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January Book List
Feb. 3rd, 2009 07:04 amJan 1st: Jim Butcher - Princep's Fury: In the latest book of Butcher's Pokemon/Lost Romans series newly revealed lost-prince Gaius "Tavi" Octavius leaves Alera so his mother and grandfather can cement the politics for his ascension. He and his legion head to the lands of the savage, and until recently enemy, Canem to try and create a peace. Sadly for the Empire the politics of the matter fall to the side as the alien and horrific Vord launch an attack that may shatter the might of Alera...
Jan 2nd: George R.R. Martin (ed) - Busted Flush: The second in the new Wild Cards anthology series. The newly formed U.N. hero team of the Council struggles to deal with various international situations. Including a former hippie now transformed into a sociopathic godling, a deadly hurricane in New Orleans combined with zombies and a runaway nuclear boy...
Jan 3rd: Greg Rucka - Patriot Acts: Former bodyguard turned apprentice assassin Atticus Kodiak is on the run from a mystery enemy in the U.S. government. He and his new love, Alena "Drama" Cizkova, have to both stay free and get revenge for a murdered friend...
Jan 4th: Connie Willis - To Say Nothing of the Dog: A Jane Austen book with time travelers. Seriously amusing book...
Jan 6th: Eric Flint/Virginia DeMarce - 1635: The Dreeson Incident: I hate reading books out of order. In this case skipping past a previous Flint/DeMarce book (which I do get to at the end of the month). Otherwise another enjoyable installment in the ever-growing American Town in 17th Century Europe shared universe series. My only problem is that what SHOULD be the A plot and climax is overshadowed by DeMarce's tendency to obsess on the romantic histories of the FAMILY of her lead. What should be the two pivotal moments in the book end up muted by what seems to be the B-plot. Also the novels growing out of the short stories mean that occasionally characters just walk on and then walk off as other writer's things briefly intersect...
Jan 8th: Patricia C. Wrede - The Enchanted Forest Chronicles: Four collected books. Major focus is on Cimorene, a princess who gets herself "captured" by a dragon rather than go along with her family's "proper" plans for her...
Jim Butcher (ed) - Mean Streets: Four short stories. Butcher gives a new Harry Dresden piece that follows up on former holy Knight Michael and his family. Also stories by Simon Green (a Nightside short), Kat Richardson (a Day of the Dead themed bit that actually succeeds in making me interested in the writer's regular series) and one by Thomas E. Sniegoski (that I skipped)...
Jan 10th: Lester Dent - Doc Savage vol. 1: Collects the Doc Savage stories "The Fortress of Solitude" and its sequel "The Devil Genghis". While I do like the pulp hero settings and concepts I'm less fond of the somewhat overwrought writing styles. But, if you're looking to read some Doc Savage stories, these are two of the best ones to start with...
Lois McMaster Bujold - Cordelia's Honor: A collection with the "first" two books in Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series. The two prequels cover how Mile's parents met and got married and then their dealing with the complications to Mile's gestation and birth...
Jan 11th: Bujold - The Warrior's Apprentice: Young nobleman and would-be soldier Miles Vorkosigan looks to find new direction after failing out of the military academy's first day of physical qualifiers thanks to his brittle bones...
Bujold - The Vor Game: After getting kicked out of the regular military service, AGAIN, Miles is recruited by the intelligence branch. Which leads to him, his runaway Emperor and the Dendarii Mercenaries on the front of a galactic war...
Jan 12th: Lester Dent/Walter Gibson - The Shadow vol. 1: Two of "Maxwell Grant"s Shadow stories, "Crime, Insured" and "The Golden Vulture". The first is by regular Shadow writer Walter B. Gibson, the other a try-out piece by Lester Dent before he became the regular Doc Savage writer. I probably prefer these over the Doc Savage volume. But I'm a Batman over Superman type so that isn't very shocking...
