Happy 4th of July!
No fireworks for us . . . way way way too dry, since we haven’t had any significant rainfall since early April. [Snipping a rant on the weather here.]
Anyway, as a 4th of July, not too bad. Hot, but hello, July. I made potato salad, we had burgers . . . all very traditionally American.
And I did write fifteen pages! Now up to 80,000 words, which is about 245 pages. Can I finish the book with a mere 20,000 more words? No. Can I finish it in 40,000? I’m hoping so. Then I’ll go through and cut. My aim is to hit around 100,000 words for the finished book.
Also! I took a look at my reading list for the year, since we are not halfway through 2012, and man has the year gone by in a flash. Wow. But so far I’ve read:
10 vampire romances (9 by JR Ward and one by Angie Fox)
18 other fantasy novels
12 SF
5 literary (yes, I know what I say about literary fiction, but four were by Wodehouse and that’s different.)
4 nonfiction
1 mystery
2 short story collections (which is a lot for me, since I don’t intrinsically like short stories).
What is that, 50 or so? Some of those were YA, I didn’t separate them out when I counted. In one month I must have been really busy — April shows that I didn’t buy or read ANY books. That doesn’t happen very often! I wonder what I was working on in April! Of course I was probably re-reading something, it’s not like I ever go through the day without reading of some kind, but I don’t usually add re-read books to the list.
My favorites for the year?
The whole Valor’s Choice series by Tanya Huff was the biggest surprise of the year. That’s military SF and it really changed how I feel about Tanya Huff. I don’t think I can have picked up her best fantasy novels in the past? Because she was not really an author I looked for, but I just loved the whole Valor series and I’m definitely right there for any others that come out — it’s plainly not finished yet.
My other top picks so far:
THE SCORPIO RACES by Stiefvater blew me away. And my other top pick would be THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS, especially impressive because I think it was Carson’s debut.
And the three that I’m most looking forward to that I haven’t read yet? Those are easy picks for me, even though I don’t physically own any of them yet and one isn’t even out:
by Elizabeth Wein. I think Wein is an amazing writer and the reviews I’ve seen from The Book Smugglers, including the one I linked to here, really make me want to read this. It’s epistolary and historical and it sounds amazing.
THE KILLING MOON by Jemisin. I haven’t actually read the review linked here — I don’t need to. And I haven’t put this book on my wishlist at Amazon because I’m not going to forget about it, and my wishlist is primarily meant to make sure I remember about books I want to get sometime. The moment I finish my current WIP, this (and it’s sequel) are the one I’ll reach for as a reward.
Aaand . . . Bujold’s newest! Out in November! I mean, Bujold! What else do I need to say?
Anybody else have three great books that spring to mind for this year so far? Or a couple that you’re just dying to get to?
