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June '13 Book List
Jul. 31st, 2013 11:42 pmJust getting this under the wire. Starting off June with Mur Lafferty's the Shambling Guide to New York City. Which is about writing tour books for the supernatural community. Some nice twists on the usual modern paranormal tropes...
From one of my various Kickstarter rewards I got Harry Connelly's King Khan. Which is a pulp adventure story with a talking gorilla who teaches at Oxford going to Los Angeles to fight zombies and mummies and stuff. At one point he's joined in his quest by a young Luchador. Its pretty fucking great...
For some reason I got to describing Poul Anerson's the High Crusade to the roommate. I forget why. But that led to me realizing I know longer had a physical copy and so grabbing it for my Kindle. And of course rereading the tale of how some English crusaders steal a spaceship from some space pirates and then go forth (with their entire fucking Duchy) and conquer space. With swords and bows and shit...
Dead Ever After is the finale for Charlaine Harris' "Southern Vampire" books. A decent ending that wraps up the majority of the various primary and secondary character arcs. And leaves Sookie with the expected love interest...
I picked up James S.A. Corey's Leviathan Wakes as Kindle Daily Deal, even though the roommate has the whole series. And then after I finished it I found that it included ALL of Daniel Abraham's (who is the same guy) the Dragon's Path. Which is the start to his epic fantasy series with religious wars and old soldiers and one of the leads being a bad-ass teen lady banker. So basically two bucks got me the first book in a hard core no-FTL hard scifi series AND a great new first book for a cool epic, little bit grimdark but not to grimdark, fantasy. Definitely five-starred THAT purchase...
I also quickly bought the King's Blood and Tyrant's Law the next two books for the series and am very impatiently awaiting the release of the 4th...
Fearsome Journeys, edited by Jonathan Strahan, is a tight little anthology. Its got some Elizabeth Bear and Daniel Abraham and Scott Lynch and a new Glen Cook "Black Company" story...
Esther Freisner's Nobody's Princess and Nobody's Prize are kind of ancient Greek historical fiction, non-magical myth re-imagining, Torjan War prequels about teen Helen...
Limits of Power is the latest in Elizabeth Moon's "Paksworld" novels. With several nations, who had outlawed magery (which is different from wizardry and not-druidery and clerical magics) for pretty solid historical reason, dealing with a resurgance of people showing up with magery powers. Plus Alured the Black from waaaaay back in the first trilogy really steps up as a bad guy...
The roommate picked up the 5th and 6th of Craig Johnson's "Longmire Mysteries", the Dark Horse and Junkyard Dogs. So after blowing thru those, I of course had to immediately grab Hell is Empty and As the Crow Flies, the 7th and 8th books in the series...
G. Willow Wilson's Alif the Unseen is a pretty great modern fantasy set in the Middle East, with an Arab/Indian hacker getting involved with genies and targeted by state security because of the upper class girl he's gotten involved with...
Beginnings (edited by David Weber) is the most recent of his "Honorverse" tie-in anthologies. Though the first story, dealing with early colonization star ships and the crashing Earth governments could be part of more than a few limited resource in-Sol system scifi settings...
Also the latest Grantville Gazette (still edited by Paula Goodlett) with this 48th volume filling in still more of the fringes for the "Ring of Fire" setting...
And then we've got the latest "Iron Druid" book from Kevin Hearne, Hunted. Which has the death of a goddess and a chase across Europe and the Greco-Roman pantheons being assholes...
Then another anthology with Machine of Death (edited by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo and David Maiki). Which is a collection of short stories all based around the concept that society is introduced to a machine that perfectly and accurately and unerringly predicts how you will die...
And finally from the free-range short story round up. Leigh Bardugo's the Too-Clever Fox is a bit of a fable about a fox and supernaturally skilled hunter. Jedediah Berry's a Window or a Small Box is a very off kilter bit with a couple on the run in a strange and illogical world. Porn & Revolution in the Peaceable Kingdom is another oddball story where every other species on the planet has become sentient. I mean all of them. The lead is a slime mold. Except they basically live kind of like humans do now and keep humans as pets. I mean we're still sentient, just not very bright. Anna Banks' the Stranger is kind of a "Little Mermaid" homage, though it has a pretty soft and inconclusive ending...
