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Robocop ('14)
Mar. 12th, 2014 10:16 pmDespite several sequences that are basically a FPS set on Impossible I'd swear this movie is less violent than the original. I can't remember the name of the dude playing Murphy in this, 'cause while he was pretty good I think he was mostly picked since he looked a little like Weller when all Robocopped up. Really, a decent movie with the best stuff being Nighy's cyberneticist and Keaton's CEO. But it lacks much of the satirical bite of the original...
April '13 Book List
May. 30th, 2013 08:31 pmI really, really need to get these done earlier in the month. Luckily, I suppose, April is a pretty short list. Starting the Uncollected Short Stories. "Backscatter" by Gregory Benford is a cleverer than most scifi bit about asteroid mining and finding life in unexpected places. Karen Tidbeck's "Sing" is an odd piece about alien life and life choices. "Last Son of Tomorrow" by Greg Van Eekhout is a well written if not all that original look at the Superman archetype. And Prudence Shen's "Do Not Touch" is a nifty little modern fantasy about paintings with bonus Faith Erin Hick's illustration. The short story editor at Tor.com really does an excellent job...
For full length books we start with A Kiss Before Dying, Ira Levin's noir classic about a con artist and murderer. Who I know I'm not actually supposed to like, but man did I not like him...
Finished the second of the free Jay Lake books I won from Tor with Kalimpura. A good book, though I'm a bit annoyed to find that the contest gave me books one and three from a trilogy. But only a little, 'cause free books that were also good...
Digital Divide by K.B. Spangler is the first of several books set in the gap of several years between the first and second parts of her webcomic, A Girl and Her Fed. Really loved this and totally looking forward to the rest of the series...
Emma Bull's Finder is a tie-in to the "Bordertown" series. Sad ending, but in a moving way. I'm not sure if she did any more with the characters, but I might check out her husband's "Bordertown" tie-in books. Even if he is all crazy-pants...
Charles Stross' latest "Laundry Files" novel, the Apocalypse Codex is more of that perfect blend of cosmic horror, dry British wit and espionage...
I've had a copy of Nancy Kress' Beggars in Spain sitting on my Kindle for a good while now. Its not alone in that as my eBook version of To Be Read pile has gotten huge. But hers is definitely one I wish I'd read earlier because of how damn good it is...
Damage Time by Colin Harvey actually is kind of terrifying in its use of the cyberpunk trope of memory chips as a type of crime...
Finished the last Mathew Hughes' "Hell and Back" trilogy with Hell to Pay. Still not sure if I actually like the ending. Kind of feels like the author may of dropped the ball right at the goal line...
Right near the end of the month got the May edition of the eBook version for the Grantville Gazette, still edited by Paula Goodlett. This is the 47th in the series and while I enjoyed the new short fiction I wish I had a better way to sort them on my e-reader for when I want to re-read specific writers or stories...
And finally, ended the month with Paul Cornell's Falling London. Which is both a creepy urban fantasy and a British police procedural. Both done really well...
Total books: 11
For full length books we start with A Kiss Before Dying, Ira Levin's noir classic about a con artist and murderer. Who I know I'm not actually supposed to like, but man did I not like him...
Finished the second of the free Jay Lake books I won from Tor with Kalimpura. A good book, though I'm a bit annoyed to find that the contest gave me books one and three from a trilogy. But only a little, 'cause free books that were also good...
Digital Divide by K.B. Spangler is the first of several books set in the gap of several years between the first and second parts of her webcomic, A Girl and Her Fed. Really loved this and totally looking forward to the rest of the series...
Emma Bull's Finder is a tie-in to the "Bordertown" series. Sad ending, but in a moving way. I'm not sure if she did any more with the characters, but I might check out her husband's "Bordertown" tie-in books. Even if he is all crazy-pants...
Charles Stross' latest "Laundry Files" novel, the Apocalypse Codex is more of that perfect blend of cosmic horror, dry British wit and espionage...
I've had a copy of Nancy Kress' Beggars in Spain sitting on my Kindle for a good while now. Its not alone in that as my eBook version of To Be Read pile has gotten huge. But hers is definitely one I wish I'd read earlier because of how damn good it is...
