The Last Labyrinth, the Lost Ending

Gwendolyn Womack's new novel, The Last Labyrinth, is a well-paced, well-written romantasy time travel story that uses music as its magic. But it has one fatal flaw. 

The setup: Womack's heroine, Magellan, is a modern woman, a musical prodigy who can play any instrument like a virtuoso, even if she's never touched it before, and she doesn't need sheet music. As the novel opens, we learn that Magellan has a talented roommate, Wren, a singer, who tries to bring Magellan out of her shell a bit; Magellan has a number of phobias that keep her pretty much confined to her apartment, except when she's out performing. One night, the skies all over the world light up with an aurora the likes of which humanity has never seen, at impossibly low latitudes. It's around this time Magellan receives a mysterious diary, purported to be that of  Gwenddydd, Merlin's sister. (This framing--that of powerful women being identified only in relation to the men in their lives--recurs throughout the novel, to good effect). 

While Magellan is playing at a wedding, the world begins to unravel, thanks to the auroras. In a panic, she runs off to play the venue's pipe organ, and this transports her to 1829, where she meets Rhys, a handsome bachelor who happens to be caught in a financial trap, needing to wed a rich bride to save his family estate. 

Meet-cute and time travel shenanigans begin. Magellan learns that to save the world, she must assemble four movements of a symphony. She has half the first movement, and she discovers Fanny Mendelssohn has the second. To gather the other movements, she must collaborate with other important women musicians of the past, all while surviving not only the differences in language, culture, and technology, but the demonic forces who try to stop her from saving the world. Thankfully, she has Rhys at her side, who's no Superman but does have a talent for languages--very useful given their circumstances. 

The plot serves as a great vehicle for the romance and for Womack's point about talented women being overlooked by history, and how that fault persists over the centuries. It's also fun seeing how the predestination paradoxes play out. 

Here's my issue: We learn that the final confrontation will happen when Magellan returns to 2026, when she'll put the final movement of the symphony together and somehow gather all the world's musicians to play it together, the only way to seal the rip in the universe. 

The novel ends before we get to that moment, with the ultimate fate of the world and the characters we've come to love unresolved. It's fine, of course, for novels to end on a note of ambiguity, but this really feels like the writer just ran out of steam and didn't have the means to craft the epic finale she envisioned. 

The novel is still worth reading; it's clever, exciting, suspenseful, and warm. Magellan is a great heroine, and Rhys is flawed but worthy partner for her. I really wanted to see them triumph, though. 

There's no word of a sequel, nor is there a hint of one in the author's afterword. It feels like this is the novel Womack decided to deliver. That's her right, but I really wish she'd given us that grand finale. 

Quality over Quantity in a Time of Troubles: Books I Read in 2025

At last, 2025 is over. I'd hoped to surpass 100 books this year, but other things became more important. 

In 2025, I read

• 67 works of fiction and 17 works of non-fiction
• 39 science fiction novels, 17 mainstream novels, six Star Trek media tie-ins, and five fantasy novels
• 26 books by women and 58 books by men
• 42 books from the 2020s, 17 from the 2010s, nine from the 2000s, five from the 1990s, four from the 1980s, two from the 1970s, four from the 1960s, and one from the 1950s

COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS

For the first time in a long time, only a couple of books this year were re-reads for me. This wasn't an intentional choice, but in retrospect it seems to have left me open to some wonderful discoveries. Here are my favourite reads of the year, plus a disappointment or two: 

I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman. 39 women and a girl are locked in an underground cage for years, then suddenly released to emerge to an emptied world, barren and inhospitable. Whatever calamity befell the world is left a mystery. A compelling rumination on the struggles of womanhood in hostile spaces, and a bleak commentary on human empathy--or the lack of it. 

Titan, by Stephen Baxter. I've never been Baxter's biggest fan, but 2025 was the right year for me to finally finish his so-called "NASA trilogy." The book's political climate eerily mirrors the troubles we're facing today, and as the world turns inward, NASA has one more shot to perform some pioneering science and exploration--a do or die, one-way trip to Saturn's largest moon, Titan. The technical details of the mission are fascinating, especially set against the frightening backdrop of an American government sliding into theocratic fascism. No parallels to 2025 in this book from 1997! Even more compelling are the battle for survival on Titan itself and the speculative leaps made by novel's end. 

A Short Stay in Hell, by Steven L. Peck. So it turns out that when we die, unless we follow Zoroastrianism (the one true faith; who knew?) we go to hell. Hell is a library that contains every book that fits onto 410 pages, and if you find the one book that tells your life story--without any spelling errors, typos, or grammatical errors--you're free to leave. Unfortunately, every letter, number, and punctuation mark is randomly generated, which means that the vast, vast majority of the trillions and trillions and trillions of books in Hell is garbage. Your book exists, but the time required to find it would take longer than the age of our universe. Much longer. There's no torture in hell, and its residents are supplied with good food and comfortable quarters. But there's no entertainment other than chatting or having sex, and no one gets sick. Of course, people can hurt and even kill each other, but you always wake up fully healed. Practically speaking, you're trapped in an eternity of boredom. This book terrified me. 

James, by Percival Everett. A retelling of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, the escaped slave befriended by Huck in Mark Twain's novel. Offers excellent perspective on the Black experience in white spaces--this is a rich novel, an angry novel, uncompromising in its critique of the world we've built. 

Julia, by Sandra Newman. George Orwell's 1984 seen through the eyes of Julia, Winston Smith's lover. It's just as bleak and nauseating as Orwell's original story, given more dimension thanks to its new perspective. We even get to see the fall of Oceania, an event foreshadowed by 1984's afterword. Spoiler: the new regime may or may not be an improvement on the old regime. 

Exordia, by Seth Dickinson. The first couple of chapters led me to believe this novel was going to be comic. I was wildly wrong. Dickinson's story of alien invasion is one of the scariest, most visceral, and most exciting examples of the trope in years. A wonderful cast of characters, human and alien, take us on a thrilling rollercoaster ride. It's smart, fun, terrifying, and satisfying. 

The Bridges of Madison County, by Robert James Waller. This is one of several books I read from Mom's collection after her passing. I wasn't expecting to enjoy this novel as much as I did, but I admit to tearing up by the end. A beautiful love story that captures the feeling of those special moments in time we know must be brief, but stay with us forever. 

The Compound, by Aisling Rawle. 20 (quickly 19) young men and women play out a dystopian version of Big Brother against the backdrop of the world we might live in in just a few years--a catastrophically warming world with constant wildfires and resource shortages, civilization finally beginning to play the price of our greed and ignorance. The Compound is a thoughtful critique of consumerism, the male gaze, and violence--but it offers a thread of hope in its tale of resilience and reconciliation. Or, if not hope--then at least some grace. 

The Rose Field, by Philip Pullman. I was enjoying the last of Pullman's Lyra Silvertongue novels until about three-quarters of the way through, when Pullman seems to lose focus and direction. The big action setpiece feels like it's been inspired by a video game or a poorly-run Dungeons & Dragons campaign, and the ending, well...I think the only word is anticlimactic. Although maybe ironic also fits, since a search to recapture Lyra's imagination seems to end in a rote critique of runaway progress--a topic handled with far more dexterity by The Compound, above. 

Prelude to Space, by Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke chose the perfect title for this one; it really is a prelude to the big space adventures we never get to see. Instead, Clarke covers the technical and bureaucratic challenges of getting men (of course men) into orbit. I found it interesting, but most readers will consider this very, very dry. Which it is. 

I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Foe, and We Spread, by Iain Reid. Nothing is what it seems in Reid's work, and I love that. All three novels are creepy, atmospheric, heartbreaking, mysterious, and best left unspoiled. I ached deeply for all his poor doomed protagonists, trapped in worlds they never made. 

Weird Medieval Guys, by Olivia Swarthout. Gorgeously designed, brilliantly illustrated, and hilarious, a balm for my battered nerves this year, a great gift from Leslie. 

