Just started:

Metro 2033 - Dmitry Glukhovsky
I played the game and liked it a lot, figured I'd give the book a shot.

Finished:



Up next:

Finished:

Bout to dip into this:

Merrill Markoe is one of my heroes, and is married to or at least shacking up with in an LTR with Andy Prieboy, second lead singer for Wall of Voodoo.

Just finished:

Finished

Finished:

I really like the author's Southern Reach trilogy (which was the first thing I've read of him), but this let me down. Technically there was a lot happening, but neither the story or the characters engaged me. I held out hoping for a big revelation at the end but it never came. Also finished:

Another book I was hoping to enjoy more. It was much grimmer than I was expecting (especially with all of the comparisons to Stranger Things). For me, this might be something that makes a better movie ... the story has a limited cast and setting, and a number of gruesome set pieces. It felt underdeveloped as a novel though, and feels like a story someone like Dean Koontz would've done a much better job with (especially in the 80s).

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What a great book! This may be the best book that I've read all year. It's the first that I've read by Larry McMurtry, but now I'm going to make sure that I read more of his books next year.

Up next:

One of my favorite current authors around...

I used to love his show. Old horror or science fiction movies, and his trivia bits were great.

Make sure you have the full-length version of The Stand.

Just finished this emotional gut-punch:


Just started:

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Just finished:

The Storyteller by Dave Grohl

Read:



Wow, I forgot how intense the dinosaur encounters were -- much more intense than Spielberg's movie which had its moments. Death by dinosaur would suck. With that moving on to...

Reading:

Fantastic non-fiction about the entirety of the shipping industry. Highly recommended for anyone with even just the most remote interest in this stuff.

The Great Gatsby
first time. So lushly written

I am a sucker for sci-fi -- TV, movies and books.

Fallout by Craig Alanson. Bought it Friday night. Finished it Saturday night.

I have both, but I decided to read this one first, as I've heard mixed things about the unexpurgated version. I figure that if I end up liking this one a whole bunch, I'll actively want to check out the uncut version later, and I'll have a point of reference for the stuff that's been put back in. If I don't like the truncated version so much, maybe the reinstated portions will change my view. Either way, I'll be happy.

My main problem now is finishing it before the year ends. I made a commitment to read 25 books this year, and this one's #25...and I've still got 500 pages to go.

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I really liked this. On the surface, it may look like a space opera (and there's some of that) but it's more a literary character-piece. Even though everything connects together, it's very episodic in structure (with some chapters feeling like they could be stand-alone short stories). I thought the writing was beautiful and it's very impressive that this was the first book by the author. Also:

Very strange but readable. Reviews all seem to compare this to other things, so I'll say: Heathers (in graduate school) with The Witches of Eastwick, by way of David Lynch. I've seen this on lists of "best horror" although I think this is a book that more "conventional" horror fans won't like. Although the characters and situation weren't readily relatable for me, I found it interesting and compelling. And despite the weirdness I didn't find it a difficult read (and it was a relatively short book).

Officers and Gentlemen - Evelyn Waugh. Book two of a trilogy about World War II, written in the 1950s and 60s. Waugh fought in the war, including at Crete, and the book is full of witty or angry descriptions of military incompetence. This is not "the good war." It's also about the end of the traditional upper class in Britain and what place honor holds in modern war.

In this volume, Captain Guy Crouchback, who was made the scapegoat for senior officers at the end of the previous book, joins the newly formed Commandos because no one else will have him. He goes to a desolate island off Scotland where they're training. The first half of the book is comic. The second half is bitter. The unit isn't used for a year, and then is posted to assist the invasion of Crete. The battle was a disaster for the British, with many casualties. At the end of it all, the Commandos are ordered to cover the retreat of the regular Army, and then to surrender to the Nazis. Guy survives.

Each book continues the story days after the previous one finished, so sometimes the trilogy is considered one big novel. I'm looking forward to book three.