There were 25 books on my 2016 reading list. I was only able to get through 21 of them before the clock struck midnight on December 31st. The four remaining books were ones I had been very interested in reading, so I carried them over to 2017. The Belial Stone by R.D. Brady was one of those books. It was number 23 on my list from last year, and number 2 on my 2017 reading list.

I’ve been trying to document where I get my reading recommendations from so I can track the best sources. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a source marked for The Belial Stone. According to Amazon, I purchased it back in May, 2015. Since I have a hard time remembering what I did this morning, my best guess is that I found it through an Amazon source of some kind. It was either through their Daily Deals, the Sci-fi newsletter, or my ultimate nemesis – the Amazon recommendation engine.

In any case, I was looking forward to The Belial Stone when it rose to the top of my reading list. It checked many boxes of the types of books I like to read. It fit into the science fiction genre and was by an author I hadn’t read before. I really enjoy books that fit into the latter category. It’s fun discovering new authors, especially those who could become sources of additional book recommendations.

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William Hertling is one of my favorite authors. When he sends you an email saying his latest book is available, and you have over 160 books on your reading list, what should you do? Of course, you put Kill Process at the top of it.

Kill Process is Hertling’s first book since he finished the Singularity Series last year, which is a series you must read if you haven’t already. The good news is that you don’t need to have read any of the Singularity Series books to enjoy Kill Process. Kill Process stands on its own. As Will put it in his email, with Kill Process:

I’ve returned to the present day to explore data ownership, privacy, and analysis, as well as social media, computer hacking, and the world of tech startups

The hook was very intriguing, and I was anxious to jump into his latest work.

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Hugh Howey is one of my favorite authors. I’ve read three of his series – The Silo Saga (Wool, Shift and Dust), Sand, and Beacon 23. There are other series he has written, but I’ve been having a hard time getting around to reading them. As a substitute while I clear some other books from my reading list, I decided to insert a few of Howey’s short stories to hold me over until I get around to another one of his long-form series. Here’s my quick take on Glitch, Promises of London, The Box, and The Plagiarist.

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When I got serious about blog reading, Seth Godin’s blog was among the first I added to my reader. While I’ve added and dropped a lot of blogs since I started reading, Seth’s has always been a port of my daily reading routine. What’s impressive is that he has posted every day since I started following him many years ago without missing one. single. day. Even more impressive is the quality of his content. So when Seth Godin says that the best book he read in 2014 was Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by David Shafer, I figured that I should add it my reading list. It took me a while to get to it, but it finally crested the top of my reading list and was the book I chose to kick-off my reading in 2016.

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One of my first forays into hard science fiction, and one of my favorite book(s), was the Daemon/Freedom two-book series by Daniel Suarez. I was a little disappointed in his follow-up novel, Kill Decision, but not enough to keep me away from his latest work, Influx.

The premise of Influx is a little different than Suarez’s first two novels. Where his first two works were heavily based on near-term technologies, Influx takes more of a fictional, borderline fantasy approach to technology. In other words, the technologies explored in Influx aren’t as well developed as those he’s explored previously. I would venture to guess that the technologies are almost a wish list of what Suarez wishes were available to us.

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Even though one of my major reading themes for 2015 is to stay close to authors I know and like, it’s important to mix in a new author every now and then. I never know when I might stumble across another author to add to my trusted list. So for my most recent book, I decided to stray off the beaten path and read Fluency by Jennifer Foehner Wells. It’s a science fiction book that had shown up numerous times through the Amazon recommendation engine since its release last summer. When it showed up on Amazon’s Daily Deal list near the end of last year, I figured I would get it. It only took 8 months, but I finally got around to reading it.

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Because I’ve been reading a lot of science fiction, Resurrection by Arwen Elys Dayton was recommended by my nemesis – the Amazon recommendation engine. After reading the synopsis and checking out the reviews, I decided to add it to my never-ending reading list. Shortly thereafter, it was featured as a Kindle Daily Deal. I went ahead and added it my library, and then moved it up in this year’s reading list.

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My latest venture into post-apocalyptic science fiction was The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey. Unlike most post-apocalyptic stories I’ve read where the scenario is created through nuclear attacks, terrorism, or some other human-induced event,  an alien invasion is the basis for this one. Well, it’s not a full scale alien invasion, but one which starts in a somewhat innocent fashion and proceeds in waves that are increasingly more destructive and insidious in their methods.

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One way that I’ve been building my reading list is through the Amazon recommendation engine, which I lovingly hate. Wired by Douglas E. Richards is a book which had been consistently showing up in the recommendation lists, so I figured it must be worth checking out. The description fit into my science fiction themes, and the reviews were generally positive. It finally popped to the top of my list, and I was eager and excited to dig into it.

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