The Gone World and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Tom Sweterlitsch. I wish this guy would write more novels! Sweterlitsch combines deeply sympathetic characters with high-concept speculative fiction settings and challenges in a way that's unlike any other writer. 

And finally, this year I read the seven existing novels in Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl series. Not only are they great fun, especially for anyone who's ever played a tabletop role playing game, the bad puns, crass humour, bloodthirsty violence, and existential dread are tempered by a truly empathetic and humanistic outlook; Carl, our protagonist, never gives in to despair or hate despite the cruelty of the alien invaders who have turned Earth into the latest of their sadistic interstellar reality show playgrounds, wiping out almost all life on the planet. 

MONTH-BY-MONTH

January: 11

The Dead Fathers Club (Matt Haig, 2006)
The Possession of Mr Cave (Matt Haig, 2008)
Notes on a Nervous Planet (Matt Haig, 2018)
Julia (Sandra Newman, 2023) 
How to be Perfect (Michael Schur, 2022) 
Tower of Glass (Robert Silverberg, 1970) 
Light Raid (Connie Willis and Cynthia Felice, 1989) 
Take a Look at the Five and Ten (Connie Willis, 2020) 
Seasons of Light and Darkness (Michael A. Martin, 2014) 
Golden State (Ben H. Winters, 2019) 
Terra Incognita (Connie Willis, 2018) 

February: 10
Some Desperate Glory (Emily Tesh, 2023) 
The Art of Mike Grell Volume 1 (Mike Grell, Tom Monarch, and Jeff Messer, 2025) 
Water Witch (Connie Willis and Cynthia Felice, 1982) 
The Fall Risk (Abby Jiminez, 2025) 
Promised Land (Connie Willis and Cynthia Felice, 1996) 
The Armageddon Engine (James Swallow, 2024) 
The You You Are: A Spiritual Biography of You (Ricken Lazlo Hale, 2022) 
Vulcan’s Soul Book I: Exodus (Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz, 2004) 
I Who Have Never Known Men (Jacqueline Harpman, 1995) 
Shadow Play (James Swallow, 2024)

March
The Whole Man (John Brunner, 1967) 
Titan (Stephen Baxter, 1997) 
The Godwhale (T.J. Bass, 1974) 
Star Trek: Lost to Eternity (Greg Cox, 2024)

April
American Housewife (Anita Abriel, 2025) 
Exordia (Seth Dickinson, 2023) 
Dungeon Crawler Carl (Matt Dinniman, 2020) 
Carl’s Doomsday Scenario (Matt Dinniman, 2021) 
The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook (Matt Dinniman, 2021) 
The Gate of the Feral Gods (Matt Dinniman, 2021) 

May
The Butcher’s Masquerade (Matt Dinniman, 2022)  
Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (Robert F. Kennedy, 1969) 

June
The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Matt Dinniman, 2023)
George Perez: Storyteller (Christopher Lawrence, 2006)
This Inevitable Ruin (Matt Dinniman, 2024) 

July
Never Flinch (Stephen King, 2025) 
James (Percival Everett, 2024) 
The Enemy Within (Kristine Kathryn Rusch, 2014) 
Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy (Martha Wells, 2025)
White Eagle Speaks: Reflections of Lives and Passing Thoughts (Leonard Carriere, 2000) 
Prairie Light (Courtney Milne, 1985) 
Keith Langergraber: Theatre of the Exploding Sun (Liz Wylie, 2013) 
Shadow of the Machine (Scott Harrison, 2015) 
The More Things Change (Scott Pearson, 2014) 
Christmas with Norman Rockwell (John Kirk, 1990) 
The Professionals (Keith Langergraber, 2016) 
The Adventure of the Demonic Ox (Lois McMaster Bujold, 2025) 

August
Vulcan’s Soul Book II: Exiles (Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz, 2006) 
The Making of The African Queen, or How I Went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall, and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind (Katherine Hepburn, 1987) 
The Bridges of Madison County (Robert James Waller, 1992) 
The End of the World as We Know It (Christopher Golden, 2025) 
A Short Stay in Hell (Steven L. Peck, 2012) 
When the Moon Hits Your Eye (John Scalzi, 2025) 

September
I Hope This Finds You Well (Natalie Sue, 2024) 
The Gone World (Tom Sweterlitsch, 2018) 
Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Tom Sweterlitsch, 2014) 
Dominion (C.J. Sansom, 2012) 
Not Quite by the Book (Julie Hatcher, 2025) 
The Shattered Peace (John Scalzi, 2025) 
The Art of Fantastic Four (John Lind, 2025)
A New History of the Future in 100 Objects: A Fiction (Adrian Hon, 2020) 

October
3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years (John Scalzi, 2025) 
The Intergalactic Interloper (Delas Heras, 2020) 
Best of All Worlds (Kenneth Oppel, 2025) 
Back to the Future: A Visual History (Michael Klastorin, Randal Atamaniuk, 2015) 
Weird Medieval Guys (Olivia Swarthout, 2023) 
Final Orbit (Chris Hadfield, 2025) 
Silver Screen Fiend (Patton Oswalt, 2015) 
I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Iain Reid, 2016) 
Foe (Iain Reid, 2018) 
We Spread (Iain Reid, 2022) 

November
Prelude to Space (Arthur C. Clarke, 1951) 
Assassins from Tomorrow (Peter Heath, 1967) 
The Productions of Time (John Brunner, 1967) 
The Collected Essex County (Jeff Lemire, 2009) 
The Rose Field (Philip Pullman, 2025) 

December
Testimony of Mute Things (Lois McMaster Bujold, 2025) 
The Compound (Aisling Rawle, 2025) 
Ten Thousand Light Years from Okay (Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman, 2025) 
The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One (Amanda Lovelace, 2018)
The Mermaid’s Voice Returns in This One (Amanda Lovelace, 2019) 
Machines Like Me (Ian McEwan, 2025) 
Gold Dust (Catherine Asaro, 2025) 

And so ends 2025. Check out Bruce's list, and now you can see what Leslie was reading, listening to, and experiencing in 2025. 

Teleportation Roulette

Imagine you're suddenly gifted with the ability to instantly teleport to random coordinates anywhere on Earth's surface. Just think; anytime you experience boredom, flex your will and you find yourself someplace else--faster than you can blink. This ability would be even handier whenever you find yourself in grave danger; with a thought, you could vanish instantly and appear somewhere else, leaving disaster behind. 

The drawback, though, is obvious; statistically, you're likely to wind up in a body of water 70% of the time--and even that might be better than blinking back into existence at the edge of a cliff, at the South Pole, or into the caldera of an active volcano. Of course, if you react quickly enough, you can teleport somewhere else, presumably someplace safer. 

Using this random generator of geographic coordinates, I ran ten trials of this power. Here's where I landed: 

1. Almost 12 km west of Tacuaritas, Argentina; a swamp

2. A little over 297 km west of Gambier, French Polynesia; the Pacific Ocean

3. 400 km south southwest of Ball’s Pyramid, New South Wales, Australia; the Pacific Ocean

4. 685 km south southeast of Christmas Island, Australia; the Indian Ocean

5. 301 km east of Woolgooolga, New South Wales, Australia; the Pacific Ocean

6. 126 km north of Cefalu, Sicily, Italy; the Tyrrhenian Sea

7. 1, 201 km north northwest of Cabo Verde; the Atlantic Ocean

8. 15 km north northwest of Avia Terai, Argentina; farmland

9. 81 km west of Oroek, Russia; tundra

10. 883 km south of St Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha; the Atlantic Ocean

In just one instance did I find myself anywhere at all pleasant; the farmland in northern Argentina. The Argentinian swamp, I suppose, is the second best result, and the Russian tundra in Siberia, the third. Predictably, I wound up in an ocean or sea seven out of ten times. Which tells me that to make this power at all useful, you should always teleport while wearing the best life jacket and wetsuit you can possibly afford. 

Do you dare wield this power for yourself? Try it on for size a few times and leave a comment to let me know where you end up. 

Gaze of the Gorgon

After painting Medusa, I created a little diorama for her by adding a rock from the street and gluing some previously painted treasure to its surface. Steal her gold at your peril! 
 