Damage Time by Colin Harvey actually is kind of terrifying in its use of the cyberpunk trope of memory chips as a type of crime...
Finished the last Mathew Hughes' "Hell and Back" trilogy with Hell to Pay. Still not sure if I actually like the ending. Kind of feels like the author may of dropped the ball right at the goal line...
Right near the end of the month got the May edition of the eBook version for the Grantville Gazette, still edited by Paula Goodlett. This is the 47th in the series and while I enjoyed the new short fiction I wish I had a better way to sort them on my e-reader for when I want to re-read specific writers or stories...
And finally, ended the month with Paul Cornell's Falling London. Which is both a creepy urban fantasy and a British police procedural. Both done really well...
Total books: 11
April '12 Book List
May. 23rd, 2012 09:12 pmI should really get these done sooner, I've been seriously slacking on them. And April was a pretty light month with the books read. Started with an urban fantasy series involving tooth fairies by Jennifer Safrey called Tooth & Nail. Don't remember a lot about this, beyond that the main character was an amateur female boxer, the fae were kinda callous jerks and the bad guy master plan involved mind altered kids. Also that I didn't care for it even a little...
After that I went with the second of Tobias Buckell's "Xenowealth" series, Ragamuffin. It takes awhile before the new characters meet up with the original cast, but it gives some excellent world building in its on-the-run tour of parts of the Benevolent Satrapy, where humanity are 3rd class citizens at best. Also some excellent zero-g gunfight sequences...
Next up is the second of Phil & Kaja Foglio's text versions of Girl Genius, Agatha & the Clockwork Princess. Like the previous novel, the Foglios do a great job of adapting formats, losing nothing from the original and adding just a small amount of extra info to increase the value of the book. The book covers volumes Four thru Six of the comic. And I'm hopeful that the next volume will be able to cover Agatha and Castle Hetrodyne in less time...
And then still another second volume, with Dan Well's Mr. Monster. I've been hesitant to finish up this trilogy, since much of whats going on the head of the budding sociopath teen protagonist disturbed me. Plus it involved violence against a cat which is just one of my buttons. The roommate assures me the mental state of John Cleaver improves a bit in the finale, so I'll probably get around to it fairly soon. After all I've still got some curiosity about how this whole Dexter + Buffy concept works out...
I then tried another book by Chris Roberson, End of the Century. It makes a somewhat novel take on the Arthurian mythos and has an interesting interconnected three-time period story. But something about how the ending shows that it was mostly a way to interlock several of Roberson's previous stories and characters that left me feeling fairly ambivalent about it...
Happily getting Jenny "the Bloggess" Lawson's Let's Pretend This Never Happened was a much more positive reading experience. Lawson's website is often one of the funniest things I'll read and her first book collection didn't disappoint...
Read the first of Alan Dean Foster's "Tipping Point" cyberpunk books the Human Blend and enjoyed it quite a bit. I like the set-up where much of human society indulges in wildly varying body modifications...
The next two e-books are really more novellas or even short stories than full length books. But both are quite good. Stephen King's Mile 81 is creepy and weird and he manages to give real depth to characters you only get to spend a page or two with. And John Scalzi's Election about a human running for city council seat that hasn't had a human win it in decades is just funny and clever in all the best ways...
After that I finally got around to finishing up Sherwood Smith's "Wren" series with Wren's Quest, Wren's War and Wren Journymage, a YA fantasy series focused on a teen princess and her wizard in training best friend...
Blake Crouch's Run was a very nasty piece of survival horror. The set-up is that a large portion of America's population seemingly goes crazy overnight and becomes a merciless army dedicated to wiping out the rest of the population. Regardless of what their previous relationships might have been. The struggle by the point of view family to survive both the kill-crazy mobs and nature was pretty brutal...
Next was a reread of the George R.R. Martin edited Fort Freak. I'd already read the latest Wild Card anthology, but I ordered my own copy when it hit mass-market paperback. And after that was another anthology with the May 41st edition of the Grantville Gazette (edited still by Flint and Goodlet) coming out a couple days early...
