Too Many Books, Not Enough Time by Jacey Bedford

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Too Many Books, Not Enough Time by Jacey Bedford

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Apparently you can never be too rich or too thin, or so said Wallis Simpson,

Duchess of Windsor, however being neither rich nor thin my motto has always

been: “You can never have too many books.”

Except, perhaps, you can.

I’m not sure it’s possible to pin down the exact number of science fiction and

fantasy books published in any one year, especially if you count the proliferation

of self-published novels. The number rises again when you count SF books

written for youngsters, whether middle grade, YA or new adult. And since that

includes writers like Leigh Bardugo and Suzanne Collins then we should seriously

count them in because these books are not just for kids!

So I’m going to round the figures up, go out on a limb, take a deep breath, and

proclaim that there are a LOT.

I’ve done the maths. Take the number of books in my Strategic Book Reserve (it

long since grew out of being a to-be-read pile) and divide it by the average

number of books I read in a year. Now take my age and subtract it from (let’s be

generous) ninety. The answer is plain. Even if I never buy another book, ever, I

will not have time to read all my books in what remains of my lifetime. My annual

reading count is generally between fifty and sixty novels. Some years it’s been in

the thirties, though this year I’ve done particularly well and it’s already in the

nineties. I always have a book on the go. I’m only counting fiction, of course. I

don’t count most of the non-fiction I interact with. If I’m reading for research I’m

often not reading the whole thing from cover to cover, but cherrypicking relevant

sections.

How likely is it that I’ll never buy another book when I’m already looking forward

to the next Scott Lynch, Lois McMaster Bujold and Benedict Jacka? There are so

many books I want to read. And more books are being published daily (including

mine). So not buying any more books is – well, frankly – impossible.

I find it difficult to believe that any one person, even a professional reviewer with

nothing to do all day but read and review (does such a person exist?) can

possibly get a handle on everything that’s out there because of the sheer

freaking volume! So what chance does one beleaguered author have when she

has to squeeze in reading between bouts of writing (first drafts/edits/copy

edits/galley proofing). When it comes to the volume of books I feel as though I’m

not waving but drowning.

I couldn’t begin to give you an overview of publishing, even the small corner of it

that’s science fiction and fantasy. There are authors that I should have read, but

haven’t, and authors I’ve yet to discover.

One of the basic pieces of advice to writers is: read widely. Most of us don’t need

to hear that. We’re writers now because we were readers from an early age. I

write because I am essentially also a reader.

I fell into science fiction and fantasy abruptly at the age of eleven or twelve. Two

things happened. I ran out of the usual type of pony books in the local library,

and found C.S.Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy (my personal gateway into Narnia).

At the same time, through a school book club, I bought a paperback copy of John

Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids. That was all it took, really. We moved house

that year, further out of town, and only had a mobile library service. Since they

had almost no books for young people, I began to read my way through all the

distinctive Gollancz yellow jacketed science fiction. I was way too young for most

of it and can barely recall what I read. Oh how I wish I’d kept a list.

In fact it took until 2009 to start keeping a list. The crunch came when I realised

that I’d probably only read about thirty books in 2008, or at least 30 that I could

remember, so from the beginning of 2009 onwards I started to keep a book log.

I write up each book I read, not so much reviews, but personal notes to my future

self, to keep the book in memory. I started to post my book logs to my

LiveJournal blog site, and to Goodreads. Nearly eight years later I’m still blogging

every fiction book I read, and though I have a writer’s blog at WordPress, I still

blog my reading at LiveJournal under the name of Birdsedge, along with my

movie-of-the-week pieces and an occasional personal rant. Why the two blogs?

Because I don’t review books professionally, I review them personally. I’m not

trying to produce an objective piece on what’s good or bad about a book, I’m

recording why I personally reacted the way I did to it. Your mileage may vary – in

fact, I hope it does. Every reader reads himself/herself into the text in some way.

I sold my first novel to DAW (USA) in 2013. Empire of Dust and Crossways are

the first two books in the Psi-Tech trilogy and I’m working on the third, Nimbus,

right now. It’s due out in October 2017. But at the same time I also have the

Rowankind trilogy on the go, historical fantasies set in 1800. Winterwood came

out in 2016 and the sequel, Silverwolf launches on 3rd January 2017.

Writing, honing my craft and spending some time in a critique group with other

writers, has given me a keen insight into the writing process, and it’s a good

book indeed that manages to draw me in to the extent that I cease analysing

what I’m reading and simply enjoy it for its own sake. I read mostly fantasy and

science fiction (probably in that order) and my guilty pleasure is historical

romance. Every so often I simply HAVE to read a Georgette Heyer Regency

romance. It’s the law!

So, bearing in mind that I’m only one person with too little time and too many

books, what have I read in the last few years that’s thrilled me?

Right off the bat I’ll state that my favourite author of all time is Lois McMaster

Bujold. I came to her books late, starting with The Curse of Chalion, which is still

the book I would grab as I rushed out of a burning building. I read all her

fantasies first, but it took me a while to come to her Miles Vorkosigan science

fiction books. I blame my friends. Each time one of them told me I would love the

stories featuring a stunted over-active little runt of a fellow with a huge chip on

his shoulder and a streak of genius, I thought, probably not. Then I picked up

Warrior’s Apprentice and I was hooked. I bought the Vorkosigan stories in their

omnibus editions and dropped out of the real world for a couple of months to

serial-read them all without coming up for air. Honestly, don’t take my word for

it. If you haven’t read Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan books, do yourself a favour and

read them now.

