June '12 Book List
Jul. 31st, 2012 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lurkerwithoutAnd just under the wire I get to the June book list. Which starts with rereading the Honorverse anthologies. Well the stories that worked in the setting. I'm looking at you John Ringo. More than Honor, Worlds of Honor, Changer of Worlds, the Service of the Sword and In Fire Forged. I was going to get to the regular Honor-verse books again, but I mostly kept getting distracted by new stuff...
Well mostly new stuff, since next up was the physical copy of Flint, Goodlett and Huff's 1636: the Kremlin Games after I forgot to cancel it when I bought the e-ARC...
But then a new book with John Scalzi's Redshirts. A fun, if quick book, about the titular trope of the extras on a tv show who get killed off to show how dangerous the threat of the week is. And told from the perspective of those "redshirts". And ones who grow to realize the trap they're in...
And then another Weber reread of the newest Honorverse book a Rising Thunder, probably in anticipation of that series wide reread I never got to...
Next up was a novel by Paul Tobin, one of my favorite comics' writers. Still doing a capes story with Prepare to Die, but mixed in with a love story. Later in the month I got around to another supers prose story with Jim Bernheimer's Confessions of a D-List Super Villain. The basic set up has nearly the entire world taken over by mind controlling bugs. With only minor power-armored bad guy Mechani-Cal still standing. And yeah names are the one area where Bernheimer's creativity tends to fall down. But other than that a enjoyable capes book...
Then I went back to David Drake's "Lt. Leary" series with the Far Side of the Stars. The British Empiralism in Space is a bit more explicit with this one. With the series leads, temporarily beached, commanding a wealthy noble couple on a vacation cruise of various less "civilized" worlds...
After that was the Mongoliad by..well a bunch of people, including Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear. The mosiac, shared novel is a historical fantasy set during the era of Genghis Khan's sons...
Next up a pair of anthologies. Hex Appeal edited by P.N. Elrod is one of the better urban fantasy collections. In fact Elrod seems to have a pretty strong track record in putting together collections of stories that I predominantly like. As opposed Vivisepulture, a horror anthology edited by Andy Remic and Wayne Simmons. While there were probably a couple decent tales in it, I can't recall any of them out of the mess of mediocre, stupid or just plain terrible ones. I think I picked up the anthology for my Kindle months ago because Adrian Tchaickovsky had a story in it and I can't even remember what his was. Maybe the one about the killer ghost in someone's plumbing?
The Trilisk Ruins by Michael McCloskey was something where I kept seeing ads for it when browsing at work. The cover was pretty basic looking, but something about it made me click thru and read a sample. Not great scifi, but interesting and enjoyable with lost alien civilizations, artifact smugglers and a really alien-seeming alien...
Deadlocked was the latest "Southern Vampire" from Charlaine Harris. More vampire problems, mostly fallout from the killing of the Louisana Regent by Eric and his people. Plus problems with her remaining Fae kin and shapeshifter politics because of Sam and Alcide. Still weird how oddly tame these books are now compared to the HBO series...
Then I finally got around to my John Carter: Andventures on Mars omnibus of E.R. Burroughs. Once you work past the White Man's Burden and similar issues, the books are enjoyable as simple pulp advernturism. Well the first three, by the fourth and fifth books I was just skimming. Also I do prefer the more active movie version of Dejah Thoris...
Finished up the month with the e-Arc of Lois McMaster Bujold's Captain Vorpatril's Alliance. The newest "Vorkosigan" is centered around cousin Ivan Vorpatril, a woman on the run and in hiding and a rush wedding that seems to make sense to everyone at the time...
Total books: 18
Well mostly new stuff, since next up was the physical copy of Flint, Goodlett and Huff's 1636: the Kremlin Games after I forgot to cancel it when I bought the e-ARC...
But then a new book with John Scalzi's Redshirts. A fun, if quick book, about the titular trope of the extras on a tv show who get killed off to show how dangerous the threat of the week is. And told from the perspective of those "redshirts". And ones who grow to realize the trap they're in...
And then another Weber reread of the newest Honorverse book a Rising Thunder, probably in anticipation of that series wide reread I never got to...
Next up was a novel by Paul Tobin, one of my favorite comics' writers. Still doing a capes story with Prepare to Die, but mixed in with a love story. Later in the month I got around to another supers prose story with Jim Bernheimer's Confessions of a D-List Super Villain. The basic set up has nearly the entire world taken over by mind controlling bugs. With only minor power-armored bad guy Mechani-Cal still standing. And yeah names are the one area where Bernheimer's creativity tends to fall down. But other than that a enjoyable capes book...
Then I went back to David Drake's "Lt. Leary" series with the Far Side of the Stars. The British Empiralism in Space is a bit more explicit with this one. With the series leads, temporarily beached, commanding a wealthy noble couple on a vacation cruise of various less "civilized" worlds...
After that was the Mongoliad by..well a bunch of people, including Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear. The mosiac, shared novel is a historical fantasy set during the era of Genghis Khan's sons...
Next up a pair of anthologies. Hex Appeal edited by P.N. Elrod is one of the better urban fantasy collections. In fact Elrod seems to have a pretty strong track record in putting together collections of stories that I predominantly like. As opposed Vivisepulture, a horror anthology edited by Andy Remic and Wayne Simmons. While there were probably a couple decent tales in it, I can't recall any of them out of the mess of mediocre, stupid or just plain terrible ones. I think I picked up the anthology for my Kindle months ago because Adrian Tchaickovsky had a story in it and I can't even remember what his was. Maybe the one about the killer ghost in someone's plumbing?
The Trilisk Ruins by Michael McCloskey was something where I kept seeing ads for it when browsing at work. The cover was pretty basic looking, but something about it made me click thru and read a sample. Not great scifi, but interesting and enjoyable with lost alien civilizations, artifact smugglers and a really alien-seeming alien...
Deadlocked was the latest "Southern Vampire" from Charlaine Harris. More vampire problems, mostly fallout from the killing of the Louisana Regent by Eric and his people. Plus problems with her remaining Fae kin and shapeshifter politics because of Sam and Alcide. Still weird how oddly tame these books are now compared to the HBO series...
Then I finally got around to my John Carter: Andventures on Mars omnibus of E.R. Burroughs. Once you work past the White Man's Burden and similar issues, the books are enjoyable as simple pulp advernturism. Well the first three, by the fourth and fifth books I was just skimming. Also I do prefer the more active movie version of Dejah Thoris...
Finished up the month with the e-Arc of Lois McMaster Bujold's Captain Vorpatril's Alliance. The newest "Vorkosigan" is centered around cousin Ivan Vorpatril, a woman on the run and in hiding and a rush wedding that seems to make sense to everyone at the time...
Total books: 18