And I finished out the month with Dead is the New Black by Marlene Perez. An ok teen girl urban fantasy and start to a series that I picked up as a Daily Deal at some point. The urban fantasy bits seemed a bit hastily added into the teen girl mystery base concept. Still, an ok read but not something where I see myself tracking down the further books in the series...
Total Books: 16
Yeah a very light month. And thats with almost too short to count Mile 81 and Election added in...
After that I went with the second of Tobias Buckell's "Xenowealth" series, Ragamuffin. It takes awhile before the new characters meet up with the original cast, but it gives some excellent world building in its on-the-run tour of parts of the Benevolent Satrapy, where humanity are 3rd class citizens at best. Also some excellent zero-g gunfight sequences...
Next up is the second of Phil & Kaja Foglio's text versions of Girl Genius, Agatha & the Clockwork Princess. Like the previous novel, the Foglios do a great job of adapting formats, losing nothing from the original and adding just a small amount of extra info to increase the value of the book. The book covers volumes Four thru Six of the comic. And I'm hopeful that the next volume will be able to cover Agatha and Castle Hetrodyne in less time...
And then still another second volume, with Dan Well's Mr. Monster. I've been hesitant to finish up this trilogy, since much of whats going on the head of the budding sociopath teen protagonist disturbed me. Plus it involved violence against a cat which is just one of my buttons. The roommate assures me the mental state of John Cleaver improves a bit in the finale, so I'll probably get around to it fairly soon. After all I've still got some curiosity about how this whole Dexter + Buffy concept works out...
I then tried another book by Chris Roberson, End of the Century. It makes a somewhat novel take on the Arthurian mythos and has an interesting interconnected three-time period story. But something about how the ending shows that it was mostly a way to interlock several of Roberson's previous stories and characters that left me feeling fairly ambivalent about it...
Happily getting Jenny "the Bloggess" Lawson's Let's Pretend This Never Happened was a much more positive reading experience. Lawson's website is often one of the funniest things I'll read and her first book collection didn't disappoint...
Read the first of Alan Dean Foster's "Tipping Point" cyberpunk books the Human Blend and enjoyed it quite a bit. I like the set-up where much of human society indulges in wildly varying body modifications...
The next two e-books are really more novellas or even short stories than full length books. But both are quite good. Stephen King's Mile 81 is creepy and weird and he manages to give real depth to characters you only get to spend a page or two with. And John Scalzi's Election about a human running for city council seat that hasn't had a human win it in decades is just funny and clever in all the best ways...
After that I finally got around to finishing up Sherwood Smith's "Wren" series with Wren's Quest, Wren's War and Wren Journymage, a YA fantasy series focused on a teen princess and her wizard in training best friend...
Blake Crouch's Run was a very nasty piece of survival horror. The set-up is that a large portion of America's population seemingly goes crazy overnight and becomes a merciless army dedicated to wiping out the rest of the population. Regardless of what their previous relationships might have been. The struggle by the point of view family to survive both the kill-crazy mobs and nature was pretty brutal...
Next was a reread of the George R.R. Martin edited Fort Freak. I'd already read the latest Wild Card anthology, but I ordered my own copy when it hit mass-market paperback. And after that was another anthology with the May 41st edition of the Grantville Gazette (edited still by Flint and Goodlet) coming out a couple days early...
And I finished out the month with Dead is the New Black by Marlene Perez. An ok teen girl urban fantasy and start to a series that I picked up as a Daily Deal at some point. The urban fantasy bits seemed a bit hastily added into the teen girl mystery base concept. Still, an ok read but not something where I see myself tracking down the further books in the series...
Total Books: 16
Yeah a very light month. And thats with almost too short to count Mile 81 and Election added in...
