November Book List
Dec. 1st, 2008 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lurkerwithoutFor those who've forgotten. Books read over the past month. Not counting comics, magazines, game books or similar. Just regular books.
Nov 1st: Esther Friesner - Temping Fate: A light YA book about a temp agency for various mythologically divine beings. The books lead ends up getting a job helping out the Norse Fates. I like that it has Circe now running a coffee shop, a place where you REALLY don't want to break her rules about feet on the furniture...
Nov 2nd: Terry Pratchett - Guards, Guards: The first Discworld book in the Watch sub-series. The losers that make up the Ankh-Morpokh are called upon to be heroes will the city is under the predation of a dragon...
Pratchett - Men at Arms: 2nd Watch book. Captain Sam Vimes is getting married and planning to retire from the Night Watch. But a mad sniper on the loose may force other plans...
Nov 3rd: Pratchett - Feet of Clay: 3rd Night Watch book. The expanded watch has to cope with golems, a secret poisoner and the first openly female dwarf...
Nov 4th: Mercedes Lackey - Brightly Burning: For those who found the Last Herald-Mage Trilogy just NOT EMO enough there is Brightly Burning. Forget all the yaoi-ness of previous books. This one has a magical, but abused, boy. Who life-bonds with his magic pony. Oh Mrs. Lackey, you so crazy...
Pratchett - The Truth: Move-able type and mass printing arrive in Anhk-Morpokh, and its first newspaper soon follows. Introduces William deWorde and the staff of the Times to the series as well as Harry King, King of the Golden River...
Nov 6th: Pratchett - Monstrous Regiment: The tiny mountain nation of Borogrovia has been at war with, well everyone, for as long as anyone remembers. And its latest (and likely last) batch of recruits are somewhat different than previous ones. For one the young lads all seem to be secretly young lasses. Luckily they seem to have found a friend and ally in His Grace Sir Sam Vimes, Commander of the Watch. Even if he is technically one of the leaders on the opposing side...
Nov 7th: Warren Ellis - Crooked Little Vein: Ellis' first novel, PI Michael McGill is hired to locate the long missing secret Other Constitution. Its a job that will take him from one group of bizarre fetishists to another. Take a little bit of Transmetropolitan, more than a bit of The Filth take out all the pictures and mix in a lot of Ellis' love for obscure (often with good reason) science and sub-cultures. Weird but fairly cool...
Pratchett - Thud: Most recent Watch book. Vimes and his men have their hands full (as always) with feuding dwarf and troll factions. And with the approach of Koom Valley Day things can only get more difficult. The perfect time for a very "political" murder to come to the Watch's attention...
Nov 8th: David Wellington - 13 Bullets: I mentioned my disdain for this book when I was actually reading it. But to sum up, the first book in the series introduces a lesbian cop and would-be vampire hunter. And by the mid-point I already knew I had no desire to read the rest of the series. Me! Lesbians! Bad book!
Nov 9th: A. Lee Martinez - The Automatic Detective: A re-read of Martinez' brilliant mash-up of pulp noir and steampunk mad science sci-fi. Martinez really has yet to disappoint...
Nov 11th: Raymond Chandler - The Long Goodbye: One of the classics of the pulp noir genre from one of its Grand-masters. And reading Chandler for the first time, how far even many of my favorites are in their attempts to fully capture his style and patter...
Nov 12th: Elmore Leonard - Swag: One of Leonard's earlier books. Frank and Stick are two small timers who team-up to become stick-up artists in the suburbs of Detroit. A team-up that goes swimmingly for the two until Frank breaks his own rules to bring them into a plan to score a hundred grand...
Nov 13th: Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe's Triumph: Young Sgt. Sharpe in the Indian campaign under Wellington. Sharpe manages to survive the slaughter of a British garrison by a renegade former officer and so agrees to be part of the group meant to capture the rogue...
Nov 15th: Richard Price - Clockers: Cops and dealers in Baltimore. With one cop obsessed with proving that a murder happened the way he thinks it did...
Nov 18th: Cornwell - Sharpe's Fortress: Newly made Ensign Sharpe takes part in the siege of Indian fortress of Gawilghur. But he's still has a score to settle with the renegade Dobbs, as well as Sgt. Hakeswell waiting for a chance to do him in...
Nov 19th: Anton Strout - Dead to Me: Strout's debut book reads like Dresden-lite mixed with some Simon R. Green and mashed-up with that one tv show. Section something. About secret cops who pursued super-natural bad guys. Yeah. Like all that mixed together. Its not a BAD book. But hopefully his next book shows some improvement...
