Happy New Year’s, everyone.
In 2018 I created the goal for myself that I wanted to read 80 books this year. But as the list below reveals, I only got around to reading just above half of that. Even taking all the short stories I’ve read into account, I probably still haven’t read more than what corresponds to 50 books.
Deadpool – The Complete Collection by Daniel Way:
I actually liked the humor of the Deadpool movie and a friend off mine convinced me to try the comics too. I have to be honest though, the compilation I bought at least wasn’t really all that funny. The stories were fine, standard action hero stuff, but the humor was what I counted on to make this thing work. It didn’t.
Star rating: 1/5
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett:
Here, on the other hand, the humor exploded of the page. I’d wanted to read Good Omens for a while, Pratchett and Gaiman being two of my favorite authors, and it didn’t disappoint. There was Pratchett’s humor, Gaimain’s eloquent writing, brilliant characters, and solid story telling. I very much recommend.
Star rating: 5/5
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson:
I listened to this one while driving to and from work, and it was perfect just for that. The pacing was high, the conflict gripping, and the setting was original and well thought off. Add to that a clear writing style and you end up with a story that could entertain, but didn’t demand so much of your attention that it made impossible to drive simultaneously. The characters felt a bit superhuman at times, and the sentence level writing wasn’t exactly brilliant. Still, with a debut like that, it’s no wonder Sanderson’s career sky-rocketed.
Star rating: 3/5
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf:
I picked this out because I want something else than speculative fiction once in a while, and I’d heard Woolf’s writing style was a joy in itself. I’ve been let down by so-called classics before, and I have to say this was one of the worse letdowns. I can enjoy subtle tension just as much as all out action, but nothing really happened in this story at all, and the writing style, well… the combination of stream of consciousness and head-hopping was annoying at best, but mostly it just came across as pretentious since it didn’t really seem to have any purpose.
Star rating: 1/5
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury:
Having been let down by one of the general classics, I turned to one of the modern classics of speculative fiction. And this one was an instantaneous success. I would’ve enjoyed it just for the sentence level writing. Bradbury’s style is clear yet distinct and concise, and it paints images like few others can. But the story is so much more than this. It’s a well developed futuristic setting that seems all to close to the world we’re living in today, and with it, it carries a theme that should give every book lover, every intelligent being pause for thought. The only negative thing I have to say about the book is the relatively forgettable characters. Still, this has become one of my all time favorite books.
Star rating: 5/5
Serials, season 1 by Sarah Koenig:
All right, so this is like a book, book. It’s not even fiction. If you haven’t heard about it, Serials is a investigative journalism podcast, but it’s told in a story like format, which is why I’ve included it on the list. And I’d argue I did learn a thing or two about storytelling from it. Namely how compelling a casual narrative voice can be, how important it is to have interesting characters in your story, and how an unreliable narrator can add to the excitement. The first season utilizes all of these to tell a great story. However, it’s also, I wouldn’t say a let down because you should be able to guess this from the start, but it’s annoying not getting some closure, a proper ending to round off the story.
Star rating: 4/5
The Rolling Stones by Robert Heinlein:
I read this not long after having read Fahrenheit 451, and I must admit there was a world of difference by these two contemporary books. Where Fahrenheit was poetic and suspenseful, Stones was plain and flat. Where Fahrenheit carried a heavy theme and was based on an interesting idea, Stones seemed to have no theme other than it’s nice to have money, and though it was filled with long explanations of plausible space science, it had no big, original ideas. In one area was the Stones superior; it did have a very interesting cast of characters, and their interactions were the high point of the “story”. Iput story in quotation marks there because though it’s evident that Heinlein knew every little trick of storytelling, it seems he forgot the most important part: conflict. It didn’t really seem like the story was about anything. I’m not just talking theme here. Basically the plot was: The family Stone travels into space, runs into minor obstacle which is solved on the next page. There’s no overarching conflict, nothing to pull me through to the next page.
Star rating: 1/5
Serials, season 2 by Sarah Koenig:
As I mentioned above for season one, this isn’t really a book or even fiction but rather investigative journalism. However, the story-like format made me include both seasons. Where season one had a mystery to be solved, unreliable witnesses, and an a high level of conflict, season two was more meh. The overall conflict wasn’t really working for me because you could tell from the start that the podcast team wouldn’t really be able to dig into it. And by the end, all I walked away with was the message that politicians are idiots.
Star rating: 2/5
Sourcery by Sir Terry Pratchett.
Funny as always, Pratchett didn’t disappoint me with this one. It’s not as great as Good Omens or Guards! Guards! But it’s a far deal better than his first two Discworld books. In all, a fun and surprisingly quick read (somehow it always surprises me how quickly I get through Pratchett books).
