Meme, Myself and I | Regarding Reading Habits

Memes of the old mold seem in recent years to have gone the way of the dearly departed dodo, and although I thought them at best a guilty pleasure then, now, much to my surprise, I find myself missing them. To wit, it was with happiness in my heart that I saw a fifteen question genre fiction book meme, mostly focused on reading and buying habits, featured on Pornokitsch a wee while back. I gather those guys got it from Gail Carriger, who traced the thing back to SF Signal.

Fast forward a fortnight—and the fact that it's taken me a fortnight to answer fifteen quick questions should tell you something about how bloody busy I've been recently—and I'm finally finished!

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1. What was the last sf/f/h book you finished reading?

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro: a genre novel by all accounts, although one at its best when its fantastical trappings are left in the background. I called it "a minor work by a modern master" in my review for Tor.com—a statement I feel safe standing by despite the unadulterated praise that's been heaped on it this week.

2. What was the last sf/f/h book you did not finish reading and why?

I finish almost everything! But that's because almost everything I read, I read with a view to review, and my feeling is that to review a book fairly, you have to see it through to its conclusion.

3. What was the last sf/f/h book you read
that you liked but most people didn’t?

Hmm. Maybe Something Coming Through by Paul McAuley? I wouldn't go so far as to say most people disliked it, but I certainly liked it more than most.

4. What was the last sf/f/h book you read
that you disliked but most people did?

As above, so below. Though I didn't quite dislike it—as I put it at the time, The Death House by Sarah Pinborough is never less than "completely competent"—I certainly didn't love it, and I dare say a fair few folks did. Each to their own, of course.

5. How long do your single-sitting
reading sessions usually last?

If I have less than an hour to spend reading, it isn't often worth my while, because the longer I spend reading, the faster the speed I read at. In an hour, for instance, I might make it through fifty pages; in four, I'll defeat four hundred. It's funny. 

Also frustrating, because four free hours are increasingly hard to find.

6. What are you currently reading?

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers: a formerly self-published science fiction novel which the fine folks at Hodder are hoping to bring to a bigger audience when they re-release it as an ebook in a few weeks.

7. Do you like it so far?

I'll be reviewing it soon—don't anyone act surprised or anything—so I don't want to give the game away, but do I like it so far? Hell yes.

That said, I still have half of the whole to go. It's all to play for!

8. How long ago did you buy the book you are
currently reading (or the last book you read)?

I, uh... didn't. I'm reading a review copy. But I do at least have the decency to feel bad about that, such that I'll probably buy a final physical edition of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet if it continues to kick ass.

9. What was the last physical sf/f/h book you bought?

The Bees by Laline Paull. My mum doesn't read much, and rarely could what she reads be considered speculative, so when she does recommend something along those lines, I pay attention.

She was well into this one. Not sure I am so far, but my progress through The Bees has been slow; I'll let you know how it goes.

10. What is the sf/f/h sub-genre you like the most and why?

Weird stuff really does it for me. In part because there's just not a lot of it, so it seems special in a way other sub-genres don't.

Relatedly, roll on the next China Mieville collection, Three Moments of an Explosion: Stories.

11. What is the sf/f/h sub-genre you dislike the most and why?

Epic fantasy can be simply brilliant—see Guy Gavriel Kay, another of my favourite fictionists—but all too often, it's forgettable and repetitive.

But on balance, I'm going to have to say steampunk. Nine times out of ten, I find, steampunk stories favours style over substance, and I've long since tired of trying to find exceptions to the rule.

12. What is your favorite electronic reading device?

The second generation Kindle Paperwhite I gifted myself last summer. I don't use it all that often while I'm at home, where of late I've had the luxury of a library, but it's been a proper godsend on holidays. Come the end of the month it'll be coming to Gdansk with me.

I'm already wondering what to load it up with...

13. What was the last sf/f/h eBook you bought?

Actually, I bought twenty, some of which I already owned in physical format, by way of the Humble Subterranean Press Book Bundle. I can't resist a sweet deal, and at fifteen squids these were a real steal.

14. Do you read books exclusively
in one format (physical/electronic)?

I used to do. Reading ebooks was an age-old practice before I finally gave it a go, and old man that I am, I still favour physical editions—for the feel, the physical impression of progress and the notion of the novel as an object of artistic value—but I'm markedly more open to ebooks these days.

