clif shoots for 100 in 2016

have fallen short the last few years ... but I remain optimistic! Like the people in this group as well as the relaxed tenor of discussion ... so here I'll remain.

1. The Silkworm Robert Galbraith
2. The Haunted Bookshop Christopher Morley
3. Hal Spacejock Simon Haynes
4. Babel-17 Samuel Delany
5. Armageddon Leon Uris
6. The Name of the Wind Patrick Rothfuss
7. The Disappeared Kristine Kathryn Rusch
8. Mars Journey: Call to Action: Book 1 Bill Hargenrader
9. Just One Damned Thing After Another Jodi Taylor
10. Ring of Fire: Ring of Fire Anthology Book 1 ed. Eric Flint
11. Reamde Neal Stephenson
12. Finders Keepers Stephen King
13. The London Blitz Murders Max Allan Collins
14. The Titanic Murders Max Allan Collins
15. The Goblin Reservation Clifford Simak
16. The Black Echo Michael Connelly
17. A Discovery of Witches Deborah Harkness
18. Calculus Made Easy Thompson & Gardner
19. The Farm on the Roof Anastasia Cole Plakias
20. How We'll Live on Mars Stephen Petranek
21. The Cat's Eye R. Austin Freeman
22. Across a Billion Years Robert Silverberg
23. The Black Ice Michael Connelly
24. A Natural History of Dragons Marie Brennan
25. Indexing Seanan McGuire
26. 10% Happier Dan Harris
27. The Commuter Thomas A. Mays (no touchstone)
28. Astro City Kurt Busiek

Welcome back Keith! I'm looking forward to following your reading again this year. Happy New Year!

Wow!! As I scan through my groups list I see that my first 100 book challenge was in 2010 (I read 148 books in 2010!!! My production has dropped off significantly!). This will be my seventh year for this group!

This is your seventh year? Amazing! :) I'm sure you'll make it to 100+ this year.

#1 for 2016 ...

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith; I am enjoying the characters in this series very much; unsurprising as characterization is the authors strength IMO. The story/plot? Meh, it's about the publishing world ... lots of unlikable people to keep track of and the ending wasn't so surprising. She does leave a bit of a subtle cliffhanger ... we'll see if she follows up on it in later books.

>5 clif_hiker: I had no idea there was a third book in that series. I'm just now getting around to purchasing the first one. Good review. I'll try and keep that in mind if/when I get around to The Cuckoo's Calling.

#2 The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley; sequel to Parnassus on Wheels, a charming little story about booksellers and bookshops set right after the end of WW I ... some intrigue and a love story of course!

Hi Keith, good luck for 2016!

Those Christopher Morley books sound interesting, but I'm not sold on Robert Galbraith yet.

I can agree that the Galbraith stories may not appeal to everyone ... I (at least partially) enjoy them by finding how many ways and how hard she tries to be different in her writing than she was with Harry Potter.

Hal Spacejock by Simon Haynes; corny space opera ... had some funny moments with references but overall .. pretty blah

Babel-17 by Samuel Delany; trying to read some of the older Hugo noms ... this story was written in 1966, won the Nebula Award (along with Flowers for Algernon, which is pretty good company IMO) and was nominated for the Hugo; and also predates the whole language/gender thing that is currently swirling around Ann Leckie and her stories .. by quite a bit. Did I like it? Meh, it was awfully 'talky' which was rather standard at the time (see Heinlein, Asimov et.al.) and pretty far out as to relationships and mind melding etc. But definitely worth reading.

Armageddon by Leon Uris; Leon Uris writes pretty good wartime stories that aren't directly about the war itself, but rather the people and activities behind the lines ... in this case post WWII Germany. It must have been exceedingly difficult to forgive the Germans ... especially so soon after the events. But the West desperately needed them to stand against Russia ... so ...

A recommended historical novel if you have any interest in this period.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss; Wowee!! What an epic fantasy tale this is! I should've listened to that one student who voraciously read everything I suggested and who told me how good it was. I'll be sure and let him know that I liked it very much ...

