What I read in 2023

We've reached the end of another year, so it's time to review the books I read in 2023. At the start of the year, I set a goal to read at least 100 books, and I finished the year with 102, the same number of books I read in 2022.

The average rating for the books I read was 4.01 stars, slightly lower than the 4.04 average from 2022's books read. The breakdown by star rating was:

• 5 stars - 31 books
• 4 stars - 41 books
• 3 stars - 30 books

As I mentioned in my last post, the reading challenge I undertook this year (to read classics that everyone "should" read before they die) did not go as well as my previous reading challenges. The 3.58-star average rating from those twelve books dragged down my overall average for the year. Without the books from the reading challenge, the other books I read this year came in at 4.07 stars, which is higher than 2022's average rating.

In my next post, I'll list my top ten reads of 2023. Stay tuned!

Reading challenge recap - books to read before I die

The reading challenge I selected for 2023 was to read a dozen of the "classics" that everyone should read before they die. As I mentioned less than halfway through the year, it turns out the classics are not for me. For the sake of formally closing out the challenge, here are the books I read (listed alphabetically by title):

• The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath 
• Catch-22 - Jospeh Heller 
• The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
• Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 
• Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
• Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
• Moby Dick - Herman Melville
• One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez
• Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
• Ulysses - James Joyce
• Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

Not one of the books on the list received a 5-star rating from me. Seven of them were 4-star reads, and the remaining five received 3 stars, for an average of 3.58.

As far as reading challenges goes, this one didn't produce any great books that I enjoyed very much, but I still feel a sense of accomplishment in having read some of these "classic" works of literature.

After Z-Day #1 and #2 ebooks are 99 cents on Black Friday

On Friday, November 24, starting at 8:00 am PST, the Kindle versions of Book 1 and Book 2 of the After Z-Day series will be only 99 cents. While you can always get Book 1, Hopeless, for 99 cents, this is a 75% savings on Book 2, Relentless. 

If you miss the Black Friday price, Relentless will be $1.99 on Saturday, November 25, a 50% savings. The price increases to $2.99 on Sunday, November 26, and reverts to its normal price of $3.99 on Monday, November 27, which is still a bargain!

For all fans of zombie apocalypses, check out the After Z-Day series!

 

Get Hopeless here.

Get Relentless here.

Get Soulless, the newly released Book 3 in the After Z-Day series, here.

Soulless is available for pre-order

Book 3 of the After Z-Day series, Soulless, is now available for pre-order on Amazon in ebook and paperback formats! The official release date is Friday, November 17, just in time for the holiday shopping season. :-)

 

Description: 

With San Benito Army Base overrun by zombies, Sara and her group of survivors attempt to take back the base. However, they have a more urgent problem. Sara’s infected friend will turn into a soulless zombie if they don’t make more doses of the serum to treat her.

Unfortunately, the means of manufacturing the serum has been lost along with the base. The only alternative is to seek a solution elsewhere. Sara and a small group of volunteers leave the safety of their encampment in search of the required ingredients and tools for making more of the life-saving treatment. In a zombie-infested world, they don’t know if they’ll find what they need or what they’ll encounter along the way. But what choice do they have?

Owning multiple copies of the same book

I recently bought a second copy of a book I already own because it was available in a different format than the first one I had. This is not the first time I've done this. When I was younger, the books I bought were mostly paperbacks because they were smaller (and therefore easier to carry around and store) and cheaper. As I've gotten older, I've appreciated hardcovers more due to their durability and, frankly, the way they look on my bookshelves. Sometimes, I'll come across a special edition that I like even more than the hardcover, and I'll buy that too.

No book exhibits this shift in my taste than The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. When I first wanted to read the Stormlight Archive series, I bought a box set of the first three books in mass market paperback. I loved the books so much that I wanted to own the hardcover versions of them, so I bought all four books in the series in hardcover. Then Brandon Sanderson published a leatherbound edition of The Way of Kings, and I had to get that too. Finally, I came across a larger paperback edition of the book at a sale. It only cost a dollar, so I figured why not? It'd be good to have an extra copy to loan to people. So now I have four copies of The Way of Kings in four different formats!

