Fiction You Read Over the Past Year

[WayneLigon]

I'm always curious as to the reading habits of gamers. How many fiction books have you read over the past year, following these guidelines:

1. No game- or movie/TV/video game tie-in fiction. No Halo, Star Wars, Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dragonlance, Drizzt, Final Crisis, or anything like that. Fiction in game books (such as WoD) also does not count, and doesn't meet #3 anyway). Internet fanfic does not count. Some of these are quite good, but that's not the thrust of the poll, here. Original fiction that happens to come from a game company or an imprint owned by a game company (such as Chaosium's Cthulhu Mythos stories or WoTC's now-defunct original fiction line) does count.

2. Nothing you had to read for school or work. Only what you read for the pure pleasure of reading it.

3. Fiction. No non-fiction. It doesn't have to be fantasy fiction, either; SF, modern thriller, romance, horror, all count so long as they are fictional accounts.

4. Despite the word 'books', short stories, chapbooks, etc do count but count a collection as 'one book'.

 

[Crothian]

I have kept track of all the books I've read via my livejournal. I have so far read over a 100 books this year.

 

[Ktulu]

Only two this year (we had our first child last december, so it's been a busy year!)

The Wounded Land
A Feast For Crows

I'm hoping 2009 allows me some more reading time.

 

[Woas]

Well, of the books I read this year most were non-fiction and thus don't apply to the poll. But I got a half dozen Sci-Fi books in there along the way. Mostly just short story compilation type books, you know "Years Best SF" or whatnot.

 

[Jack7]

For over twenty years I read no fiction at all. Couldn't stand it and certainly didn't consider it all that important to read.

Then about three or four years ago I started in again. Mainly because my family and friends were encouraging me to take up with becoming a fiction writer (one of my jobs is as a non-fiction writer). So I figured I'd better start researching the markets. See how things had changed. Hammer out a publishing plan.

Since then I've read two to three fiction books every week to two weeks, depending on what the books are like, volume of pages, etc. Giving me about the same average, or a little better, annually speaking, as Cro.

I also listen to a lot of fiction unabridged on CD because my non-fiction and professional reading is so time consuming. In this way I can maintain my fiction reading average.

Mainly I read historical fiction, detective works, crime fiction, military stories, espionage, that kind of thing. Many of those stories are professionally related so they are of interest to me in the respect of giving me ideas for inventions, what I write, science articles, white papers, analyses, and whatnot. Occasionally I read sci-fi, something I've just within the past year or so taken back up (I used to read sci-fi a lot as a kid), and some fantasy, but usually not the typical fantasy type stories. I mostly enjoy historical fiction, detective works, espionage, frontier works, and westerns. I'm starting to like sci-fi and some of the newer fantasy writers are pretty good too.

In the past month or so I've read, or reread:

The Commodore - Jack Aubrey
The Amateur Spy
The Light Ages
Juggler of Worlds
The Big Sleep
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The Idiot
Henry the Vth - my favorite Shakespearean play
Cloud of Sparrows
The Color of Death
Fatal Revenant
Beowulf
Belisarius I: Thunder at Dawn
Apaloosa - much, much better than the film and the film was a damn fine piece of work
High Profile


At first I didn't like reading fiction, it was a chore and a drag.
But some of the newer authors aren't bad and I think fiction is kinda undergoing a sort of Renaissance. I look forward to reading good fiction nowadays.

I still read a whole lot more non-fiction.
But fiction is okay by me too.

Only two this year (we had our first child last december, so it's been a busy year!)

Congratulations. And yeah, I get your point.

 

[Lazybones]

I too like to keep track (via a frequently-updated Word file), mostly because I get almost all of my books from the library and I am often coming across things I think I might want to read. I often queue up a long list of things as the newer books can take quite some time to become available. This year to date I've finished 27 novels.

If it wasn't for the Xbox, it would probably be >50.

 

[Serendipity]

As far as point number 1 I never do anyway so ... no issue there. 3. however cuts my annual reading load about in half.
Lots of PKD (Radio Free Albumeth, Valis, Our Friends from Frolix 8, the Transmigration of Timothy Archer, Man in the High Tower, Flow my tears the policeman said) - a lot of this was rereading. I also read Dick's "Exegisis" which is debatably non-fiction.

Lots of China Mieville - last xmas a friend gave me a copy of Perdido Street Station. I've gobbled up everything that's come into my path since.

Lots of Charles Stross (Accellerado which I didn't much care for, but Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise were both quite good I thought).

Interzone by William S. Burroughs (and a collection of short fiction by him but I don't recall the title).
And a bunch more - the Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, Firebird by R. Garcia y Robertson, the Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard (which is fictional enough), Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood and Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan.

Also reread an Alien Heat, the Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius (Michael Moorcock), the Sentinel (Arthur Clarke) and at least Dead & Gone and one or two other books by Andrew Vacchs.

I read a lot.

 

[Jack7]

Perdido Street Station

I liked that book.
That's what I meant about some of the newer writers being pretty good.

 

[Starglim]

Couldn't tell you exactly, but I'm positive it is more than a book each 2 1/2 weeks.

 

[El Mahdi]

I normally read a considerable amount, but I've been battling Graves disease for the last year and a half. It really affected my ability to concentrate. I'd find myself reading the same line over and over, so I didn't read nearly as fast as I normally do. Anyways, here's my list:

• The Judas Strain - James Rollins
• Confessor (the Sword of Truth Finale) - Terry Goodkind
• Six Frigates - Ian W. Toll
• Master and Commander - Patrick O'Brian
• Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
• A Feast for Crows - George R. R. Martin
• Without Fail - Lee Child

And of course:

• 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Core Rule Set - Rob Heinsoo, Andy Collins, James Wyatt, Mike Mearls, Stephen Schubert, and many many more.

Not a very big list, but I tried to go for quality (most of them at least) rather than quantity, due to circumstances.