Star rating: 3/5
Wyrd Sisters by Sir Terry Pratchett.
More classic Pratchett. It was funny, quick to read through, and it had the witches as the protagonists (Granny Weatherwax is one of my favorite Pratchett characters). Compared to Sourcery, I’d say Wyrd Sisters was slightly better, mainly because of more interesting protagonists but also because of a tighter plot.
Star rating: 4/5
Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose.
The HBO series based of the book is one of my all time favorite TV shows (I’m currently rewatching it, again), so when I found the book in second hand books shop in southern Spain, I had to own it. Turns out the TV shows actually was the better version for ones. I liked the historical details and the determination of the author to tell the personal story of as much of the E company as possible. But the scope seemed too wide for the book, and it lacked the strong characterization of the soldiers that made the TV show so great was completely absent.
Star rating: 2/5
Dragonlance: Chronicles (book 1 and 2) by Hickman and Weise.
I hadn’t really expected these books to be good, but somehow they managed to disappoint anyway. The only good thing I can say about them is that they’re so bad that they’re actually incredibly funny. I mean, the stilted characters, the way too obvious Dungeons and Dragons rip-off, the clumsy writing completely lacking emotion, the list goes on. And, yes, I know Dragonlance is targeted towards teens, but that’s no excuse for crappy writing.
Star rating: 1/5
Heroes by Joe Abercrombie.
An excellent book. Abercrombie manages to flesh out his characters in just a few sentences, making even the tiniest side character more well rounded than protagonists by many other authors. I especially love the way he manages to show the good and bad in every character. No one is truly just a hero or a villain. Actually, every character is a bit of an asshole, but through narrative tricks Abercrombie managed to make me care about them anyway. The grittiness might be a bit much, but that is his style, and since the whole story is about war, it never seems out of place.
Star rating: 5/5
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik.
When I found this at a second hand bookshop while on vacation in Budapest, I was elated. I’ve heard so much good about the book and have been planning on buying it for ages. It didn’t take me long to realize it was going to be a letdown, though. The premise (the Napoleonic wars with dragons) is excellent and promises lots of excitement, but sadly, almost any form of conflict arising in the story was killed off within a line or two. Besides, the stilted behavior of the protagonist and the archaic writing style dragged the story down even though these aspects fitted the time period and setting for the story.
Star rating: 2/5
The Magician’s Apprentice (part 1) by Trudi Canavan.
Turns out this was a prequel probably aimed for people already fans of Canavan’s Magician series. Still, I felt such a successful author should’ve been able to create a stronger story. Almost nothing happen throughout the story, and the two major events there were received almost no emotional response from the character. It could be that some of it comes down to me having listened to the story as an audiobook with pretty boring narrator and it was in Danish, so maybe it was a sloppy translation. Still, this wasn’t exactly the kind of story that made me want to read the other books in the series.
Star rating: 1/5
Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard.
I feel conflicted about this book. I mean, it was entertaining enough, fast paced and easy to get through, but somehow still not all that interesting a read. The major issue was perhaps that it created the wrong expectations to begin with. All the cover quotes were about Mr. Leonard being an excellent crime and thriller writer but the book turned out to be a comedy, on big joke on Hollywood actually. Other than that, there wasn’t really any characters to root for. Still, the book was funny in an awkward way.
Star rating: 3/5
Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson.
I feel bad, having to give this book such a low rating, especially since Elantris showed some real promise. As did Warbreaker to begin with, having an excellent mystery to pull the reader in and an interesting magic system. The characters were also more interesting than in Elantris, but a few chapters into the book, the story began to falter. There was a lot of navel-gazing a very little plot progression, and when the climax finally came, it was riddled with heavy info dumps that could easily have been omitted. I still haven’t given up on Sanderson, though; I’m actually looking forward, quite a lot, to reading Mistborne.
Star rating: 2/5
Coraline by Neil Gaiman:
I’m generally not much into children’s books, but who other than Neil Gaiman would manage to write one that would blow me away. It has all of Gaiman’s usual brilliant sentence level writing, his bleak yet exciting tone, his and of course his wonderful imagination. I’m just glad I didn’t read it as a kid; it would’ve scared me senseless.
Star rating: 5/5
Long Earth by Sir Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter.
I never though I’d read a Pratchett novel I disliked, but then I stumbled across Long Earth. Don’t get me wrong, the story had a nice premise and characters that, to begin with, seemed promising. But for the most part the book was really just one big just exploration of the what if scenario that forms the premise of the story. The characters never really developed and the story itself didn’t take off until the final 1/5 or so. Even then, it ended with a fizzle. I know it’s part of a series, but still, I expected more than what’s basically a “to be continued”.
Star rating: 1/5
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.