The other reason I end up with multiple copies of a book is because I forgot I already own it. I'm embarrassed to admit how many times this has happened, so I take care to review the books on my shelves before I make purchases online. However, that isn't feasible if I happen to visit a bookstore while I'm out. Maybe I should take pictures of my bookshelves as reference for future shopping trips?

How about you? Do you own multiple copies of any books? If so, how did you come to have more than one copy?

Reading Time vs Writing Time

I’m an avid reader who averages about 100 books read per year. That’s roughly two books a week, which means I spend just about every minute of my free time reading. It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I love to read.

With the little free time I have available to me, I have to make a conscious choice whether to spend it reading or writing. (I certainly don’t go out partying, especially since the pandemic.) While I’d love to make more progress with my writing, I choose to prioritize reading over writing for three reasons:

1. I love reading more. Yes, it’s true. Even though I enjoy writing, I enjoy reading even more, and if I had to give up one activity for the rest of my life (which I hope I won’t ever have to do), I’d give up writing before reading.
2. I’m not under any writing deadlines. One advantage of being an independent author is that I don’t have publishers giving me deadlines to meet. However, this could also lead to procrastination. Fortunately, I have enough self-motivation to keep making progress on my manuscripts, just not as quickly as I’d ideally like.
3. Reading is good for writing. One of the best pieces of advice I’ve seen for writers is to read, and I agree. How can you be a good producer of anything without having consumed it first? How can you tell good writing from bad if you don’t read both? In other words, I’m reading for the sake of my writing. :-)

Nowadays, my writing time takes place primarily on the weekends. With the demands of my day job, it’s very difficult for me to find time to write or edit during the work week, and the few spare minutes I have during the work week are spent reading rather than writing. I’m OK with this balance since I’m continuing to make progress on my books, and my next book is still on track to be released this fall. If things slip significantly with my writing goals, I'll reevaluate, but so far, I'm able to both read and write in proportions that suit me.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Plot Contrivances

For the past year, I've been reading more thrillers and fantasy/sci-fi rather than YA books. When it comes to thrillers, I gravitate more toward psychological thrillers, where the suspense occurs in characters' minds more so than in physical acts of violence. While you don't need an unreliable narrator for a good psychological thriller, the plot often hinges on lies or omissions of truth. One of the most popular books in the genre, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, does a superb job of this. (I won't say more about the lies for fear of spoiling the story.)

The problem with some of the recent thrillers I've read is that I find characters lying or keeping a secret for no good rational reason other than that there would be no plot if they told the truth. In one book, the logical course of action for the protagonist was to tell the truth because that would benefit herself and everyone around her, but she inexplicably chose to lie, and the only reason I can think of is that there would be no story if she didn't. One of my pet peeves is when characters act in ways that don't make sense in order to advance the story. This is something I'm cognizant of when I write my stories. Are my characters making rational decisions? Do they do things that a person would realistically do in their situation?

I understand that lies are part of the thriller genre, but as Gone Girl and other great thrillers have shown, there are ways for characters to lie and still be believable. This won't make me read fewer thrillers, but I am more likely to look unfavorably upon those where the characters lie only for the sake of advancing the plot.

Soulless cover reveal

I'm on my second round of revisions for Book 3 in the After Z-Day series, which will be called Soulless. While I can't provide a release date yet, it will most likely be sometime this fall. In the meantime, I want to share the cover of Book 3 with you all. 

I'm looking forward to the release of this new book, and I hope you are too!

Counting Sheep

Last weekend, I had trouble sleeping. I tried counting sheep, thinking that was supposed to help people fall asleep. After a few sheep wandered across the imaginary field in my mind, my thoughts drifted to a story about counting sheep. I wound up spending way too much time working on the story in my head, and hardly slept as a result. Such is the life of a writer. On the other hand, I have a story that I can share with all of you. It's only about 1,000 words long, so it won't take long to read. I hope you enjoy the fruits of my insomnia!

Note: You can also find this story and others on my Wattpad page.

