Stranger in the Forest: On Foot across Borneo

#1073
Title: Stranger in the Forest: On Foot across Borneo
Author: Eric Hansen
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 1988
286 pages

An enjoyable adventure, for no deeper purpose than the author's desire. I enjoyed the narrative and description, as well as very pleasing evocations of the people and jungle. As with Rory Stewart's The Places in Between, I sometimes wondered why the author needlessly, to my mind, endangered himself, but this is a trope in masculine adventure memoirs.

The Miracle at Speedy Motors (No. 1 Ladies Detection Agency, #9)

#1072
Title: The Miracle at Speedy Motors (No. 1 Ladies Detection Agency, #9)
Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Publisher: Pantheon
Year: 2008
240 pages

More plot and more psychology than previous volumes. This one feels like it moves the characters along, and the resolution of the dilemmas, crises, and cases is better than adequate.

Codex Seraphinianus (2nd ed.)

#1071
Title: Codex Seraphinianus (2nd ed.)
Author: Luigi Serafini
Publisher: Rizzilli
Year: 1981/2013
396 pages

An extremely delicious illustrated encyclopedia of a not-quite-existent world. It is bettered by both its deeply amusing illustrations and its pages of unreadable but very official-looking text. All manner of persons, places, and things have their sections. Think Edward Gorey meets Shaun Tan meets Diderot meets De rerum natura. We may speculate much, but confirm little, about the world by the organization of illustrations and intriguing but ultimately unfathomable diagrams within the text. If we know the mind of G-d through the structure of the Law, perhaps we could know the mind of something through the structure of whatever this Codex may be.

The Martian

#1070
Title: The Martian
Author: Andy Weir
Publisher: Crown
Year: 2011/2014
384 pages

Though there's little emotional or psychological depth, Weir's novel (to be physically published next month) is enjoyable for hard SF fans. If you enjoy playing "What if I were snowed in and the power went out?" or "Could I get from DC to LA with only the contents of my car and my wits about me?", you'll probably enjoy this novel of "Can I survive being abandoned for dead on Mars?"

I'm not able to evaluate most of the science. I do note, however, that the initial windstorm that begins the novel is at speeds that are not well-attested on Mars.

[Ender's Game ("Author's Definitive Edition")]

#1069
Title: [Ender's Game ("Author's Definitive Edition")]
Author: Orson Scott Card
Publisher: Tor
Year: 1985/1991
350 pages

I've read it before, and doubtless I'll read it again. This time I read it because a friend wanted to read and discuss it. My observations this time around:

• The foreshadowing is reasonably strong if you know what's coming, both in the book and later in the series.
• The giant (and how it appears later in the book and series) is still wonderful.
• I'm convinced that young Card was sexually abused by a male peer, perhaps a relative, and that this accounts for the repeated appearance of this threat or slightly homoerotic violent trope in a great many of his works, and perhaps that this explains his vituperative stance on LGBT rights. It's only a speculation, but do watch for this undercurrent in his oeuvre.

2013 totals

2013 totals

Books: 132

Pages: 36,277

Average pages/book: 275

1. Steven L. Peck: A Short Stay in Hell (108)

2. Mary Prince, Sara Salih (Editor), et al.: The History of Mary Prince Bermuda [British overseas territory] (160)

3. Don DeLillo: The Body Artist (128)

4. John Varley: Slow Apocalypse (438)

5. John Varley: Red Lightning (Red Thunder, #2) (355)

6. Anonymous, Barbara Stoller Miller: The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna's Counsel in Time of War (176)

7. Giuseppe Rossi: The Republic of San Marino: The Oldest and Smallest Republic of the World [San Marino] (64)

8. Jay Bell: From Darkness to Darkness (Loka Legends, #2) (290)

9. John Varley: Rolling Thunder (Red Thunder, #3) (344)

10. J.R.R. Tolkien: The Hobbit: Pocket Edition (276)

11. Robert Laxalt: Sweet Promised Land (198)

12. Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene (384)