Having seen the BBC miniseries version, I already knew the story of Neverwhere. Still, it was as an exciting read as any. Gaiman’s imagination alone is something to be envied, not to mention his way with words and his keen sense of observation.
Star rating: 5/5
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi.
More military science fiction than Red Shirts, but it still has the same humor with plenty of excellent jokes. It’s not quite on the same level, some of which becomes very clear when listening to it as an audiobook (he said, I said, she said). Still, a decent read.
Star rating: 3/5
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.
I still consider Bradbury an excellent writer, and he definitely gets points for his many brilliant ideas and his experimentation with his stories. But having read Fahrenheir 451 I couldn’t help but feel disappointed with The Martian Chronicles. At times it felt less like a story than some vaguely interconnect scenes.
Star rating: 3/5
Ghost Brigade by John Scalzi:
I get the desire for new writers to turn their debut novel into a series if it was a success, and In Scalzi’s case, Old Man’s War certainly had series potential, but man did I wish it had stayed a stand alone. Where the former had some minor issues with the pacing and the sentence level writing, it made up for it with a great deal of humor, an interesting universe, and an engaging protagonist. Ghost Brigade had far less of the humor, a boring protagonist, and was bogged down by endless descriptions of an otherwise cool and original universe.
Rating: 2/5
The Gunslinger (Dark Tower series, book 1) by Steven King:
It wasn’t a terrible book but not exactly a great one either. I enjoyed the western-fantasy mix of a world King has created, and there was a lot of potential here. However, there wasn’t much of King’s famous distinctive voice and great sentence level writing that I’d come to expect after reading The Shinning. Also, Rolland, the protagonist, felt extremely flat, and his motives were unclear at best, inconsistent at worst. The worst part was the ending, which probably isn’t so surprising seeing as even the author himself has admitted to not being able to write endings (and for some reason he doesn’t believe in being able to practice this). But because of the sudden shift in Rolland’s motivations the ending turned into dull discussion between enemies about the nature of the universe.
Rating: 2/5
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach: The book was extremely heavy handed with its message, that self-improvement and striving for perfection is the only thing that worth living. I found this comment on it by another critic which sums it up nicely: ‘the book was “so banal that it had to be sold to adults; kids would have seen through it.”‘ If the book had been more subtle with its message and if it had simply stuck to showing the benefits of striving for excellence rather than taking a semi-religious view on the subject, I think I would’ve enjoyed it a lot more.
Rating: 2/5
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman: This was probably my least favorite Gaiman book, and it was still pretty decent. There were plenty of great ideas, and the sentence level writing was solid as ever. The plot, however, which is usually Gaiman’s weakest side, was all over the place. There were lots of random scenes that didn’t really add anything to the story, and the main antagonist was overcome by the protagonist way too easily. But again, it wasn’t a bad book.
Rating: 3/5
Kill the Farm Boy by Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne: The story started out well with lots of great jokes and twists on the familiar fantasy tropes, which was pretty much what I bought the book for. As it progressed, many of the jokes seemed to be about puns and farts, and the twisting of the tropes didn’t have the comedic effect (at least on me) that I hoped for. I probably wouldn’t grab the next book in the series, but I didn’t regret reading it either, and I would definitely consider reading something else by Dawson or Hearne if I stumbled upon it.
Rating: 3/5
Infernal Devices by K. W. Jeter: I bought this because in a second hand shop because of its strange, to say the least, cover. So I was pleasantly surprised to find out just prior to reading it that it’s apparently one of the founding pieces of the steampunk sub-genre. The story itself has a pretty bland and inactive protagonist and is written in a style reminiscent of the that of the Victorian English novels. The protagonist’s behavior is explained later in the book though, and the written style fits the setting, so I didn’t consider them major drawbacks. Other than that, the book is filled original characters and fantastic ideas the likes of which I haven’t seen in any other piece of literature. Jeter did take some of his ideas a bit far in the end, but it was still a more than decent read.
Rating: 3/5
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury: As Steven King points out in his Dance Macabre, the book is at times overwritten, the prose turning quite purple. I’d go as far as claiming that most of the books suffers from this in addition to having pretty boring protagonist and an almost Deux Ex Machina ending. Still, Bradbury really showed himself was a master of setting a truly dark and scary tone the same way as Neil Gaiman and Gene Wolfe are. That combined with the fast pace and the excellent and original premise of a dark carnival coming to exploit the dark parts of peoples’ souls made a solid read.
Rating: 3/5
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams: All right internet, bring on the hate, because I wasn’t blown back by the book. It might be all the hype; it might be that it just wasn’t my type of humor. Either way, I was disappointed. It had its funny moments and a few keen insights into human behavior, but for a book that’s all about the jokes, that’s just not enough.