Counting Sheep

The shift leader brings me into a room with a desk pressed against one wall. A monitor and a keyboard are the only objects occupying the desk. Their cables disappear through holes in the wall so that I can't see what they're connected to. An old leather chair sits next to the desk. There is nothing else in the room.

"This is where you'll be working," he says.

He taps on the keyboard, and the screen lights up. It shows an image of an empty field. Green grass fills every pixel except for a layer of sky at the top.

The shift leader points to a button on the keyboard labeled START.

"When you're ready to begin, just hit this. Then keep your eye on the monitor. Occasionally, you'll see a sheep cross the screen. If it travels from right to left, add one to the total. If it travels from left to right, subtract one."

"So I'm... counting sheep?"

"Yes."

"Aren't you afraid I'll fall asleep?" I chuckle, but he doesn't laugh.

"Your profile indicates that you will not fall asleep during the task."

I've never read the information that the State has collected about me. I have no idea how they know that I won't fall asleep while counting sheep when that's exactly what you're supposed to do in order to fall asleep.

"Are you sure this is the job for me? I understand that all Citizens are supposed to work when they turn eighteen, but I think there'd be a better fit. I did well in my math classes."

"Counting is math," the shift leader says.

"It's math that a four-year-old can do."

"There are quite a lot of sheep."

"OK, maybe a five-year-old."

"We're certain this is the right job for you to start with."

Start with? Does that mean this won't be a permanent assignment? "What happened to the last person who had this job?"

"She was promoted."

"Oh, this job leads to promotions? What does she do now?"

"She works in Accounting."

"That's nice. I think I'd like Accounting. I can use my math skills."

"We'll see." He points to the START button again. "Are you ready to begin?"

"I guess so." My finger hovers over the button. "Just press it?"

"Yes, whenever you're ready."

I hit the button.

Nothing appears on the screen. I see only the empty field.

"Nothing's happening. Are you sure it's working?" I ask.

"Give it some time. The sheep aren't going to start moving just because you hit the button."

Which is exactly what I thought would happen. "How long does it take?"

"A few seconds. Maybe minutes. Assuming they move at all."

"Why exactly would they be moving? What did the START button do?"

"It releases a pheromone at the other end of the field."

"A sheep pheromone?"

"Yes, that's what we're testing. We want to see how many sheep are attracted to various sheep pheromones and how quickly they respond."

"Why are we testing sheep pheromones?"

"To determine which ones are most effective."

"And why do we need effective sheep pheromones?"

He stares at me like the answer should be obvious. "It's obvious. The State thinks it's important."

I want to ask why the State thinks effective sheep pheromones are important, but I keep my mouth shut.

A sheep suddenly appears on the right side of the screen. "There's a sheep!" I say. It moves at a leisurely pace across the field to the left border of the screen before disappearing from view. "It went from right to left. Add one?"

"Correct."

I enter 1 on the keyboard.

The screen resumes its empty-field state again for a few more seconds. Then a second sheep crosses from right to left. I add another 1 to the total.

Every few seconds, one more animal traverses the length of the screen. They all move from right to left. None travel in the opposite direction. The section of the field that the monitor shows doesn't let me see where the sheep are coming from or where they're going.

I ask the shift leader, "How do I know it's not the same sheep over and over?"

"What do you mean?"

"What if, after a sheep leaves the left edge of the screen, someone picks it up and carries it back to the right side?"

"We'd see them if that was the case."

"Not if they walked behind the camera."

"Why would they do that?"

"How should I know? I'm just a lowly sheep counter."

"No one's carrying the sheep back. Besides, the sheep all look different."

"They look the same to me."

"They're different. Trust me." A sheep appears on the right edge of the screen. "See, that one is larger than the one we saw before."

"That's because it's closer to the camera."

"No, it's larger."

I don't argue. We watch in silence as the sheep crosses the screen. I add one to the total. Shortly thereafter, another sheep comes into view.

"This one looks just like the last one, and the one before that," I say.

"No, it's smaller."

"Because it's farther away from the camera."

"No, really, it's smaller."

I close my eyes. There's no point in arguing with him.

