Tag: Books

It’s 1997 and somebody is wearing my shirt.

~ James Viscosi ~ 14 Comments
Hint: It’s not the dog.

It’s the entire 1980s and am I a boy who likes to sit with dogs while reading, or a boy who likes to read while sitting with dogs?

~ James Viscosi ~ 10 Comments

… Yes.

Things haven’t changed all that much since then, either, other than what form the books take. Oh, and now there are cats involved, too.

Teaser Tuesday: “Burnt Worlds”

~ James Viscosi ~ 6 Comments

So this week I was reading Burnt Worlds, a science fiction novel by S.J. Madill, in which the spaceship Borealis tests out a new hyperspace jump drive by leaping 35,000 light years away from home, whereupon said jump drive promptly explodes, leaving the ship facing a multi-year journey to get back. Of course, they only packed enough supplies for a day trip. Whoops.

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That Was The Year That Was (In Books): 2024 Edition

~ James Viscosi ~ 11 Comments

So this year, as it does every year, Goodreads compiled a list of the books I read, making a nice little ― or not so little ― tapestry of covers, along with a few details. You can check out the list at Goodreads here, or look at the screen shots below. The advantage of visiting the list at Goodreads is that you can interactively click on individual books to see their entries; the advantage of viewing the screen shots is you get to go make a nice hot cup of tea while waiting for them all to finish loading. Let’s review a few notes about this year’s list!

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That Was The Year That Was (In Books): 2023 Edition

~ James Viscosi ~ 10 Comments

So this year, as it does every year, Goodreads compiled a list of the books I read, making a nice little ― or not so little ― tapestry of covers, along with a few details. You can check out the list at Goodreads here, or look at the screen shots below. The advantage of visiting the list at Goodreads is that you can interactively click on individual books to see their entries; the advantage of viewing the screen shots is you get to go make a nice hot cup of tea while waiting for them all to finish loading. Let’s review a few notes about this year’s list!

Continue reading “That Was The Year That Was (In Books): 2023 Edition” →

That Was The Year That Was (In Books): 2022 Edition

~ James Viscosi ~ 6 Comments

So this year, as it does every year, Goodreads compiled a list of the books I read, making a nice little ― or not so little ― tapestry of covers, along with a few details. You can check out the list at Goodreads here, or look at the screen shots below. The advantage of visiting the list at Goodreads is that you can interactively click on individual books to see their entries; the advantage of viewing the screen shots is you get to go make a nice hot cup of tea while waiting for them all to finish loading. (This year I tried splitting them up into separate ones instead of posting one giant screen shot, though the total amount of bandwidth consumed is, of course, the same.) But before we get to the pictures, let’s review a few notes about this year’s list!

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A Change Of Scenery

~ James Viscosi ~ 5 Comments

So for the last thirty years or so, whenever I’ve been working on a book or short story (which has been most of the time), I would do it in the mornings before going (or, since our office closed, “going”) to work. Also, for the past 15 years or so, when I’ve been working on the blog—mostly not this one, of course, but rather, the one with the animals on it—I’ve been doing that in the mornings befor work, too, or else on the weekends. But it’s only the last year or so that I’ve been trying to work on a book and do a daily post on the animals’ blog, and that, it turns out, is just a little too much to manage.

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Teaser Tuesday: “The Poppy War”

~ James Viscosi ~ Leave a comment

So this week I was reading The Poppy War, by R.F. Kuang, which I would characterize as Big Trouble in Little China meets Harry Potter meets Mulan, although insofar as I have never actually seen Mulan (any version) I’m kind of just guessing on that last one*.

Smoke gets in your eyes.
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Wrong Turn, Clyde

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

So as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t plan my books out in advance, except for that one time, and that one time the book didn’t come out anything like how I planned it. This tends to end up working out well for me, but it also means that, sometimes, I end up going in a direction that doesn’t work out. In the case of Dragon Stones, that entailed the wholesale excision of a character’s point of view scenes*; but in the case of the book I’m currently working on, Blue Roses, I’ve decided that the direction it was going with three of the main characters (four if you count the squirrel**) just wasn’t working out, and so I’ve axed the last 20,000 words or so, pruning the story back to where it branched in the direction that proved unproductive***. Because sometimes you’ve gotta be ruthless.

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Teaser Tuesday: “The Seventh Sword” Collection

~ James Viscosi ~ 6 Comments

So this week, and likely for several weeks yet to come*, I have been reading The Seventh Sword, an omnibus collecting the four books in “The Seventh Sword” series, by Dave Duncan:

Way to put a spoiler in one of your book titles, Dave.
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