15. Do you read ebooks exclusively on a single device,
ie. an eBook reader, a smartphone or a tablet?

When I read ebooks, I read them almost exclusively on the Paperwhite. Occasionally I have to work with a PDF file, however, and allow me to close out this post by echoing the frustrations of the Pornokitsch kids: PDF files are a living nightmare. For those, I have my tablet: a 10.1 inch Samsung Galaxy Tab S.

Meme, Myself and I | Now With 100% More Mieneke

A little while ago, Mieneke van der Salm of A Fantastical Librarian fame asked if I wouldn't mind answering a couple of questions for her new Blogger Query feature.

I agreed immediately. I had already seen her interview with Stefan of Civilian Reader, and secretly, I was hoping she would ask. As you folks know, I talk about myself and my personal experiences here on The Speculative Scotsman almost every day, but always in support of a point, and the point had never before been me. In Blogger Query, however, the tables are turned.

One of the eternal book reviewer debates is to rate or not to rate? Where do you stand on the issue?

You know, I used to be militant about this. I was of the mind that a number, no matter how many or how few of them you had to choose from, was an awfully simplistic way to talk about anything.

The argument has always been the most important thing to me, and it still is: I’d much rather read about how a book reviewer formed an opinion than look at a number and be done with it. And that’s one of the risks, isn’t it? That you see a 5 or 6 or a 7 – not that there are terribly many of those (though that’s a whole other discussion) – and think... well why bother?

Ratings used to really rub me the wrong way, but I guess I’m getting mellow in my old age, because I’ve learned to live with them. As a sort of shorthand, sure... though I’m still of the opinion that book reviews shouldn’t be written in shorthand.

Negative reviews, yay or nay? And why?

Oh, yay. Absolutely! There aren’t very many things I find more fascinating than a negative perspective – so long as it’s reasoned and reasonably well written – on some new hotness that everyone seems to adore.

In fact the very idea that anyone would say nay to the notion of negative reviews – excepting authors, given their intimate involvement – the very idea offends me no end. What could possibly be the problem with someone having an opinion that isn’t identical to every other opinion? That’s the sort of thing the world needs more of, not less.

So say you want to know about the role of speculative fiction in modern English education, or the relationship between blogs and readers and writers. Say you're interested in hearing how The Speculative Scotsman came about, or what I want from the future. Where before you would have had to bribe me with bookish delights to secure such insights - I kid of course - now all anyone need do is pop on over to A Fantastical Librarian, and read the most recent installment of Blogger Query.

Which, to be perfectly frank, you should be doing on a daily basis anyway.

Last but not least, do keep your eyes peeled, peeps, because I'll be following up on a couple of the subjects Mieneke made me think about here on the site shortly, including firstly - and foremostly - the fall of blogging.

Meme, Myself and I | All About the Books

Timely as ever, I picked up this age-old meme from the Strange Chemistry blog, where Amanda has been having the new imprint's authors answer a couple bookish questions to give her readers a better sense of her writers.

From whence it came originally... I haven't the foggiest. Sorry!

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1) One Book That Changed My Life

As tempted as I am to say The Scar by China Mieville, because it was the book that finally sold me on speculative fiction, or latterly Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay, because it, in turn, was the on that I had to start a blog to talk about... no. These are the answers you'd expect if you've been reading The Speculative Scotsman for any length of time; they would expose nothing new about who I am or what made me me, and if memes like this have a saving grace, it's that.

So I'm going to go back a bit further. 

I'm going to go all the way back, in fact, to a book that my Mum read aloud to me, chapter by chapter, for a period of some months when I was very, very young. When she'd finished it, I went right back to the start on my lonesome. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende didn't strictly speaking teach me how to read, but I don't doubt that it helped; it was the first book I read that I didn't think was for kids. Whether in retrospect it was or was not, at the time my kiddie mind assumed length meant maturity, and The Neverending Story was certainly long.

I have had occasion to wonder how different my taste in fiction as an adult might have been had I only read something else as an innocent...

2) One Book I’ve Had to Read More Than Once

I very rarely do this. Really, very rarely. Does that make me an odd duck?