My eyes open when he says, "You forgot to increment the count."

I tap the key to add to the tally. "What happens if I miss one? What if I enter the wrong number or if I doze off?"

"That's OK, they'll do a count of the number of sheep on the left side at the end of the trial."

"What? Why am I here then? Wouldn't it be easier if they just counted the total number of sheep themselves?"

The shift leader scratches his chin. "Well, maybe. But then you wouldn't have a job, and it's important for all Citizens to have a job after they turn eighteen."

"Is this just busy work? Do I serve a meaningful purpose to the State by being here?"

He glances at his watch. "Oh, look at the time. Your shift is up. See you tomorrow."

I can't have been in the room for more than ten minutes. "Are you sure?"

"Of course, I'm the shift leader. It's my job to keep track of such things."

"If you say so. See you tomorrow."

He waits for me to leave, but he stays inside the room. I wave goodbye. He waves back. I have a feeling I'll have a new shift leader tomorrow.

 

The classics are not for me

 

In January, I embarked on a new reading challenge to make my way through the classics I haven’t read yet. I’m on my fifth book now, and so far, I admit that I’m not enjoying this reading challenge.

The classics are not for me. They remind me of books I had to read in high school English classes, probably the only time in my life that I didn’t enjoy reading fiction. Part of it is the writing style and language. English has evolved since the 1700s (the earliest publish date of the books I've read as part of the challenge), and the way authors write has also changed in the past 300 years. However, I didn’t enjoy books written in the 20th century either. Perhaps some of the classics I’ll read later in the year will be more to my taste, but I’m not optimistic about the prospects.

On a brighter note, I’m also reading books that were finalists for last year’s Goodreads Choice Awards winners, and I like them much better. Some will surely wind up on my list of favorite reads of 2023. It’s good to know that I can turn to one source of recommendations for books I’ll enjoy!

 

Finally done with first draft of After Z-Day Book 3

I'm over three months late, but I finally finished the first draft of Book 3 in the After Z-Day series. My initial goal was to complete the first draft by the end of 2022 so that I can release the book around the middle of 2023. Since the first draft is so late, I'm now targeting a late-summer or early-fall release.

There were two key reasons for the delay in finishing the first draft. The most obvious is that my day job has been crazy busy for the past year. It's been busy for years now, but the level of busyness reached new heights in the second half of 2022. It's been hard to find a consistent writing rhythm when I'm often working mornings before breakfast, evenings after dinner, and weekends, so I'm proud of the fact that I still managed to write the first draft, even if it took longer than expected. 

More so than any first draft that I can remember, this book also went through a lot of changes as I wrote it. I ordinarily make a big deviation from my initial outline about a third of the way through a first draft, and then another pivot two-thirds of the way into the story. With this draft, I was constantly changing things as I wrote the back half of the book. I think each change made the story better (or I wouldn't have changed it), but I'm curious to see how coherently everything flows once I start editing.

I'm planning to take a short break from the manuscript to reset my brain, then start the revision process with what I hope will be a new set of eyes. I hope the revisions won't take longer than planned so that you all will get to read this book in a few months.

Why ChatGPT won't be writing my books

ChatGPT is all the rage these days. In a nutshell, it is an AI chatbot that has been trained and can be trained on any library of existing text. As a result, it learns how humans write and can imitate that writing. Since its introduction, we've seen a growing number of books written by ChatGPT or through the aid of ChatGPT. In some cases, the situation has gotten so out of hand that magazines such as Clarkesworld have stopped accepting new submissions due to the deluge of ChatGPT-written stories.

I won't dive into the moral and ethical ramifications of books written by AI. Instead, I want to let my readers know that none of my books will be written by ChatGPT. The reason for me is simple, and it's based on why I write in the first place. I don't write to make a lot of money (although I certainly won't complain if that ever comes to pass), nor do I write to see my name on book retailer shelves. I started writing and continue to write because I have stories I want to tell. They are my stories, and I want to tell them. That is what brings joy to my writing. If ChatGPT wrote a story for me, the story would be its story, not mine. I also won't get to derive the joy from writing it, which defeats the purpose of writing in the first place.