January '12 Book List
Feb. 7th, 2012 08:53 pmOpened up the month with still more David Weber. This time the 2nd through 5th books of his "Safehold" series, By Schism Rent Asunder, By Heresies Distressed, a Mighty Fortress and How Firm a Foundation. Thats the one where the remnants of humanity escape a genocidal alien race to a secret colony. And then the people running the colony warp the minds of the colonists so that they'll be trapped in a Dark Ages, theocratic controlled group of nation states indefinitely. For our own protection. And then after a few hundred years the cracks in this concept start to show, even before the arrival of "Merlin", an android with the downloaded personality of one the officers who sacrificed themselves so that the last group of colonists could escape. Its a toss-up for me which I enjoy more from Weber, this or his "Honor Harrington" books. But I still wonder if the whole thing isn't some kind of bet he had with friend and fellow writers Eric Flint and S.M.Stirling to top their best known book lines...
Also from Weber are the far future milspec In Fury Born which has a really accurate title which serves as a clue to the major plot twist. And Out of the Dark, which is an expanded version of one of his short stories. One where space Wolf-Men attack the Earth and wipe out huge numbers of humanity before they push things far enough for someone else to come out of retirement to fight them...
After the "Safehold" books I had both a new print Grantville Gazette and a new e-book one. Volume six for the former and thirty-nine for the latter. Mostly they both made me impatient for the next "Ring of Fire" novel due out this summer...
Then I tried out the roommates copies of a newish urban fantasy series by Seanan McGuire. Secret fairy society with a noir-ish female detective half-fairy lead. First Rosemary & Rue and then A Local Habitation. I didn't realize until most of the way thru this series that McGuire also wrote the "Newsflesh" zombie series as Mira Grant...
Then I took a brief break from McGuire to read the second of Eric Flint's "Arkansas War" alternate histories, 1824: the Arkansas War. This one has the young Free Black/Native American nation under threat from pro-Slavery Union forces...
I also read the first of Patrick O'Brian's Master & Commander books. Which isn't the one they made a movie out of. Still I couldn't help seeing Russel Crowe when reading it...
Then I finished up McGuire's "October Daye" series with An Artificial Night (which has one of the creepier and nastier bad guys from an urban fantasy series I've come across), Late Eclipse and One Salt Sea...
At that point I was in the mood for some Pratchett (probably from a work shift spent reading tv trops) and so went with a reread of Snuff...
I followed that with a new to me John Scalzi book, Agent to the Stars. About a talent agent who is brought on by an alien species that is essentially a kind of really disgusting and smelly mold with mind control powers to engineer a positive first contact situation...
Then I decided to follow up on one of the roommates suggestions and try out Vernor Vinge. And after a Darkness in the Sky its going to be a while before I try them again. Not because of poor writing. But because the main bad guy for it is such a horrific fucking bastard from a society of horrible fucking bastards. Just the mind-slaver of the Focus alone. *shudder*
I decided to finish off the month with a big fat book, Neal Stephenson's Reamde. But first some brain and palate cleansing rereading with Jim Butcher's Ghost Story and Flint's 1635: the Eastern Front, 1636: the Saxon Uprising and the Ring of Fire III anthology...
But back to Reamde, which is probably the most easily accessible thing I've read by Stephenson since Snow Crash or Zodiac. But at times while reading the globetrotting plot with its large cast that pin-balled off each other I had to wonder. Why did Stephenson glue together two or three Bruce Sterling novels?
Total Books: 23
Also from Weber are the far future milspec In Fury Born which has a really accurate title which serves as a clue to the major plot twist. And Out of the Dark, which is an expanded version of one of his short stories. One where space Wolf-Men attack the Earth and wipe out huge numbers of humanity before they push things far enough for someone else to come out of retirement to fight them...
After the "Safehold" books I had both a new print Grantville Gazette and a new e-book one. Volume six for the former and thirty-nine for the latter. Mostly they both made me impatient for the next "Ring of Fire" novel due out this summer...
Then I tried out the roommates copies of a newish urban fantasy series by Seanan McGuire. Secret fairy society with a noir-ish female detective half-fairy lead. First Rosemary & Rue and then A Local Habitation. I didn't realize until most of the way thru this series that McGuire also wrote the "Newsflesh" zombie series as Mira Grant...