But there have been a few books I've returned to. Always after some serious time has passed since I read them last. There's The Gunslinger by Stephen King, AKA book one of The Dark Tower, and still the best in the series, for my money. There's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner. There's the first volume of The Long Price by Daniel Abraham, A Shadow in Summer, which I had to read a second time - rather recently, at that - because upon starting A Betrayal in Winter I realised I'd forgotten the detail that I'd loved about the book before it. There's The Terror by Dan Simmons. Silk by Caitlin R. Kiernan.

I'm sure there have been others, but truth be told, they're few and far between. There's always so much that I haven't yet read to read, you know?

Anyway, you only asked for one book, so count yourself lucky, master of memes.

3) One Book I’d Want on a Desert Island

I'd want something very long, obviously. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson comes to mind, or The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. Perhaps The Stand? Classic King; now that I'd read again in a heartbeat, if I only had a month to myself with no other obligations.

4) One Book That Made me Laugh 

Hmm.

Let me think about this one and get back to you in a bit.

5) One Book That Made me Cry

An easy one, this: Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. When the identity of The Fool was revealed in the last chapter, in case you were wondering.

Nothing since has moved me to tears, but before Tigana - which is to say when I was an easier reader to manipulate emotionally - there were a fair few. Truly great stories have spoiled me in that sense.

6) One Book I Wish I’d Written

All the books? 

Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear most lately. Anything exceptionally pretty prose-wise makes my creative instincts envious.

7) One Book I Am Currently Reading

At this very second I'm in the middle of Last Days by Adam Nevill, in whose acknowledgements (which for some reason I always read) I was over the moon to see The Speculative Scotsman. Yay! It's been really creepy, incidentally. Maybe a bit bloated, but still more gripping, I think, than anything Nevill's written before. Stay tuned for the full review... soon.

Next up on my reading agenda: one of the Strange Chemistry proofs that came in the mail last week, I should think. Least I can do for stealing the meme Amanda brought back from the great graveyard in the ether. :)

8) One Book I Am Looking Forward To

What, just the one?

I'm sorry, but no. I can't. Just in the next couple of months, there's Sharps by K. J. Parker, and The Prince of Heaven - the sequel to The Shadow of the Wind, by the sounds of it - by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. And oh! It wouldn't do to forget Caliban's War by James S. A. Corey.

Beyond that, the list gets a lot longer.

4) One Book That Made me Laugh

Right. Now that I've had a think about this one, I have an answer. But on reflection, I don't think I read a great many authors who go out of their way to split sides, as it were. That sort of description puts me right off, in fact. Thus: I don't read Terry Pratchett, or Tom Holt, or Robert Rankin. The closest I can remember coming to that sort of thing are the Ben Aaronovitch books.

But one novel above all others in recent memory has made me laugh. That'd be Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. There's one line in particular, about a typo which led to generations of children being given a smack before bed instead of a snack that cracks me up just thinking about it. Even besides its sense of humour, Shades of Grey is a truly brilliant book from start to finish - give me Painting By Numbers now, please! - and any excuse to recommend it is a good one by me.

***

By the dead, it's been ages since I did something along these lines. A meme. I forget why I stopped. Oversaturation? Boredom? Whatever the reason, it's been fun, this one... this once.

You tell me, dear readers. Going forward, would you want more of this sort of thing on The Speculative Scotsman, or even less?

Meme, Myself and I | Which Alien Are You?

io9 had a neat little game up on the front page yesterday: some cod-psychology about what your favourite Alien film says about you. Whatever my misgivings about the untouchable mentality they have over there, I have io9 and a bunch of other aggregators' RSS feeds ticking away at the top of my browser window, and if I haven't waxed verbose over my undying love for (most of) the franchise on the blog before, well...  let's take it as said, shall we?

To make a needless long story moderately less long, when I saw this particular article pop up before bedtime last night, I couldn't not click it. And would you credit it, I came away baffled at the accuracy - at least in my case - of this simple little meme. I'd recommend you head on over to io9 now and see how your favourite Alien film reflects your outlook on life.

As for me?