Nov 20th: Jim Butcher - Backup: I still can not believe the roommate spent twenty bucks on this slim thing. I mean its not even a hundred pages. And its big type. With full page pictures. Really. Twenty bucks!
Nov 22nd: Jane Lindskold - Thirteen Orphans: How to describe this one. You've got people who learn that Secretly They're Magic. And a system of magic based on mah jong. And two groups in conflict for what honestly seems like pretty stupid reasons that could have been avoided if people spent five minutes talking to each other. Still, I liked it more than a bit and look forward to reading more of the series as it comes out...
Nov 23rd: Emma Bull - Territory: The territory in the title would be Arizona. And horse-breaker and wizard-in-denial Jesse Fox has just arrived to meet his Chinese mentor. And to get drawn into the REAL story of the conflict between Wyatt Earp and his family and the Clanton's and others. Seriously, I was amazed at how damn good this book was. Especially good for those of you who are Deadlands fans. But even without that, excellent book...
Nov 25th: Martinez - Too Many Curses: A more straight-up fantasy from Martinez. After Murgle her wizard master dies, kobold Nessy continues with her regular duties of keeping the castle full of cursed enemies running and clean. Not helped as various contingencies begin going off, a trapped demon works towards freedom and a deadly and cruel wizardess shows up looking to "visit" with the deceased Murgle...
Charlie Huston - Every Last Drop: Latest Joe Pitt, freelance vampire book from Huston. Joe's eking out an existence in Brooklyn, but gets drawn back into the conflicts of the city thanks to his friendship with the founders of The Cure Clan...
Nov 27th: Martin Millar - Lonely Werewolf Girl: Violent family squabbles over inheritance and clan leadership. With a family of Scottish werewolves. Much of it centered around outlier and outcast teen-wolf Kalix. Touching and clever and bloody and amusing and above all fun...
Nov 28th: Pratchett - Nation: Does. Not. Happen. I still can't adequately describe how good this book is. Very possibly some of Pratchett's best work...
Nov 30th: Glen Cook - Shadowline: Its Ragnarok. In space. The Norse mythology is overlaid on a story of two mercenary armies hired to settle a conflict over a vast mineral strike by two city-states on the planet of Blackworld....
Total books: 25
Nov 1st: Esther Friesner - Temping Fate: A light YA book about a temp agency for various mythologically divine beings. The books lead ends up getting a job helping out the Norse Fates. I like that it has Circe now running a coffee shop, a place where you REALLY don't want to break her rules about feet on the furniture...
Nov 2nd: Terry Pratchett - Guards, Guards: The first Discworld book in the Watch sub-series. The losers that make up the Ankh-Morpokh are called upon to be heroes will the city is under the predation of a dragon...
Pratchett - Men at Arms: 2nd Watch book. Captain Sam Vimes is getting married and planning to retire from the Night Watch. But a mad sniper on the loose may force other plans...
Nov 3rd: Pratchett - Feet of Clay: 3rd Night Watch book. The expanded watch has to cope with golems, a secret poisoner and the first openly female dwarf...
Nov 4th: Mercedes Lackey - Brightly Burning: For those who found the Last Herald-Mage Trilogy just NOT EMO enough there is Brightly Burning. Forget all the yaoi-ness of previous books. This one has a magical, but abused, boy. Who life-bonds with his magic pony. Oh Mrs. Lackey, you so crazy...
Pratchett - The Truth: Move-able type and mass printing arrive in Anhk-Morpokh, and its first newspaper soon follows. Introduces William deWorde and the staff of the Times to the series as well as Harry King, King of the Golden River...
Nov 6th: Pratchett - Monstrous Regiment: The tiny mountain nation of Borogrovia has been at war with, well everyone, for as long as anyone remembers. And its latest (and likely last) batch of recruits are somewhat different than previous ones. For one the young lads all seem to be secretly young lasses. Luckily they seem to have found a friend and ally in His Grace Sir Sam Vimes, Commander of the Watch. Even if he is technically one of the leaders on the opposing side...
Nov 7th: Warren Ellis - Crooked Little Vein: Ellis' first novel, PI Michael McGill is hired to locate the long missing secret Other Constitution. Its a job that will take him from one group of bizarre fetishists to another. Take a little bit of Transmetropolitan, more than a bit of The Filth take out all the pictures and mix in a lot of Ellis' love for obscure (often with good reason) science and sub-cultures. Weird but fairly cool...
Pratchett - Thud: Most recent Watch book. Vimes and his men have their hands full (as always) with feuding dwarf and troll factions. And with the approach of Koom Valley Day things can only get more difficult. The perfect time for a very "political" murder to come to the Watch's attention...
