Thursday Review: Book Report 2013

Just 2 of 200 books I read this year!

When I started the year I set my Goodreads book goal at 50 books.  It soon became clear I'd get through that pretty quick, so I upped it to 100 and then 150 and then finally 200.  Last week I reached #200!  I should probably set it higher, but I don't feel like it.

My sister would be quick to point out that a lot of these books are shorter.  Some like Rusty's "My Killbot Buddy" are probably 20 pages or so.  And there are quite a few graphic novels too.  But hey, if it's on there as a book, then it's a book.  So there.  Of course some books weren't on there and I had to add them--looking at Briane Pagel and Tony Laplume--so I could get credit for them.

My sister would also whine that reading my own books is "cheating."  I don't ever understand that.  If I'm reading the book why should it matter if I wrote it or not?  Believe it or not, I don't have my books memorized, especially those I wrote like 15 years ago.  I'd also point out it actually takes longer to read one of my own books because I have to stop to add notes when I find a typo or something like that.  Some of my own books I read more than once to edit them, which would mean technically I've read more than 200 at this point.  It occurred to me that she probably thinks my books aren't real books, not like all those trashy romances she reads; those are real books.

Besides the graphic novels and my own books, most of what I read this year came from Amazon sales.  I hardly ever paid more than $3.99 for a book.  I think the only ones I did were because I had a gift card.  Most of the James Bond ones I rented for free off Amazon.  What annoys me is that Amazon lets me rent as many movies as I want with my Prime membership but I get one measly book a month.  The Bond books are all less than 300 pages so they only take a couple of days, which means I spend about 3 weeks of the month not able to rent anything when I'd like to.  I wish Amazon would lighten up on this policy and let me borrow a few more a month if I so choose, but then I suppose they'd have to add more to their KDP pot.

Given the nature of Amazon's sales you'll note that I read a lot of Arthur C. Clarke and Kurt Vonnegut.  I guess the royalties on those were pretty cheap so that they were frequently on sale.  Which was fine with me.  I'd wanted to read more Vonnegut and I had been interested in some Clarke.  IMHO, Clarke is OK but not great.  If you read enough of them they start to get a same-y feel to them.  In his short stories especially he seemed fascinated with apocalyptic scenarios where the Earth (or another planet) is either dying or already dead.  His Tales of the White Hart is one of the best ones because many of the stories are pretty funny, as are some of the moments between stories when pub patrons are giving each other the business over their stories; imagine "Cheers" only if they were all scientists and/or inventors.

To tally it up then the authors I read the most this year were:

• P.T. Dilloway (14, plus more under aliases) (narcissist) 
• Arthur C. Clarke (7)
• Ian Fleming (7)
• Kurt Vonnegut (5)
• William Shatner (5)

And the leader for graphic novels was Laplume's favorite Grant Morrison with 8.

I'll probably read 2 more Flemings and I have a couple more Vonneguts on my Kindle to maybe read between now and December 31.
Definitely a lot of old timey stuff in there.

The average score was 4.06 stars, it's 3.92 stars without all my books that I give 5 stars since who else will?  There were only 3 I gave 1 star:

• Ultimate Comics Captain America    Aaron, Jason
• The Price of Fear (Darkman, #2)    Boyll, Randall
• Accidents Waiting to Happen    Wood, Simon

So any whiny author who wants to complain what a jerk I am for not loving their book, there you go.  One book has 0 stars but I think I forgot to rate it when I marked it finished, so it doesn't count.  I'll explain why I didn't like the Captain America one in this month's Comics Recap.  The Darkman was just awful.  It seriously seemed the author had never watched the movie.  Or maybe watched it once.  He didn't seem to really understand the characters at all.  The depiction of Robert G. Durant wearing flashy pimp suits was all wrong and there's no way Darkman would dress up like the mortal enemy who ruined his life just for a little stroll around town.  C'mon man!  I think even in 1994 when I was 16 I could have wrote a better Darkman book.  The other one was just really dumb.  It was the kind of book where everyone in it was so stupid you wished they would all die.  The hitman especially was ridiculous.  Like I said in my Goodreads review, the point of a hitman is to kill someone quickly and quietly.  You don't do that by menacing your target for weeks like Robert Mitchum in "Cape Fear."  Idiot.

As for the best, I'll pick three you probably haven't heard of and are not by me or people I know to avoid hurt feelings.