One day, writing may stop being fun for me, or I'll run out of stories I want to tell. If that should happen, I'd most likely stop completely rather than turn to an AI to write on my behalf. In the meantime, I'll continue to write my own stories because that's what brings me joy.

When you won't read a book because the cover is too scary

When I published the first two books in the After Z-Day series, one of my considerations was how the book covers should look. I wanted to convey the genre of the series (zombie apocalypse) in an immediate and obvious way, but I also didn't want covers that were too scary for someone who isn't a fan of zombies to be afraid to pick them up. 

The reason why that's important to me is that there are books I won't read because I'm too scared of the cover. For example, one of upcoming books that I'm seeing a lot of hype for is She is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran. Something about the flowers coming out of the woman's mouth creeps me out, and I can't imagine wanting to hold that book or see the cover lying around the house. Other books that I won't read because of scary faces on the cover include Horrid by Katrina Leno and What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo. It's a shame because, based on the descriptions of these books, I might like them.

Even worse for me than creepy faces are insects and spiders. I have an irrational fear of them in real life, so I won't touch a book with them on the cover. This is unfortunate because John Dies at the End by David Wong is a book I really liked, but the second book in the series is called This Book is Full of Spiders with spiders on the cover. There are now four books published in the series, and while I can skip the second book, it's more likely that I won't read beyond book 1.

There are cases when I can tolerate an insect on the cover. For example, the cover of The Diabolic by S.J. Kincaid was fine with me. Maybe because I find butterflies to be less scary unless I look too closely at them, or maybe it's because it's not a lifelike picture of a butterfly.

Which brings me back to my first point. I hope my covers for the After Z-Day series aren't too scary for readers. Moreover, the covers of the remaining books in the series will look similar. Hopefully, I manage to convey the genre effectively without scaring off potential readers.

 

2023 reading challenge - books to read before I die

 

I read a lot of great books in 2021 and 2022 as part of my Goodreads Choice Awards reading challenge, and I plan to continue reading finalists from last year's Goodreads Choice Awards. However, for 2023, I'm going to change the formal reading challenge that I track. 

As I get older, I'm thinking more and more about bucket lists. When it comes to reading, there are lots of lists of books to read before you die, and 2023 seems like as good a year as any to start plowing through the classics. The question is: which of the many lists to choose from?

I started with Peter Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. This appears to be the most referenced source when I searched for bucket list books. Not all books on the list are novels, and there are quite a few I've already read. That said, it still leaves a lot of books. 

Then I found this handy list, which categorizes the 1,001 books by time period. It helped me organize the reading challenge because what I've decided to do is to read one book a month from the list, using the following criteria:

• 1 book from the 2000s
• 5 books from the 1900s
• 4 books from the 1800s
• 1 book from the 1700s
• 1 book from pre-1700s

Next, I looked through some other lists of books to read before you die, namely this, this, this, and this. My plan is to cross-reference Peter Boxall's list with other lists and select ones that appear multiple times. I already know that I'll read these three books because they appear on all of the lists:

• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Ulysses by James Joyce
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

(That's right, I haven't read any of these books. Please don't judge.)

Given the number of books on the list, and that I'm only reading twelve of them in 2023, this sounds like a reading challenge I'll continue for many years to come, even if I don't formally track and report my progress.

 

Favorite reads of 2022

Happy 2023, everyone! Before 2022 recedes too far in the rearview mirror, I want to share my favorite reads from last year. Without further ado, here are my top ten:

1. Warbreaker - Brandon Sanderson 

My Brandon Sanderson journey continues into 2022, and it shouldn't come as a big surprise that one of his books--albeit an older one--landed at the top of my list of favorite reads. (By the way, this is the second year in a row where my favorite read was by Brandon Sanderson.) Not only does Warbreaker contain fantastic world-building and magic systems that are a trademark of his books, but it has possibly my favorite Brandon Sanderson character of all time in Lightsong. As an added bonus, Warbreaker is a standalone novel (so far), so anyone who wants to be exposed to Sanderson's awesomeness can read it without committing to a series.