Bujold - Cetaganda: Young Miles is part of a diplomatic mission to a funeral on the homeworld of his people's oldest enemies. This is probably the first book where you can really see that Bujold is playing around with mixing genres into her future scifi setting with the novels. This one very much has the feel of old-school murder mysteries like Christie or Doyle...
Jan 13th: Bujold - Ethan of Athos: This novel in the series moves away from Miles and you get a young doctor, away from his All-Male homeworld for the first time. After his people are scammed out of needed genetic samples Ethan goes to the next nearest settlement, a space station, to acquire new ones and maybe find more males interested in emigrating. Which is when the gorgeous Elli Quinn of the Dendariis draws him into an espionage plot involving crime syndicates, deadly spies and a telepath. While I mentioned the previous book is where you can first see the genre mixing, this book is actually one of the first Bujold wrote, though its set about mid-point in the series...
Bujold - Borders of Infinity: A collection of short stories, centered around a debriefing Miles receives while in the hospital having more of his brittle skeleton replaced...
Jan 14th: Robert B. Parker - Hush Money: Needed a break from Bujold, so a quick stop-over with Spenser. In this book Spenser is hired to investigate why a conservative black professor and friend of Hawk's was denied tenure...
Parker - Thin Air: The wife of one of Spenser's police friends disappears. And after the friend is shot from ambush and put into the hospital, Spenser takes over the search for her and into her past...
Bujold - Mirror Dance: The other reason I switched to Parker was I was trying to find a copy of the book BEFORE this one in the series, "Brothers in Arms", which is the only one the roommate doesn't own. Couldn't find a local copy sadly. So I miss Miles' adventures on Earth, where he meets his brother. Cloned by fanatics who hate his father to replace him and then assassinate his family. But this book sees the return of Mark Vorkosigan who manages to suborn one of Miles' Dendarii officers and take off to the world of Jackson's Whole to engage in a slave break. Which all goes to hell leading to long-term complications and changes for both brothers...
Jan 16th: Bujold - Memory: And one of those complications are near-random seizures Miles ends up suffering from. Ones he attempts to hide from both his friends, lovers and troops in the Dendarri as well as his intelligence superiors back home. Until one hits mid-mission with near-disastrous results. Of course even after being released from military service (for a THIRD time) Miles still ends up drawn back into the thick of things...
Jan 17th: Parker - Rough Weather: Another brief break to switch to some Spenser. This time Spenser is hired to attend a high-society wedding to make the mother-of-the-bride feel better. But after the wedding is invaded by Spenser's old friend/enemy the Gray Man, and the bride is kidnapped and the groom murdered, he starts digging into whats really going down...
Bujold - Komarr: Miles, now the youngest of the select Imperial Auditors, journeys to Komarr to help investigate an orbital crash that damaged part of the planet's terraforming equipment. Of course things aren't that simple, as what looks to be a simple case of fraud and a missing researcher are revealed to be something much more dangerous...
Jan 18th: Bujold - A Civil Campaign: So during the preperation for the Emperor's wedding you have - A) Miles tyring to court the widowed Lady Ekaterin, badly B) Mark and his lady returning from the "modern" world of Beta to try and fit their relationship into their home's more "provincial" mores AND starting a bio-tech business that could make them a fortune C) TWO different nobles dealing with inheritance challenges D) Oh yeah that whole wedding between Emperor Gregor and his fiance, from the "conquered" world of Komarr. This one feels like Bujold was channeling some Austen or similar comedy of errors in courtship type...
Jan 19th: Bujold - Diplomatic Immunity: Lord and Lady Miles and Ekaterin Vorkosigan are drawn from their honeymoon to try and get a joint Vor/Komarrian trade fleet out of impound in Quaddiespace. The Quads being a sub-race genetically engineered to excel in zero-gravity made obsolete by the discovery of workable gravity generators. There Miles has to unentangle a mess created by military overreaction and a missing crewman. And then things get complicated...