Transmigration    McIntosh, J.T.
Being a huge narcissist, I think I liked this because I saw a lot of myself in the story.  By that I mean the author approached this subject pretty much as I would have.  It's about a guy who finds as he's dying that he can leap into the mind of someone nearby.  The cool thing to me is McIntosh doesn't shy away from gender issues as the first person the guy leaps into is a mentally-challenged girl.  Later he leaps into a young guy, a middle-aged guy, an old guy, a girl who was a student of his, and a little boy.  So really, like me he didn't do it the boring way of just having him leap into guys about his own age.  Since this was written in the 60s it was probably risque to think of a guy sharing a mind with a girl.  I suppose I couldn't help liking an author who also used fake initials and probably hardly anyone had heard of.


Emperor Mollusk versus the Sinister Brain    Martinez, A. Lee
What I liked about this book is that Martinez sets it in an old-timey Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon-type universe where there are aliens pretty much on every planet of our system.  Emperor Mollusk is from Neptune but rules the Earth.  Not in the way a despot might rule it either.  That's the other thing I liked is that Mollusk is clever and while also narcissistic, he doesn't let that become a liability for him the way comic book villains and the like do.  He's a smart villain who in the context of the story is the hero.  Basically if you combine "Megamind" with "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" this is what you'd get.


Big Maria    Shaw, Johnny
This is one of those I picked up on a sale on Amazon and wasn't sure if it'd be good or not.  It was a lot better than I expected.  Basically three losers in a desert town that made me think of "My Name is Earl" set out to find buried treasure on a weapons test range.  Needless to say that creates problems.  What I liked is that it's funny but at the same time the characters aren't all cutous.  By the end of the book they really have formed a bond despite their differences in age and race.  It's not necessarily a touchy-feely Hallmark or Lifetime movie but you are rooting for the characters.

Now then here's the complete list, which Blogger will probably make look like crap.