Five Crates in Search of an Exit

 

Last But Not Least: Books I Read in 2023

 

Finally!

Here we are at what has become the traditional final post of the year here at The Earliad: the list of books I read over the course of the last 365 days. As seen in the Goodreads screencap at the top of this post, I have at last crawled my way back to my baseline minimum of 100 books a year, a goal I've failed to achieve for the last few years now thanks to COVID-19, stress, and depression. 

But hey! The world is okay now. COVID-19 is behind us, human rights and decency are ascendant, the wealth gap is steadily shrinking, and we've turned the tide in the fight against climate change. 

. . . 

All right, nothing in that last paragraph is true, but somehow I managed to read 100 books this year anyway.

Overview

In 2023, I read

• 82 works of fiction and 18 works of non-fiction
• 52 science fiction novels, 21 mainstream, five horror, and four fantasy
• 40 books by women and 60 books by men
• 32 books from the 2020s, 29 from the 2010s, seven from the 2000s, five from the 1990s, eight from the 1980s, 10 from the 1970s, three from the 1960s, one from the 1950s, three from the 1930s, one from the 1980s, and one from the 1810s
• Seven books by Charles M. Schulz, five by Kate Beaton, five by Matt Haig, five by John Scalzi, four by Stephen King, four by Nancy Kress, three by Sandy Petersen, three by Katherine Anne Porter, two by David Brin, two by Mona Clee, two by Diane Duane, two by Steven Konkoly, two by Jack McDevitt, and one by each other author on this year's list

Commentary and Analysis

Repeating my experience in 2022, I reread a lot of old favourites in 2023, including novels by Ray Bradbury, Mona Clee, Suzy McKee Charnas, Diane Duane, Daniel Keyes, Stephen King, Nancy Kress, Kate Wilhelm, and Connie Willis. I have only one thing to say about these rereads: I wish Mona Clee had written more novels. The two she published--Branch Point and Overshoot--are wonderful soft-SF tales of human folly and our efforts to do better and be better.

As promised last year, I read Roderick Thorpe's first novel about detective Joe Leland, a character Hollywood adapted twice--once as a straightforward adaptation of this novel starring Frank Sinatra, the second an adaptation of the sequel, Nothing Lasts Forever, as the action hit Die Hard. The Detective is more meditative and slow-paced than its sequel, but still worthwhile, and gives the character's journey added depth. I wish I'd read the two books in order. 

Last year Leslie gave me a novel for my birthday and one for Christmas. I don't remember which book was meant for which occasion, but I read Matt Haig's The Comfort Book first, and it really gave me an emotional lift when I needed it. Haig's style is warm and welcoming, and so is his subject matter, whether he's writing non-fiction, as in this case, or fiction, as in the other Haig books I devoured this year in response to the good feelings granted by The Comfort Book. Those books were The Midnight Library, How to Stop Time, and The Humans, works of speculative fiction with a common theme: making connections and dealing with trauma through empathy and a conscious choice to pursue understanding. All four reads left me feeling better about the world, and they were light but thoughtful. I'll be following Haig's work. 

The other book Leslie gifted me was Gnomon, by Nick Harkaway, a dense science fiction detective story about artificial intelligence, simulated worlds, and history's throughlines. It's a fascinating, nested, interweaving narrative, one I'll revisit again in a few years. 

I've long been a fan of cartoonist Kate Beaton's website, so this year I purchased all of her available works. The most notable was Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, an autobiography covering Kate's time in Fort McMurray, a place I'm familiar with through a couple of personal visits and my work in the public and private sectors. Knowing what I know about the working environment in Fort McMurray, I went into this book hoping that nothing bad would happen to Kate, but . . . well, one very bad thing does happen, and I wish I hadn't anticipated it. It made me wish that I could send Kate a message back through time telling her to pursue other opportunities. The book is very worthwhile and I'm glad I read it, but it's rough going in some places simply because Beaton doesn't shy away from the realities of her experience. 

In 2023 I read three books by fantasist Naomi Novik. The first, The Golden Enclaves, is the finale of a trilogy of works about a university of magic with campuses across the globe. I didn't find the conclusion of the series as satisfying as the first two books, but it was still engaging and enjoyable, and doesn't preclude further exploration of the world. I was more impressed by a pair of standalone novels by Novik: Uprooted and Spinning Silver. They explore the usual fantasy tropes, but Novik's command of characterization and structure make them both entertaining, breezy reads. 

Norman Spinrad's The Iron Dream is grotesquely violent, absurd, and troubling--as it should be, because Spinrad posits an alternate world where Adolf Hitler was a science fiction writer instead of the mad dictator of our reality. The book's most chilling section, though, is the framing material, which expounds upon the outsized influence of this alternate Hitler's novel on his world: he achieves a cult-like following which has, if you read between the lines, influenced his world in reactionary directions that might, in the long run, do more damage to humanity than our Hitler achieved in the real world. It's a scary book. 

I stumbled across a fun experiment in 2023--an opportunity to read Bram Stoker's Dracula across the course of the year via emails sent out on the date of the letters and journals that make up perhaps the world's most famous epistolary. (There are some editorial allowances made for the long out-of-sequence section describing what happens on the Demeter.) Reading the book this way really connected me to the characters; it was like I had to wait for the various letters and newspaper clippings just as they did. 

The Road is my first experience with the work of Cormac McCarthy, and he certainly lives up to his reputation. Dystopic, bleak, hopeless, and sparse, this is one of those works that really captures the mood of the 2020s, even though it was written in 2006. McCarthy builds a vivid world, though; even though his prose is sparing, his choices depict his chosen milieu with crystal clarity. 

I had the most fun this year, though, with Leslie Vermeer's Last But Not Least: A Guide to Proofreading Text. As with her earlier The Complete Canadian Book Editor, Last But Not Least is written with great authority--Leslie knows her subject matter backwards and forwards--but just as critical to the book's value is the way Leslie expresses that authority with empathy, kindness, and authenticity. She also peppers her texts with fun little in-jokes, this time with an emphasis on cultural touchpoints in Edmonton, British Columbia's lower mainland, and Vancouver Island. They're lovely touches that don't distract from the message, and fun Easter eggs for those who spot them. 

It must be said that I've known Leslie for years, so I'm predisposed to enjoying her work. Despite this, I'm confident in predicting that Last But Not Least will be incredibly useful to working communications professionals. Indeed, as one such professional, I've had to perform my share of proofreading jobs over the years; in fact, I have a very large proofreading task coming up in January. Leslie's book does an incredible job of clearly and carefully defining the role of the proofreader, its importance to publishing credible text, and how proofreaders can succeed at the task. Last But Not Least will be by my side for my January task and others to come. 

(I did not proofread this post, by the way; had I followed Leslie's excellent guidance, this blog would be error-free, or nearly so. Blame the student, not the teacher.) 

Plus, Leslie was kind enough to include me in the acknowledgements for my teeny-weeny contribution to the book. How cool is that? I'm genuinely thrilled. What a lovely way to end the year! 

