First posting of 2022:
https://www.lionsinthefog.com/reading-notes/2022/1/15/the-ghost-galaxy-omnibus
Last posting of 2022:
https://www.lionsinthefog.com/reading-notes/2022/12/31/black-table
“Accomplishments” -- loosely defined
In rough numbers, what did I read in 2022? I “touched” 141 books or series during the year:
Finished 118 fiction pieces:
106 got full Ryan-O-RatingTM ratings
12 had reviews and star ratings (mostly ARC reviews written for sites)
Finished 8 nonfiction pieces:
One each on poker, history of piracy in the age of sail, mental health-related, and running
Four on war, either past (one), contemporary (two) and future (one)
15 pieces were abandoned unfinished, although with ratings:
12 fiction, all SF and mostly (11) self-/independently-published
3 nonfiction, one each political economy, mental health-related, and biography
The vast majority of these were digital.
Purely subjective
Best new discoveries: Jessie Kwak and her Bulari Saga and Crooked, followed by Julia Huni’s Space Janitor pair of series.
Most pleasant surprise: the quality of various ‘zines I sampled this year, notably Grimdark, The Dark, and Nightmare.
Biggest disappointment: I was surprised that I didn’t like Birth of Heavy Metal more.
Best titles: Grandma Ethel’s Donuts and Hollowpoints (Christopher D. Schmitz) and Masonic Werewolves.
Best non-fiction: Strange Defeat, because that (God forbid) could be us someday.
Worst non-fiction: Myth of the Entrepreneurial State. Great substance, dreadful prose. Consider a ghost-writer?
Statistics, for my own amusement
In late 2021, I started rating books on a ten point scale. This doesn’t convert 100% cleanly to the five-star ratings used most places on-line so it’s not (always) as simple as dividing my score by two. Anything 8.0 or above on my scale is a effectively a five star review, since I’d never give any if I waited for a “10.”
The highest-rated books of 2022 were Tade Thompson’s Making Wolf and John Scalzi’s Interdependency Trilogy, which both got 8.5/10
The average of all the ratings I did during 2022 was a 6.0/10. Broken down by category:
“Smirk” -- bad or lazy word use detracting from reading: 1.4/2
How quickly/often did immersion in the story break down: 1.0/2
Writing quality including editing/proofing: 1.2/2
Character/plot development: 1.1/2
Interesting/innovative aspects of the book/story: 1.1/2
Non-fiction finished pieces averaged an overall 6.3/10, with a median rating of 6.6 and high and low ratings of 8 and 4.
Finished fiction averaged an overall 6.2/10. The median rating was 6.5, and high and low ratings were 8.5 (twice) and 3 (also twice).
Unfinished works of both types averaged 4.1/10 overall, 4.0 median and highest and lowest came in at 5.5 and 2.
Breakdown:
The top quintile of 29 books scored 7.5 (21), 8.0 (6) or 8.5 (2).
The second quintile of 28 books had scores of 7.0 (20), 6.75 (1), or 6.5 (7).
The third quintile of 28 books had scores of 6.5 (12) or 6.0 (16).
The fourth quintile of 28 books had scores of 6.0 (3), 5.5 (12) or 5.0 (13).
The bottom quintile of 28 books scored 5.0 (1), 4.5 (4), 4.0 (14), 3.5 (4), 3.0 (4) or 2.0 (1).
To get this breakdown, I sorted all of the books I rated during the year, and by happy coincidence the top three numeric scores (8.5, 8.0 and 7.5 out of 10) came out to exactly 29 books, or 1/5 of 141. To get the other four quintiles, I resorted the remaining books by overall score, then by writing quality and “smirk” factor, and then broke them into four groups of 28.
Dogs which didn’t bark
I read no books on self-help, personal development, coaching, or organizational development. There was very little history or national-security related reading -- although the first and to some extent the second were replaced during stationary bike rides by You Tube. I talked about this one recent evening over dinner with a friend, who suggested that the “hard” topics in particular might be victims of mental fatigue built up over a multi-decade career as a practitioner in the national security field. Recently-retired from that my motivation to stay up to speed, he thinks, is much less. I’m still pondering this. This isn’t necessarily new, but it’s accelerated over the last three years. I’ve felt it particularly after retiring, so he may be on to something there.
There’s a practical problem here: I have a man cave full of dead tree stuff that’s almost 100% on the topics I largely haven’t touched. The same is true to some degree of my Kindle, but those are literally intangibles so I feel a bit less pressure on those. The physical collection is undergoing a cull right now. The first pass is done, and the second will be later today.
The goal is to go through an honest assessment of whether I can see myself -- or at this point, it might be more honest to say “see myself ever” -- reading or needing a particular book again. (Adios, dreadful crap from David Graeber and good luck with them, Ben.) It’s an interesting process. There are definitely things, and I’m looking at you, Ironies In Organizational Development, which I don’t have any desire to actually read, frequently can’t remember why I bought them and am reluctant to let go.
Multimedia alternatives to non-fiction
During 2022, as I spent more time on the stationary bike, my consumption of video went up. To some extent this is just practical -- balancing a Kindle while you’re going hard simulating a hill climb is impractical. Both of Bernhard Kast’s Military History channels got a lot of air time, as did Drachinifel on naval history and the dryly entertaining Ed Nash. Military Aviation History was in a distant but solid fourth place. The fare was a mix of Ukraine and historical issues. Not as heavy as some of the things I’d otherwise have read, but they helped the pedaling go faster.
Streaming in general, though, fell off a cliff in 2022 in favor of reading. That’s not a trend I’m too sorry about.
And then what?
For 2023, I plan to tweak my approach a little bit:
I pulled a spreadsheet together with end of year “scores” for things I’d read, from which I pulled the statistics above. My plan is to make this a running effort and to add the number of pages I’ve read.
Start posting more single-book/single-series reviews. Then backfill reviews done here onto Goodreads and Amazon, which may help with generating new ARC opportunities and the next goal, below.
Flowing out of the second point, find an audience. I’ll continue to write this largely for myself, but would like to start making more connections to a (the?) community around SF/SFF or subsets of it.
Work on the “dead tree” and nonfiction imbalances. I’m not sure what form that will take, but it’ll be there.