Goal!

51.  Americus, MK Reed and Jonathan Hill
I read this (and The Chosen One) for my youth advocacy class.  It's a deceptively simple story about a kid growing up in small-town America who loves to read more than he likes interacting with other people, and loves one fantasy series in particular.  His best friend comes from an extremely religious family, the mother of whom finds him reading the newest installment and organizes a crusade against the library to get the books banned.  Superficially, all the characters are caricatures, with the shy bookworm, the militant librarian, and the religious zealot.  Hill's art, though, goes huge lengths to show the emotional conflict in each character, and reveals more depth than the writing might initially suggest.  (Which is not to say the writing is lacking, simply that the art and writing work in concert to provide a fuller picture of the story.  You know, the way a graphic novel is designed.)

52.  The Chosen One, Carol Lynch Williams
Uggh, my heart.  This is another one I read for my advocacy class, and it was a lot like getting kicked in the teeth.  Kyra, the main character, is a14-year-old daughter to a polygamist family in a religious compound, and she's told that the Prophet has had a vision about her getting married...to her 60-year-old uncle.  The book is about her emotional turmoil and ultimate rebellion, but it's also about her family and the way they love and protect each other.  It is rough, but Williams treats these people in a very human way, and doesn't just vilify the adults in the compound (well, not MOST of them.  Kyra's mothers and father are never vilified.  The Prophet and her uncle, however...).  It's sensitive, and astonishing, and an incredibly fast read.

53. Iron Warriors Omnibus, Graham McNeill
This is actually comprised of, I think, two complete novels and some short fiction, but I'm counting it as one because I read them bound together and because I do what I want on my blog.  McNeill is fun to read as always, but I confess, reading this much fiction where the bad guys win every single time was bad for my morale.  It gets exhausting after a while, especially when the front-and-center characters are as loathsome as these Chaos Space Marines.  I just...I just need to read about some good guy victories, ok?

I hit my goal this week!  I have read 52 books in WAY less than 52 weeks.  Now to see how many books I can finish before 2013!

This post is mostly about Horror Novels

49. Bones of the Yopasi, Graham McNeill
This is the second book in the Dark Waters trilogy by McNeill, which are novelizations in the universe of the FFG Cthulhu games (Arkham Horror, Elder Sign, Mansions of Madness).  I picked up the first one, Ghouls of the Miskatonic, at GenCon 2011 and have been waiting pretty eagerly for volume two (released, appropriately, at GenCon 2012).  I know McNeill first from the fabulous work he does for Games Workshop - I've mentioned some of his Horus Heresy work right here on this blog (his books are, largely, my favorites).  It's slightly baffling to me that his work with FFG isn't as strong, but as people have noted, the Cthulhu mythos universe may just be more difficult to write within - it's got the time period constraints, being set in the '20s, which comes with a whole load of issues (dialogue seems to be McNeill's biggest problem, all his characters end up sounding like Casablanca cliches) but in general, the Dark Waters books serve up a heaping dose of Elder God weirdness and some fun action.  At the end of the day, that's all I want.

50. 11/22/63, Stephen King
This is the third King novel I've read this year for my challenge, and I think it's my favorite.  When I was about 13, I went through an intense Stephen King phase: I loved (and still love) horror fiction, in a way that surprises most people who know how terrified I am of horror film.  But reading something is different from watching it, and King is a master of the genre.  I read IT, The Shining (one of my top five books ever), Eyes of the Dragon, 'Salem's Lot, Four Past Midnight, almost everything I could get my hands on (I missed some cornerstones, like Carrie, which I'm going to get to before the film remake comes out next spring).  At his best, King writes brilliantly paced, incredibly eerie prose that descends into the stuff of shambling nightmares.

What is so amazing about 11/22/63 is that it is both completely recognizable as one of King's works, but also something totally unlike anything I've read of his before.  It's a time-travel novel, and while it carries some of the typical tropes you'd expect to find in one, it's also a haunted house novel akin to The Shining.  The characters, especially our would-be hero Jake, are fighting against a malevolent, intangible force...which is time itself, rather than a spirit or ghost or something else supernatural, as Jake tries to do the impossible and prevent the assassination of JFK.  It's also a brilliant example of the way that King can write complete lives for his characters that don't seem to be particularly relevant to the specific story he's telling, but are compelling in and of themselves until the moment you realize, gob-smacked, that EVERYTHING you've read matters.

I did smile a little at one particular moment, because King is also known for being self-referential, and there was a moment were I thought he was going to slot the total plot of a previous novel into this one.  He doesn't, and unless you've read IT I don't think it would have mattered, but having read IT gives a little more insight into the world of 11/22/63.  Because, like I said, everything you've read matters - even if it didn't happen in this particular book.

I'm Halfway Through My Project Goal And It's Not Even June Yet

27.  The Outcast Dead, Graham McNeill
I was tired of waiting for someone else to buy the Horus Heresy novels that came out after Prospero Burns, so I bought the next three (The Outcast Dead, Deliverance Lost, and Know No Fear) all at once.  My challenge then was not to read them all in one big sci-fi swallow - because I like spacing series out so that I don't overload myself on one kind of story, and because I don't know when the next volume is coming out and these books are like crack to me.  Seriously, I know the idea of books based off a game property sounds like the end products will be pulpy and bad, but if you're a fan AT ALL of space opera, politics, or robot suits, please read these books.  The Outcast Dead is a really interesting addition to the series, since it shows the reader the fall-out from a specific event that happened a couple of books ago (specifically, you get to see what the astropaths on Terra experience after Magnus pulls his shit in the Golden Throne room).  There's also a ballsy revelation that re-contextualizes large swathes of the whole 40K universe.  In short: shit gets SO REAL.  Also ILU Graham McNeill.

28.  Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir, Jenny Lawrence
The funniest book I have ever read.  No, seriously.  I couldn't read this book in public places because parts of it (especially the chapter on Jenny's adventures with exterminators who don't know what chupacabras are) had me HOWLING with laughter.  If you're a fan of her blog, thebloggess.com, this is a must-read.  If you're not, I don't even know you.

KNOCK KNOCK, MOTHERFUCKER

29.  Deliverance Lost, Gav Thorpe
Oh, Gav.  There's something undeniably cruel about putting a Thorpe book, the weakest of the 40K authors, in between McNeill and Dan Abnett, who are clearly the strongest.  It's a good way to get me to read the damn book, though, especially since the Raven Guard are not really a legion I have much interest in (WHEREFORE ART MY SALAMANDERS, GAMES WORKSHOP?).  But Deliverance Lost has some good story elements in it, and even when I was beating my head against the wall due to stilted dialogue and really bad pacing (it's really bad, you guys) there were still interesting revelations happening.  I'm not sure I really believe the plot point that the book is predicated on, but I have pretty much given up hope on completely logical plot choices in all of the Horus Heresy novels.  I get that there's already an event structure in place that the authors have to adhere to, I do.

(Deliverance Lost starts immediately after the Dropsite Massacre and chronicles Corax's efforts to rebuild his Raven Guard Legion, with a little help from the Emperor [AND NO HELP FROM YOU, ROGAL DORN, GOSH].  Also the Alpha Legion shows up for a while and I vomit a bit in my mouth.  There is some weird Chaos shit that happens, though, and I do love those bits.)