Month-by-Month

January: 11

The Detective (Roderick Thorp, 1966)

The Comfort Book (Matt Haig, 2021) 

High School Journalist, Promoter, Jester - Kurt Vonnegut in the Shortridge Daily Echo, 1937-1940 (Kurt Vonnegut Jr., 2023) 

The Effort (Claire Holroyde, 2021) 

Hark! A Vagrant (Kate Beaton, 2015) 

Step Aside, Pops (Kate Beaton, 2015) 

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands (Kate Beaton, 2022) 

The Princess and the Pony (Kate Beaton, 2015) 

The Midnight Library (Matt Haig, 2020) 

Fractured State (Steven Konkoly, 2016) 

The World of Star Trek, second edition (David Gerrold, 1984) 

February: 10

Rogue State (Steven Konkoly, 2017) 

They’d Rather Be Right (Mark Clifton and Frank Riley, 1954) 

Village in the Sky (Jack McDevitt, 2023) 

The Golden Enclaves (Naomi Novik, 2022) 

Uprooted (Naomi Novik, 2015) 

Spinning Silver (Naomi Novik, 2018) 

The Official Art of Big Trouble in Little China (Tara Bennett, 2017) 

The Art of Tron: Legacy (Justin Springer, 2010)

Robotic Existentialism: The Art of Eric Joyner (Eric Joyner, 2018) 

Tomb of Annihilation (Christopher Perkins, 2017) 

March: 10

How to Stop Time (Matt Haig, 2017) 

Old Venus (George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, 2015) 

The Dead Zone (Stephen King, 1979)

The Toynbee Convector (Ray Bradbury, 1988)  

Branch Point (Mona Clee, 1996)

Overshoot (Mona Clee, 1998)

Music of the Spheres (Margaret Wander Bonanno, 1990) 

Probability Moon (Nancy Kress, 2000) 

Probability Sun (Nancy Kress, 2001) 

Probability Space (Nancy Kress, 2002) 

April: 8

The Iron Dream (Norman Spinrad, 1972) 

We Think, Therefore We Are (Peter Crowther, 2008) 

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (Kate Wilhelm, 1976) 

Gnomon (Nick Harkaway, 2017) 

Fallout 4 Vault Dweller’s Survival Guide (David S.J. Hodgson, 2015) 

Dark Mirror (Diane Duane, 1994) 

Intellivore (Diane Duane, 1997) 

The Postman (David Brin, 1985) 

May: 10

The Art of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos (Pat Harrigan, 2006) 

S. Petersen’s Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters: A Field Observer’s Handbook of Preternatural Entities (Sandy Petersen, 1988)

S. Petersen's Field Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands: An Album of Entities from the Land Beyond the Wall of Sleep (Sandy Petersen, 1989) 

S. Petersen's Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors: A Field Observer's Handbook of Preternatural Entities and Beings from Beyond the Wall of Sleep (Sandy Petersen, 2015) 

The Actual Star (Monica Byrne, 2021) 

Murder by Other Means (John Scalzi, 2020) 

Travel by Bullet (John Scalzi, 2022) 

Wondrous Beginnings (Steven H. Silver and Martin H. Greenberg, 2003)

The Simultaneous Man (Ralph Blum, 1971)

A Deadly Affair (Agatha Christie, 2022) 

June: 12

Alien3 (Pat Cadigan, 2021) 

Old Mortality (Katherine Anne Porter, 1937)

Noon Wine (Katherine Anne Porter, 1938) 

Pale Horse, Pale Rider (Katherine Anne Porter, 1939) 

Observer (Nancy Kress and Robert Lanza, 2023) 

Peanuts Every Sunday: 1952-1955 (Charles M. Schulz, 2013) 

Peanuts Every Sunday: 1956-1960 (Charles M. Schulz, 2014) 

Peanuts Every Sunday: 1961-1965 (Charles M. Schulz, 2015) 

Peanuts Every Sunday: 1966-1970 (Charles M. Schulz, 2016) 

Peanuts Every Sunday: 1971-1975 (Charles M. Schulz, 2017) 

Peanuts Every Sunday: 1976-1980 (Charles M. Schulz, 2018) 

Peanuts Every Sunday: 1981-1985 (Charles M. Schulz, 2019) 

July: 6

The Shining (Stephen King, 1977) 

‘Salem’s Lot (Stephen King, 1975) 

Down to a Sunless Sea (David Graham, 1979) 

The Practice Effect (David Brin, 1984) 

Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes, 1966) 

The Lathe of Heaven (Ursula K. LeGuin, 1971) 

August: 10

The Last President (John Barnes, 2012) 

Hope Rides Again (Andrew Shaffer, 2019) 

How It Unfolds (James S.A. Corey, 2023) 

Void (Veronica Roth, 2023) 

Falling Bodies (Rebecca Roanhorse, 2023) 

The Long Game (Ann Leckie, 2023)

Just Out of Jupiter’s Reach (Nnedi Okorafor, 2023) 

Slow Time between the Stars (John Scalzi, 2023) 

To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee, 1960) 

Lincoln’s Dreams (Connie Willis, 1987) 

September: 4

Dr. No (Percival Everett, 2022) 

The Kaiju Preservation Society (John Scalzi, 2022) 

7TV Cinematic Skirmish Rules (Karl Pelleton, 2023) 

Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1818) 

October: 10

The Humans (Matt Haig, 2013) 

Artwork from Baldur’s Gate (Joachim Vleminckx, 2023) 

The Radleys (Matt Haig, 2010) 

Starter Villain (John Scalzi, 2023) 

King Baby (Kate Beaton, 2010) 

Holly (Stephen King, 2023) 

Return to Glory (Jack McDevitt, 2023) 

On His Majesty’s Secret Service (Charlie Higson, 2023) 

To Be Taught, If Fortunate (Becky Chambers, 2019) 

Walk to the End of the World (Suzy McKee Charnas, 1974) 

November: 2

Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897) 

The Machine Never Blinks (Ivan Greenberg, 2020) 

December: 8

The Road (Cormac McCarthy, 2006) 

Touch Not the Cat (Mary Stewart, 1976) 

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (Various, 1986) 

Upright Women Wanted (Sarah Gailey, 2020) 

The Defector (Chris Hadfield, 2023) 

Maybe There—The Lost Stories from Space: 1999 (David Hirsch and Robert E. Wood, 2023) 

Last But Not Least: A Guide to Proofreading Text (Leslie Vermeer, 2023) 

Books I Read in 2022: The Fail Edition

 

Blogger wiped out about 80% of what had been a 2,000 word post right before I could save it. And no, I didn't write it in Word first, like an idiot. 

I was pretty happy with what I'd written, too, and flew into a fit of angry depression thereafter. Happy New Year to me. Bah. 

Hopefully I can muster up the desire to rewrite this post in a couple of days, based on what little was saved. Sigh. 

How Would You Replay Your Life?

Replay, Ken Grimwood's 1986 novel, keeps crossing my mind even a couple of decades after I first read it in the early 2000s. The premise is simple but utterly fascinating in its possibilities and limitations: Journalist Jeff Winston dies of a heart attack at age 42 in 1988, but awakens with all his memories back in his 18-year-old body while starting university in 1963. He lives his life with the tremendous advantage of his experiences and knowledge of the next 25 years to come, but no matter what, he dies at age 42 and starts the cycle all over again, with each "replay" growing slightly shorter. 

Winston occupies his replays in various ways. He finds a different love, he gets rich, he goes public with his knowledge of the future and winds up in the custody of the US government, all the while trying to understand why he's in this predicament and what it all means. 

A Replay with a Difference
I think anyone who reads this book has wondered what they would do in Jeff's situation. I've played out the scenario several different ways, but lately my hypothetical goal has changed, as have my parameters for my replay cycle. 

Imagine if whatever force of nature or diving being was behind the replays wasn't getting what it desired out of the cycles. Perhaps it was missing something fundamental. So he/she/it decides, or evolves, a different replay methodology. 

After my first death, I get a choice. Instinctively, I know that I'm going to be reborn in my own body at a younger age, but I have a fraction of time to choose the exact date. 


I choose April 5, 1976, the day after my brother Sean is born. I choose this death for two reasons: First, because my knowledge of the future and my inability to remember precisely what I was doing when I was seven years old mean that I might do or say something before my brother's birth that might affect his conception, delaying it or advancing it by the few crucial hours or days that would mean I'd likely wind up with an entirely different younger sibling. Second, because in a sudden explosion of near-death hubris, I decide I want to use my replay to save the world from climate change - and having the knowledge and experience of a, say, 60- to 80-year old man housed in the body of a seven year old would be startling enough to attract the attention of adults with enough influence to potentially do something about my warnings of future catastrophe. 

In this scenario, the later I die the first time, the better, because I can describe the worst effects of climate change to the people of the 1970s. But even if I died now (um, please no), I think I still have enough knowledge to convince the powers-that-be that the time to act is their "now." 