Total books: 23
From one of my various Kickstarter rewards I got Harry Connelly's King Khan. Which is a pulp adventure story with a talking gorilla who teaches at Oxford going to Los Angeles to fight zombies and mummies and stuff. At one point he's joined in his quest by a young Luchador. Its pretty fucking great...
For some reason I got to describing Poul Anerson's the High Crusade to the roommate. I forget why. But that led to me realizing I know longer had a physical copy and so grabbing it for my Kindle. And of course rereading the tale of how some English crusaders steal a spaceship from some space pirates and then go forth (with their entire fucking Duchy) and conquer space. With swords and bows and shit...
Dead Ever After is the finale for Charlaine Harris' "Southern Vampire" books. A decent ending that wraps up the majority of the various primary and secondary character arcs. And leaves Sookie with the expected love interest...
I picked up James S.A. Corey's Leviathan Wakes as Kindle Daily Deal, even though the roommate has the whole series. And then after I finished it I found that it included ALL of Daniel Abraham's (who is the same guy) the Dragon's Path. Which is the start to his epic fantasy series with religious wars and old soldiers and one of the leads being a bad-ass teen lady banker. So basically two bucks got me the first book in a hard core no-FTL hard scifi series AND a great new first book for a cool epic, little bit grimdark but not to grimdark, fantasy. Definitely five-starred THAT purchase...
I also quickly bought the King's Blood and Tyrant's Law the next two books for the series and am very impatiently awaiting the release of the 4th...
Fearsome Journeys, edited by Jonathan Strahan, is a tight little anthology. Its got some Elizabeth Bear and Daniel Abraham and Scott Lynch and a new Glen Cook "Black Company" story...
Esther Freisner's Nobody's Princess and Nobody's Prize are kind of ancient Greek historical fiction, non-magical myth re-imagining, Torjan War prequels about teen Helen...
Limits of Power is the latest in Elizabeth Moon's "Paksworld" novels. With several nations, who had outlawed magery (which is different from wizardry and not-druidery and clerical magics) for pretty solid historical reason, dealing with a resurgance of people showing up with magery powers. Plus Alured the Black from waaaaay back in the first trilogy really steps up as a bad guy...
The roommate picked up the 5th and 6th of Craig Johnson's "Longmire Mysteries", the Dark Horse and Junkyard Dogs. So after blowing thru those, I of course had to immediately grab Hell is Empty and As the Crow Flies, the 7th and 8th books in the series...
G. Willow Wilson's Alif the Unseen is a pretty great modern fantasy set in the Middle East, with an Arab/Indian hacker getting involved with genies and targeted by state security because of the upper class girl he's gotten involved with...
Beginnings (edited by David Weber) is the most recent of his "Honorverse" tie-in anthologies. Though the first story, dealing with early colonization star ships and the crashing Earth governments could be part of more than a few limited resource in-Sol system scifi settings...
Also the latest Grantville Gazette (still edited by Paula Goodlett) with this 48th volume filling in still more of the fringes for the "Ring of Fire" setting...
And then we've got the latest "Iron Druid" book from Kevin Hearne, Hunted. Which has the death of a goddess and a chase across Europe and the Greco-Roman pantheons being assholes...
Then another anthology with Machine of Death (edited by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo and David Maiki). Which is a collection of short stories all based around the concept that society is introduced to a machine that perfectly and accurately and unerringly predicts how you will die...
And finally from the free-range short story round up. Leigh Bardugo's the Too-Clever Fox is a bit of a fable about a fox and supernaturally skilled hunter. Jedediah Berry's a Window or a Small Box is a very off kilter bit with a couple on the run in a strange and illogical world. Porn & Revolution in the Peaceable Kingdom is another oddball story where every other species on the planet has become sentient. I mean all of them. The lead is a slime mold. Except they basically live kind of like humans do now and keep humans as pets. I mean we're still sentient, just not very bright. Anna Banks' the Stranger is kind of a "Little Mermaid" homage, though it has a pretty soft and inconclusive ending...
Total books: 23
