Books Read in 2009
A lot of bloggers are making end-of-year lists of books they read in 2009. They’re not hard to find, but here are some particularly awesome ones (because they mention yours truly, natch):
The end-of-year roundup is something I’ve occasionally done on the Peephole, and since I’m not likely to get any real work done until my wife gets over the flu and the baby is sleeping at the moment, I am going to try and knock this out quick.
After the birth of little Cassie and the publication of The Painted Man, both in mid-2008, my pleasure reading time took a serious nose dive. I used to read something along the lines of a book a week until a couple of years ago. Lately, not so much. I am resolving to do better in 2010. It’s important to my mental health and creative energy, in addition to being something I love.
Books Read in 2009 (no particular order other than the top of my head):
The Gathering Storm, by Brandon Sanderson/Robert Jordan: Despite a friendly rivalry with Brandon (we’re at the same literary agency), I really WANTED this book to be good, and was kind of doubting it would be. Brandon is a fine writer, but Robert Jordan’s work, particularly the early WoT books, touch my life profoundly, as did the man himself the one time I met him. I was very pleasantly surprised to find the book to be so good. If I hadn’t know if wasn’t Jordan, I never would have guessed.
Legend, by David Gemmell: Read this kind of sheepishly after I was nominated for the DG Legend award. Amazing book by a great author. The writing of the book has as great a story behind it as the one in book itself.
Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card: Awesome, compelling book. People have been recommending it to me for years. Why did I wait so long?
The Way of Shadows & Shadow’s Edge, by Brent Weeks: Compelling characters and kickass ninja action written by a damned nice guy. Got to spend some time with Brent and his lovely wife at WFC this year. Fine folk.
Wings of Wrath, by CS Friedman: What? You don’t read CS Friedman? Shame on you. Start with the Coldfire trilogy, then move on to this series. You’ll learn something. Her Science Fiction is solid, too.
The Steel Remains, by Richard K. Morgan: Still annoyed at Morgan for his net-troll snipes at Tolkien (and by association, Tolkien’s fans) earlier this year, but he did manage to deliver a pretty solid fantasy that’s well above the norm. I think sometimes he went over the line into gratuity with the sex and violence, but that’s not necessarily such a bad thing.
The Red Wolf Conspiracy, by Robert Redick: Got a free copy from the man himself at NY ComicCon, and then we went out and got drunk at the Del Rey party and debated whether e-books were the second coming or the apocalypse. Or both. Good stuff.
Latent, by Myke Cole: Written by my one of my bestest buddies, this book is currently at market. It is great Military Fantasy – the X-Men meets Black Hawk Down. Myke has been one of my inner-circle test readers for many years, and vice-versa. There is a lot of him in The Warded Man, and a lot of me in Latent. Keep your eyes peeled for it.
The Desert Spear, by Peter V. Brett: Great fucking book. I must have read it a dozen times this year. Can’t wait till it goes on sale.
Books I Started but Didn’t Finish:
These books are not necessarily down for the count, but for one reason or another they didn’t grab me and are sitting on the to-read pile waiting for another shot.
Death Troopers, by Joe Schreiber: This zombie horror novel set in the Star Wars universe came highly recommended, but it just wasn’t working for me, and after about 100 pages, I put it down in favor of something else in the pile.
A Princess of Landover, by Terry Brooks: I was eagerly anticipating this book after many years away from Landover, but when the time came think I just wasn’t in the mood. I’m saving it as a treat for my next beach vacation.
Read Seas Under Red Skies, by Scott Lynch: I’m 116 pages into this, and while the dialogue and storytelling is clever as ever, I am not swept up in it and decided to put it aside for a while. I will note for the record that I did the same with Lynch’s first book, The Lies of Locke Lamora, and that turned out to be one of the best fantasies I ever read. I will get back to RSURS before I start book 3, Republic of Thieves, but in the meantime I have switched to…
Spellwright, by Blake Charlton: Just started this ARC that Blake gave me at WFC a couple of months ago. I’m up to chapter 6, and so far so good!
Comic TPB collections read in 2009:
Batman: Cat and the Bat, by Fabian Nicieza and Kevin Maguire: Cute, fun book about Batgirl chasing Catwoman all over Gotham. By the book’s end, both of their costumes are sexily shredded, but neither has a scratch on them. Sexy, but WTF?
Path of the Assassin, by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima: Another fantastic series by this team has come to an end, and since Kojima passed away recently, that is it. Amazing while it lasted, and I’m glad this series had more closure than Samurai Executioner, which ended kind of abruptly.
Fables/Jack of Fables, by Bill Willingham, et al: Always fabulous.
Criminal, by Brubaker/Phillips: Read all three trades while on jury duty, along with the Sleeper prequel. I will read anything these guys do. The are awesome. Picked up Incognito, but haven’t read it yet.
Conan the Barbarian reprints, by Roy Thomas/John Buschema, et al.: So damn good… until Roy Thomas left the series. Then… meh.
The Sword, by the Luna Brothers: Always love the Lunas.
The Goon, by Eric Powell: I keep thinking I will tire of this book, but I never do. It always makes me chuckle to myself as I read.
Invincible/The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman, et al.: These books could not be more different from one another, but they stem from the same creative genius. I love them both in very different ways.
100 Bullets, by Azzarello/Risso: This book would be incredible even if Eduardo Risso weren’t one of the best artists on the planet… and he is.
Ultimate Spider-man, by Bendis/Bagley: I gave up on most of the other books in Marvel’s Ultimate line once they started sucking and/or getting caught up in the massive crossover bullshit that drove me away from most mainstream Marvel books in the first place, but I will read USM for as long as Bendis is writing.
I’ve also read dozens of floppies. I like Kick Ass and the new Power Girl comic with art by the amazing Amanda Conner. I was also happy that Warren Ellis tied up the loose ends in Planetary, though I was less thrilled with the new Grant Morrison Batman and Robin (but the Frank Quitely art was fantastic). I liked the Astro City 2-part Astra series, which was great after the less than stellar Dark Ages run. I was also reading The Boys, Red Sonja, Powers, and a bunch of others I am forgetting at the moment.
Here is a snapshot of my to-read shelves. Click to embiggen.
Is it sad that my pile of to-read books is bigger than yours? I do want to know what Child Thief is like though, haven’t bought that one yet as much as I would like to my brain keeps saying “NO! Too much money!” Stupid evil brain….
Great post, sums up lots of stuff and I’ve read some of your recommendations and need to pick up some others.
Love the shot of the to-be-read shelf. Inspiring as I’m finishing up some new book shelves now, will add one of those.
Love the Boomerang you’ve got there 😉
lol
I would leave off finishing Red Seas under Red Skies until you have a copy of Republic of Thieves in your possesion as you may want to carry straight on. I thought it was a great read and in some parts I enjoyed it even more than the first book, which I thought was fantastic. Lots of good books due out this year, can’t wait 🙂
I see you have Warbreaker on your shelf, which was one of my favorite fantasy reads this year, so I highly recommend you move that one to the top of your pile. I’ve actually been wanting to read Spellwright since it’s the third recently published book, that I know of, which uses a color based magic system, the others being Warbreaker and Fforde’s Shades of Grey. I think it would be interesting to see how they compare.
Brandon Sanderson and Jay Lake are fantastic! The Mistborn series is superb and I really loved Jay’s book Green…have you read it yet? Escapement is really good as well but of his books I’ve read, Green is definitely my favorite.
Thanks for the post! I added a few books to my to-read list at Goodreads. 😀
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