The final monthly summaries of what I’ve been reading and listening to for 2020!
BOOKS
To keep my numbers consistent with what I have listed on Goodreads, I count completed magazine issues as “books.” I read or listened to 24 books in December: 17 in print, 6 in e-book format, and 1 in audio format. They were:
1. Lightspeed Magazine #127 (December 2020 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams. The usual fine assortment of sf and fantasy short stories. This month’s favorites for me were Andrew Dana Hudson and C.Y. Ballard’s “Your Mind Is the Superfund Site,” Jennifer Marie Brissett’s “The Executioner,” Maurice Broaddus’s “Ah Been Buked,” and P H Lee’s “Ann-of-Rags.”
2. State v. Claus by P. Jo Anne Burgh. Connecticut lawyer Meg Riley finds herself defending a man accused of Christmas Eve home invasion, who claims to be the son of Santa Claus. Romance with a HFN ending combined with courtroom drama and a look at how the Claus operation really works = a magical story. FULL REVIEW HERE.
3. Handmade Holidays by ‘Nathan Burgoine. A gay holiday “missed cues” romance novella. Nick builds new holidays traditions around his LGBTQ found family when his birth family disowns him and finds love along the way. FULL REVIEW HERE.
4. Faux Ho Ho by ‘Nathan Burgoine. A gay holiday “fake boyfriend” romance novella. Openly gay Silas will do just about anything to avoid spending time with his rich Conservative family, including pretending his platonic roommate is his boyfriend – until they get invited as a couple to Silas’ sister’s wedding. Told in alternating past/present chapters that show the growth of Silas and Dino’s friendship/relationship. FULL REVIEW HERE.
5. Dracula, Motherf*cker by Alex DeCampi, Erica Henderson. Dracula rises again in 1974 Los Angeles, and crime scene photographer Quincy Harker is caught in the middle of a battle between the vampire lord and his three brides. A quite different take on the nature of Dracula, the stylistic art and dark coloring make a good story that much better.
6. The Christmas Hirelings by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Read by Jennifer Saunders. The halls of Penlyon Place have been absent the sounds of children since the Lord of the manor’s daughters died/were disowned by him (respectively). A family friend and the old man’s niece suggest hiring some children to make the most of the season, but there’s clearly more going on. A beautiful story narrated wonderfully by the great Jennifer Saunders.
7. Love Beneath the Christmas Tree by Jae. A lesbian holiday novella. Three short stories over the span of three Christmases tell the story of the growth of a relationship between a mall cop and a fast-food worker, and the boy who brings them together.
8. Rear Admiral by ‘Nathan Burgoine. A gay erotic/romance novella. After finding out he’s going to meet a former porn star at a mutual friends’ wine-tasting, Russ decides to challenge himself to use the exceptionally large sex toy the man modelled for. What follows is an awkward meet-cute, sweet romance, and some extremely hot sex.
9. Superman Vs. Wonder Woman by Gerry Conway, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Dan Adkins, Gaspar Saladino, Jerry Serpe and Joe Orlando. Hardcover reprint of a 1970’s DC Comics “treasury edition.” One of my childhood favorites. FULL REVIEW HERE.
10. Bad Blood: A Life Without Consequence by David B. Roundsley. The author details his search for the truth about his birth parents, which leads to learning just how bad a man his birth father was. FULL REVIEW HERE.
11. No Longer at Ease (The Africa Trilogy #3) by Chinua Achebe. Achebe’s trilogy about societal change in Nigeria comes to a close with a story about a good man who slowly gets overwhelmed and goes wrong. A stunningly told story, and perhaps my favorite book in the trilogy. I should be writing a Complete the Series post about The Africa Trilogy soon.
12. The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. The author’s graphic novel memoir about growing up in Iran after the Islamic Revolution, including several years out of the country as a student. An engrossing story.
