**** Orson Scott Card – Ender’s Game. I’m not sure how I never read this book before, but it was as good as everyone says.
**** Frank Herbert – Dune. Another one I shockingly never read before, and also really good. Now I have to see the movie, and read the rest of the books.
* Olaf Stapledon – Star Maker – I started this one, forced myself through it for a little while, but could not muster any interest in it.
*** Keith Roberts – Pavane. Good alternate-history story (actually, a collection of interlinked stories), in which the Catholic church still controls Europe and much of the world, suppressing much science and technology, with a coda that has a twist. An interesting exploration, though as a series of short stories, it doesn’t pull the reader into the characters as much as a single novel would. The stories also felt more poetic or fairy-tale esque than realistic, leaving me feeling somewhat disconnected. The twist at the end is thought-provoking but doesn’t really make a lot of sense.
*** Robert Charles Wilson – Spin. An interesting gimmick to build a science fiction novel around, hampered by too much attention given to interpersonal relationships that I had no interest in. Not that I don’t want interesting characters in a science fiction book, but these were neither very convincing nor very compelling. Still fairly readable.
** Peter Watts – Blindsight. I really liked the narrator, a person whose social inhibitions lead him to feel like he is simulating being human and to become an excellent observer. And the classic slow-discovery-of-alien plot was fairly intriguing — until the end, which just didn’t work for me. It was neither very convincing nor very interesting. And there wasn’t enough good stuff that preceded it to make the book something I overall enjoyed.
* Knut Hamsun – Mysteries. What a shitty fucking book. It’s “modernist” and “existentialist” which means that when you read a bunch of nonsensical ramblings from an unappealing, unconvincing, and uninteresting protagonist, you’re supposed to be moved by it and thereby question the underpinnings of society, or something. Or, you know, not.

*** Brian Eno – A Year with Swollen Appendices. I got about 1/4 of the way through this book. It’s full of interesting anecdotes and inspiring ideas and thoughts about the creative process, but it doesn’t make for very gripping lie-on-the-couch material. I’d like to get a copy and keep it around to dip into occasionally, but I don’t see myself reading it through in any hurry.
*** George R. R. Martin – A Feast for Crows.
*** George R. R. Martin – A Dance with Dragons. Both of these were a definite step down from the quality of the first three books.
*** Ames & Ilg – Your Three-Year-Old.

*** Sir Walter Scott – Ivanhoe. This one starts off pretty slow, and that plus the rampant anti-semitism makes it hard to get into. But the story picks up and ends up being pretty entertaining. Regarding the anti-semitism, my guess is it was fairly enlightened for its time, but it’s kind of annoying to read now.
*** C.J. Sansom – Dissolution. Gotta love a decent historical murder mystery.
** Herman Melville – Moby Dick. I was unable to get into this one and drifted away from reading it.
**** George R. R. Martin – A Storm of Swords.

*** Ken MacLeod – The Restoration Game. Huh. Even after reading a description of the plot, I don’t remember reading this. I gave it three stars, so I guess it was at least decent.
*** Murray Leinster – The Pirates of Ersatz, Scrimshaw, Talents, Incorporated. Good, old-fashion science fiction. All entertaining, mostly forgettable.
**** George R. R. Martin – A Game of Thrones.
**** George R. R. Martin – A Clash of Kings.

Man this was a long time ago and I’ve forgotten some of these books. Very short reviews follow.

*** Drew Magary – The Postmortal. Some entertaining speculative fiction — what would life be like if we couldn’t die? Not so great, it turns out. I enjoyed it.
** Neal Stephenson – Reamde. If this had been a lot shorter, it would have been a good escapist thriller or whatever, but it just went on too long without a whole lot of interesting stuff happening. I also didn’t really enjoy the female lead character who was clearly intended to be the kind of kickass female character who doesn’t just sit around waiting to be rescued — who spent a lot of the book sitting around waiting to be rescued.
** Joe Haldeman – Forever Peace. I don’t think I actually read this. I may have started it.
** John Steakley – Armor. Started this and was unable to be interested.
*** Charles Stross – Halting State. Moderately entertaining, pretty silly. Doesn’t really make me want to seek out more of his books, but I would be okay if I were stuck with it on a long flight.
*** Thomas Marcinko – Astronauts and Heretics. Entertaining short stories, but nothing that really stuck with me.

**** Christopher Priest – The Separation. An interesting alternate-history novel. It’s often unclear which of several parallel workings-out of WWII we’re in, and the various threads weave together and apart throughout, such that the overall impression is of a gestalt of possiblities and secrets than of a specific point about plot or identity. I really enjoyed it.
*** Ted Chiang – The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate. This was really more of a short story than a novel — it was nice, but basically more a tossed-off idea than a fully-realized story.

** John Sandford – Rules of Prey. These books are supposed to be good, but I ended up deciding I didn’t really want to read another book about a guy who stalks and murders women. Or at least, not this one.
*** Richard K. Morgan – Broken Angels. Good future science fiction space adventure war thriller stuff.
*** Philip K. Dick – The Man in the High Castle. Kind of random and dated-feeling alternate history WWII stuff. The end, I think, is meant to be some kind of holy-shit moment, but it just read as half trite and half confused. This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it as entertainment, but the things the characters cared about weren’t very compelling and the layers of self-reference kind of made it abstract and hard to connect with.
*** Charles Stross – Rule 34. Pretty cool exploration of what our near future might look like, extending a lot of current trends in terms of internet, connectivity, data, and identity. But it all feels a little too in-the-moment — in 10-20 years it could feel wildly prophetic or incredibly dated.