Jan 21st: Michael Chabon - Wonder Boys: The important point to remember here is that in the movie version you get Ironman and Spider-Man having sex. Also the movie left out a large section dealing with the lead character's soon-to-be ex-wife's family. The book also has a much more..settled ending then I was expecting from previously read Chabon books...
Jan 24th: Scott Lynch - The Lies of Locke Lamora: Amazon just cancelled my pre-order on the third book in this series. That probably means its been delayed. How annoying. Because I really want to see if the Bastards take it to the Bondsmagi in the last book. I really, really want that...
Jan 25th: Terry Pratchett - Going Postal: Ok, can I think of anything new to say about Pratchett? Not really. Pratchett is great, everyone should read all the Discworld books, etc etc. Oh and message from the dead bit in this one? Its a bit, like the listing of the fallen in Jingo or the post-desert ideas of Brutha in Small Gods I want to see and hear on the screen. Though, like the concert in Sould Music, I doubt it will hold up as well as I've heard in my head...
Jan 26th: Pratchett - Wintersmith: Dear Mr. Yahweh. If Pratchett doesn't manage to finish this sub-series I will find a way to destroy you and all your works. I am not joking here...
Jan 27th: Parker - Family Honor: Rereading Parker's Sunny Randall series. In this first one Sunny is hired to track down a missing teen-age girl. A job she probably mostly takes to avoid dwelling on her divorce...
Parker - Perish Twice: Sunny is hired by feminist activist to serve as a bodyguard from a stalker. But after the stalker commits "suicide" following a murder at the activist's office Sunny decides to keep investigating...
Jan 28th: Parker - Melancholy Baby: Sunny is hired by a young woman to track down her birth parents. Made more complicated by her parent's insistence that she wasn't adopted but that they won't have a DNA test done to prove it...
Jan 31st: Flint/DeMarce - 1634: The Bavarian Crisis: While reading this I kept wanting to go back and reread the one I read at the start of the month. In this slightly overcrowded book the first of the two main focuses is a trip by the wives of the mayor of Grantville and the Admiral of the USE fleet. One to settle some inheritance issues, the latter to attempt to fund-raise for a planned teacher's college. The two, thanks to two very stupid spies, get drawn into the second focus. The marriage of the elder daughter of Ferdinand II the Holy Roman Emperor and the recently widowed ruler of Bavaria...
Total books: 32
Jan 2nd: George R.R. Martin (ed) - Busted Flush: The second in the new Wild Cards anthology series. The newly formed U.N. hero team of the Council struggles to deal with various international situations. Including a former hippie now transformed into a sociopathic godling, a deadly hurricane in New Orleans combined with zombies and a runaway nuclear boy...
Jan 3rd: Greg Rucka - Patriot Acts: Former bodyguard turned apprentice assassin Atticus Kodiak is on the run from a mystery enemy in the U.S. government. He and his new love, Alena "Drama" Cizkova, have to both stay free and get revenge for a murdered friend...
Jan 4th: Connie Willis - To Say Nothing of the Dog: A Jane Austen book with time travelers. Seriously amusing book...
Jan 6th: Eric Flint/Virginia DeMarce - 1635: The Dreeson Incident: I hate reading books out of order. In this case skipping past a previous Flint/DeMarce book (which I do get to at the end of the month). Otherwise another enjoyable installment in the ever-growing American Town in 17th Century Europe shared universe series. My only problem is that what SHOULD be the A plot and climax is overshadowed by DeMarce's tendency to obsess on the romantic histories of the FAMILY of her lead. What should be the two pivotal moments in the book end up muted by what seems to be the B-plot. Also the novels growing out of the short stories mean that occasionally characters just walk on and then walk off as other writer's things briefly intersect...
Jan 8th: Patricia C. Wrede - The Enchanted Forest Chronicles: Four collected books. Major focus is on Cimorene, a princess who gets herself "captured" by a dragon rather than go along with her family's "proper" plans for her...