#	Title	Author l-f	My Rating	Date Read
1	Up So Down	Pagel, Briane	5	1/8/2013
2	Change of Heart (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #4)	Dilloway, P.T.	5	1/12/2013
3	Batman: Arkham Asylum	Morrison, Grant	4	1/14/2013
4	Betrayal Begets Blood (Tales of the Scarlet Knight 5)	Dilloway, P.T.	5	1/22/2013
5	TekWar	Shatner, William	4	1/25/2013
6	TekLords	Shatner, William	4	1/31/2013
7	TekLab	Shatner, William	4	2/6/2013
8	Future Shock (Tales of the Scarlet Knight,  #6)	Dilloway, P.T.	5	2/9/2013
9	Tek Vengeance	Shatner, William	4	2/13/2013
10	Living Sacrifice (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #7)	Dilloway, P.T.	5	2/13/2013
11	Tek Secret	Shatner, William	4	2/16/2013
12	The Con Man (87th Precinct, #4)	McBain, Ed	2	2/20/2013
13	The New Deadwardians	Abnett, Dan	4	2/20/2013
14	Letters to Psyche	Almazan, Sandra Ulbrich	5	2/20/2013
15	The Heart of Emma Earl (Tales of the Scarlet Knight #8)	Dilloway, P.T.	5	2/20/2013
16	ThunderSnow	Borgne, Cindy	5	2/21/2013
17	A Drop of the Hard Stuff (Matthew Scudder #17)	Block, Lawrence	3	2/23/2013
18	Chance of a Lifetime (Chances Are #1)	Dilloway, P.T.	5	2/23/2013
19	Blackcollar	Zahn, Timothy	3	2/28/2013
20	Second Chance (Chances Are #2)	Dilloway, P.T.	5	2/28/2013
21	Last Chance (Chances Are #3)	Dilloway, P.T.	5	3/2/2013
22	The Backlash Mission	Zahn, Timothy	3	3/4/2013
23	Wicked Game	Johnson, Tiny	4	3/4/2013
24	Twinned Universes (Catalyst Chronicles, #2)	Almazan, Sandra Ulbrich	5	3/6/2013
25	Human Sacrifices Other Tales	Johnson, Tiny	5	3/6/2013
26	Blood Sacrifices The Curse of Tabla Diabla	Johnson, Tiny	5	3/7/2013
27	Perfect Worlds:  The Stone of Change	Johnson, Tiny	5	3/8/2013
28	Batman and Robin, Vol. 1: Batman Reborn	Morrison, Grant	5	3/8/2013
29	Batman and Robin, Vol. 3: Batman and Robin Must Die!	Morrison, Grant	4	3/9/2013
30	Batman and Robin, Vol. 2: Batman vs. Robin	Morrison, Grant	5	3/9/2013
31	Visionary of Peace (Vallar Series Book 2)	Borgne, Cindy	5	3/10/2013
32	The Backworlds (Book 1)	Pax, M.	5	3/10/2013
33	Dead Links	Mitchell, Nigel G.	5	3/11/2013
34	Eve Eden vs. the Blood Sucking Vampires (Bedeviled, #2)	Korb, Suz	5	3/12/2013
35	Women of Foxwick (The Foxwick Chronicles)	Reich, Cherie	5	3/12/2013
36	Dioscuri	Thoma, Chrystalla	5	3/13/2013
37	Whores: not intended to be a factual account of the gender war	Wilson, Nicolas	5	3/13/2013
38	The Spur - Loki's Rock	Ellis, Mark	4	3/15/2013
39	The Unforgetting	Mounfield, Jenny	4	3/15/2013
40	Protector (Anniversary of the Veil, #1)	Smythe, Vanna	4	3/15/2013
41	Batman Incorporated, Vol. 1	Morrison, Grant	4	3/16/2013
42	Deadeye Dick	Vonnegut, Kurt	5	3/16/2013
43	Mother Night	Vonnegut, Kurt	5	3/17/2013
44	Casino Royale	Fleming, Ian	4	3/18/2013
45	The Pleasure of My Company	Martin, Steve	4	3/19/2013
46	Ubik	Dick, Philip K.	5	3/19/2013
47	A Coming of Age	Zahn, Timothy	3	3/20/2013
48	Brave New World	Huxley, Aldous	4	3/21/2013
49	Mercury Rises	Kroese, Robert	2	3/22/2013
50	We Are Now - Flash Fiction Collection	Craven, Sean	5	3/22/2013
51	Passion Blue	Strauss, Victoria	3	3/23/2013
52	The Hangman's Daughter (The Hangman's Daughter #1)	Pötzsch, Oliver	2	3/24/2013
53	Batman: Knightfall, Vol. 2: Knightquest (New Edition)	Dixon, Chuck	4	3/25/2013
54	Fahrenheit 451	Bradbury, Ray	5	3/25/2013
55	Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1; Wool, #1-5)	Howey, Hugh	3	3/27/2013
56	Nate in Venice	Russo, Richard	3	3/28/2013
57	Moby-Dick	Melville, Herman	2	3/29/2013
58	Spinneret	Zahn, Timothy	3	4/2/2013
59	First Contact (Rebirth #1)	Filler, Eric	4	4/3/2013
60	The Savior (Rebirth #2)	Filler, Eric	4	4/5/2013
61	The Baby Blue Rip-Off	Collins, Max Allan	4	4/7/2013
62	The Final Battle (Rebirth #3)	Filler, Eric	4	4/7/2013
63	Snuff (Discworld, #39)	Pratchett, Terry	4	4/10/2013
