Pretty good November for entertainment, all things considering. I guess my brain was good for something after all! If you’re interested in talking about any of the following, just comment and I’ll be happy to engage!
Books
40) Menial: Skilled Labor in Science Fiction edited by Kelly Jennings and Shay Darrach
41) Ticker by Lisa Mantchev
42) The Martian by Andy Weir
43) Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick
Short Fiction
43) Mrs. Yaga by Michal Wojcik
44) The Mussel Eater by Octavia Cade
Comics
Graphic Novel:
Chew: The Omnivore Edition: Volume 4 by John Layman
Individual Issues:
Batgirl #36
Copperhead #3
Fairest #29
Lazarus #12
Saga Chapter 23
Saga Chapter 24
Supreme Blue Rose #3
The Massive #28
The Walking Dead #134
Movies
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Dumb & Dumber
Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever
Interstellar (theater)
John Wick (theater)
Only Lovers Left Alive
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
The Awakening
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Extended Edition)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Extended Edition)
The One I Love
To Be Takei
That’s it from me! Also, feel free to share whatever 2014 stats you’ve got! How many books? How many movies? What were your favorites? Lay them on me!
Cheers!
Calico Writes 
I had not actually heard of any of the books you read this month, though I did see that Andy Weir’s book won the science fiction category of the Goodreads award today.
I had a good month too.
New books read:
1. Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn. 4 stars. Read for my local book club. I liked this better than Gone Girl, actually. It also involves screwed up family relations, but the screwed up relations here are mother-daughter ones with accompanying long-term emotional and psychological damage.
2. The Brain and Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman. 4 stars. An interesting and thought-provoking book.
3. Season for Desire, by Theresa Romain. 4 stars. An enjoyable romance, though the details are not sticking with me.
4. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie. 4.5 stars. It’s a wonderful, complicated book. I feel like I did not get an awful lot and need to sit down with a study guide and go through it again.
5. Cold Magic, by Kate Elliott. Mount TBR.
6. Cold Fire, by Kate Elliott
7. Cold Steel, by Kate Elliott. 3.5 stars for the whole trilogy. I’ve been meaning to read something by Kate Elliott for a while and had never gotten around to it, so I bought Cold Magic on sale last year and put it on my TBR pile. It’s perfectly reasonable epic fantasy and has a lovely female friendship at the center of the story, but for whatever reason, these books did not really do it for me. Maybe I’m just jaded on epic fantasy.
8. Pyramids, by Terry Pratchett. 3 stars. For Mark Reads.
9. Crimson Forest, by Christine Gabriel. 1 star. For my local book club. The author is another one that is local to me, which is how this book got picked for my book club. It reads like a poorly written, self-published book, though it does have an official publisher, Pandamoonbooks. I was so convinced this book was self-published that I looked up Pandamoonbooks on Absolute Write. The word there is that the publisher is so new that it is hard to tell if it is a vanity press or not, but there was concern over the fact that the publishers had marketing experience, but no editorial experience. Various snippets of contract language were posted, some concerning, some reassuring. However, my experience with this particular book makes me dubious that it is a legitimate press. I give you the first sentence of the book.
” ‘Beautiful,’ I cooed as I ran my hands through the soft crimson-colored mass that crept across the ground and
up the old oak tree I leaned against.”
It may be the worst book that I’ve ever actually managed to read all the way through. It was short, so it did have that going for it.
Re-reads:
None.
I’ve read 68 new books so far this year, and have re-read 22. With the completion of Cold Magic, I have officially read all the books I bought in 2013. I have nine books remaining that I bought in 2014, plus Ancillary Sword, which I am currently reading. I’ve only read 15 books from my TBR pile, so I am not going to reach my goal of 24. I plan to spend December trying to get my 2014 pile as small as possible so that I can start reading for Hugo nominations in January. 🙂
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I’ve got FLynn’s DARK PLACES in my TBR, but not SHARP OBJECTS. I’m waiting on a Kindle sale! 🙂
Like you, I’ve been wanting to read Kate Elliot for a while, and I hear good things about that trilogy you just read (and the covers….*thud*), but when I sampled the first book, I was rather underwhelmed. I may try a different series of hers.
Go you for finishing all the books you bought in 2013! I’ve got….41 TBR and for 2014, 96 and counting! I’m so bad this year….
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Oh, and regarding the books I read, THE MARTIAN is entertaining, and I appreciate what it does, but I think LOCK IN and ANNIHILATION were better titles, in regards to the Goodreads poll. 🙂 Also, MIDWINTERBLOOD was pretty darn amazing, and I highly recommend. TICKER was quite fun too.
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