13. Hugh Howey: Wool (Wool #1) (49)

14. Hugh Howey: Proper Gauge: (Wool #2) (106)

15. John Scalzi: Zoe's Tale (Old Man's War, #4) (335)

16. R. Zain: My Arab Spring [Bahrain] (108)

17. Hugh Howey: Casting Off (Wool #3) (122)

18. Hugh Howey: The Unraveling (Wool #4) (166)

19. Hugh Howey: the Stranded (Wool #5) (254)

20. Pam Penick: Lawn Gone! Low-Maintenance, Sustainable, Attractive Alternatives for Your Yard (192)

21. Paul Murray: Skippy Dies (661)

22. Laurence J. Peter & Raymond Hull: The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong (192)

23. Karen Armstrong: Buddha (240)

24. Katherine Boo: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity (288)

25. Fan Huang: Zero and Other Fictions [Taiwan (Republic of China)] (152)

[26. H. Beam Piper: Little Fuzzy (174)]

27. Thomas Eccardt: Secrets of the Seven Smallest States of Europe: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City (360)

28. Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion (420)

29. Erin L. Hawkes: When Quietness Came: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey with Schizophrenia (246)

30. Marjane Satrapi: Chicken with Plums (84)

31. Arthur Phillips: The Tragedy of Arthur (368)

32. Julie Holland: Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R. (320)
33. Penn Jillette: God, No! Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales (231)
34. William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope [Malawi] (270)
35. Yann Martel: Life of Pi (319)
36. Haruki Murakami: 1Q84 (945)
37. Deborah Fallows: Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, and Language (208)
38. Tahir Shah: The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca [Morocco] (368)
39. John Scalzi: Fuzzy Nation (303)
40. Peter Moore: The Little Book of Pandemics (144)
41. Iris Chang: The Rape of Nanking (290)
42. Vikram Seth: From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet (192)
43. Sergio Atzeni: Bakunin's Son [Sardinia (autonomous region of Italy)] (82)
44. Karen Armstrong: The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (336)
45. Gregory David Roberts: Shantaram (936)
46. John Scalzi: The Human Division (432)
47.  Charles Palmer: Living in the Turks & Caicos Islands: From Conchs...to the Florida Lottery [Turks and Caicos (British Overseas Territory)] (146)
48.  Martin Booth Golden Boy: Memories of a Hong Kong Childhood [Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China)] (352)
49. Karen Lord: The Best of All Possible Worlds (308)
50. John Scalzi: The God Engines (136)
51. Christopher Hitchens: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (307)
52. Angie Sage: Fyre (Septimus Heap, #7) (720)
53. Lois Lowry: The Giver (179)
54. Matthew Goodman: Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World (480)
55. Anne Elizabeth Moore: Cambodian Grrrl: Self-Publishing in Phnom Penh (96)
56. R. Crumb: The Book of Genesis (224)
57. Louise Erdrich: The Round House (321)
58. Barbara Kingsolver: Flight Behavior (436)
59. Rémi Carayol, Soeuf Elbadawi, Kamal'Eddine Saindou: Une suite à Moroni Blues [Comoros replacement] (56)
60. Tahmima Anam: The Good Muslim (320) [Bangladesh]
61. Roberto Bolaño: Nazi Literature in the Americas [Chile] (260)
62. Robert D. Lupton: Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (208)
63. Paul Theroux: A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta (288)
64. Madhur Jaffrey: Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India [India] (320)
65. China Miéville: Perdido Street Station (New Crobuzon, #1) (623)
66. Anonymous: The Upanishads [excerpted] (144)
67. Sharma Bulbul: The Ramayana [loosely adapted] (~180)
68. Mike Resnick: Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge (46)
69. David Finch: The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man's Quest to Be a Better Husband (255)
70. Kathleen Winter: Annabel (480)
71. John Scalzi, Jack Campbell, Robert Charles Wilson, Mike Resnick, Elizabeth Bear, Allen Steele, Daryl Gregory, Lavie Tidhar, Mary Robinette Kowal, James Patrick Kelly: Rip-Off! (~360)
72. Xiaolu Guo: UFO in Her Eyes [People’s Republic of China] (208)
73. Salman Rushdie: Joseph Anton: A Memoir (636)
74. Neil Gaiman: The Doll's House (The Sandman #2) (232)
75. Khaled Hosseini: And the Mountains Echoed [Afghanistan] (404)
76. Alan Dean Foster: Star Trek Into Darkness (Star Trek: Movie Novelizations #2) (312)

77. Alexander McCall Smith: In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, #6) (233)
78. Alexander McCall Smith: Blue Shoes and Happiness (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, #7) 256)
79. Scott Westerfeld: The Risen Empire (Succession #1) (352)
80. Karen Joy Fowler: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (310)
81. Alexander McCall Smith: The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, #8) (213)
82. Scott Westerfeld: The Killing of Worlds (Succession #2) (336)
83. Neil Gaiman: Dream Country (The Sandman #3) (160)