64	The Shrinking Man	Matheson, Richard	5	4/11/2013
65	Small Town Hero	Stank, Jessica	4	4/13/2013
66	Crisis on Infinite Earths	Wolfman, Marv	4	4/14/2013
67	Vampire Pond	Swanson, Peter Joseph	4	4/16/2013
68	ALLIANCE	Stank, Jessica	4	4/18/2013
69	American Goddesses	Henry, Gary R.	3	4/19/2013
70	Cypress Lake	Basara, Joe	4	4/23/2013
71	Project Mayhem (Mouldwarp Press Presents)	Dilloway, P.T.	5	4/23/2013
72	Yoshimi and the Shadow Clan (Yoshimi Trilogy)	Laplume, Tony	4	4/25/2013
73	Tales from the White Hart (Arthur C. Clarke Collection: Short Stories)	Clarke, Arthur C.	5	4/26/2013
74	Perfect Worlds Part 2:  Game of Hearts	Johnson, Tiny	5	4/26/2013
75	Sale Day at C Mart	Basara, Joe	5	4/30/2013
76	The Death of Ivan Ilych	Tolstoy, Leo	5	5/1/2013
77	Infinite Crisis	Johns, Geoff	4	5/2/2013
78	Sidekick Misadventures of the new Scarlet Knight	Sungenis, Pab	4	5/2/2013
79	Superhero (An Action Thriller)	Methos, Victor	4	5/6/2013
80	Ham on Rye	Bukowski, Charles	5	5/8/2013
81	Chet Finley vs. The Machines of Fate	Filler, Eric	5	5/8/2013
82	Sinai	Smethurst, William	4	5/14/2013
83	The Evil That Men Do	Leon, Andrew	5	5/14/2013
84	Emperor Mollusk versus the Sinister Brain	Martinez, A. Lee	5	5/16/2013
85	Liberation Front	Madden, Paul L.	5	5/20/2013
86	Going Home	Carl, Rusty	5	5/22/2013
87	JLA, Vol. 2: American Dreams	Morrison, Grant	4	5/29/2013
88	JLA, Vol. 1: New World Order	Morrison, Grant	5	5/29/2013
89	Justice League, Vol. 1: Origin	Johns, Geoff	5	5/30/2013
90	The Cloak of Shrouded Men: Escapades of the Eidolon, Cotton Colinaude	Laplume, Tony	3	6/3/2013
91	The Leading Men	Madden, Paul L.	5	6/4/2013
92	Expedition To Earth	Clarke, Arthur C.	5	6/5/2013
93	Flying Saucers	Mitchell, Nigel G.	5	6/6/2013
94	Graffiti Grandma	Barney, Jo	4	6/7/2013
95	The Naked World	Madden, Paul L.	4	6/11/2013
96	Deadfolk	Williams, Charlie	3	6/12/2013
97	The Gravy Train	Lender, David	4	6/13/2013
98	Superman for All Seasons	Loeb, Jeph	5	6/13/2013
99	Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman: Trinity	Wagner, Matt	5	6/14/2013
100	Superman: For Tomorrow, Vol. 2	Azzarello, Brian	4	6/15/2013
101	Superman: For Tomorrow, Vol. 1	Azzarello, Brian	5	6/15/2013
102	Once Bitten	Leather, Stephen	3	6/17/2013
103	The Best Light	Madden, Paul L.	5	6/17/2013
104	Starfire: A Vince Lombard Story	Lee, Mike	3	6/19/2013
105	Higher Power	Lachance, Claire	4	6/19/2013
106	A Necessary Innocence	Filler, Eric	5	6/23/2013
107	Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim #1)	Kadrey, Richard	4	6/24/2013
108	The Turning	Barwell, Mark	2	6/26/2013
109	Doctor No	Fleming, Ian	4	6/28/2013
110	Goldfinger	Fleming, Ian	4	7/3/2013
111	The Last Conquest	Filler, Eric	5	7/3/2013
112	Captain America, Vol. 2	Brubaker, Ed	4	7/4/2013
113	Captain America, Vol. 1	Brubaker, Ed	4	7/4/2013
114	Hit Me	Block, Lawrence	4	7/8/2013
115	Perfect Worlds Part 3:  Secret of the Stone	Johnson, Tiny	5	7/8/2013
116	Captain America, Vol. 3	Brubaker, Ed	3	7/9/2013
117	Captain America, Vol. 4	Brubaker, Ed	5	7/9/2013
118	The Year of the Jackpot	Heinlein, Robert A.	4	7/10/2013
119	Who Goes There?	Jr., John W. Campbell	4	7/10/2013
120	Gun, With Occasional Music	Lethem, Jonathan	5	7/10/2013
121	The Songs Of Distant Earth	Clarke, Arthur C.	3	7/12/2013
122	From Russia With Love	Fleming, Ian	3	7/12/2013
123	Fates Worse Than Death	Vonnegut, Kurt	5	7/16/2013
124	Raylan (Raylan Givens, #3)	Leonard, Elmore	2	7/17/2013
125	Big Maria	Shaw, Johnny	5	7/19/2013
126	The Pain Scale	Dilts, Tyler	2	7/24/2013
127	Getting Off: A Novel of Sex and Violence (Hard Case Crime #69)	Block, Lawrence	5	7/25/2013
128	Miss Otis regrets. And other short stories	Moitzi, Dieter	4	7/26/2013
129	Reach for Tomorrow	Clarke, Arthur C.	3	7/27/2013
130	Girl Power	Dilloway, P.T.	5	7/28/2013
131	2001: A Space Odyssey (Space Odyssey, #1)	Clarke, Arthur C.	4	7/29/2013
