Argh.  The end of the year always takes me a little by surprise.  It's the bobble of the old and the new and the whole accounting for the year.  But, I don't really have anything to say about 2012 yet—so far the entire year is rolling out before me, looking an awful lot like numbers.  The number of words I want to write.  The number of books I want to write.  The number of places I want to go.  The number of pounds I want to lose.  It's all arithmetic and no actual thought yet, so… we'll leave it all unsaid and talk about December.  Or at least the books I read in December.

I'll have a separate post for my faves read in 2011.  Or this post will be too long for even me to bear. 

December books!

The Cases that Haunt Us - John Douglas & Mark Olshaker.  Still on my true crime kick.  And these books are so accessible and interesting.  Though this one made me grind my teeth quite a bit.  I think John Douglas is clever and experienced, and I also think he doesn't really understand women at all well if his analysis of Lizzie Borden is to be an example.  But it was a good irritation, the kind that cleared my brain and made me think about things analytically.  Not the kind that makes me throw a book across the room.

The Chronological Man - Andrew Mayne.  A steampunk novel that was hampered in the beginning by reminding me a little too much of Dr. Who in feel, and then was hampered in the ending by not reminding me enough of Dr. Who.  I liked the heroine's voice and would have been happier staying in it. 

Lovers & Other Strangers - Josh Lanyon.  I like Josh Lanyon's books/novellas.  They're usually compulsively readable, and mostly good.  This one was a rare misfire; the tone felt far too light for a man who was investigating the presumed murder of his twin brother.  It felt too much like a cozy mystery, which would have been fine if it hadn't been his brother who was dead. 

The Good House - Tanarive Due.  I'd read her short story The Lake and while I found the heroine/villain repellent, I liked the writing, so looked up her books.  The Good House is horror and unrelentingly so for most of the book.  So much so that I almost put it down—I cared about these people who were being torn apart.  Then Due wrapped the book up with an ending that might have made me scream foul in any other book, but just made me think she was very clever and "what a great ending.  I'll read more of her books." 

Swamplandia! - Karen Russell.  Talked about it here. 

The Hidden Goddess - MK Hobson.  Enjoyable fantasy romance set in a steampunkish, alternate early America, a little scattershot, with a prologue I didn't care about, but I found the book satisfying as a whole.  Would read more of her works. 

Infernal Devices - KW Jeter.  When I picked out two steampunk books to read, Amazon said I should read this one too.  I'm easy.  I did.  I enjoyed it.  There's a surety to the older, originating steampunk authors (Blaylock, Jeter, Powers) that the modern writers don't quite have.  The language here was as much fun as the story. 

Louisa the Poisoner - Tanith Lee.  A novella about sort of an evil cinderella who's supposed to find her prince and poison him.  Except Louisa finds an elderly man with far too many family members.  It's a grim comedy, and mines some of my favorite tropes.  Many of which showed up in Maledicte. 

Dark & Stormy Knights - ed by PN Elrod.  A collection of urban fantasy stories and like any collection, its contents were variable.  My favorite in the collection was the Ilona Andrews story where Kate meets Saiman.

Magic Gifts - Ilona Andrews.  A novella freebie that the authors gave away on their website (How wonderful!) and it is a fun story that encapulates most of what I love about the Kate Daniels series. 

Swords and Dark Magic - ed Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders.  Another collection, this one sword and sorcery, and with a group of stories that, for me, fell into love or hate categories.  My favorite in this one was KJ Parker's "A Rich, Full Week", but I love her narrative voice probably to the point of plot being irrelevant.

In my ongoing attempt to read more short stories (not in collections, but in magazines), I read 9 short stories, which I'm not going to review for a) sparing your page space, and b) because none of them really blew me away.