Embassytown by China Miéville, and 2011 Reading Roundup

I managed to finish this one while living life on The Berm.

It's a solid three and a half out of five however being Miéville I was hoping for a four or five.

I found the basic premise to be too much of a thought exercise to make the story feel realistically possible.
Eg (very minor spoiler)
The aliens have people act out similes so they can then talk using them, but how do they even conceive of them in the first place?

Easy to read, well written prose but again - like his previous novel Kraken - a point of view character that just moves the story along rather than being a distinct person.

Worth a read but probably not a re-read.


Reading Roundup 2011
While about half of Embassytown was read last year I've been counting books read for the year by completion date. That leaves one with the grand total of 14 books read for the year down again from the previous year (though I did read rather a lot of gaming PDFs over the course of the year so it is difficult to tell if one is actually in a reading decline).

Three books vie for the According to the ratings one dishes out on Library Thing, there are three books viewing for one's best read of 2011.
While none of them stands out from the others I would give the edge to The Hallowed Hunt by Lois Mcmaster Bujold.

My worst book was the execrable Swine Fever by Andrew Cartmel of which I had my say previously on The Tales.


Well now on to my 2012 reading and here's to reaching the lofty heights of 2008's 26 titles and 2009's many high-rated reads.
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