2. One Step Too Far - Lisa Gardner 

I've mentioned before that Lisa Gardner is one of my favorite authors, and her latest novel is further proof of her writing greatness. I admit that I wasn't too thrilled when I found out that her new release was a continuation of the Frankie Elkin series instead of returning to D.D. Warren (nothing against Frankie Elkin, but I miss D.D.), so I was pleasantly surprised when One Step Too Far invoked many of the joyous feelings from reading her best D.D. Warren books. There wasn't a dull moment in the novel, and while most of the story took place in the wilderness, she nailed the suspense associated with the remote location. I recommend this and several of her other books to any reader, whether or not you're a fan of thrillers.

3. The Inheritance Games - Jennifer Lynn Barnes 

This first book in the Inheritance Games series was fast-moving and fun to read. The best part of the book for me was following Avery as she tried to piece together the clues left behind by Tobias Hawthorne. I enjoyed the mystery, and I didn't figure it out until the book revealed the answer at the end. The Hawthorne boys were a bit too much like caricatures, but I liked Avery's character and rooted for her throughout.

4. The Hawthorne Legacy - Jennifer Lynn Barnes 

It was hard to choose whether to rank The Inheritance Games or The Hawthorne Legacy higher, so let's call it 3a and 3b. The second book in the Inheritance Games series, and also a nominee for the 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards for Young Adult Fiction, was just as good as the first. Once again, I was drawn in by the mystery, most of which I didn't figure out until they were revealed. I can't wait to read the third book in this series.

5. Arcanum Unbounded - Brandon Sanderson 

Arcanum Unbounded was a gem that I didn't know existed until I came across the book in the library. This is a collection of shorter works by Brandon Sanderson that take place across the Cosmere. My favorite was "Mistborn: Secret History", which tells the story of the Mistborn series after Kelsier's death from a different point of view. It made me want to re-read the series to see how it all fits together. I recommend Arcanum Unbounded to any Brandon Sanderson fan.

6. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid 

Despite the accolades, I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did because I'm not the type of person who enjoys reading about celebrities or memoirs. But Taylor Jenkins Reid wove such an intriguing story about the life of Evelyn Hugo that I was completely absorbed by everything that happened to her. The book took me on an emotional roller coaster, and I had to keep reminding myself that this was a work of fiction, not the biography of a real person. 

7. My Imaginary Mary - Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows 

One series that has yet to let me down are the YA novels by the Lady Janies, and My Imaginary Mary carries on the tradition of awesomeness.  With Mary Shelley and Ada Lovelace as the protagonists, this book actually featured historical characters I knew something about, but as with all Lady Janies books, actual events are changed, leading to hilarious and happier results as compared to real life. Like the previous books, there were also many subtle, funny references in this one, and I wonder how many more I missed. I highly recommend My Imaginary Mary and all of the Lady Janies books.

8. The Kaiju Preservation Society - John Scalzi 

This was such a fun book to read that I breezed through it in a weekend. An action-packed Godzilla-meets-Jurassic-Park story, The Kaiju Preservation Society resonated with the boy inside me who watched too many Godzilla and Gamera movies as a kid. There was also a good amount of humor and deeper questions to ponder, so you don't have to be a kaiju fan to enjoy it.

9. The Rose Code - Kate Quinn 

This Goodreads Choice Award finalist for Historical Fiction was a great blend of intriguing plotlines and interesting characters within a setting that I've wanted to learn more about (thanks to "The Imitation Game"). The author did a great job creating distinct but well-developed protagonists, all of whom I could relate to and root for. I also appreciated learning more about the events that occurred during World War II that don't appear in textbooks, and it was interesting to read about Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip before Elizabeth became the queen. I'd never thought of her that way!

10. Come With Me - Ronald Malfi 

A finalist in the 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards Horror category, Come With Me is a murder mystery and even a love story as much as it is horror. While the hunt for a serial killer was enough to keep me enthralled, the injection of elements of horror as well as the ways in which the protagonist reflects on his life with his wife put this book at the top of the list among the 2021 Horror category finalists I read.