Other favourite authors include: Patricia Briggs, Tanya Huff, Sherwood Smith,

Bernard Cornwall, Ann Aguire, Karen Traviss, Elizabeth Chadwick, Kari Sperring,

Jaine Fenn, Andre Norton and – from my childhood – Monica Edwards.

So what else have I tried and loved? Joe Abercrombie’s First Law Trilogy (The

Blade Itself, Before they are Hanged, and Last Argument of Kings.) Yes they

are grim. Yes they are dark, but they have a delicious streak of black humour

and humanity running through them that lifts them out of the mire. Abercrombie

can certainly write characters. They’re twisted, complex, and not at all nice, but

because of that, they are very human. You don’t really want to root for the

torturer, but you end up doing so anyway because he’s such a great character.

What else? Terry Pratchett goes without saying. I’m an unashamed Vimes fan

and still think that Night Watch is a masterclass in dramatic tension. More

recently I’ve raced through all of Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles of St Marys books

about a bunch of disaster magnets who work for an institute that sends

historians back in time to verify the facts about great moments in history. What

could possibly go wrong? Well, just about everything really. They are great fun.

Funny, but with high stakes. Highly recommended.

Also I recently discovered Leigh Bardugo. Her Grisha trilogy is good, but her Six

of Crows duo is superb. There’s an ensemble cast of characters led (or maybe

goaded by) by Kaz Brekker. Each one of the characters is complex in their own

right, but Kaz himself is a mishmash of conflicting emotions. Also Sean Danker’s

Admiral is an escape caper with a difference and a main character who is never

named.

New writers to watch out for include Genevieve Cogman whose Invisible Library

series is very promising, and new-to-me writers that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed

include Lisa Shearin, C.E.Murphy, and Scott Lynch whose Gentlemen Bastards

series grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let go. I’m eagerly awaiting the

fourth instalment, The Thorn of Emberlain.

I’ve come to enjoy boy-wizard books, well, not exactly boys and not always

wizards, but Jim Hines’ Libriomancer books featuring, Isaac Vainio, Benedict

Jacka’s Alex Verus series, and Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid books with Atticus

O’Sullivan, the druid in question, have a lot in common with each other without

being carbon copies. They all have their own charms and collectively probably

owe a fair bit to the idea of Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden.

What don’t I want to see more of? I won’t read anything with a six-pack torso of a

naked man (warrior/angel/vampire/demigod) on the front cover. Honestly if they

were showing female torsos we’d all be yelling about objectifying women. I also

avoid books in which somebody cute goes to visit a Scottish castle and is

plunged back in time to meet her own true love, a hunky Scottish laird. It worked

in Outlander (which I thoroughly enjoyed) but unless there’s a really good angle,

and some terrific writing, it’s nor something I’m generally going to go for. Ditto

contemporary ‘chosen one’ stories. I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer and

everything Joss Whedon—he’s the master of the one-liner—but I don’t need

carbon copies. And the best farm-boy-makes-good story has already been done.

It’s hard to beat The Princess Bride.

What am I reading and writing now?

I’m currently writing Nimbus, the third Psi-Tech book. It’s got greedy

megacorporations which hold implant-enhanced psi-techs in thrall while they

plunder (sometimes legally, sometimes not) along the galactic trade routes. Ben

and Cara went rogue, saved a colony and were elevated to the top of the

galaxy’s ‘most wanted’ list for their trouble. They fled to Crossways, a breakaway

space station supposedly the centre for every criminal activity imaginable, and

formed the Free Company, but in the aftermath of a megacorp attack on the

station they are currently gathering resources for the next fight – the big one

that’s bound to come. Except… something is stirring in the depths of foldspace,

something that might change everything.

Yes, you’ve guessed it, I’m writing a space opera. So I have to read something

that’s totally different. I’m currently in the middle of Julia Quinn’s The Viscount

Who Loved Me. (I told you historical romance was my guilty secret, and Regency

romance even more so.) Quinn’s characters are vivacious and funny, and she

handles the period with a light touch. It’s fluff, but it’s good fluff, just the thing

for when my mind also needs to be on epic space battles and enigmatic aliens.

Because publishing wheels grind slowly I’m working one book ahead. There’s one

book just out, one completed and due out soon, and another at the first draft

stage. My next book to be published is Silverwolf. It’s my second Rowankind

book. Winterwood and Silverwolf follow the adventures of Ross (a female

privateer captain and witch) and Corwen, (a wolf shapechanger). In Silverwolf

they try to deal with the consequences of freeing the rowankind from bondage to

humans. The setting is 1801. Mad King George is on the throne and Napoleon is

knocking at the door. The industrial revolution has begun and the gentle

rowankind have to decide between fleeing to the magical lands of the Fae, or

trying to make a place for themselves in the real world. Expect magic,

adventure, piracy and a touch of romance.

Happy reading.

Jacey Bedford lives behind a keyboard in deepest darkest Yorkshire with her

husband, Brian, and a black German Shepherd called Eska. (That’s a dog, not an

actual shepherd from Germany.) She’s had short stories published on both sides

of the Atlantic in magazines and anthologies, and (so far) three novels. (The

fourth is out on January 3rd 2017. She’s in the middle of a five book deal with

DAW in the USA, her dream publishing house. She’s the secretary of Milford SF

Writers Conference, an annual writing event for SF writers in the UK. She spent

twenty years as one third of a cappella harmony trio, Artisan, singing her way

round the world, and still works in the music industry as a booking agent for folk

musicians. She can ride a horse, make soup from six iron nails (as long as they’re

magic), and write a passable web page, but she’s terrible at numbers, and

believes life’s too short for housework.