2016 was not a great year for my productivity in posts on Hockey, but I managed to read an awful lot of books and play two video games (kind of one video game, I guess, but more on that below). Since others have done a year in review post, I figured I might as well do one.
Books I Read:
The End of 2015 was really where I began to get back into reading Science Fiction and Fantasy again. 2016 continued that trend, and I managed to finish 90 books (as well as at least one short story collection) over the course of the year, some old and some new. The list of books and some short ratings of them can be found at this link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B51LtDi49GogUU9LRlJJb2ZfNlU/view?usp=sharing
I read more books that I liked or even loved than I hated (28 of the books I rated at 9 stars or better while only 9 of the books I read were under 6 stars, and only 4 were truly hated by me at 2 stars). This is undoubtedly due to selection bias - I purchased books or borrowed them based upon recommendations and authors who I liked, and I didn't finish 5 books which I didn't rate where I just wasn't feeling into the book after ~100 pages. I know at least one of the books I hated I wouldn't have finished except it was on the Hugo Nominee list so I wanted to give it a full shake.
11 series/book highlights I'd highly recommend in no particular order:
The Inheritance Trilogy by NK Jemisin (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, The Broken Kingdoms, The Kingdom of Gods)
The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone (Three Parts Dead, Two Serpents Rise, Full Fathom Five, Last First Snow, Four Roads Cross)
The Novels of the Jaran by Kate Elliott (Jaran, An Earthly Crown, His Conquering Sword, The Law of Becoming)
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (Warning: Gets pretty dark)
Parable of the Sower & Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler (Dark but important in today's political context)
The Dandelion Dynasty Series by Ken Liu (The Grace of Kings, The Wall of Storms)
The Thessaly Trilogy by Jo Walton (The Just City, The Philosopher Kings, Necessity)
Roses and Rot by Kat Howard
Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
Silver on the Road by Laura Anne Gilman
These are not the only books I loved so please check my list if you're interested, but just 11 series/novels I felt could use extra love and highlighting (I also limited myself to one series per author above, but some authors had a LOT of good work).
I figure I should also highlight the books I did NOT like:
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson - 2 stars
Star Wars: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig - 2 stars
Flesh and Fire by Laura Anne Gilman - 2 stars
The Worldbreaker Trilogy by Kameron Hurley (The Mirror Empire - 6.5 stars, Empire Ascendant - 2 stars)
Informocracy by Malka Older. (4.5 stars)
I liked some of these authors - Gilman is even on my list of books I loved actually. But these books all didn't work at all for me.
One final note on books: I read a lot of these books by taking them out of the library. If you have a local library, PLEASE support it - they provide a lot of great material (and plenty of other non-book related benefits) that can entertain you for hours for basically free (you're paying taxes for living in that location anyhow, so anything you get out of the library is extra benefits added!). Libraries may also have online books you can borrow, or online audiobooks.
I've also listened to about 7 audiobooks now. It's a pretty enjoyable way to read books on a commute where your eyes are paying attention to the road. I strongly recommend them.
Video Games:
My Book reading slowed in November as I downloaded two games: The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky & The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky: Second Chapter. As the names suggest, these are kind of two parts of the same story, and you'd only buy the second game if you finished the first. They're both JRPGs, very much in a classic vein (The first game came out in Japan in 2004, actually), so if you don't like the genre, they won't be for you.
But if you like the genre, I can't recommend them enough. They're fantastic additions to the genre, and the second game gives you greater choices of options to play with to add extra replay value (as you very much may want to see how things play with using different characters). And for Steam they cost only 19.99 and 29.99 respectively, but I've since seen that they're very often discounted. Well worth a purchase.
For 2017:
For 2017, I want to get back on the hockey writing train a little bit. Starting today I will be tracking dump and change plays to really try to see how effective they are league wide - I'm hoping in addition to the Isles to track several other teams for several games each to see really what the expected results of these plays are. I also want to take the neutral zone tracking project forward in other ways as well - there's a lot of data that has again been untapped, and with Corey again tracking every team, we should have more data to play with.
Alas, I suspect I'll cut down to around 50 new books this year, but who knows? I may find myself on another reading binge soon.....