Well, I have no shame admitting it - I've seen the error of my ways since, after all - but coming up, far and away my pick of the four core movies was Alien 3. That means, and I quote:

"You believe in the cult of nothingness. Just like there is no escape from the Xenomorphs for the prisoner monks, there is no escape for you either. The world is a bleak place. Love, family, hope, it's all just waiting to be thrown into the fire. What is the use in taming the love from a feral child or rescuing potential mate Hicks, when life will just murder them while you sleep? You are not a glass-is-half-empty kind of person. You are a half-a-Lance-Henriksen kind of person. Sure, every once in a while there's time for a bald-headed romp with another doomed inmate (inmate of life, that is) but not even a wise, bespectacled black Jesus can save you. In the end, we're all just meat for the festering monster asleep in our guts."

I've had reason to reconsider my taste in Alien films in the aeons since attaching myself to David Fincher's unfortunately botched debut like a barnacle to a naked sailor. Every so often I'll pop the ol' Quadrilogy into the DVD player and let rip, and these days, I'm an Alien man all the way - that is to say, a devotee of the one and the only, the original Alien, which I think the best by at least a light year.

And that says what, exactly, about The Speculative Scotsman?

"If the you're a fan of the first Alien, you respond to the cold, dark world of the unknown. It drives you like the Nostromo, plowing through the big black of space. You like your horror Paxton-free, there's no time for humor when people are dying. You also may have a few trust issues, as you should. Is this just a regular dinner, or will this meal end with one of your mates strewn across the table? Thankfully this also makes you a bit of a survivor. When the end-of-the-world is nigh, you're the best equipped to make the big decisions. Who's going up in the air-shaft to find out what's making all that racket? Not you. A cat lover, you have a calm that propels every decision, even in the face of unthinkable madness."

Well I'll be...

Damn and blast it - it's all true! Right down to the cat thing, and the subsequent unthinkable madness. I didn't realise I made for quite such easy reading.

But off with you all to Meredith Woerner's article, to see which Alien archetype you are. And please, do feel free to share your results - perhaps with a word or two as to their accuracy (or not) - either in the comments, or else on your own blog. I mean, if you can think of a better way to get to know people on the internet, you're either a filthy fibber, or a far smarter human than I.

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Source: io9

The Masterworks Meme

Pilfered wholesale from the OF Blog of the Fallen - thanks to my SFF Masterworks Reading Project comrade-in-arms Larry for doing the gruntwork! Last place I ever expected to see a meme getting off the ground anyway...

So. In bold, the books I've read. The books I own but haven't yet read are italicised.

NB: Some of the SF Masterworks were released in a line of special hardcovers - denoted by roman numerals - as well as the paperbacks we all own a few of, so there are a few duplicates in the list.

I - Dune - Frank Herbert

II - The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin

III - The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick

IV - The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester

V - A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller, Jr.

VI - Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke

VII - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein

VIII - Ringworld - Larry Niven

IX - The Forever War - Joe Haldeman

X - The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham

1 - The Forever War - Joe Haldeman

2 - I Am Legend - Richard Matheson

3 - Cities in Flight - James Blish

4 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick

5 - The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester

6 - Babel-17 - Samuel R. Delany

7 - Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny

8 - The Fifth Head of Cerberus - Gene Wolfe

9 - Gateway - Frederik Pohl

10 - The Rediscovery of Man - Cordwainer Smith

11 - Last and First Men - Olaf Stapledon

12 - Earth Abides - George R. Stewart

13 - Martian Time-Slip - Philip K. Dick

14 - The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester

15 - Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner

16 - The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin

17 - The Drowned World - J. G. Ballard

18 - The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut

19 - Emphyrio - Jack Vance

20 - A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick

21 - Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon

22 - Behold the Man - Michael Moorcock

23 - The Book of Skulls - Robert Silverberg

24 - The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells

25 - Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

26 - Ubik - Philip K. Dick

27 - Timescape - Gregory Benford

28 - More Than Human - Theodore Sturgeon

29 - Man Plus - Frederik Pohl

30 - A Case of Conscience - James Blish

31 - The Centauri Device - M. John Harrison

32 - Dr. Bloodmoney - Philip K. Dick

33 - Non-Stop - Brian Aldiss

34 - The Fountains of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke

35 - Pavane - Keith Roberts

36 - Now Wait for Last Year - Philip K. Dick

37 - Nova - Samuel R. Delany

38 - The First Men in the Moon - H. G. Wells

39 - The City and the Stars - Arthur C. Clarke

40 - Blood Music - Greg Bear

41 - Jem - Frederik Pohl

42 - Bring the Jubilee - Ward Moore

43 - VALIS - Philip K. Dick

44 - The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula K. Le Guin

45 - The Complete Roderick - John Sladek

46 - Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick

47 - The Invisible Man - H. G. Wells

48 - Grass - Sheri S. Tepper

49 - A Fall of Moondust - Arthur C. Clarke

50 - Eon - Greg Bear

51 - The Shrinking Man - Richard Matheson

52 - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Philip K. Dick

53 - The Dancers at the End of Time - Michael Moorcock

54 - The Space Merchants - Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth

55 - Time Out of Joint - Philip K. Dick

56 - Downward to the Earth - Robert Silverberg

57 - The Simulacra - Philip K. Dick

58 - The Penultimate Truth - Philip K. Dick

59 - Dying Inside - Robert Silverberg

60 - Ringworld - Larry Niven

61 - The Child Garden - Geoff Ryman

62 - Mission of Gravity - Hal Clement

63 - A Maze of Death - Philip K. Dick

64 - Tau Zero - Poul Anderson

65 - Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke

66 - Life During Wartime - Lucius Shepard

67 - Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang - Kate Wilhelm

68 - Roadside Picnic - Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

69 - Dark Benediction - Walter M. Miller, Jr.

70 - Mockingbird - Walter Tevis

71 - Dune - Frank Herbert

72 - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein

73 - The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick

74 - Inverted World - Christopher Priest

75 - Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle

76 - H.G. Wells - The Island of Dr. Moreau

77 - Arthur C. Clarke - Childhood's End

78 - H.G. Wells - The Time Machine

79 - Samuel R. Delany - Dhalgren (July 2010)

80 - Brian Aldiss - Helliconia (August 2010)

81 - H.G. Wells - Food of the Gods (Sept. 2010)

82 - Jack Finney - The Body Snatchers (Oct. 2010)

83 - Joanna Russ - The Female Man (Nov. 2010)

84 - M.J. Engh - Arslan (Dec. 2010)

 

We'll get to the Fantasy Masterworks another time.

 

For the moment, I'll be in the naughty corner, hanging my head in shame. What an embarrassment of gaps there are in my classic genre literature quotient... particularly right there in the middle of the SF Masterworks, I've read practically nothing.

 

I wonder if there's something to that? Certainly there's something of a preponderance of if not obscure then at best secondary works of fiction by Philip K. Dick and Arthur C. Clarke in the middle of the list. I wonder if perhaps the rights were going cheap and the imprint had done so well for Millennium, its original publishers, that they were happy to slap the Masterwork label on any old thing to draw out a few more sales...

 

But what do I know? Feel free to talk me around.

 

If you've got a blog of your own, do feel free to reproduce this meme and leave a link to your answers in the comments, if you will. It's all for a good cause: raising awareness about the SFF Masterworks site. You should go there, too - and check out my first review for the reading project, of Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin.

A Virus of the Mind

According to the Urban Dictionary, a meme is "a pervasive thought or thought pattern that replicates itself via cultural means; a parasitic code, a virus of the mind especially contagious to children and the impressionable." Which sounds to me like perfect Wednesday afternoon fodder for the blog, no? I'm all about corrupting the young, after all...

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Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack:

Certainly not. I could get crumbs or smears all over my pretty books! If I really must eat, I'll put down my book before stuffing my face.

What is your favorite drink while reading?

Coffee or tea; instant with a dash of hazelnut syrup or Twining's Everyday with a sugar and a half. That said, I'm not averse to a nice glass of wine (usually rose) while reading, but only when I'm reading something that doesn't - how to put it politely... - something that doesn't require my full attention.

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?

No, certainly not. Just the idea of writing in a book gives me cold sweats! In fact, back in the day, when I came across books that I'd borrowed from the Uni library that had been annotated in pencil, I'd often rub out the markings. I'm that guy.

On the other hand, the better to remember choice quotes and key passages from books I've to review, I do use these funky Post-it Note marker flags fairly often. Sometimes I like to alternate the colours...

What?

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?

Not by bending a page or the book itself I don't. I do have a few purdy bookmarks kicking about which are lost as often as not, or else keeping my place in books I've abandoned in my heart but not yet in my head, so I tend to use the press releases that come with most of the books I've been reading lately to keep my place. If, God forbid, there's no press release, a stray takeaway menu or the like will suffice.