132	A Drink Before the War (Kenzie & Gennaro #1)	Lehane, Dennis	4	8/1/2013
133	Flashpoint	Johns, Geoff	4	8/2/2013
134	The Incredible Hulk: Planet Hulk	Pak, Greg	4	8/3/2013
135	The Incredible Hulk: Prelude To Planet Hulk	Way, Daniel	4	8/3/2013
136	World War Hulk	Pak, Greg	3	8/4/2013
137	World War Hulk: The Incredible Hercules	Pak, Greg	4	8/4/2013
138	The Fort	Davis, Aric	4	8/5/2013
139	Live and Let Die	Fleming, Ian	4	8/7/2013
140	Lost Horizon	Hilton, James	0	8/8/2013
141	POWERED	Young, Cheyanne	5	8/10/2013
142	The Hangman (Darkman, #1)	Boyll, Randall	3	8/11/2013
143	The Avengers, Vol. 1	Bendis, Brian Michael	3	8/13/2013
144	Something Wicked This Way Comes	Bradbury, Ray	5	8/13/2013
145	The Sex Gates (Sex Gates, #1)	Bain, Darrell	2	8/15/2013
146	Ultimate Comics Spider-Man  Volume 1	Bendis, Brian Michael	5	8/18/2013
147	Childhood's End	Clarke, Arthur C.	3	8/20/2013
148	Transmigration	McIntosh, J.T.	5	8/21/2013
149	Factotum	Bukowski, Charles	4	8/23/2013
150	Temporary Anne	Pagel, Briane	5	8/28/2013
151	Women	Bukowski, Charles	3	8/30/2013
152	Hitter	Guarino, Daryn	4	9/4/2013
153	Solaris	Lem, Stanisław	4	9/6/2013
154	Captain America: Winter Soldier, Volume 2	Brubaker, Ed	4	9/8/2013
155	New X-Men, Vol. 1: E is for Extinction	Morrison, Grant	4	9/8/2013
156	The Confessions of Max Tivoli	Greer, Andrew Sean	4	9/10/2013
157	Moonraker	Fleming, Ian	3	9/12/2013
158	The Man in the High Castle	Dick, Philip K.	4	9/13/2013
159	The Price of Fear (Darkman, #2)	Boyll, Randall	1	9/15/2013
160	The Gods of Hell (Darkman, #3)	Boyll, Randall	3	9/18/2013
161	Overdraft: The Orion Offensive	Miller, John Jackson	3	9/18/2013
162	Flight from Rebirth	McIntosh, J.T.	5	9/19/2013
163	In the Face of Death (Darkman, #4)	Boyll, Randall	3	9/22/2013
164	Justice: Volume 2	Krueger, Jim	4	9/22/2013
165	Justice, Vol. 1	Krueger, Jim	4	9/22/2013
166	Justice: Volume 3	Krueger, Jim	5	9/23/2013
167	My Killbot Buddy	Carl, Rusty	5	9/24/2013
168	Jailbird	Vonnegut, Kurt	5	9/24/2013
169	The Sisters Brothers	deWitt, Patrick	4	9/26/2013
170	Pull Yourself Together	Glavinic, Thomas	5	9/28/2013
171	Batman: Hush	Loeb, Jeph	4	9/29/2013
172	Lex Luthor: Man of Steel	Azzarello, Brian	5	9/29/2013
173	The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning	Helgason, Hallgrímur	3	9/30/2013
174	Accidents Waiting to Happen	Wood, Simon	1	10/1/2013
175	Earthlight	Clarke, Arthur C.	3	10/2/2013
176	Slapstick	Vonnegut, Kurt	4	10/2/2013
177	Diamonds are Forever	Fleming, Ian	4	10/4/2013
178	Sweet Tooth	McEwan, Ian	2	10/6/2013
179	Pulp	Bukowski, Charles	4	10/7/2013
180	Civil War	Millar, Mark	5	10/7/2013
181	Fear	Hubbard, L. Ron	4	10/8/2013
182	Fool	Dillen, Frederick G.	4	10/9/2013
183	The Whole Bloody Affair (Yoshimi Trilogy)	Laplume, Tony	4	10/10/2013
184	The Specialists	Block, Lawrence	4	10/11/2013
185	Make Room! Make Room!	Harrison, Harry	4	10/11/2013
186	The Status Civilization	Sheckley, Robert	4	10/14/2013
187	Canada	Ford, Richard	4	10/17/2013
188	The Impostors (Girl Power #2)	Dilloway, P.T.	5	10/19/2013
189	Ultimate Comics Captain America	Aaron, Jason	1	10/20/2013
190	Justice League of America, Vol. 1: World's Most Dangerous	Johns, Geoff	3	10/20/2013
191	Marvel Universe vs. the Avengers	Maberry, Jonathan	3	10/20/2013
192	Avengers Assemble Volume 1	Bendis, Brian Michael	4	10/20/2013
193	Marvel Universe vs. Wolverine	Maberry, Jonathan	4	10/20/2013
194	Marvel Universe Vs. the Punisher	Maberry, Jonathan	4	10/20/2013
195	Blood Makes Noise	Widen, Gregory	3	10/22/2013
196	Sisterhood (Tales of the Coven)	Dilloway, P.T.	5	10/22/2013
197	Breakfast at Tiffany's	Capote, Truman	5	10/24/2013
198	Awakening (Birth of Magic #1)	Dilloway, P.T.	5	10/26/2013
199	Wayne of Gotham	Hickman, Tracy	3	10/29/2013
200	Star Shepherd	Dilloway, P.T.	5	10/29/2013