Oh The Kingkiller books are fantastic. I am impatiently waiting for Rothfuss to finish the third book in the trilogy, but he has a nasty case of the George R.R. Martins and is in no hurry to do so. I am afraid that he has written himself into a corner and doesn't know how to get out.

The second one is just as good. Have fun!

Count me in with the chorus of praise for Kingkiller Chronicles! Great fun, and I don't actually mind if he doesn't write any more, I'm so happy with what he's given me so far.

The Disappeared by Kristine Kathryn Rusch; enjoyed this story a lot ... first in a series ... nice world building, good characters .. my only quibble might have been with the unrealistic aliens but hey you can write aliens pretty much any way you want and who's going to say they can't be that way?

#14 ?? Not good wookie, what if Patrick Rothfuss reads this and decides the pressure is off and he can slow down even more ???

LOL, I'd rather a couple of brilliant books than a author limping along with a series that has gone on for too long. :)

Mars Journey: Call to Action: Book 1 by Bill Hargenrader; no touchstone for this apparently ... anyway I'm reading anything and everything I can get my hands on about Mars and Mars colonization. I'm a big fan of Elon Musk ...

Anyway, this story was pretty basic but does outline the general idea of global cooperation towards a Mars Colonization expedition. I hope it happens in my lifetime ...

Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor; as I began reading this story my first thoughts were that this is the story that all of us that enjoyed but were continually annoyed by Connie Willis's Blackout/All Clear books ... wish she had wrote. But after a while it diverged quite a bit ... lots of sex and sexual banter wrapped around an interesting premise. Will look into the sequels of course ...

Ring of Fire: Ring of Fire Anthology #1 edited by Eric Flint; I started reading Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series last year out of curiosity and a desire to give Baen Publishing a chance ... and was pleasantly surprised. These stories are enjoyable with interesting characters and settings and a large dose of European Thirty-Years War history. This volume is an anthology with a number of short stories set in the world of the early 1600's ... some are good some are bad ... actually I probably liked the longish story by Flint himself .. the least. Recommended for those who enjoyed S.M. Stirling's stuff and alternate history buffs.

Reamde by Neal Stephenson; Whew!! Another doorstopper of a story from Stephenson ... I should get credit for THREE books after reading this. Anyhow an excruciatingly detailed techno-thriller involving some 12-15 different people all converging simultaneously for a big conclusion. Well worth the time to read as is anything written by Stephenson.

Finders Keepers by Stephen King; My hope is that Mr. King keeps writing books for as long as I am able to keep reading books ... another terrific story featuring retired detective Bill Hodges and his group of friends/compatriots ... with a creepy twist inserted as only King can do ... if you like creepy thrillers try this series.

The London Blitz Murders by Max Allan Collins; I've only read a few stories by Max Collins but have really liked all that I've read. His stuff is not hard to find as he writes prolifically ... this is the first I've read in his "Disaster" series and portrays Agatha Christie (Mallowan) as the main protagonist. I love Agatha Christie novels (learned from my mother) and was fascinated to read this fictional account of a portion of her life ...

another by MAC The Titanic Murders ... didn't like as much as the first that I read but still ... learned a lot about the whole Titanic episode etc.

The Goblin Reservation by Clifford Simak; I'm sure that I must have read this story years and years ago .. the characters sure seemed familiar ....but I had no recollection of the plot or ending ... at any rate, a brilliant story by one of the masters!

rereading Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series; first book The Black Echo ... mainly because I'm also watching the Amazon Bosch made for TV ... which to be honest, is one of the very very few times I've liked the TV series BETTER than the books.

Across a Billion Years by Robert Silverberg; I've never really been a big fan of Silverberg ... and bits of this story crystallize some of the things that I dislike about his stories .. the whole pseudo-rape scene, the victim blaming, the general tenor of his dislike for diversity and equality. Perhaps that's why I tended to steer clear of his books despite his Grandmaster status ... anyway the story was interesting and predictable. Glad I read it.

You have made Across a Billion Years sound sufficiently unappealing! I hadn't heard of Silverberg before but he sounds like someone who is not for me.

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