Then I took a brief break from McGuire to read the second of Eric Flint's "Arkansas War" alternate histories, 1824: the Arkansas War. This one has the young Free Black/Native American nation under threat from pro-Slavery Union forces...
I also read the first of Patrick O'Brian's Master & Commander books. Which isn't the one they made a movie out of. Still I couldn't help seeing Russel Crowe when reading it...
Then I finished up McGuire's "October Daye" series with An Artificial Night (which has one of the creepier and nastier bad guys from an urban fantasy series I've come across), Late Eclipse and One Salt Sea...
At that point I was in the mood for some Pratchett (probably from a work shift spent reading tv trops) and so went with a reread of Snuff...
I followed that with a new to me John Scalzi book, Agent to the Stars. About a talent agent who is brought on by an alien species that is essentially a kind of really disgusting and smelly mold with mind control powers to engineer a positive first contact situation...
Then I decided to follow up on one of the roommates suggestions and try out Vernor Vinge. And after a Darkness in the Sky its going to be a while before I try them again. Not because of poor writing. But because the main bad guy for it is such a horrific fucking bastard from a society of horrible fucking bastards. Just the mind-slaver of the Focus alone. *shudder*
I decided to finish off the month with a big fat book, Neal Stephenson's Reamde. But first some brain and palate cleansing rereading with Jim Butcher's Ghost Story and Flint's 1635: the Eastern Front, 1636: the Saxon Uprising and the Ring of Fire III anthology...
But back to Reamde, which is probably the most easily accessible thing I've read by Stephenson since Snow Crash or Zodiac. But at times while reading the globetrotting plot with its large cast that pin-balled off each other I had to wonder. Why did Stephenson glue together two or three Bruce Sterling novels?
Total Books: 23
November '10 Book List
Dec. 7th, 2010 04:25 pmI started the month rereading Jane Lindskold's Dragon of Despair, the third book in her "Through Wolf's Eyes" series, finishing it up on the 3rd. Then book 4 Wolf Captured on the 9th, book 5 Wolf Hunting on the 14th and finishing up the series with Wolf's Blood on the 21st. I have to say that I enjoy the final book more each time I reread it. For those who've forgotten, the series centers around Firekeeper, a human raised by wolves. Well Royal Wolves, who are fully sapient wolves that are part of a Royal Beast culture that lived hidden from the human kingdoms until Firekeeper is found...
Then on the 6th was both the most recent "Ring of Fire" e-book anthology, Grantville Gazette 32, edited by Paula Goodlett, and a new "Garrett Files" from Glen Cook, Gilden Latten Bones. The latter ends up going in an unexpected direction in regards to fantasy/pulp P.I. Garrett's personal life...
By the 10th, the once-and-current roommate had started bringing over his stuff to move in. Which meant pillaging each other's libraries for new books. Letting me finish Lois McMaster Bujold's Cryoburn and Steven Brust's Iorich. This "Vlad Taltos" book from Brust actually seems to follow chronologically right after the last. Which is kind of weird for that series. The book itself has Vlad working within the Imperial justice system to help clear one of his crazy House of the Dragon friends. Bujold's latest "Miles Vorkosigan" is an entertaining read but probably wouldn't have been more than middle of the pack for the series until the end. Where LMB just emotionally devastates me with a series of fucking drabbles...
On the 15th I finished Polish fantasy writer Andrzej Sapkowkski's The Last Wish the first in his "The Witcher" series. This first book is a series of stories about a monster hunter in a grimngritty fantasy world that also is full of re-imagined fairy tales. Some of which are fairly clever, like "the Beauty & the Beast" one. But honestly if I wanted to follow the adventures of a broody, total bad-ass, near-unstoppable killer I'd be reading Wolverine comics...