Nov 8th: David Wellington - 13 Bullets: I mentioned my disdain for this book when I was actually reading it. But to sum up, the first book in the series introduces a lesbian cop and would-be vampire hunter. And by the mid-point I already knew I had no desire to read the rest of the series. Me! Lesbians! Bad book!
Nov 9th: A. Lee Martinez - The Automatic Detective: A re-read of Martinez' brilliant mash-up of pulp noir and steampunk mad science sci-fi. Martinez really has yet to disappoint...
Nov 11th: Raymond Chandler - The Long Goodbye: One of the classics of the pulp noir genre from one of its Grand-masters. And reading Chandler for the first time, how far even many of my favorites are in their attempts to fully capture his style and patter...
Nov 12th: Elmore Leonard - Swag: One of Leonard's earlier books. Frank and Stick are two small timers who team-up to become stick-up artists in the suburbs of Detroit. A team-up that goes swimmingly for the two until Frank breaks his own rules to bring them into a plan to score a hundred grand...
Nov 13th: Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe's Triumph: Young Sgt. Sharpe in the Indian campaign under Wellington. Sharpe manages to survive the slaughter of a British garrison by a renegade former officer and so agrees to be part of the group meant to capture the rogue...
Nov 15th: Richard Price - Clockers: Cops and dealers in Baltimore. With one cop obsessed with proving that a murder happened the way he thinks it did...
Nov 18th: Cornwell - Sharpe's Fortress: Newly made Ensign Sharpe takes part in the siege of Indian fortress of Gawilghur. But he's still has a score to settle with the renegade Dobbs, as well as Sgt. Hakeswell waiting for a chance to do him in...
Nov 19th: Anton Strout - Dead to Me: Strout's debut book reads like Dresden-lite mixed with some Simon R. Green and mashed-up with that one tv show. Section something. About secret cops who pursued super-natural bad guys. Yeah. Like all that mixed together. Its not a BAD book. But hopefully his next book shows some improvement...
Nov 20th: Jim Butcher - Backup: I still can not believe the roommate spent twenty bucks on this slim thing. I mean its not even a hundred pages. And its big type. With full page pictures. Really. Twenty bucks!
Nov 22nd: Jane Lindskold - Thirteen Orphans: How to describe this one. You've got people who learn that Secretly They're Magic. And a system of magic based on mah jong. And two groups in conflict for what honestly seems like pretty stupid reasons that could have been avoided if people spent five minutes talking to each other. Still, I liked it more than a bit and look forward to reading more of the series as it comes out...
Nov 23rd: Emma Bull - Territory: The territory in the title would be Arizona. And horse-breaker and wizard-in-denial Jesse Fox has just arrived to meet his Chinese mentor. And to get drawn into the REAL story of the conflict between Wyatt Earp and his family and the Clanton's and others. Seriously, I was amazed at how damn good this book was. Especially good for those of you who are Deadlands fans. But even without that, excellent book...
Nov 25th: Martinez - Too Many Curses: A more straight-up fantasy from Martinez. After Murgle her wizard master dies, kobold Nessy continues with her regular duties of keeping the castle full of cursed enemies running and clean. Not helped as various contingencies begin going off, a trapped demon works towards freedom and a deadly and cruel wizardess shows up looking to "visit" with the deceased Murgle...
Charlie Huston - Every Last Drop: Latest Joe Pitt, freelance vampire book from Huston. Joe's eking out an existence in Brooklyn, but gets drawn back into the conflicts of the city thanks to his friendship with the founders of The Cure Clan...
Nov 27th: Martin Millar - Lonely Werewolf Girl: Violent family squabbles over inheritance and clan leadership. With a family of Scottish werewolves. Much of it centered around outlier and outcast teen-wolf Kalix. Touching and clever and bloody and amusing and above all fun...
Nov 28th: Pratchett - Nation: Does. Not. Happen. I still can't adequately describe how good this book is. Very possibly some of Pratchett's best work...
Nov 30th: Glen Cook - Shadowline: Its Ragnarok. In space. The Norse mythology is overlaid on a story of two mercenary armies hired to settle a conflict over a vast mineral strike by two city-states on the planet of Blackworld....
Total books: 25
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Date: 2008-12-02 08:39 am (UTC)Territory is on my to-read list for 2009. I loved Bull's other book.
I also asked the system to buy Empire in Black and Gold - because I'm hella curious about societies with insect traits. Are you thinking of reading that one?
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Date: 2008-12-02 12:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 06:50 pm (UTC)| http://shadowsoftheapt.com/ |