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August '13 Book List
Oct. 2nd, 2013 08:15 pmMore late than usual on this one. So let us start with the free-range short fiction for August. We've got "Cayos in the Stream" by Harry Turtledove. A somewhat alternate history story with Hemingway hunting for Nazi U-boats in the Caribbean. Then Meghan McCarron's "Swift, Brute Retaliation" where just being dead doesn't stop a dead kid from being a bullying dick to his little sisters. V.E. Sawhab's "Warm Up" probably works better as a prequel chapter to her supers novel then as a stand-alone story. And finally a Narbonic/Skin Horse short from Shaenon Garrity, "By Comitee", where a group of well-meaning activists (including an A.I, a gerbil and a cat) try to plan a surprise birthday party for a helicopter. A black ops social services helicopter. I do so love the Narboni-verse...
Carrying over from the previous month is the remaining of David Weber's "Safehold" books, How Firm a Foundation and Midst Toil & Tribulation. And I'm still very impatiently awaiting the next book due out next year...
Then we've got Neil Gaiman's the Ocean at the End of the Lane. An excellent story about childhood terror and wonder and magic. So like a lot of Gaiman's stuff...
Greg Stolze's Sinner is a supers book. I think the roommate got this from a Kickstarter campaign. I liked the world-building bits and the life and crimes of the titular super-villain, told after he turns himself in. The final climax feels a bit rushed and I'm not sure how well it really holds together. But Cephalopod, the remotely operated octopus themed super-hero was pretty damn cool...
Unfettered (edited by Shawn Speakman) was a pretty good anthology from a diverse bunch of writers, all to help with the editor's fight against cancer. Or at least to help defray some of the costs of said fight...
Christopher Moore ruins art forever with Sacre Bleu. Ok, thats his hyperbole. But it definitely puts a similar twist on art to what he did with Jesus and vampires. And King Lear. And Christmas angels...
Helen and Troy's Epic Road Quest by A. Lee Martinez shows that working fast food can really suck and lead to being geased and having to work for cryptic agencies who are lot less helpful than they could be. Also that its hard balancing being a modern Orc with the urge to follow your ancestral traditions...
Probably the most memorable scene in Illona Andrews' Magic Rises is while on a boat ride to Europe, the band of American shapeshifters (plus Kate) have to fight a band of weredolphin pirates. Greek weredolphin pirates...
The Russians Are Coming is another story filling in the time gap for K.B. Spengler's <a href = "http://agirlandherfed.com/">A Girl & Her Fed</a>. With squirrel infestations to go along with sort-of-government cyborgs. And super-hardcore sex. Lots of that...
Chuck Wendig's Blue Blazes is basically a urban fantasy story. But more a criminal syndicates type story. But also still that elder horror from beneath the earth. But also a broken family drama. Plus monsters and magic drugs...
Warbound finishes up Larry Correia's "Grimnoir" trilogy with the neccesary super-sized action sequences and heroic deaths. All very epic pulp adventure...
Charlie Huston's latest, Skinner, is a near future epsionage technothriller. With the titular Skinner being the world's scariest bodyguard...
Naomi Novik's most recent "Temeraire" book, Blood of Tyrants, takes her band of dragons and pilots from Japan to China and then to Napolean's invasion of Russia...
Next is Jim Hines' second Libriomancer book Codex Born. This volume concentrates more on bad-ass dryad Lena Greenwood, in addition to Libriomancer Isaac...
After that was a quick reread of Steven Gould's Helm. Don't remember what prompted it, beyond the book being one of my favorites...
Then one of Neal Asher's "Polity" books, Line of the Polity. Worth it for making me wonder what the D&D or GURPS stats would be for a Gabbleduck. No one does crazy space monsters like Neal Asher...
And finally Austin Grossman's YOU. Which reminded me a whole lot of Douglas Coupland's Microserfs, in a very good way...
Total Books: 18
Carrying over from the previous month is the remaining of David Weber's "Safehold" books, How Firm a Foundation and Midst Toil & Tribulation. And I'm still very impatiently awaiting the next book due out next year...
Then we've got Neil Gaiman's the Ocean at the End of the Lane. An excellent story about childhood terror and wonder and magic. So like a lot of Gaiman's stuff...
Greg Stolze's Sinner is a supers book. I think the roommate got this from a Kickstarter campaign. I liked the world-building bits and the life and crimes of the titular super-villain, told after he turns himself in. The final climax feels a bit rushed and I'm not sure how well it really holds together. But Cephalopod, the remotely operated octopus themed super-hero was pretty damn cool...
Unfettered (edited by Shawn Speakman) was a pretty good anthology from a diverse bunch of writers, all to help with the editor's fight against cancer. Or at least to help defray some of the costs of said fight...
Christopher Moore ruins art forever with Sacre Bleu. Ok, thats his hyperbole. But it definitely puts a similar twist on art to what he did with Jesus and vampires. And King Lear. And Christmas angels...
Helen and Troy's Epic Road Quest by A. Lee Martinez shows that working fast food can really suck and lead to being geased and having to work for cryptic agencies who are lot less helpful than they could be. Also that its hard balancing being a modern Orc with the urge to follow your ancestral traditions...
Probably the most memorable scene in Illona Andrews' Magic Rises is while on a boat ride to Europe, the band of American shapeshifters (plus Kate) have to fight a band of weredolphin pirates. Greek weredolphin pirates...
The Russians Are Coming is another story filling in the time gap for K.B. Spengler's <a href = "http://agirlandherfed.com/">A Girl & Her Fed</a>. With squirrel infestations to go along with sort-of-government cyborgs. And super-hardcore sex. Lots of that...
Chuck Wendig's Blue Blazes is basically a urban fantasy story. But more a criminal syndicates type story. But also still that elder horror from beneath the earth. But also a broken family drama. Plus monsters and magic drugs...
Warbound finishes up Larry Correia's "Grimnoir" trilogy with the neccesary super-sized action sequences and heroic deaths. All very epic pulp adventure...
Charlie Huston's latest, Skinner, is a near future epsionage technothriller. With the titular Skinner being the world's scariest bodyguard...
Naomi Novik's most recent "Temeraire" book, Blood of Tyrants, takes her band of dragons and pilots from Japan to China and then to Napolean's invasion of Russia...
Next is Jim Hines' second Libriomancer book Codex Born. This volume concentrates more on bad-ass dryad Lena Greenwood, in addition to Libriomancer Isaac...
After that was a quick reread of Steven Gould's Helm. Don't remember what prompted it, beyond the book being one of my favorites...
Then one of Neal Asher's "Polity" books, Line of the Polity. Worth it for making me wonder what the D&D or GURPS stats would be for a Gabbleduck. No one does crazy space monsters like Neal Asher...
And finally Austin Grossman's YOU. Which reminded me a whole lot of Douglas Coupland's Microserfs, in a very good way...
Total Books: 18
