The Books of October 2017
Daily Ramble 69: The Books of October 2017
I barely made my 5 book goal for the month of October with the last getting finished off only a few hours before the clock struck midnight – a bit tough finishing off a book with kids coming by for Halloween and the World Series going on.
October Reading
Here are the five titles I read:
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968)- Philip K. Dick
- H is for Hawk (2014) – Helen Macdonald
- The Mummy or Ramses the Damned (1989) – Anne Rice
- The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter (2017) – Theodora Goss
- Arcadia: A Novel (2015) – Iain Pears
Starting off the month, I had already read part of Arcadia and if I had finished it off last month, it would definitely have been the best of September, but that’s not saying much.
It actually came close to being the best book I read this month since I enjoyed it so much. The idea is kinda a time travel, science fiction story smashes into a medieval fantasy tale and the result is pretty cool. I’m not sure if there’s a sequel but if there was, it’d be on the top of my must read lists, this was so much fun. This one has a bit of everything in it – though there really isn’t any magic other than the scientific kind, and the ending really had me thinking. I rated this an A- though it is as close to an A as ever a minus can be.
Next up for the month was the worst novel I read in the month and the distance between Arcadia and The Mummy was so far that I actually rated this book the worst I’ve read this year.
I don’t know what it is, but I used to like Anne Rice a lot but this was painful to read. One thing I’ll suggest – don’t read a bad book after such a great read as Arcadia – it is depressing.
With the ups and downs of my first 2 books of the month, I wanted to return to something I knew I would like – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
I had read this back in college so I knew I enjoyed it back then and it’s held up real well. I suppose that’s why it’s one of the classics of science fiction. Philip K. Dick really put together a good story, I wonder how the new movie plays with the world that he created.
The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter was a perfect book to read during October with numerous monsters from the classics – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Moreau, Frankenstein, Renfield – and to top it off they threw in Sherlock Holmes and Watson.
Actually, it wasn’t those villains but rather their female offspring and it really added a nice change of pace for those characters. This was definitely appropriate for Halloween and was an enjoyable read.
Finally, I read another non-fiction book this month – H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald.
It was pretty good and actually I feel like I learned a bunch about T.H. White and The Once and Future King since it was covered so much in the memoir. After reading this, I looked up falconry in San Diego and might set up a lesson to get what was described as a wonderful experience. This definitely made me think about things and was a good read.
My 2017 Top
As of October I’ve got 5 books that I’ve rated an A and 8 that have earned an A- this year so I figured it would be good to list them all. These are all books I’d recommend to anyone interested in SciFi or Fantasy as I definitely enjoyed them. I added one book to each category this month – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Arcadia: A Novel and I think both are positive additions to my lists.
Rated A (5)
- Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (2007)
- Gateway by Frederick Pohl (1977)
- The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (2014)
- I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (1950)
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick (1968) <- New addition October 2017
Rated A- (8)
- Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson (2009)
- Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
- Red Rising by Pierce Brown (2014)
- Beyond the Blue Event Horizon by Frederick Pohl (1980)
- Lock In by John Scalzi (2014)
- Heechee Rendezvous by Frederick Pohl (1985)
- Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel (2016)
- Arcadia: A Novel by Iain Pears (2015) <- New addition October 2017