After that I decided to check out S. Andrew Swann aka Steven Krane aka S. A. Swiniarski. Starting with his furry cyberpunk series "Moreau". Where various world governments had created armies of bio-engineered animal hybrid soldiers in what is essentially WW3. Finished Forests of the Night on the 16th, Emperors of the Twilight and Specters of the Dawn on the 17th and finally Fearful Symmetries: the Return of Nohar Rajasthan on the 18th. The first and last are centered around 2nd-generation tiger Moreau Nohar (though he makes appearances in the other two) who works a P.I. The second follows an engineered human cyborg (or Frankenstein) and the third a former gangbanger Moreau bunny-girl. Good books, though the roommate was actually shocked when I referred to them as furry cyberpunk...
Also from Swann were a pair of World of Magic Merges With Real World books. In them a giant magic gate opens in Cleveland, allowing travel between the two worlds. The lead character in them is a political beat reporter, which is actual a nice change from the regular P.Is, cops and wizards for urban fantasy series. I finished the Dragons of the Cuyahoga on the 29th and the Dwarves of Whiskey Island on the 3oth...
On the 23rd I finished up Mark del Franco's Unperfect Souls, 4th in his "Connor Grey" books. This is like the previous series in being an urban fantasy setting where the world of Fairy has partially merged with the regular world. With the lead being a screwed up druid (aka wizard) who used to be a power and mover in the Fairy government but is now a scruffy investigator who helps the local cops. Enjoyable and del Franco is one of my favorites among the 2nd or 3rd tier writers in the urban fantasy sub-genre...
Next on the 24th was a new (or at least new to me) Pratchett non-fiction book. The Folklore of the Discword by Sir Pterry and Jacqueline Simpson explores the connection between the Discworld setting and actual folklore. Not as good as the Science of Discworld books, but still both enjoyable and informative...
On the 27th I finished Cherie Priest's Dreadnought a sequel to her excellent Boneshaker. This book has more of her "Clcokwork Century" steampunk setting, with nurse Mercy Lynch leaving a Confederate hospital after she learns of the death of her Union husband at the Andersonville military camp to journey across the country to meet with her long-absent father, now seriously ill up near Seattle. Both books would still make for great sources for Deadlands players and Marshals...
And I finish out the month with the 2nd to last "Spenser" series, Painted Ladies, by the late, great Robert Parker. Spenser is hired to help deliver a ransom for a stolen painting that ends with the professor making the exchange dead from a bomb. And when Spenser goes to work tracking down the thieves he unravels a knot of lies, murder and theft leading back to WW2 and the Nazi death camps...
Total books: 19
Then on the 6th was both the most recent "Ring of Fire" e-book anthology, Grantville Gazette 32, edited by Paula Goodlett, and a new "Garrett Files" from Glen Cook, Gilden Latten Bones. The latter ends up going in an unexpected direction in regards to fantasy/pulp P.I. Garrett's personal life...
By the 10th, the once-and-current roommate had started bringing over his stuff to move in. Which meant pillaging each other's libraries for new books. Letting me finish Lois McMaster Bujold's Cryoburn and Steven Brust's Iorich. This "Vlad Taltos" book from Brust actually seems to follow chronologically right after the last. Which is kind of weird for that series. The book itself has Vlad working within the Imperial justice system to help clear one of his crazy House of the Dragon friends. Bujold's latest "Miles Vorkosigan" is an entertaining read but probably wouldn't have been more than middle of the pack for the series until the end. Where LMB just emotionally devastates me with a series of fucking drabbles...
On the 15th I finished Polish fantasy writer Andrzej Sapkowkski's The Last Wish the first in his "The Witcher" series. This first book is a series of stories about a monster hunter in a grimngritty fantasy world that also is full of re-imagined fairy tales. Some of which are fairly clever, like "the Beauty & the Beast" one. But honestly if I wanted to follow the adventures of a broody, total bad-ass, near-unstoppable killer I'd be reading Wolverine comics...
After that I decided to check out S. Andrew Swann aka Steven Krane aka S. A. Swiniarski. Starting with his furry cyberpunk series "Moreau". Where various world governments had created armies of bio-engineered animal hybrid soldiers in what is essentially WW3. Finished Forests of the Night on the 16th, Emperors of the Twilight and Specters of the Dawn on the 17th and finally Fearful Symmetries: the Return of Nohar Rajasthan on the 18th. The first and last are centered around 2nd-generation tiger Moreau Nohar (though he makes appearances in the other two) who works a P.I. The second follows an engineered human cyborg (or Frankenstein) and the third a former gangbanger Moreau bunny-girl. Good books, though the roommate was actually shocked when I referred to them as furry cyberpunk...
