Over the last couple of years I've been searching for a fantasy novel to break free of the shackles of the old time tropes. After reading something like The Name of the Wind, its hard to go back to the rather straightforward fantasy novel. Going into A Darker Shade of Magic I had heard such great things that I really thought this might be a new fantasy series to get behind.

Over the last five years I've really come to love Stephen King novels. Whether it's The Stand, 11-22-63 or Under the Dome, I've found him to be one of the better writers around today. However, the one exception of that for me has been this trilogy, the Bill Hodges trilogy. 

This is my first foray into Philip K. Dick, a prolific author that I've always wanted to read but never knew where to join the fray. For the GamersRead book club the latest pick was A Scanner Darkly. I remember vaguely the trailers for the 2006 movie which had big stars and a different art style but that's all I knew about it going in. 

As I write this post I'm currently a couple of books ahead of schedule to reach my goal of reading 28 books in 2016. The one major caveat to that is that I'm really not sure if I will get much reading done on the #UltimateEuropeTrip2016 which is over three weeks long, so I'm trying to build in a little cushion. Another big help to the reading goal is the addition of GamersRead to my repertoire which is the new video game book club I started with a couple of folks from Darkstation. With those two things in mind I'm well on my way to reach my 2016 goal. 

If you read the summary of When Breath Becomes Air you know what you're getting yourself into. It's a novel written by a neurosurgeon/neuroscientist who was diagnosed and passed away of lung cancer before the age of 40. And even knowing that, this novel is a beautiful view into one mans life journey.  

I'm not sure how I've missed Red Rising for as long as I have. The science fiction novel and first in a trilogy of novels was released in 2014 and has been receiving accolades ever since. Somehow though it managed to quietly drift in my "to-read" list for the last year or so up until a couple of weeks back when I really started to hanker for a good science fiction novel.