Jim Butcher (ed) - Mean Streets: Four short stories. Butcher gives a new Harry Dresden piece that follows up on former holy Knight Michael and his family. Also stories by Simon Green (a Nightside short), Kat Richardson (a Day of the Dead themed bit that actually succeeds in making me interested in the writer's regular series) and one by Thomas E. Sniegoski (that I skipped)...
Jan 10th: Lester Dent - Doc Savage vol. 1: Collects the Doc Savage stories "The Fortress of Solitude" and its sequel "The Devil Genghis". While I do like the pulp hero settings and concepts I'm less fond of the somewhat overwrought writing styles. But, if you're looking to read some Doc Savage stories, these are two of the best ones to start with...
Lois McMaster Bujold - Cordelia's Honor: A collection with the "first" two books in Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series. The two prequels cover how Mile's parents met and got married and then their dealing with the complications to Mile's gestation and birth...
Jan 11th: Bujold - The Warrior's Apprentice: Young nobleman and would-be soldier Miles Vorkosigan looks to find new direction after failing out of the military academy's first day of physical qualifiers thanks to his brittle bones...
Bujold - The Vor Game: After getting kicked out of the regular military service, AGAIN, Miles is recruited by the intelligence branch. Which leads to him, his runaway Emperor and the Dendarii Mercenaries on the front of a galactic war...
Jan 12th: Lester Dent/Walter Gibson - The Shadow vol. 1: Two of "Maxwell Grant"s Shadow stories, "Crime, Insured" and "The Golden Vulture". The first is by regular Shadow writer Walter B. Gibson, the other a try-out piece by Lester Dent before he became the regular Doc Savage writer. I probably prefer these over the Doc Savage volume. But I'm a Batman over Superman type so that isn't very shocking...
Bujold - Cetaganda: Young Miles is part of a diplomatic mission to a funeral on the homeworld of his people's oldest enemies. This is probably the first book where you can really see that Bujold is playing around with mixing genres into her future scifi setting with the novels. This one very much has the feel of old-school murder mysteries like Christie or Doyle...
Jan 13th: Bujold - Ethan of Athos: This novel in the series moves away from Miles and you get a young doctor, away from his All-Male homeworld for the first time. After his people are scammed out of needed genetic samples Ethan goes to the next nearest settlement, a space station, to acquire new ones and maybe find more males interested in emigrating. Which is when the gorgeous Elli Quinn of the Dendariis draws him into an espionage plot involving crime syndicates, deadly spies and a telepath. While I mentioned the previous book is where you can first see the genre mixing, this book is actually one of the first Bujold wrote, though its set about mid-point in the series...
Bujold - Borders of Infinity: A collection of short stories, centered around a debriefing Miles receives while in the hospital having more of his brittle skeleton replaced...
Jan 14th: Robert B. Parker - Hush Money: Needed a break from Bujold, so a quick stop-over with Spenser. In this book Spenser is hired to investigate why a conservative black professor and friend of Hawk's was denied tenure...
Parker - Thin Air: The wife of one of Spenser's police friends disappears. And after the friend is shot from ambush and put into the hospital, Spenser takes over the search for her and into her past...
Bujold - Mirror Dance: The other reason I switched to Parker was I was trying to find a copy of the book BEFORE this one in the series, "Brothers in Arms", which is the only one the roommate doesn't own. Couldn't find a local copy sadly. So I miss Miles' adventures on Earth, where he meets his brother. Cloned by fanatics who hate his father to replace him and then assassinate his family. But this book sees the return of Mark Vorkosigan who manages to suborn one of Miles' Dendarii officers and take off to the world of Jackson's Whole to engage in a slave break. Which all goes to hell leading to long-term complications and changes for both brothers...
Jan 16th: Bujold - Memory: And one of those complications are near-random seizures Miles ends up suffering from. Ones he attempts to hide from both his friends, lovers and troops in the Dendarri as well as his intelligence superiors back home. Until one hits mid-mission with near-disastrous results. Of course even after being released from military service (for a THIRD time) Miles still ends up drawn back into the thick of things...
