I’ve mentioned Christopher Moore in previous posts as an author I admire as a professional and whose work I enjoy. Mr. Moore occasionally updates his website with a list of books he recommends.  By the way, reviewing books can be an actual career — not just something you do on your blog to attract more readers. People who also love great books like this often enjoy earning masters degrees online.

John Connolly is an author Mr. Moore is excited about, one he compares favorably to other favorites of mine like Joe Lansdale and James Lee Burke. With such strong recommendation, I picked up Connolly’s first, Every Dead Thing.

I’m not excited about it, but I finished it and enjoyed the ride. However, the total value of the book was less than the sum of its parts. Connolly gave us a compelling narrator, and some brilliant turns of phrase….but the story was tepid and the “surprise ending” was obvious from a few chapters in.

On the other hand, it was Connolly’s first. It’s a good enough effort that I’ll be trying some later works to see how he has grown in the intervening decade. Every Dead Thing places #8 on my year of best books I read during this year, between Sandford’s Bad Blood and Lansdale’s Devil Red.

Even nutritionists enjoy the occasional Big Mac. Olympic athletes spend a day now and then sitting on the couch watching reality TV. DEA agents spend some of their free time getting drunk.

It’s part of being human. So is enjoying Monster Hunter International. This book is not well structured. It’s not well-written. It’s filled with clumsy foreshadowing, repetitious use of tired clichés, cardboard characters and tepid dialog.

It’s also full of zombie stomping, blood spurting, gun toting action sequences that make you feel like you’re in the best moments of Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness. The frontispiece tells you exactly what to expect:

“You know what the difference between you and me really is? You look out there and see a horde of evil, brain eating zombies. I look out there and see a target rich environment.”

And author Larry Correia delivers. Page after page of gun worship, tough-guy lines and splattery bits going splat. Don’t read this book to be challenged. Read it for the same reason you occasionally fire up Duke Nuke ‘Em…’cos sometimes that’s all you need. I bought it to read on a cruise, and it filled its niche nicely.

This one comes at the bottom of my list of the year’s books I actually enjoyed reading….placing it at #10. That’s just below, and just above Devil’s Island.

MHI also serves as a cautionary tale for aspiring authors. We all write better than this guy. We all plot and pace better than he does. But he has a book deal, and we don’t…because he took a proven concept and applied a minimum of talent. The lesson? Don’t suffer all morning putting in a comma, then all afternoon taking it out. Get some work done, then submit. You might be surprised how many people love it.
Thanks for listening.

So here’s the thing about Jim Butcher. He’s not a great writer. Jim uses phrases and vocabulary choices out of workshops for how not to imitate pulp writers. He’s straight-up B to B+ on a good day. Uses adverbs when simple description would be better. Chooses overly dramatic words like “gaze” and “horrific.” Tags his dialog with Tom Swifties, even when he’s not making a joke.

But.

His pacing keeps me reading, piling on the tension and the fun. His characters are deep and interesting, even though sometimes archetypical. He uses legend — ancient and urban — in a way that adds texture and meaning to his books. I like Harry Dresden. A lot.

In this particular episode, he’s up against the Forces of Evil in the form of fallen angels. Fights along side some bad-ass knights and ends up shutting down O’Hare Airport for a few hours. A romp through mythology and mayhem you just don’t see so much anymore. Jim’s having fun. I’m having fun. So what it it isn’t Shakespeare?

Death Masks ranks between Bite Me and Ned the Seal  on this year’s fiction reading list, coming it at #4 for the year. It’s likely I’ll binge read the next few Harrys, so in fairness I’ll probably treat the series as one entry going forward.

If you’re new to Harry Dresden, start with Fool Moon. The basic premise is as follows. Imagine the world posited in Harry Potter, with all its magic and supernatural skulduggery. Imagine an adult wizard living in that world. Imagine he’s a pulp noir P.I. in Chicago.

That’s all you need to know.

Schlock Mercenary author Howard Tayler posts short reviews of the movies he watches, in the context of a totally subjective “Top Ten Movies I’ve Watched This Year” list. He updates it in real time, so you can see the changes as movies break current records, or slide off the bottom of the list.

