New Year and Sundry

So it's 2012 and I feel like I should probably start blogging again. Or at least update this thing and let everyone know I'm still alive.* 2011 was a year. Some good, some bad, all kind of merging into normality. I suspect 2012 will be the same, and I've learned my lesson about hoping to finish writing projects. It never happens, and whenever I think I'm done, I manage to set myself back a good couple years. It's like I'm Sisyphus or one of those math problem snails (A snail is climbing a window. Every day it climbs three inches, and every night it slides back two inches. If the window is three feet tall, how long until the snail reaches the top of the glass?). In other words, if you ask about my novel, I will probably hit you.

Anyway, last year I listed my favourite books of the year—as in "what I read", not "what came out" like most lists seem to be. Pleasingly, I pretty much matched my "new to me" numbers, with 55 books read in 2010 and 54 in 2011, re-read two books each year, and finished two previously started books. I figure I'm pretty close, especially since I'm pretty sure 2011's books were thicker on average. And I did slightly better at getting non-genre fiction into my diet! One book in 2010 vs. three in 2011**. Also eight non-fiction books in 2011 vs. six in 2010.

Here's my best of the year, for what they're worth:

Best Urban Fantasy: Midnight Riot tied with Of Blood and Honey
Best Non-Urban Fantasy: The Girl with Glass Feet
Best Superhero Novel: Wild Cards I
Best Science Fiction: The Passage, closely followed by book #54, Eifelheim
Best Non-Genre Adult Fiction: Cloud Atlas
Best YA: The Clockwork Giant
Best Non-Fiction: The Hammer and the Cross

If you're curious about why I picked those particular books, ask in the comments. If I give each of them a mini-review right now, this post will never end. If you want to know what else I read, the list is here.

As for blogging plans for the new year, I don't really have any except that I'm going to do my best to get a post up every week. I want to continue talking about and reviewing superhero fiction of varying types, since I've read more superhero novels, acquired more graphic novels, and had a backlog of superhero film media to begin with. Plus, y'know, superheroes are awesome. I've also been archiving interesting science, so expect a post on that in the near future. Beyond that … I don't really want to talk about my process and progress with my writing, because that just gets me bummed, but other than that, I'm pretty open to suggestions. Note that I do not and will probably never have a Life to discuss here.

* I am.
** Yes, it's still pathetic. SFF is too distracting.