What I Read in 2012

1. Terry Pratchett Guards! Guards!
2. Terry Pratchett Men at Arms
3. Terry Pratchett Feet of Clay
4. Terry Pratchett Jingo
5. Terry Pratchett The Fifth Elephant
6. Terry Pratchett Night Watch
7. Terry Pratchett Thud!
8. Terry Pratchett Snuff
9. E.C. Myers Fair Coin
10. Naomi Novik Will Supervillains Be on the Final?
11. Faith Hunter Raven Cursed
12. Kim Harrison A Perfect Blood
13. Diana Rowland Sins of the Demon
14. Naomi Novik Crucible of Gold
15. The entire Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson series (reread)
16. Seanan McGuire Discount Armageddon
17. Robin Hobb Assassin's Apprentice
18. Robin Hobb Royal Assassin
19. Robin Hobb Assassin's Quest
20. The entire Carrie Vaughn Kitty Norville series (reread)
21. Robin Hobb Fool's Errand
22. Robin Hobb Golden Fool
23. Robin Hobb Fool's Fate
24. Holly Black Black Heart
25. The Hunger Games series (reread)
26. Kristin Cashore Bitterblue
27. Patricia Briggs Bloodbound
28. The entire Patricia Briggs Alpha and Omega series (reread)
29. Faith Hunter Mercy Blade
30. C.E. Murphy Urban Shaman
31. C.E. Murphy Thunderbird Falls
32. C.E. Murphy Walking Dead
33. C.E. Murphy Coyote Dreams
34. C.E. Murphy Winter Moon
35. C.E. Murphy Demon Hunts
36. C.E. Murphy Spirit Dances
37. C.E. Murphy Raven Calls
38. C.E. Murphy Heart of Stone
39. Ilona Andrews Gunmetal Magic
40. Ilona Andrews Magic Dreams
41. Carrie Vaughn Kitty Steals the Show
42. Saima Wahab In My Father's Country
43. Faith Hunter Cat Tales
44. Kalayna Price Grave Witch
45. Kalayna Price Grave Dance
46. Kalayna Price Grave Memory

And this is where I stopped updating, sometime in ... August? In August, I think. The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was worse this year than the previous two years and didn't let up when the summer was over. Also, I had to work through it so I was even more exhausted. So I did a LOT of rereads (which are comforting and unchallenging) especially of urban fantasy series (which are comforting and unchallenging) so it didn't really seem worth mentioning. But here, in no particular order and with no guarantee of completeness, are some of the new reads I completed since then:

1. Seanan McGuire Ashes of Honor
2. E. Lockhart The Boyfriend List series (four books)
3. Diana Wynne Jones The Chronicles of Chrestomanci (five books)
4. Mira Grant The Newsflesh Trilogy (three books, obviously)
5. Seanan McGuire Velveteen vs. the Junior Super-Patriots
6. Rachel Vincent Stray
7. Stacia Kane Unholy Ghosts
8. Lilith Saintcrow Night Shift

I know among my rereads was Harry Potter, Temeraire, all the Kristen Cashores, and the Ellen Kushners ... sigh, oh well, I'm not gonna remember. And it doesn't matter.

I seem to have torn through all the good woman-centered urban fantasy series and am now scraping the bottom of the barrel: series involving wish fulfillment about men controlling women in (apparently to others) sexy ways. Yuk. Stray was like that. And ... there was another one, whose title I've forgotten. No other female characters, but lots of vampires and werewolves telling our heroine what to do and she not objecting very much. Ugh. Oh well.

It's occurred to me this past week that something productive should come of reading (and rereading) so much urban fantasy: I should be able to write some. I've decided to see if I can come up with a good series -- but not in the usual organic way I write fiction. Rather, I'm going to try to outline a series, book by book, in detail; structure it from the ground up. And only write it if I can figure out the whole story beforehand. I don't know if I have the energy for this, but I'm going to try. Fun!

Comments

[Liz]

If you write it, I will surely read it!

[Liz]

Oh, also - You might like Sherwood Smith's "A Posse of Princesses".

[claire]

I did, indeed, like that book! Very fun, and I went and read a bunch of other Sherwood Smith afterwards. Any other recommends?

[Liz]

I'll look in what I've been reading! I just read Graceling last night based on your rec, and really enjoyed it!

[Liz]

And this is kind of off your track but I wonder what you would think of Silent Dances: http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Dances-StarBridge-2-ebook/dp/B009MSQYDI/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1