Also from Swann were a pair of World of Magic Merges With Real World books. In them a giant magic gate opens in Cleveland, allowing travel between the two worlds. The lead character in them is a political beat reporter, which is actual a nice change from the regular P.Is, cops and wizards for urban fantasy series. I finished the Dragons of the Cuyahoga on the 29th and the Dwarves of Whiskey Island on the 3oth...
On the 23rd I finished up Mark del Franco's Unperfect Souls, 4th in his "Connor Grey" books. This is like the previous series in being an urban fantasy setting where the world of Fairy has partially merged with the regular world. With the lead being a screwed up druid (aka wizard) who used to be a power and mover in the Fairy government but is now a scruffy investigator who helps the local cops. Enjoyable and del Franco is one of my favorites among the 2nd or 3rd tier writers in the urban fantasy sub-genre...
Next on the 24th was a new (or at least new to me) Pratchett non-fiction book. The Folklore of the Discword by Sir Pterry and Jacqueline Simpson explores the connection between the Discworld setting and actual folklore. Not as good as the Science of Discworld books, but still both enjoyable and informative...
On the 27th I finished Cherie Priest's Dreadnought a sequel to her excellent Boneshaker. This book has more of her "Clcokwork Century" steampunk setting, with nurse Mercy Lynch leaving a Confederate hospital after she learns of the death of her Union husband at the Andersonville military camp to journey across the country to meet with her long-absent father, now seriously ill up near Seattle. Both books would still make for great sources for Deadlands players and Marshals...
And I finish out the month with the 2nd to last "Spenser" series, Painted Ladies, by the late, great Robert Parker. Spenser is hired to help deliver a ransom for a stolen painting that ends with the professor making the exchange dead from a bomb. And when Spenser goes to work tracking down the thieves he unravels a knot of lies, murder and theft leading back to WW2 and the Nazi death camps...
Total books: 19
October '10 Book List
Nov. 2nd, 2010 07:18 pmThis was a bit of a light month for me. Starting with rereading much of my McCaffery Pern books. The Harper Hall of Pern and The Renegades of Pern on the 2nd. All the Weyrs of Pern and The Dolphins of Pern on the 3rd. And The Skies of Pern on the 5th. All of which makes me wish she and her new writing partner would stop with the prequel stuff and revisit the "current" time again. I just don't care about the previous plagues but do want to know what Lord Torric's next scheme is...
On the 6th another reread, First Lord's Fury, the giant climatic finale to Jim Butcher's Aleran Codex series...
Finished the latest Ring of Fire book on the 8th, 1635: the Eastern Front a solo book by series creator Eric Flint. Following the United States of Europe's campaign against Saxony, Bohemia (I think) and then Poland...
Then more rereading on the 12th and 15th. Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies respectively, the first and so far only two books in his Gentlemen Bastards series. Though I see Fantastic Fiction is projecting a February '11 launch for the third book. Fingers crossed on that...
On the 19th I finished the recently reprinted anthology Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi. Definitely worth a read for any fans of cyberpunk, near-future noir genre. "The People of Sand & Slag", "Pump Six" and "Pop Squad" especially stuck with me...
Started rereading Jane Lindskold's Through Wolf's Eyes series on the 21st. I do so enjoy reading about raised-by-wolves Firekeeper and her friends...
Though I paused from that series when I got the latest steampunk WWI book from Paul Westerfeld, Behemoth, finishing it on the 23rd. With girl-disguised-as-a-boy airship crewman Deryn and the incognito missing Hapsburg prince Alek getting drawn into the politics of the Ottoman Empire in the hopes of keeping them out of the war...
Got back to Lindskold and reading Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart on the 26th. Which has Firekeeper and the other's chasing magical artifacts in the magic-crazed land of New Kelvin...
