Want to know a secret about Sapper Joe's reading list....

Want to know a secret about Sapper Joe's reading list?  It's all audio-books!  I set out to read 30 book by the end of 2017.  I've now achieved that goal.

Being a writer, you're required to read to keep abreast of the field of new and emerging authors.  It helps to know who your competition is.  In fiction, you're labeled by what genera you write. It determines how your books are marketed and how they are sold.  The publishing houses came up with it as a way to market their "brands."  It's lazy and stupid.  Because there are many good writers who's work defies labeling.

But, it's the only game in town.  I've been reading science fiction and fantasy since I was ten (except for a break of ten years).  It's what I write and am familiar.  I also read military history and biographies.  Sapper Joe listens exclusively to military history.  He's listened to about 30 books on the Russian Civil War.  Sapper Joe doesn't read fiction and hates most commercial published works.

I read 50 pages per day/four days per week.  Two books are nonfiction.  Two books are fiction.  I read both hard copies and NOOK ebooks.  The rules for writing nonfiction are the total opposite of fiction writing.  Most authors are either nonfiction or fiction.  Then there's genera.  Science fiction and fantasy are lumped together.  They are really two separate markets.  If it involves magic and fairies and vampires, it's fantasy.  If it involves plastisteel starships, sci-fi.

Right now, there's a dearth of chick-lit vampire/zombie porn being written and marketed because that what's selling.  If it has sex and demons and no plot, that will sell, too.  There's some steampunk/alternative history, too.  Not too much military sci-fi or decent speculative fiction besides Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet Series and Melunch's Tour of the Merrimack Series.  I don't consider Star Wars/Star Trek serious speculative fiction.  It has it's fan base.  I like to think, so that leaves me out.

WH40K and the Horus Heresy series are almost as bad as Star Wars/Star Trek.  Depending on the authors, the books either well written and enjoy or a dredge to read.  I thought I'd put my two cents on my own reading.  I like popcorn military action in enjoyable amounts.  Military sci-fi is an acquired taste.  I've broadened out my reading of female military sci-fi to see who writes it well.  I've found a few pleasant surprises like William Deitz's Andromeda's War and Legion of the Damned series.

My other interest in military history.  I've read a tremendous amount on the Vietnam War and First Indochina War.  I've also read about more recent conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan.  Some recent books have included:

The Rhodesian War:  A Military History by Moorecroft; The Roman Empire and the Silk Road; Four Days in September;  A Devil of a Whipping:  The Battle of Cowpens; The Road to Guilford Courthouse:  The American Revolution in the Carolinas; The Madness of Alexander the Great; and Empire of the Summer Moon.

The reading piles has about 55 more books before I'm caught up.  I'm looking by the end of 2019 to done with all my current read.  That doesn't include the manuscripts I review and critique as part of a local writing workshop.  However, I am making progress....  lol.  However, slow.