13. Lumberjanes: Campfire Songs edited by Jeanine Schaefer and Sophie Phillips-Roberts. Another graphic novel collection of one-shot Lumberjanes tales published outside of the main run. I enjoyed all 5 of the stories herein, but my favorites were probably Seanan McGuire and Alexa Bosy’s “Somewhere That’s Green” and Nicole Adelfinger and Maddi Gonzalez’ “A Midsummer Night’s Scheme.”
14. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. My annual “one chapter per night until Christmas Day” reread in the paperback edition I have signed by Dickens’ great-great-grandson was accompanied by listening to the audiobook narrated by Tim Curry for the first time. I enjoyed Curry’s slightly more downbeat narration (compared to the infectiously enthusiastic narration of Tom Baker that I listened to last year and also enjoyed).
15. Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin. I’m glad that I have finally read this icon of 1970s gay literature, about the residents of a boarding house at 28 Barbary Lane in San Francisco. A great look at the various strata of society in SF in that era, and very soap-opera-ish in intensity.
16. Excalibur (2019-) Volume 1 by Tini Howard, Marcus To, and others. A new version of the UK-based Marvel mutant super-team accompanies the new Captain Britain on a quest to Otherworld, with mixed success. This is the only current X-Title I read in monthly format, and it’s very rocky. I think the overall story in this and the following volume suffer from having to tie so intricately into the overall X-Men storyline. (And it still bothers me that a title named after King Arthur’s sword features only one British character in a lead role and one in a supporting role. But that bothered me about the classic line-up as well.)
17. Once & Future Volume 1: The King is Undead by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora, and others. Possibly my favorite new monthly comic of the past year-ish. Duncan, a nice guy but awkward, has a date interrupted and he and his possibly-girlfriend become embroiled in Duncan’s grandmother’s “family business.” Which turns out to be fighting legends and stories so they don’t overwhelm the modern world – including the return of a maniacal King Arthur. I’m not normally a fan of stories where Arthur is the bad guy, but this one really works for me as a treatise on the nature of stories and storytelling.
18. Legion of Super-Heroes (2019-) Volume 1 by Brian Michael Bendis, Ryan Sook, and others. Bendis and Sook’s revival of the classic futuristic super-tea gets off to a needlessly crowded, complicated and slow-moving start, but by the end of this volume there’s at least a sense of where the creators intend to go.
19. Once & Future Volume 2: Old English by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora, and others. Already dealing with family betrayals and Arthur’s attempts to cross into the modern world and rid England of all non-Brits, Duncan and Co must face off against a revived Beowulf. And where Beowulf is, you know Grendel and his mother can’t be far behind. Volume 2 delivers on the promise of the first volume and continues to expand/build the world Duncan and his team operate in.
20. Across the Green Grass Fields (Wayward Children #6) by Seanan McGuire. The sixth Wayward Children volume is another past-times portal fantasy, and the first in which we meet a child we haven’t seen in the present-day School volumes (the odd-numbered entries). Regan, an intersex child, goes through a portal to the Hooflands, where every hoofed legendary species co-exists (but not peacefully). Full Review to Come.
21. Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World Book 1) by Rebecca Roanhorse. Roanhorse’s post-apocalyptic Navajo nation series gets off to a bang with monster hunter Maggie Hoskie reeling from abandonment by her mentor and thrust into fighting a new type of monster alongside the charismatic grandson of a friend. I found Roanhorse’s portrayal of Maggie’s post-traumatic stress particularly affecting, wound within a full-on adventure tale with plenty of twists.
22. Excalibur (2019-) Volume 2 by Trini Howard, Marcus To, and others. I basically have the same complaints about this volume as the first: interestingly story and character moments are interrupted for the latest X-book line-wide crossover. But I will say I particularly like the way Howard portrays the dynamic among the Braddock siblings, and the development of Rictor’s connection to the Earth and Druids.