I’ve mentioned in earlier posts how writers must read incessantly. If you don’t read, you won’t see what others are doing. You won’t stay current. You won’t succeed — and you won’t deserve to. So, for no reason other than I think it will be fun, I’ll be taking a page from Mr. Tayler and do a Top Ten Fiction Novels I’ve Read This Year list. I read about one a month, along with my podcasts, nonfiction, blogs, reports and ebooks.

For now, I’ll post the books I’ve read so far, in subjective order based on how much I enjoyed them. If I enjoyed books equally, I’ll fall back on craftsmanship as a tie breaker. Going forward, I’ll be doing reviews — and will soon post detailed reviews of the ones that have already made the list. As of today, I’ve read 9 fiction books since the new year.

#1: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I touched on this earlier. Best fantasy I’ve read in a decade, and I re-read Lord of the Rings in 2002.

#2: The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex. Young adult fiction. A hilarious romp through an apocalyptic earth during the weeks between two alien invasions. Twisted humor, and an interesting weave between narrative prose and graphic novel. Had me laughing out loud.

#3: Bite Me. Christopher Moore’s newest in his San Francisco Vampire series. Competent, funny and sometimes poignant. It would have ranked higher if Wind and Smekday weren’t so damn good — and if Moore hadn’t written this book twice before.

#4: The Adventures of Ned the Seal, an early effort of Joe R. Lansdale, is a weird masterpiece of steampunk alternative history starring Sitting Bull, Annie Oakley, Dr. Moreau, Frankenstein, Mark Twain, Jules Verne and martians.

#5: Sixkill. The late Robert B. Parker can be fairly accused of phoning in some of the later titles from his acclaimed Spenser series…but this isn’t one of them. It’s good for all the same reasons as the best Spenser, and puts Our Favorite Guy in a mentorship role again — one of the places I like him most. A fine finish to Parker’s career — though I would have liked to have seen Hawk and Paul one last time.

#6: Bad Blood, by John Sandford. I like Virgil Flowers, the protagonist in this book and several others in Sandford’s newest series. Good, tangled mystery with stellar dialog and plenty of violence. Like Bite Me, it would have scored higher if Sandford hadn’t written this story so many times.

#7: Devil Red. Ye mead-swilling gods, but I love me a Hap and Leonard novel. This is a recent addition to the Joe R. Lansdale series, complete with humor, introspection and copious kicking of ass. A weaker effort than Mucho Mojo, but still readable start to finish.

#8: Dexter Series, by Jeff Lindsay. I spent most of March working on home projects listening to the first four as audiobooks. I like the protagonist, and loved the series. Quirky and creepy, but weak on tension for a thriller…and I’ve kind of been over the serial killer thing since Thomas Harris ruined it for me with Hannibal.

#9: Rebel Island by Rick Riordan. I read this adult detective novel because of how much I loved Riordan’s Olympians series, and was disappointed. It’s on the top ten only because I haven’t read 11 novels yet this year.

I wrote once before about the New Pulp Era , about how the ease of access to publishing means we can all publish our work for an audience of billions. Writer Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn is not only using an intriguing model for making her living in this era, but offers a free eBook on exactly how you can do it, too.

You can sign up for a free subscription and receive her book Author 2.0 at this website. The book describes in broad strokes how her model works, how it contrasts to traditional routes of publishing, and what 21st century authors must do to build an internet platform.

Author 2.0 describes a line of demarcation between free content you use to build readership — such as blogging, newsletters and expert interviews — and the content you charge for, like speaking engagements and full-length books. It’s a simple structure, and one you can make work for you if you have the hours available in your week.

Pros of Author 2.0 are its simplicity and the truth of what Joanna is saying. This is the model she’s using, and that others have used, to make a full-time living as a professional writer. It’s a strong primer to introduce you to what may be the best opportunity for lifestyle design as a writer.

The biggest con of Author 2.0 is that it’s a fairly typical eBook. It’s long on rah-rah, and short on details. Like other promotional free eBooks, its purpose is to give you just enough information to want to hear more from its creator. Folks who have been paying attention won’t learn anything new from it, but they might still benefit from the clarity of its organization.

Bottom line Author 2.0 is worth every penny Joanna charges for it. I’d probably even pay a few bucks. New and aspiring writers will definitely benefit from giving it a look. Folks with more experience can still get some value — though much of it will be from inspiration and organization, rather than information.

Joanna’s website and content are full of deeper insights and more actionable advice. Whether or not you sign up for the subscription and book, I recommend taking a look and listen.

Thanks for listening.