About: SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE MISKATONIC MONSTROSITIES takes up a few years after the first book, with Holmes and Watson well into their careers of mystery-solving and Cthulhu-cracking. The duo are called to investigate a strange man in an asylum, and his testimony leads them on a hunt for a mysterious scientist performing unusual and unnatural experiments.
Recommendation: It’s a blast, just like the first one. I could see some people being turned off by a late-book flashback featuring completely different characters that lasts about a quarter of the book, but to be fair the original Holmes stories did this once or twice as I recall. And the diversion serves as an excellent standalone story in its own right, so hard to think of it as a chore really.
If “Arthur Conan Doyle + H.P. Lovecraft” sounds toothsome to you, give it a shot.
THE TROOP – Nick Cutter
I went into THE TROOP completely cold, having never heard of the book or the author. Gina (mywife) and I do a quarterly fancy-dinner-and-book-store date, and this one caught my eye as I perused my local B&N.
What’s it About: A troop of boyscouts on a weekend camping trip on a lonely Canadian island encounter a man suffering from a horrible, unnatural hunger that can’t be sated. It gets so much worse from there.
Recommendation: This is a rough one, honestly. Unless you’re a seasoned horror fan who can stand A LOT of body horror, I’d be careful with this story. Don’t get me wrong, I found it insanely compelling and a highly effective story, and going forward I’d check out another Nick Cutter book without even reading the back. But, even a dyed-in-the-wool Stephen King fan like myself got a little grossed and creeped out at some of the scenes.
Basically, “is it Metal?” Yes, it is Metal, good luck.
LIVE AND LET DIE (James Bond #2) – Ian Fleming
I’ve been a Bond fan my entire life, courtesy of my father, but I hadn’t checked out the books until I tried CASINO ROYALE a year or two ago. Imagine my surprise to find a cool little mystery story, sort of noir-adjacent, with some nice thoughtful inner monologue.
What’s it About: LIVE AND LET DIE follows stalwart agent James Bond through the New York underworld, Voodou, Florida retirement communities, and finally down to Jamaica for an explosive climax about tropical fish.
If you’re only a watcher of the movies, you’d be surprised to learn that the books are basically travelogues where the charming host occasionally kills a guy. I honestly believe Ian Fleming wrote these to show off how many countries he’d visited. Also, get ready to see how much a secret agent can gobble down for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Recommendation: Check out LIVE AND LET DIE if you’re a lover of spy adventures, meticulous meal descriptions, and Caribbean sea life facts. The language is, shall we say, dated in some spots, and be prepared for a story about black culture written by a white British man in the 1950’s.
THE RUNNING MAN – Stephen King
I’ve read this one before, but since I was guesting on the Nothing New podcast specifically to share my THE RUNNING MAN knowledge as it applies to both Running Man movies, I felt a quick revisit was in order.
What’s it About: In the year 2025, an authoritarian government has caused an economic collapse, food shortages, pollution, a pandemic, and little to no access to healthcare. Zoning out in front of stupid garbage content that has poor people dancing like monkeys for scraps of cash has become the only real form of entertainment. The world is ruled by cruel, TV-obsessed corporate assholes and you can tell how rich someone is by their fake tan, white teeth, and how much plastic surgery they’ve had. The job market is completely destroyed and widespread unemployment is the norm, alongside rapid hyper-inflation and towering wealth inequality.
WOULDN’T THAT BE WEIRD.
Recommendation: It’s a fantastic but highly depressing novel, so if you like your dystopic sci-fi on the dark side I can’t recommend this highly enough. It’s nothing like the Arnold movie, but it’s quite a bit like the new movie (with some serious deviations).
THE NEAR WITCH – V.E. Schwab
V.E. Schwab has rocketed to to the top of my list of current authors, landing in the “will read their next book without even noticing the title or cover” circle. Plus my wife recommended THE NEAR WITCH, so, no-brainer really.
What’s it About: The town of Near grows upon the moors, insular, quiet, and peaceful. OR IS IT. Lexi, a small town girl, is sucked into a mystical mystery when the children of the village begin to disappear in the dead of night…
Recommendation: I enjoyed this one, even if I’d say it’s not my favorite Schwab novel. It’s on the ragged edge of cozy fantasy, and I’d definitely recommend it for people into that genre. Or witches. Or moors.
In the foreward, Schwab mentions this was her first novel, which, yeah, it feels like it. And I don’t mean that as a knock, really, just that as an author myself my first novel felt like this one. I told my wife “we all write this novel first,” and it’s hard to explain what I mean by that without going into a full dissertation.
Basically, fantasy authors all write this book first, or at least, they think about it. It’s the small town farm boy/girl thrust into a magical word of adventure, too much table-setting and engine-warming, “meet the whole town,” where the actual plot doesn’t start until about halfway through the story. Knowing when to start a story is a writer skill you can only learn with time and experience.
However, my “this novel” went unpublished because it was terrible, while THE NEAR WITCH is good. And V.E. Schwab is absolutely killing it in general, so don’t take this as real criticism. If anything it makes me feel better knowing that all of us writers go to the same school in the end.
See you next year with MOAR BOOKS.
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