A Review of 2019

2019 was literarily a good year.

The ten best books I read (in no particular order):

1. Recursion by Blake Crouch
2. Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
3. Cardinal Black by Robert McCammon
4. Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky
5. They Thirst by Robert McCammon
6. Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams
7. The Hunger by Alma Katsu
8. Skyward by Brandon Sanderson
9. Tigerman by Nick Harkaway
10. Someone Like Me by M.R. Carey

The worst book I read all year was Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahniuk. If I were to provide Palahniuk with an award every time he's earned this distinction from me (4 times now), he'd be running out of shelf space to display them by now. He will not be in contention for any more of my shelf space and reading time going forward.

Number of books read: 52

Book signings attended:
Brandon Sanderson - Starsight (Although, technically, I didn't really attend the signing, since I didn't stick around for all the chaos. I just grabbed my book and bailed. But since I showed up and had to wait in multiple lines to get my book, I'm counting it.)

2020 books I'm looking forward to:
The Holdout by Graham Moore
The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
Providence by Max Barry
The Last Emperox by John Scalzi
If it Bleeds by Stephen King
Shakespeare and Squirrels by Christopher Moore
Utopia Ave. by David Mitchell
Malorie by Josh Malerman
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson

Early Riser

by Jasper Fforde
402 pgs

In Jasper Fforde's latest book, he creates an alternate version of earth, in which the Ice Age has persisted to modern day. Because of the inhospitable conditions during winter, 99% of the human population hibernates during it. Just like bears, they gorge themselves in preparation for sleeping through winter, and they're then watched over and protected during their sleep by the Winter Consul, a government agency consisting of those tasked with ensuring their safety and survival during hibernation.

But hibernation is not without its risks. There's the risk of starving to death if you didn't build up enough fats beforehand. There's the danger of being eaten by rats, suffocating from CO2 build up, and the risk of becoming a nightwalker, by waking up too early into a zombie-like condition known as Dead in Sleep.

The wealthy and privileged can afford to take a drug called Morphenox beforehand, which ensures hibernation will be peaceful and dreamless, in order to minimize unnecessary calorie usage during sleep.

Charlie Worthing is a rookie member of the Winter Consul Service who quickly finds himself in over his head. There's an outbreak of viral dreams that affects thousands, there are nightwalkers, monsters known as Wintervolk, and a conspiracy involving HiberTech, a corporation that makes its money from the hibernation industry.

The premise of the story, while good, isn't what makes the book so enjoyable. It's Fforde's wit and mastery of the English language that makes it so good. Fforde's books are never easy to describe, and this one is especially so. But it was a book that I simply enjoyed each sentence it contained.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Philosopher's War

by Tom Miller
389 pgs  (The Philosophers series #2)

Picking up where The Philosopher's Flight left off, nineteen-year-old Robert Canderelli Weekes has successfully fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming the first male to join the US Sigilry Corps' Rescue and Evacuation service. It's a previously-all-female military service, which uses expert "empirical philosophers," who use a unique form of magic to fly into battles to retrieve the wounded and fly them to aid stations.

Robert knew life in the R&E Corp was going to be hard, but he didn't know it was going to end up being this hard, what with the long grueling hours of flying rescue missions into battle zones, not to mention the fact that being the first and only male allowed to do it added unique challenges as well. But eventually he begins to win over the respect of his superior officers and other women in his division. Eventually, his natural talents become evident and he catches the attention of General Tomasina Blandings, who recruits him to join a secret--and unauthorized--group of flyers she intends to use for more than just R&E missions. She plans to use Robert and a select group to bring about the defeat of the German army and the end end of World War I.

With these first two books, Tom Miller has created his own unique and entertaining alternative history story, one that is tense, filled with action, and very entertaining. I don't know whether he intends to write more stories featuring Robert after this one, but regardless, I'm looking forward to whatever comes next.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Judge Hunter

by Christopher Buckley
348 pgs

Christopher Buckley follows up his last book The Relic Master, which was set in the 16th century, with another historical satire, The Judge Hunter. This time Buckley sets his story in the 17th century, but again, uses historical, but obscure characters from that period to tell his story. Samuel Pepys as a member of the British Parliament and a high-ranking administrator in the Navy, but he is noteworthy because he kept a detailed diary every day for a decade, a diary that has provided insight into what daily life was like in England in the mid-1600s. Pepys had a brother-in-la named Balthasar de St. Michel (Balty), whom little is known about, who Buckley has turned into an aimless, bumbling man who gets sent to the American colonies on a wild goose chase by Pepys, who wants to get him out of his hair for a time.

Balty believes he was sent to New Netherland to hunt down two judges, who were responsible for the death of King Charles I. But his real purpose is to be a distraction to the Dutch long enough for British warships to arrive and wrest control of the colony away from the Dutch.

Buckley seems to have toned down his level of satire in these last two books. It hasn't been nearly as in-your-face and entertaining as it was in his earlier books like Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and No Way to Treat a First Lady. And I'll admit, if I had read either of these last two books first, I probably wouldn't have been interested enough to go back and read his earlier ones. But thankfully, I did read those first, and having enjoyed them as much as I did, I'll keep reading to see where he takes things from here. I understand he's planning to set his next four books in the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, respectively. I'm hoping as the settings become progressively more and more modern, that Buckley will increase his level of wit and satire as well.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Old Bones

by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
369 pgs  (Nora Kelly series #1)

In Old Bones, Preston and Child bring back an old familiar character from the early Pendergast books, Nora Kelly, to launch a new series. Nora, now working as a curator at the Santa Fe Institute of Archaeology, is approached by a man named Clive Benton, who possesses the journal of Tamzene Donner, a member of the infamous Donner Party. Benton wants to recruit Nora to lead an expedition to find a lost camp used by the ill-fated group of pioneers, a camp which he believes is not only historically significant, but he has good reason to believe there is a large cache of gold coins buried somewhere near it.

Benton, Nora, and a small group sets out to find the camp, which they're quickly able to do, but shortly after they begin excavating the old bones it contains, they discover much more than they were anticipating.

Around the same time Nora is approached by Benton, FBI agent Corrie Swanson, a supporting character from the more recent Pendergast books, is assigned to investigate a series of grave robberies and killings, all involving a family with ties to a member of the Donner Party who survived.

These two story arcs eventually meet and combine to form a story that is both entertaining and interesting. I haven't been the biggest fan of several of the more recent books by Preston and Child, and I'm hoping this new series will infuse some new life into their books, including the ones featuring Aloysius Pendergast.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