Then more Jim Butcher when I got his short story collection Side Jobs which I was done with on the 27th. I'd read all but a couple of them already of course. But I only owned a few. And one of those is "Backup" which was previously available as an almost criminally over-priced hard cover. Even with the Mike Mignola illustrations. And the last, which is first published here, "Aftermath" takes place almost immediately following Changes. And like "Backup" its one of the few not from Harry's perspective. In this case, being a Karin Murphy eye's view tale...
And on the 30th I finished the first Hunger Games book by Suzanne Collins. Which is a post-society collapse where the current Big Government engages in some truly nasty bread & circus entertainment involving drafted teens and a to the death gladiator contest...
Through the last week of the month I was also beta reading The Triad Society from friend Joe Selby. And as always heres to hoping he finds an agent and publisher so I can add his books to my shelf. The Triad Society is a steampunk setting story, though set right at the beginning of the equivilant to an Industrial Revolution. Which is giving rise to numerous commoner and noble secret societys that could bring about a different kind of revolution. I especially enjoyed the lead character who is more than a bit of a pompous jerk. But who at least does what can be seen as the "right" thing even if its more out of a sense of nobelesse oblige...
Total books: 16
On the 6th another reread, First Lord's Fury, the giant climatic finale to Jim Butcher's Aleran Codex series...
Finished the latest Ring of Fire book on the 8th, 1635: the Eastern Front a solo book by series creator Eric Flint. Following the United States of Europe's campaign against Saxony, Bohemia (I think) and then Poland...
Then more rereading on the 12th and 15th. Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies respectively, the first and so far only two books in his Gentlemen Bastards series. Though I see Fantastic Fiction is projecting a February '11 launch for the third book. Fingers crossed on that...
On the 19th I finished the recently reprinted anthology Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi. Definitely worth a read for any fans of cyberpunk, near-future noir genre. "The People of Sand & Slag", "Pump Six" and "Pop Squad" especially stuck with me...
Started rereading Jane Lindskold's Through Wolf's Eyes series on the 21st. I do so enjoy reading about raised-by-wolves Firekeeper and her friends...
Though I paused from that series when I got the latest steampunk WWI book from Paul Westerfeld, Behemoth, finishing it on the 23rd. With girl-disguised-as-a-boy airship crewman Deryn and the incognito missing Hapsburg prince Alek getting drawn into the politics of the Ottoman Empire in the hopes of keeping them out of the war...
Got back to Lindskold and reading Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart on the 26th. Which has Firekeeper and the other's chasing magical artifacts in the magic-crazed land of New Kelvin...
Then more Jim Butcher when I got his short story collection Side Jobs which I was done with on the 27th. I'd read all but a couple of them already of course. But I only owned a few. And one of those is "Backup" which was previously available as an almost criminally over-priced hard cover. Even with the Mike Mignola illustrations. And the last, which is first published here, "Aftermath" takes place almost immediately following Changes. And like "Backup" its one of the few not from Harry's perspective. In this case, being a Karin Murphy eye's view tale...
And on the 30th I finished the first Hunger Games book by Suzanne Collins. Which is a post-society collapse where the current Big Government engages in some truly nasty bread & circus entertainment involving drafted teens and a to the death gladiator contest...
Through the last week of the month I was also beta reading The Triad Society from friend Joe Selby. And as always heres to hoping he finds an agent and publisher so I can add his books to my shelf. The Triad Society is a steampunk setting story, though set right at the beginning of the equivilant to an Industrial Revolution. Which is giving rise to numerous commoner and noble secret societys that could bring about a different kind of revolution. I especially enjoyed the lead character who is more than a bit of a pompous jerk. But who at least does what can be seen as the "right" thing even if its more out of a sense of nobelesse oblige...
Total books: 16
Repo! The Genetic Opera
Mar. 30th, 2010 03:25 pmThe over-the-top goth/cyberpunk setting and the weak story might have been tolerable. Since there are a couple decent actors and singers involved here. If only the songs hadn't all been fucking terrible. At least all the ones in the first 30 odd minutes before I gave up on the whole thing...