Strategy: Minimize Harm to My Circles, Maximize Chances to Halt Climate Change
My first concern would be to avoid traumatizing my parents, my new little brother, my friends and teachers at school, and my extended family, at least to the extent possible. I'm not a good enough actor to play myself at seven years old, but I might be able hide the sudden disappearance of the child that I was by growing even more introverted and thoughtful than I was. 

I'd do my best to act like the kid I remembered being in Leaf Rapids: I'd toboggan in the winter, play with action figures, read voraciously, play cops and robbers, watch Star Trek on CBC, one of two English television channels we had up there. But I'd also be spending (even more) time at the library. And I'd be writing letters. 

The First Outreach
First, I'd try Dr. Carl Sagan. Going strictly my memory, I believe that in 1976 he'd probably be working on either the Viking (or was it Mariner?) Mars lander and the Voyager 1 and 2 probes. My first letter might go something like this: 

"Dear Dr. Sagan, 

"My name is Earl J. Woods. I'm a great admirer of your work and your writing. As a scientist, you know that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I have an extraordinary story to tell you, and I'm hoping we can talk about it. But first, I have to provide you with some extraordinary evidence, evidence that might take some months or years to come to light. 

"Sometime in 1980, you will write and star in a television series called Cosmos, based on your book of the same name. The show will air on PBS, and in it you'll tie human history and civilization to astronomy, astrophysics, and the great forces of nature that shape our evolution and possibly our destiny. The show will feature music by Vangelis; the first episode will be named "Heaven and Hell," which is also the name of one of the pieces of music by Vangelis composed for the show. The show will be hailed as a major work of education, and you'll become famous for your intonation of "billions and billions." (I don't remember if you actually said/will say this in the show, but it becomes an enduring meme.) 

"Voyager 1 and 2 will not only meet but greatly exceed their mission parameters. Or was it the Pioneer probes you worked/will work on? I don't remember the specifics, but rest assured Pioneer was also a great success.

"In the election of 1980, Ronald Reagan will defeat Jimmy Carter. The Iran Hostage Crisis will end shortly before or after Reagan's inauguration. There will be an assassination attempt on Reagan in 1980 or 1981; the would-be assassin will be John Hinkley, who had an unhealthy obsession with Jodie Foster, the young actress from Martin Scorsese's film Taxi Driver.

"Star Wars by George Lucas will be the highest-grossing film of all time in the summer of 1977, though Gone with the Wind will remain the true champion when adjusted for inflation.

"Director Alfred Hitchcock will die in 1980.

"A few years after writing Cosmos, you'll write Comet with your partner Ann Druyan.

"In 1983, the Soviets will shoot down Korean Airlines Flight 007 over, I believe, the Kamchatka peninsula. This action will precipitate a massive diplomatic crisis and is seen as one of the most dangerous events of the Cold War." 

"Conservative Joe Clark will become Prime Minister of Canada for a few months in 1979-1980, leading a minority government. His government will lose a vote of confidence and Pierre Trudeau will return from 'a walk in the snow' and lead the Liberals back to power in 1980.

"Dr. Sagan, by now you will think that I'm some kind of madman, or perhaps a stalker who's somehow discovered things you thought private, like your future plans. I'm hoping that my writing this letter will not cause the events I remember to unfold differently. My only hope of your belief is that at least a few of the events I've predicted come true.

"I'm writing to you because I want to share some very important future events with you. I believe you're one of a small percentage of people in the world who understand the existential threats our civilization faces. Currently I believe you're most concerned about nuclear weapons. Take some solace in knowing that in my experience, they have never been used as weapons of war since 1945. 

"The threat humanity faces is global warming caused by burning of fossil fuels. By 2022, scientists expect that the world could warm up by another 2.5 degrees Celsius or even higher by the year 2050. In my future, the impacts of climate change are already being felt in the form of more intense and more frequent natural disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, drought, and so on. The world's glaciers are rapidly melting, and government and industry have failed to take the actions necessary to prevent the worst from happening.

"I am not a scientist. I'm just a reasonably well-read layman. If I can prove my knowledge of future events to you and other influential people, there's a chance that my warnings about climate change could cause human beings to act more decisively and far earlier than they have in my time, which by now you'll have surmised is the early 21st century. 

"If and when you meet me, you'll probably be shocked by my appearance. But that's a problem for another time. For now, I can only hope that you'll be curious enough to reach out and perhaps conduct some scientific tests to determine if I'm telling the truth or if I'm just another crafty faker.

"I'll continue to try and remember events of the late 1970s before they happen in an effort to convince you faster. I'll write more letters as I gather my thoughts; this experience is still very new to me, and very difficult to navigate. 

"I've enclosed my phone number and mailing address just in case you threw away the envelope. How I wish I had e-mail or a cell phone to text you, but those things won't be invented for decades. Would you believe there's more computing power in my phone than there is in your most sophisticated equipment of today - probably by a factor of thousands? I'll tell you about it sometime. 

"I hope to hear from you. Thank you for showing how science is a candle in the dark. You were and are an inspiration. 

"Regards, 

Earl J. Woods" 

Backup Plans
If Sagan failed to respond, I'd probably start writing similar letters to science fiction writers and the campaigns of national US and Canadian politicians. George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry might be good bets; I know enough about the production history of their creative efforts to boggle them. They don't have the benefit of 50 years of behind-the-scenes books and documentaries. 

Securing My Own Future
Somehow, I'd convince our family doctor to check my parents regularly for specific health issues I know they'll develop later in life. I'll be nicer to my brother and more forgiving and less clueless with people my age. I'd be tempted to direct my parents to invest a little money in sure stock hits, but boy, would I be wary lest I create enough of a butterfly effect to change the course of the future and make my predictions less and less accurate and therefore less convincing to the people in charge. 

I'd certainly avoid getting addicted to Coke, and I'd work harder in university. I'd pursue writing jobs more aggressively and start that career earlier, given my decades of subjective experience. I'd stay in shape; keeping weight off is a heck of a lot easier if you don't get fat in the first place. 

Success or Failure?
Even if my warnings were heeded, would industry and governments take action that was bold enough and early enough to save civilization? I have no idea now, and I'd have no idea as I aged from seven up. I might get an inkling by the 2020s; if things aren't as bad in that decade the second or third or fourth time around, I'd know my strategy was paying off. Maybe, as in the book, I'd survive my destined death once civilization was safe, and maybe I'd get enough extra years of life to enjoy the fruits of my efforts. 

It's a nice fantasy. How terrible that I need it. 

Oyoubyourys

I made this simple map of a fantasy planet with a browser tool called Inkarnate. Even using the limited tools available with the free version, you can generate a pleasing map for display or your favourite roleplaying game. Pretty nifty. 
 

A Rowdy Night

Movies I Watched in 2019

I watched 1,065 movies this year. That seems rather a lot.

There was only one week when I didn't watch a film: while Sylvia and I were on vacation on the east coast. I can explain why I watched Mr. Arkadin twice; it's a great film, and there were two versions on the DVD set. The others were accidental rewatches.

Letterboxd gave members the ability to add a featured list to their annual statistics; I chose my Top 50 Iconic SF films. Below that, you can see my breakdown of films according to genre, national origin, and language.

The pie charts show that I reviewed only a fraction of the movies I saw, that most of the movies I watched predated 2019, and that I only rewatched a few films. The bar chart shows my ratings spread. Finally, Letterboxd reveals that I watched 197 of the movies on my watchlist, but that I also added almost 1,700. This seems to be a losing battle.

I'm not sure how Letterboxd defines which actors are stars and which are not, but in any event, here are the stars I watched most this year. Aside from John Wayne, the top row is dominated by Looney Tunes voice actors, which makes sense because I watched four box sets of WB cartoons in 2019. Paul Fix, Ward Bond, and Yakima Canutt were in a lot of westerns, and so they appear because I watched a lot of westerns last year. I went through a Stallone phase and a Schwarzenegger phase in a fit of nostalgia.

Here's a very different look at the stars: "highest rated." I'm not sure how Letterboxd determines this.