23. A Diet of Treacle by Lawrence Block. A classic noir in which a “good” girl from uptown becomes involved with a troubled war vet and his drug-dealing roommate in Greenwich Village. Block’s knack for fast-paced narrative and quippy dialogue is on full display. Anita and Joe are characters you want to root for as much as you want to shake them and say “wake up and get yourself out of this before things go bad…” which of course they do. The first half of the book is an interestingly look at a certain early-60s lifestyle, while the second half is a bloody crime spree. Both parts work well together.
24. Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. Another classic SF novella I should have read long since. The setting is a dystopian future where no one is allowed to live past the age of 21. If you don’t turn yourself into to be put to Sleep (killed), you get hunted by Sandmen. Logan-3 is one such Sandman, who gets clues towards the Sanctuary people who run from Sleep are trying to reach. But what will he do as he gets closer to finding it? This one will be the subject of an upcoming Page to Screen post.
STORIES
I have a goal of reading 366 short stories (1 per day, essentially, although it doesn’t always work out that way) this year (366 because it’s a Leap Year). Here’s what I read this month and where you can find them if you’re interested in reading them too. If no source is noted, the story is from the same magazine or book as the story(ies) that precede(s) it.
1. “Your Mind Is the Superfund Site” by Andrew Dana Hudson and C.Y. Ballard, from Lightspeed Magazine #127 (December 2020 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams
2. “The Executioner” by Jennifer Marie Brissett
3. “Party Time!” by Ben H. Winters
4. “The Woman Who Destroyed Us” by S.L. Huang
5. “Ah Been Buked” by Maurice Broaddus
6. “The Salt Warrior” by Kali Wallace
7. “An Account of the Land of Witches” by Sofia Samatar
8. “Ann-of-Rags” by P H Lee
9. “An Indefinite Number of Birds” by Kurt Hunt, from Fantasy Magazine #62 (December 2020), edited by Christie Yant and Arley Sorg
10. “If These Walls Whispered What Would We Hear?” by Aynjel Kaye
11. “Umami” by Aya Ow
12. “Tiny House Living” by Kristiana Willsey
13. “Our Trial Patience” by Seanan McGuire, on the author’s Patreon page.
14. “The Ones Who Got Away” by Stephen Graham Jones from Nightmare Magazine #99 (December 2020), edited by Wendy N. Wagner
15. “The Doors of Penlyon” by ‘Nathan Burgoine, from the author’s website
16. “A Day (or Two) Ago” by ‘Nathan Burgoine
17. “The Good People” by Jim Butcher, from the author’s website
So that’s 17 short stories in December. Once again, a bit less than “1 per day.” But I finished the year ahead of where I should be. (December 31st was the 366th day of 2020.)
Summary of Reading Challenges:
“To Be Read” Challenge: This month: 4 read; YTD: 11 of 12 read. (No alternates read)
366 Short Stories Challenge: This month: 17 read; YTD: 374 of 366 read.
Graphic Novels Challenge: This month: 9 read; YTD: 37 of 52 read.
Goodreads Challenge: This month: 24 read; YTD: 154 of 125 read. (CHALLENGE ACCOMPLISHED!)
Non-Fiction Challenge: This month: 2 read; YTD: 12 of 24 read.
Read the Book / Watch the Movie Challenge: This month: 0; YTD: 2 read/watched.
Complete the Series Challenge: This month: 1 book read; YTD: 9 of 16 read.
Series fully completed: 2 of 4 planned
Monthly Special Challenge: December’s mini challenge was Christmas/Winter Holiday tales, naturally, with a secondary goal of completing one or two of the year’s Challenges (motivated by finishing one of the Complete the Series Challenges, the Philip Marlowe books). On the Christmas/Winter Challenge, I did decently, with 6 holiday books and 3 independent holiday short stories (two by ‘Nathan Burgoine, one by Jim Butcher). On the “Complete a Challenge” front, I managed to complete The Africa Trilogy, which marked one more “complete the series” series off the list, and I got darn close to finishing the TBR Challenge!
The full annual review of what I read and watched in 2020 be up sometime this week!