84. Christopher Hitchens: The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (98)
85. Kiera Van Gelder: The Buddha and the Borderline: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder through Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Buddhism, and Online Dating (248)
86. Jo Walton: Among Others [Wales] (302)
87. Cinda Williams Chima: The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms #4) (598)
88. Peter Sís, Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār: The Conference of the Birds [Iran] (160)
89. Neil Gaiman: Season of Mists (The Sandman #4) (192)
90. N. J. Dawood (Tr.): The Koran (456)
91. Neil Gaiman: A Game of You (The Sandman #5) (192)
92. Robert Galbraith [J. K. Rowling]: The Cuckoo's Calling (Cormoran Strike #1) (455)
93. Miss Lasko-Gross: Escape from "Special" (136)
94. Angie Sage: The Darke Toad (Septimus Heap #1.5) (96)
95. Salman Rushdie: Haroun and the Sea of Stories (216)
96. Peter Pringle: Experiment Eleven: Dark Secrets behind the Discovery of a Wonder Drug (288)
97. Rabindranath Tagore & William Radice: Particles, Jottings, Sparks: The Collected Brief Poems [India] (214)

98. Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, & Fréderic Lemercier: The Photographer (288)
99. George R. R. Martin: A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire #5) (1016)
100. Francesco Marciuliano: I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats (112)
101. Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon: Birds: Mini Archive with DVD (288)
102. NoViolet Bulawayo: We Need New Names (298)
103. Christina Thompson: Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story [New Zealand] (288)

104. Oliver Sacks: Hallucinations (352)
105. Reza Aslan: Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (327)
106. H. G. Wells: The Time Machine (104)
107. Jeffrey A. Lockwood: Six-Legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War (400)
108. Neil Gaiman: Fables and Reflections (Sandman #6) (168)
109.  Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: Heat and Dust (192)

110. Neil Gaiman: Brief Lives (Sandman #7) (168)
111. H. G. Wells: The Island of Doctor Moreau (160)

112. Gary Snyder: Passage through India: An Expanded and Illustrated Edition (152)

113. Uwem Akpan: Say You're One of Them (358)

114. Sarah Vowell: Unfamiliar Fishes (238)

115. Karen Armstrong: The First Christian: Saint Paul's Impact on Christianity (192)

116. James Cook: Hunt for the Southern Continent (Great Journeys) (120)

117. Kenneth H. Blanchard and Spencer Johnson: The One Minute Manager (111)

118. Paul Bowles: Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue: Scenes from the Non-Christian World (240)

119. Susan Ee: Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days #1) (247)

120. Salman Rushdie: The Enchantress of Florence (355)

121. John Price: Notes from the Jungle - Teaching Abroad in an International School [Brunei] (274)

122. Diane L. Goeres-Gardner: Oregon Asylum (Images of America) (128)

123. Neil Gaiman: Odd and the Frost Giants (128)

124. Belle Sukraw: Teaching Mustafa and Other Young Terrorists [Qatar] (126)

125. Veronica Roth: Allegiant (Divergent, #3) (544)

126. Huy Vannak: Bou Meng: A Survivor from Khmer Rouge [Cambodia] (86)

127. Chum Mey: Survivor: The Triumph of an Ordinary Man in the Khmer Rouge Genocide [Cambodia] (108)

128. Susan Ee: World After (Penryn and the End of Days, #2) (320)

129. Khamboly Dy: A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979) [Cambodia] (84)
130. Paul Garrigan: Muay Thai Fighter: A Farang's Journey to Become a Thai Boxer [Thailand] (223)

131. Philip Roth: The Human Stain (384)

132. Charles Stross: Saturn’s Children (336)

36277

275

Saturn's Children

#1068
Title: Saturn's Children
Author: Charles Stross
Publisher: Ace
Year: 2008
336 pages

<- A good reason to retain control of your covers.

The background idea is that at this point in history, there are no longer any biological creatures. Everyone, regardless of degree of sentience, is a robot/created being. Against this very interesting backdrop, Stross sets a fast-paced potboiler-y tale of intrigue, not-knowing, double-dealing, and sisters who are not sisters. It's fun (including the homage a everyone in SF), though the worldbuilding is ultimately more interesting than the plot.