Here are the directors I explored most this year. Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Frank Tashlin, Robert McKimson, Bob Clampett, and Tex Avery appear because of those Looney Tunes box sets. Heise, Lumiere, Melies, White, and Dickson appear because I try to screen early cinema whenever I can. John Ford, David Lynch, and George Cukor are favourites, of course.

And here's the mysterious "Highest Rated" version of my director list.

The rest of the crew. This year, Letterboxd added co-director and studio stats.

The "Highest Rated" version.

My most liked review and list...such as they are.

And finally, my world map, which shows where the movies I watched in 2019 were made.

Here are some stats that Letterboxd didn't capture: I watched 38 Best Picture nominees in 2019, bringing my total to 533 out of 557, or 95.69%. Those nominees were:

Trader Horn
The Barretts of Wimpole Street
Four Daughters
Romeo and Juliet
Vice
Bohemian Rhapsody
Green Book
One Foot in Heaven
A Star is Born
The Favourite
Blackkklansman
Broadway Melody of 1936
Becket
Born Yesterday
Decision Before Dawn
Moulin Rouge (original) 
Julius Caesar
The Country Girl
Friendly Persuasion
The King and I
Peyton Place
Auntie Mame
Sons and Lovers
Separate Tables
Rocky
Prizzi’s Honor
A Thousand Clowns
Darling
The Mission
The Color Purple 
America America
Fanny
Ship of Fools
Hold Back the Dawn
Finding Neverland
Love Story
Gosford Park
Good Night, and Good Luck

Here`s how the decade-by-decade screenings went down:

1880s: 7
1890s: 107
1900s: 12
1910s: 11
1920s: 39
1930s: 85
1940s: 138
1950s: 165
1960s: 110
1970s: 80
1980s: 51
1990s: 52
2000s: 60
2010s: 150

My focus in 2019 was to capture films from a wide range of decades, directors, and styles, while also dusting off some discs that I`ve owned for years but had not yet watched and exploring some actors and directors in more depth. I think I accomplished that, making my way through four out of six Looney Tunes box sets, a bunch of 21st-century Best Picture nominees, a ton of John Wayne films, and a mixture of classics and not-so-classics from across 14 decades of film. 

Let`s see what the 2020s have in store...

Books I Read in 2019

For the first time since 2016, I read more books this year than last, though I still fell short of the 123 books I read in 2017 and my record of 135 the year previous. I read 103 books in 2019, short of my revised target of 136.

Here's how my year in books broke down:

Books by Women: 39
Books by Men: 64
I read more women this year than last, not quite approaching parity, but getting closer with a roughly 60/40 men to women ratio.

Nonfiction: 8
Fiction: 95

I read less nonfiction this year than last, but more than made up for the deficit by reading more fiction.

Genre
Fantasy: 10
Mainstream: 12
Science Fiction: 55
Star Trek: 18

My genre breakdown was roughly the same this year as last year.

Top Authors
James S.A. Corey: 15
Isaac Asimov: 8
Jo Walton: 6
Arthur C. Clarke: 5
Martha Wells: 5
Alan Dean Foster: 4
Vonda McIntyre: 4
John M. Ford: 3
Nancy Kress: 3
Lois McMaster Bujold: 2
Peter David: 2
Jack McDevitt: 2
Elizabeth Mitchell: 2
Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens: 2
Robert Silverberg: 2
Olaf Stapledon: 2

I wasn't much interested in the Expanse series by James S.A. Corey (a pen name), but on a whim I tried out the first of the novels early this year and found myself quite caught up by the characters and their adventures. I wound up reading the entire series, or at least as much as has yet been published; there's one more novel coming out next year.

As part of my effort to clear some of my backlog of classic SF, I read a handful of Asimov and Clarke novels, ticking off a few Hugo and Nebula winners along the way. Jo Walton continues to impress; I've now read almost everything she's published, and I look forward to more. The same goes for Martha Wells and her Murderbot Diaries; Leslie tipped me off to these delightful novellas, and I look forward to reading the first novel in the series in 2020.

Other highlights this year included The Testaments, Margaret Atwood's excellent sequel to The Handmaid's Tale; Dashiell Hammett's unusual hard-boiled thriller, The Glass Key; the disturbing Less Than Zero, by Bret Easton Ellis; Shaft, by Ernest Tidyman; and Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott.

Books by Decade
1860s: 1
1930s: 3
1950s: 5
1960s: 4
1970s: 7
1980s: 18
1990s: 5
2000s: 7
2010s: 52

As usual, most of the books I read in 2019 came out within the last decade; the 1980s was a distant second.

Here's the complete list of books I read in 2019:

January: 14
Rejoice, a Knife to the Heart (Steven Erikson, 2018)
The Naked Sun (Isaac Asimov, 1956)
Quantum Space (Douglas Phillips, 2018)
The Robots of Dawn (Isaac Asimov, 1983)
Pebble in the Sky (Isaac Asimov, 1950)
Red Moon (Kim Stanley Robinson, 2018)
Knife Children (Lois McMaster Bujold, 2019)
All Systems Red (Martha Wells, 2017)
The Future of Work: Compulsory (Martha Wells, 2018)
Artificial Condition (Martha Wells, 2018)
A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo (Jill Twiss, 2018)
Rogue Protocol (Martha Wells, 2018)
Exit Strategy (Martha Wells, 2018)
The Stars, Like Dust (Isaac Asimov, 1950)

February: 3
Fade In: From Idea to Final Draft (Michael Piller, 2005)
The Currents of Space (Isaac Asimov, 1952)
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland, 2017)

March: 5
No Short Roads to Flin Flon (Jack Frey, 2012)
Tomorrow’s Kin (Nancy Kress, 2017)
If Tomorrow Comes (Nancy Kress, 2018)
Terran Tomorrow (Nancy Kress, 2018)
Words on the Rocks: Collected Prose and Poetry of Flin Flon Writers (Alex McGilvery, 2016)

April: 4
Batmobile Cutaways (Richard Jackson, 2018)
Robots and Empire (Isaac Asimov, 1985)
Nine Tomorrows (Isaac Asimov, 1959)
A Time of Changes (Robert Silverberg, 1971)

May: 6
Nightfall and Other Stories (Isaac Asimov, 1969)
The Moon and the Sun (Vonda McIntyre, 1997)
The Healer’s War (Elizabeth Anne Scarborough, 1988)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke, 1968)
2010: Odyssey Two (Arthur C. Clarke, 1982)
The Long Sunset (Jack McDevitt, 2018)

June: 12
2061: Odyssey Three (Arthur C. Clarke, 1987)
3001: The Final Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke, 1997)
The Captain’s Oath (Christopher L. Bennett, 2019)
After the Flames (Elizabeth Mitchell, 1985)
The Butcher of Anderson Station (James S.A. Corey, 2011)
Octavia Gone (Jack McDevitt, 2019)
An Informal History of the Hugos: A Personal Look Back at the Hugo Awards (Jo Walton, 2018)
Starlings (Jo Walton, 2018)
Leviathan Wakes (James S.A. Corey, 2011)
Strange New Worlds 2016 (Various, 2016)
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (Eliezer Yudkowsky, 2015)
Drive (James S.A. Corey, 2012)

July: 11
Caliban’s War (James S.A. Corey, 2012)
Our Hero: Superman on Earth (Tom De Haven, 2010)
Odd John (Olaf Stapledon, 1935)
Deadly Waters (Theodore Judson, 2016)
The Worlds of TSR (Marlys Heeszel, 1994)
The Art of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Game (Mary Kirchoff, 1989)
The Art of Dragon Magazine (Jean Blashfield Black, 1988)
The Art of the Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Game (Margaret Weis, 1985)
A Fall of Moondust (Arthur C. Clarke, 1961)
Lent (Jo Walton, 2019)
Imzadi (Peter David, 1998)

August: 12
Imzadi Forever (Peter David, 2003)
The Book of Skulls (Robert Silverberg, 1972)
The Orphans of Raspay (Lois McMaster Bujold, 2019)
Spock’s World (Diane Duane, 1989)
Sand and Stars (A.C. Crispin, 2004)
Chthon (Piers Anthony, 1967)
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (Vonda McIntyre, 1982)
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (Vonda McIntyre, 1984)
Duty, Honor, Redemption (Vonda McIntyre, 2004)
Memory Prime (Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens, 1988)
Worlds in Collision (Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens, 2003)
The King’s Peace (Jo Walton, 2000)

