too many blokes

[adelaidesean]

My piece for the Victorian Writers' Centre on the books I read in August inspired me to keep track of what I've read since. The short answer is: still not much SF and still hardly any books by women. But here it is, with micro-reviews attached:

• Philip K. Dick: Flow, My Tears, the Policeman Said (timeless)
• Isaac Asimov: The Return of the Black Widowers (endless)
• Robert Goddard: Name to a Face (awful)
• Michael Robotham: The Suspect, Lost, The Night Ferry, Bombproof, Shatter (varying degrees of brilliance)
• Jeffrey Deaver: The Vanished Man (uninspiring)
• Jon Evans: Invisible Armies (started well but lost me halfway)
• Steven Hall: The Raw Shark Texts (awesome)
• Fred Vargas: Seeking Whom He May Devour (a clunky translation from original French but ultimately quite affecting)
• Caitlin R. Kiernan: Tales from the Woeful Platypus (stunning)
• Patrick O'Brian: Master & Commander, Post Captain, HMS Surprise, The Mauritius Command (amazing, of course)

Given that I still have 17.5 Patrick O'Brian books to go, plus reading for Clarion and the Somerset National Novella Competition over Dec/Jan, plus a couple of books to blurb, I'm guessing it'll take me a while to get to all the books I bought at Worlcon...

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Listening to: Patrick O'Hearn - upon solitary expanse