Fiction, nonfiction, or both?

Mostly fiction - though I'm not at all averse to a good bit of non-fiction so long as the subject matter intrigues me. In fact, only a few weeks ago I was reading The Lost City of Z by David Grann, which you'll be hearing about very shortly. So there.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of a chapter, or can you stop anywhere?

I'll endeavour to finish entire sections of books before I call it a day, actually, but chapters or paragraph breaks will do in a pinch. Given when I tend to read, tiredness often comes over me all of a sudden, and whatever goals I might have set for myself fall by the wayside when the Sandman comes a-calling.

Are you the type of person to throw a book across the room or on the floor if the author irritates you?

You must already know what I'm going to say?

No, I would never consciously hurt a book, not by drawing on it, folding its pages or heaving it across the room in disgust. Books are like people: there are good ones and bad ones, and you wouldn't dream of scribbling gibberish on the margins of a person if they insulted you, would you?

Admittedly, I am occasionally guilty of unconsciously hurting a book. If something I'm reading is driving me crazy, I can be a little careless with its virgin spine. A crack here and a dint there. All utterly by accident, of course...

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away?

Not really, no. Generally, if a word is used properly you can understand the gist of it simply by studying its context. If I want to use it myself at a later date, I'll look it up. If it's not used properly, if it's just a fancy word for the sake of a fancy word, then no, I'm not going to dignify that sort of showiness with any more of my time or attention.

What are you currently reading?

Had a bit of a marathon yesterday with The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet because I'd like to have a review up before it comes out tomorrow. Finished it at 2 in the AM, will get my thoughts on it down in pixels today, and when I'm done with that, I'm hoping to start the new Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

What is the last book you bought?

I found a gorgeous hardcover copy of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas in a used bookstore the other day and bought it for a song. Couldn't resist. I'll confess that I didn't love Cloud Atlas the first time I read it, back in the dark ages, but deep down I believed that I should, and the ravings of a certain Twitter chum have me hoping that sometime soon I'll have the time to give it another go. So.

Are you the type of person that reads one book at a time, or can you read more than one?

These days, it's a rare thing for me to be reading only one book. At the moment, for instance, I'm reading short stories from the forthcoming Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio collection, the second tome of Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen sequence, and as of a few hours from now - I hope - The Prince of Mist.

I didn't used to be this way. What with the blog and all, I feel my attention is being pulled in so many directions simultaneously that reading just one book is a poor use of my time. Reading slumps, I tend to find, are fewer and further between if there's always another book to go to when your primary read is driving you to distraction.

Do you have a favorite time/place to read?

Mostly on the living room sofa in the wee hours. It's not surprising, some nights, to find me hunched over one tome or another at 4AM. Burning the midnight oil means no distractions, and I've ever so easily distracted...

Do you prefer series books or stand alones?

Stand alone books, for sure. I've got my head in some many multi-volume narrative arcs at the moment that it's already going to be hard to keep track of what's what come the next part. Self-contained stories represent a welcome respite from that mental chess.

I'm certainly not going to ignore a book simply because it's part something of something, though. Given the prevalence of 'series books' in my genres of choice - something I'll surely moan about at length at a later date - let's be honest here: I could hardly afford to.

Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over?

Above all other authors, I tend to recommend China Mieville and Guy Gavriel Kay; respectively The Scar and Tigana. More people tend to put my advice into practice when I recommend something more mainstream, though, and I'm a decent judge of who would like what, I think. I those cases, it's Dan Simmons I point people towards; The Terror and Hyperion in particular.

How do you organize your books? (by genre, title, author’s last name, etc.)

Very, very carefully.

I have six bookcases of six shelves each, and the thousands of books those shelves contain are all ordered by their author's surnames, and then, if it comes to it, by publication date. The notions of genre and category piss me off righteously, and I enact my gleeful revenge upon such pointless pigeonholing by shelving genre fiction with literary fiction - my Ian McEwan sits between a few Ian McDonalds and China Mieville's backlist - and non-fiction right alongside my favoured made-up fare.

Let me tell you this, though. It's nice to have a lot of books. What's not nice, though, is when you get a new Joe Abercrombie, say, and have to reorder every other shelf in your library.

Speaking of which...

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Pilfered from Speculative Horizons. Thanks James!