September: 10
The King’s Name (Jo Walton, 2002)
Star Trek Log One (Alan Dean Foster, 1974)
The Churn (James S.A. Corey, 2014)
Gods of Risk (James S.A. Corey, 2012)
The Prize in the Game (Jo Walton, 2003)
Abaddon’s Gate (James S.A. Corey, 2013)
The Vital Abyss (James S.A. Corey, 2015)
The Institute (Stephen King, 2019)
Cibola Burn (James S.A. Corey, 2014)
Star Trek Log Two (Alan Dean Foster, 1974)

October: 5
Nemesis Games (James S.A.  Corey, 2015)
Babylon’s Ashes (James S.A. Corey, 2016
Star Trek Log Three (Alan Dean Foster, 1974)
Strange Dogs (James S.A. Corey, 2017)
Persepolis Rising (James S.A. Corey, 2017)

November: 10
Tiamat’s Wrath (James S.A. Corey, 2019)
False Knees: An Illustrated Guide to Animal Behavior (Joshua Barkman, 2019)
Collateral Damage (David Mack, 2019)
The Final Reflection (John M. Ford, 1984)
Less Than Zero (Bret Easton Ellis, 1985)
The Testaments (Margaret Atwood, 2019)
Star Trek Log Four (Alan Dean Foster, 1975)
The Pursuit of William Abbey (Claire North, 2019)
The Andromeda Evolution (Daniel F. Wilson, 2019)
As Big as the Ritz (Gregory Benford, 1987)

December: 11
Fugue State (John M. Ford, 1990)
Under the Wheel (Elizabeth Mitchell, 1987)
Shaft (Ernest Tidyman, 1970)
This Is How You Lose the Time War (Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, 2019)
Auberon (James S.A. Corey, 2019)
Last and First Men (Olaf Stapledon, 1930)
How Much for Just the Planet? (John M. Ford, 1987)
Famous Men Who Never Lived (K Chess, 2019)
Little Women (Louisa May Alcott, 1868)
The Glass Key (Dashiell Hammett, 1931)
Anatomy of a Metahuman (S.D. Perry and Matthew K. Manning, 2018)

Summary
While I'm glad I read more women this year, and that I read more this year than last, I'm still disappointed by my failure to approach 150 a year, something I'm sure, though I can't say for certain, I used to accomplish regularly in my teens and 20s. Did I have more time then, or am I just getting older and slower?

I also need to take on more challenging work, or at least more mainstream material. I love SF, but a steady diet of it to the exclusion of all else isn't healthy.

Maybe 2020 will be my year. Happy reading! 

Arena Night

Arena: The Contest

Many months ago, Steve, Jeff, and I kickstarted Arena: The Contest, a tactical fantasy battle boardgame with roleplaying elements. A couple of weeks ago our game finally arrived, and we unboxed a truly prodigious amount of gaming materials, including at least two dozen 28mm scale miniatures, several large miniatures including a big dragon and a REALLY BIG dragon, and a bunch of indoor terrain for extra immersion. Unboxing all the swag was a lot of fun, but as with all games, the most important question is: is it fun? 

It's a blast. The three of us played the introductory module, a player vs. environment encounter that saw our four heroes (I played two characters, since the scenario called for four good guys to balance the number of enemies) make their way through a lava-filled citadel to battle a number of monstrous thugs. I'm happy to report that the game is easy to learn but admirably complex, with many tactical choices available to players. The game art is gorgeous, hero characters have interesting combinations of abilities, and the maps are immersive and challenging (at least so far). I look forward to trying some player vs. player matches and the main campaign, which introduces roleplaying elements. 

Books I Read in 2018

For the second year in a row, the number of books I read over the course of the year has declined, down to 86 books this year compared to 123 in 2017 and 135 in 2016. Even worse, my ratio of women to men authors has declined drastically, as has my ratio of genre to mainstream (or "literary") works.

There are a few reasons for this, some new, some carried over from 2017. First, hardly any of my lunch breaks at Stantec are devoted to reading books; instead, I'm either playing Dungeons & Dragons or catching up on Reddit politics threads over lunch. I'm also screening a lot more films than I used to. And finally, Dad's passing and the stress from the quickly unfolding global sociopolitical/environmental catastrophe has made reading more difficult for me; I don't have the same focus I used to.

What reading I did manage this year veered strongly toward nostalgia and escapism. I managed to whittle down some Hugo and Nebula award winners this year, and finally read Isaac Asimov's Lucky Starr juveniles and the first of his R. Daneel Olivaw robot novels. I also knocked off James Blish's Cities in Flight books, something I've been meaning to do since about grade six.

Here's the list:

January: 11
Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ‘70s and ‘80s Horror Fiction (Grady Hendrix, 2017)
The Collectors (Christopher L. Bennett, 2014)
Miasma (Greg Cox, 2016)
Q Are Cordially Invited (Rudy Josephs, 2014)
When Angels Wept: A What-If History of the Cuban Missile Crisis (Eric G. Swedin, 2010)
Surrounded by Enemies (Bryce Zabel, 2013)
BFI Modern Classics: Easy Rider (Lee Hill, 1996)
Once There Was a Way (Bryce Zabel, 2017)
The Returned, Part 1 (Peter David, 2015)
The Returned, Part 2 (Peter David, 2015)
The Returned, Part 3 (Peter David, 2015)

February: 6
The Dispatcher (John Scalzi, 2016)
The Power (Naomi Alderman, 2016)
Sidelines (Lois McMaster Bujold, 2013)
Shadow on the Sun (Richard Matheson, 1994)
Absent Enemies (John Jackson Miller, 2014)
A Lot like Christmas (Connie Willis, 2017)

March: 4
The Home for Wayward Parrots (Darusha Wehm, 2018)
The Bronze Skies (Catherine Asaro, 2017)
The Outer Limits: Season One (David J. Schow, 2018)
The Klingon Dictionary, second edition (Marc Okrand, 1992)

April: 1
The Berlin Project (Gregory Benford, 2017)

May: 6
Action Comics: 80 Years of Superman (Paul Levitz, 2018)
Those Were the Days (Marty Kaplan and Tom Shales, 2012)
Thor Meets Captain America (David Brin, 1986)
The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era (Vernor Vinge, 1993)
The Flowers of Vashnoi (Lois McMaster Bujold, 2018)
4 3 2 1 (Paul Auster, 2017)

June: 8
The Outsider (Stephen King, 2018)
Grammar: The Easy Way (Dan Mulvey, 2002)
A Girl in Time (John Birmingham, 2016)
Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace (Joseph M. Williams, 2003)
Adventure: The Atari 2600 at the Dawn of Console Gaming (Jamie Lendino, 2018)
Hail to the Chin: Further Confessions of a B-Movie Actor (Bruce Campbell, 2017)
Wool (Hugh Howley, 2011)
Buying Time (Joe Haldeman, 1989)

July: 18
All Our Wrong Todays (Elan Mastri, 2017)
After the Fact: A Guide to Fact-Checking for Magazines and Other Media (Cynthia Brouse, 2007)
The Stuff of Dreams (James Swallow, 2013)
Artemis (Andy Weir, 2017)
Infinite (Jeremy Robinson, 2017)
sex, lies, and videotape (Steven Soderbergh, 1990)
American War (Omar el Akkad, 2017)
The President’s Brain is Missing (John Scalzi, 2017)
They Shall Have Stars (James Blish, 1956)
A Life for the Stars (James Blish, 1962)
Earthman, Come Home (James Blish, 1955)
The Triumph of Time (James Blish, 1959)
Behold the Man (Michael Moorcock, 1969)
The Fifth Head of Cerberus (Gene Wolfe, 1972)
The Planet on the Table (Kim Stanley Robinson, 1986)
The Tale of the Wicked (John Scalzi, 2012)
Slow River (Nicola Griffith, 1995)
Powers (Ursula K. LeGuin, 2007)