Jan 17th: Parker - Rough Weather: Another brief break to switch to some Spenser. This time Spenser is hired to attend a high-society wedding to make the mother-of-the-bride feel better. But after the wedding is invaded by Spenser's old friend/enemy the Gray Man, and the bride is kidnapped and the groom murdered, he starts digging into whats really going down...
Bujold - Komarr: Miles, now the youngest of the select Imperial Auditors, journeys to Komarr to help investigate an orbital crash that damaged part of the planet's terraforming equipment. Of course things aren't that simple, as what looks to be a simple case of fraud and a missing researcher are revealed to be something much more dangerous...
Jan 18th: Bujold - A Civil Campaign: So during the preperation for the Emperor's wedding you have - A) Miles tyring to court the widowed Lady Ekaterin, badly B) Mark and his lady returning from the "modern" world of Beta to try and fit their relationship into their home's more "provincial" mores AND starting a bio-tech business that could make them a fortune C) TWO different nobles dealing with inheritance challenges D) Oh yeah that whole wedding between Emperor Gregor and his fiance, from the "conquered" world of Komarr. This one feels like Bujold was channeling some Austen or similar comedy of errors in courtship type...
Jan 19th: Bujold - Diplomatic Immunity: Lord and Lady Miles and Ekaterin Vorkosigan are drawn from their honeymoon to try and get a joint Vor/Komarrian trade fleet out of impound in Quaddiespace. The Quads being a sub-race genetically engineered to excel in zero-gravity made obsolete by the discovery of workable gravity generators. There Miles has to unentangle a mess created by military overreaction and a missing crewman. And then things get complicated...
Jan 21st: Michael Chabon - Wonder Boys: The important point to remember here is that in the movie version you get Ironman and Spider-Man having sex. Also the movie left out a large section dealing with the lead character's soon-to-be ex-wife's family. The book also has a much more..settled ending then I was expecting from previously read Chabon books...
Jan 24th: Scott Lynch - The Lies of Locke Lamora: Amazon just cancelled my pre-order on the third book in this series. That probably means its been delayed. How annoying. Because I really want to see if the Bastards take it to the Bondsmagi in the last book. I really, really want that...
Jan 25th: Terry Pratchett - Going Postal: Ok, can I think of anything new to say about Pratchett? Not really. Pratchett is great, everyone should read all the Discworld books, etc etc. Oh and message from the dead bit in this one? Its a bit, like the listing of the fallen in Jingo or the post-desert ideas of Brutha in Small Gods I want to see and hear on the screen. Though, like the concert in Sould Music, I doubt it will hold up as well as I've heard in my head...
Jan 26th: Pratchett - Wintersmith: Dear Mr. Yahweh. If Pratchett doesn't manage to finish this sub-series I will find a way to destroy you and all your works. I am not joking here...
Jan 27th: Parker - Family Honor: Rereading Parker's Sunny Randall series. In this first one Sunny is hired to track down a missing teen-age girl. A job she probably mostly takes to avoid dwelling on her divorce...
Parker - Perish Twice: Sunny is hired by feminist activist to serve as a bodyguard from a stalker. But after the stalker commits "suicide" following a murder at the activist's office Sunny decides to keep investigating...
Jan 28th: Parker - Melancholy Baby: Sunny is hired by a young woman to track down her birth parents. Made more complicated by her parent's insistence that she wasn't adopted but that they won't have a DNA test done to prove it...
Jan 31st: Flint/DeMarce - 1634: The Bavarian Crisis: While reading this I kept wanting to go back and reread the one I read at the start of the month. In this slightly overcrowded book the first of the two main focuses is a trip by the wives of the mayor of Grantville and the Admiral of the USE fleet. One to settle some inheritance issues, the latter to attempt to fund-raise for a planned teacher's college. The two, thanks to two very stupid spies, get drawn into the second focus. The marriage of the elder daughter of Ferdinand II the Holy Roman Emperor and the recently widowed ruler of Bavaria...
Total books: 32