Rating 2/5
The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke: It was a bit long-winded when it came to the describing the science parts, and the conflict was, well, not always there. But other than that I liked the book. The premise was interesting, the characters relatively interesting, and the sentence level writing was decent. Generally, this made the book feel surprisingly non-dated.
Rating: 3/5
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin: This wasn’t really what I’d hoped from my first Le Guin novel. Not surprisingly, even the author herself said she’d never though anybody would publish the book because it moved so slowly. The premise was interesting though, and the way it treated the subject of gender was extremely interesting. I was disappointed by the relatively flat characters, though.
Rating: 2/5
Jytte fra Marketing er Desværre Gået for i dag (Jane From Marketing has Unfortunately Left for Today): The book is in Danish, but if there’s ever an English translation out there, it’ll be worth the read. It’s not often I read non-fiction, and surely not books about corporate management. But this book is hilariously written (at least the first third, then it drops a bit after that), and it’s so spot on when the author explains how real people think versus how every management in big corporations think people think that it’s almost unbearable.
Rating 4/5
A Fisherman From the Inland Sea by Ursula K. Le Guin: I can appreciate the stories that treated the theme of feminism and the subject of women not being considered equal to men for just that. But that only seemed to be the shortest ones in this collection. The eloquent sentence level writing and extremely deeply carved out characters which made the author so famous don’t seemed to be present at all in these stories, which left me very disappointed. I still haven’t given up on Le Guin, but I haven’t been impressed with what I’ve read so far.
Rating: 2/5
Ind i Mørket (Into the Darkness) by Henrik Sandbeck Harksen. An indie horror short story collection in Danish, not exactly what I’m usually reading, so my expectations weren’t that high. Sure enough, I had to swallow a few hiccups along the way, but there were some genuinely good stories in there. Especially the opening story worked well, while the otherwise stilted Cthulhu story had me glancing over my shoulder all evening. So a far better experience than I had expected.
Rating: 2/5
Peak by Anders K. Ericsson and Robert Pool: So far the only reread on this years list. I generally don’t like self-help books because they all to often try to sell the idea of success without effort. Ericsson focuses a lot on the fact that nobody becomes an expert in an area without a lot of effort and time. He doesn’t promise his method will make everyone a top performer in their chosen field either (genetics does have a say), but he explains why most people plateu early in their skill development and how by applying his deliberate practice they can get far better. He even backs up his claims with some excellent and interesting research. As I said, I’m not really into self-help books, but I’ve fully bought into the idea that deliberate practice is the way to go if I want to improve at this writing thing.
Rating: 3/5
This Immortal by Roger Zelazny: I wasn’t too optimistic when I picked up this book. It was from the sixties and looked pretty dated, but I really wanted to give Zelazny a try. And good thing I did. Aside from a few awkward sentences, it was very well written. The story also kept me hooked without any boring moments throughout. The ending did feel a bit flat and sudden, though, and the blurb on the back was extremely misguiding in presenting what the story was about.
Rating: 3/5
Livsfarlig Ledelse (Lethal Management) by Christian Ørsted: A cringingly accurate look at modern corporate management and how it affects the employees. The book is based on an excessive amount of research and highlights how modern management methods is based on phsycological breakthroughs and the training the US military has implemented to turn their soldiers into effective killers, and not surprisingly, how this has caused massive phsycological damage to the modern workforce in the form of stress. I hope it gets translated into English someday because a lot of people, both managers and employees could learn a thing or two from it.
Rating: 4/5
Kvinden i Buret (The Keeper of Lost Causes) by Jussi Adler-Olsen: I had pretty high expectations for this book, considering it was the breakthrough novel by the best selling Danish author in recent years. But while the pacing was fine and the mystery intriguing, the sentence level writing and dialogue was terrible. And the rough-around-edges detective we’re supposed to root for was for the most part just an ass hole. And when his skills as an investigater were shown of, it was mostly through his intuitions (in other words “magic”) instead of seeing details other had missed.
Rating: 2/5
The Green Mile by Steven King: The pacing was a bit slow, and it would have been nice if some of the repetitions from the original serial version had been edited out, but other than that it was an excellent story. It had King’s brilliant signature sentence level writing and a strong emotional impact which was why I wanted to give it a go in the first place.
Rating: 4/5
Books I couldn’t force myself to finish:
Bird by Bird.
The Last Days of New Paris.
Norton’s Short Story Anthology – 8th edition.
What do you think about the list? Do you agree with it? Do you have any suggestions for which books I should be looking into for 2019? I’m hoping to get closer to the 80 books this year while also reading a bit wider (not shying away from speculative fiction, but broadening my reading will probably help me as a writer).
Toby Backman 