August: 11
David Starr, Space Ranger (Isaac Asimov, 1952)
Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids (Isaac Asimov, 1953)
Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus (Isaac Asimov, 1954)
Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury (Isaac Asimov, 1956)
Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter (Isaac Asimov, 1957)
Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn (Isaac Asimov, 1958)
Change Agent (Daniel Suarez, 2017)
Terminal Event (Robert Vaughn, 2017)
Opening Wednesday at a Theater or Drive-In Near You (Charles Taylor, 2017)
Trigger Mortis (Anthony Horowitz, 2015)
The Sirens of Titan (Kurt Vonnegut, 1959)

September: 10
The Keep (F. Paul Wilson, 1981)
Hope Never Dies (Andrew Shaffer, 2018)
Flight or Fright (Stephen King and Bev Vincent, 2018)
The Fountains of Paradise (Arthur C.  Clarke, 1979)
Legacies (F. Paul Wilson, 1998)
All the Way with JFK (F.C. Schaefer, 2017)
The Boat of a Million Years (Poul Anderson, 1989)
Superpowers (David J. Schwartz, 2008)
All My Sins Remembered (Joe Haldeman, 1977)
The Coming (Joe Haldeman, 2000)

October: 5
Hadon of Ancient Opar (Philip Jose Farmer, 1974)
Mockingbird (Walter Tevis, 1980)
The Dreaming Jewels (Theodore Sturgeon, 1950)
The Consuming Fire (John Scalzi, 2018)
Head On (John Scalzi, 2018)

November: 3
Nightflyers (George R.R. Martin, 1985)
Strangers (Gardner Dozois, 1978)
Flight to Opar (Philip Jose Farmer, 1976)

December: 5
Elevation (Stephen King, 2018)
The Caves of Steel (Isaac Asimov, 1954)
Star Trek: The Book of Lists (Chip Carter, 2017)
The Massacre of Mankind (Stephen Baxter, 2017)
Star Trek: Lost Scenes (David Tilotta and Curt McAloney, 2018)

Nonfiction: 16
Fiction: 70

Genre
Science Fiction: 46
Mainstream: 11
Star Trek: 8
Fantasy: 3
Horror: 3

Top Authors
Isaac Asimov: 7
John Scalzi: 5
James Blish: 4
Peter David: 3
Joe Haldeman: 3
Stephen King: 3
Lois McMaster Bujold: 2
Philip Jose Farmer: 2
F. Paul Wilson: 2
Bryce Zabel: 2

Books by Women: 10
Books by Men: 76

Books by Decade
1950s: 12
1960s: 2
1970s: 6
1980s: 7
1990s: 7
2000s: 6
2010s: 48

E-Waterloo

A couple of weeks ago, I finally gave in an ordered an e-reader, which arrived on the Friday before Christmas. I resisted for many reasons, some of which still bother me:

• You don't own e-books, you licence them, which means you can't resell, loan, or give them away without breaking the terms of your licence
• They don't smell right (or at all)
• You can't fill shelves with them
• The reading experience is sterile
• How much electronic waste are millions of generations of e-readers going to generate over the next couple of decades? 

I finally gave in because something I feared eventually happened: some of my favourite authors are no longer publishing traditional books in the physical world. Unless I resort to piracy, I can't read their stuff. 

It was Lois McMaster Bujold who broke me. She's written several new books set in the same fantasy universe as The Curse of Chalion, The Hallowed Hunt, etc., and you can't buy print copies because they don't exist. 

Hence my surrender. To ease the pain, Sylvia bought me a very generous Amazon gift card, which I've used to fill my new Kindle with electronic books. 

I knew it would happen eventually; I just didn't expect it to be this soon. E-books, how does it feel now you've won the war? 

Geeky Movie Night: 1982

On my drive home today, I recalled how much I'd enjoyed the movies of 1982. It was a great year for lovers of science fiction and fantasy: that year I marvelled at Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Blade Runner, Airplane II: The Sequel, Firefox, Tron, Swamp Thing, and Conan the Barbarian.

I also put up with E.T.. No year is perfect.

There were some films I was too young to see in 1982: The Thing, Cat People, Creepshow, and Poltergeist, among others. But I caught them later, and The Thing in particular became a favourite.

As I drove, I wondered if perhaps I should arrange a 1982-themed movie night. But with such a wide array of great movies to choose from, how could I possibly pick just two or three representing the SF/F/horror/cult sphere of that incredible year?

If I had to pick one film that captured the zeitgeist of my early teens, it would have to be Tron. At that age I was obsessed with computers, video arcades, and home computer games, and Tron held out the mind-bending possibility that one could enter a whole new digital realm. It also looked and sounded like no other movie.

For a second feature, I would probably choose Conan the Barbarian, which is almost the polar opposite of Tron; it's low tech, it presents a world of fantasy and magic, and the hero is a man of brawn rather than brain. And yet it's just as exciting and fun as my first choice, and the two films share the spirit of adventure that I adore most in escapist film.

Choosing a third film is considerably more difficult. As a Trekkie, I'm tempted to pick the most highly regarded of all Trek films, Wrath of Khan. It's a legitimately great movie, and holds up to this day. But it's also part of a larger story, and it feels a little weird to view a sequel without its larger context.

Blade Runner is tempting, but for authenticity you'd have to screen the original version with the happy ending and voice-over, which I think most fans of the film would see as inferior to the later director's cuts.

In the end, I'd have to wrap up my 1982 movie night with John Carpenter's The Thing, still one of the creepiest and bleakest horror movies of all time, with a terrific story, claustrophobic atmosphere, and perhaps one of the most nihilistic endings ever. It also serves as a nice counterpoint to my more upbeat choices.

How about you? I've posted a poll at right to measure my readers' favourite cult, fantasy and science fiction films of 1982. I'm interested to see what three or four or five films you might choose for you own movie night. 

Wonderbook Challenge: One

When Arthur finally found the courage to put fingers to keyboard, a demon conjured itself into existence. Arthur's fingers froze before he could type the first word of his yet-to-be-born novel. His transfixed eyes widened in horror as the demon resolved itself fully into uncanny existence.

It was a slimy, bulbous thing. Bulging, fish-like eyes protruded from either side of a head that was just the tapering endpoint of a great spheroid body. Thick, finned arms spread outward from this corpulent mass in a gesture that parodied embrace; it stood on a quivering stalk of blue-green flesh.

Arthur jerked back in disgust, toppling the pile of antique books that rested with habitual unease behind his creaky old office chair.

Arthur's parrots, one perched on his left shoulder, the other on his right, dug their talons into their master's shoulders, squawked indignantly and raised their wings in warning.

"Fire torpedoes!" trilled Igor, the parrot on the left. "Energize!" said Henry, the parrot on the right.

All this happened too quickly for Arthur. He sat stunned for a long moment after his books had stopped tumbling to the carpet.

One of the demon's cloudy eyes swiveled in its socket, peering at the trio behind the typewriter.

"If you type one word, you shall die," the demon said.

Arthur's fingers, cold, slid across the porcelain keys and coiled themselves into fists. He ground his teeth, and his eyes were furious.

"Why come to me now, when I'm finally ready to write?" he asked, slamming a fist down on the desk, jarring a golden pen loose; it rolled off the desk and landed softly on the floor.

"If you type one word, you shall die," the demon said.

Arthur stood. Though he felt a great, clammy knot of fear growing in his chest, he rose up and flung his grandfather's inkwell at the demon. It vanished in a puff of blue velvet mist, taking the inkwell with it.

Arthur collapsed back into his chair. Igor and Henry launched themselves into the air, flapping about the tiny old library.

"Risk is our business!" Henry said.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Igor said.

Arthur slumped back in his chair, gazing at the clean white sheet of paper that waited for his words. After a long time, he leaned forward, resting his fingers once again on the keys.

"I wasn't planning to type just one word," he said, and with increasing speed and ferocity the typebars slammed against paper and platen, leaving their arcane marks.