lurkerwithout: (Book on bed)
I always expect to read a lot more on my birthday vacation, and yet I don't.  *shrug*

Started out the month with another of Mike Shephard's "Kris Longknife" books, Intrepid.  Later on I finished the remaining three, Undaunted, Redoubtable and Daring.  Sadly by book nine I had grown weary of Kris, her band of snarky sidekicks and the yo-yoing level of "science" available...

Got the latest "Liaden" book from Sharon Lee and Steven Miller, Necessity's Child.  This entry mostly pushes the regular character's into the background while focusing on one of the younger House Korval members.  As well as a far future version of what seems to be Roma...

During the vacation I did get to the stack of "Walt Longmire" by Craig Johnson books the roommate got me at Christmas.  I read the 1st one a  while back after getting an e-version on sale, so this was the next three.  The books, Kindness Goes Unpunished, Another Man's Moccasins, and Death Without Company, are a step above the tv adaptation (which isn't too shabby on its own) though Henry Standing Bear's voice is very much that of Lou Diamond Phillips during the reading...

I'd had Isaac Marion's zomromcom Warm Bodies for awhile, but I didn't really get inspired to finish it off until catching the movie version.  The zombies in the book have more of a weird culture than the movies.  With the skeletal skinless zombies being a kind of priest/teacher caste.  Plus the zombies eat people a bit longer than they do in the movie...

Jasper Fforde starts up yet another series with the Last Dragonslayer.  Though this modern fantasy is aimed at a YA audience.  And could work as a one-off.  But I wouldn't seeing more of his wizardry run by bureaucracy again...

Also finally got to the next two books of Alan Dean Foster's "Tipping Point" cyberpunk trilogy.  While the final bad reveal was a bit of a let-down, it was more than made up for by watching the super-assassin chasing the heroes get an ass-kicking from a giant ground sloth in the second book, Body, Inc.  And the deadly engineered family of meerkats in the Sum of Her Parts...

Peter Brett's latest "Demon Cycle" book, the Daylight War, dropped in February as well.  Which in addition large sections devoted to one character's back-story (which served to make them a great deal more sympathetic) has the confrontation between the Warded Man and the Spear of the Desert...

After sitting thru much of the recent movie version, decided to get around to Jules Verne's Mysterious Island.  Which needed more giant animals.  And I kind of felt the survivor group went from almost zero resources to being able to make flintlock weapons a bit too easily...

I mostly picked up the Myth Interpretations collection by the late Robert Asprin to get a copy of his "Cold Cash War".  Though it also has some amusing Skeeve and company stories...

And finally was a new-ish Steve Hamiltion "Alex McKnight" book, Misery Bay.  With Alex agreeing to look into the suicide of U.S. Marshall's son.  Which leads to a revenge-based cinema verte killer...

Total Books: 16
lurkerwithout: (Book on bed)
October is somewhat unusual in that I don't see a single reread on the relatively short list. Even Harry Harrison's The Works of Harry Harrison didn't include anything I'd already read. Not even the Stainless Steel Rat story which serves to introduce Jim deGriz' nemesis and future wife. Of the remainder, really only "Deathworld" truly stands out for me still...

Four new supers stories for October. Though Marion G. Harmon's Bite Me: Big Easy Nights is more an urban fantasy about a vampire character who previously appeared in a regular supers setting. Though I think any supers New Orleans ends up being the urban fantasy corner of that world. Also I'm not sure which I have more of, vampire-themed fiction titled "Bite Me" or "Life Sucks"...

Of the other three, Adam Christopher's 7 Wonders was a bit a dissapointing mess, though I did like some of the background character concepts that show up late in the book. Blake M. Petit's Other People's Heroes has the whole hero vs. villain thing having evolved into something faker than pro-wrestling, but it still manages to build a big heroic climax. And Mathew Hughes' the Damned Busters is worth a read if only for the lead. Who seems to be autisic, though somewhere on the high-function end. And it seems to help in his using an "accidental" demonic summoning to become a super-hero...

Two new "Honor-verse" books from Weber in October. First Shadow of Freedom was an eArc and part of the Talbott Cluster side-series. Enjoyable, but it feels like it cuts off nearer the middle of the story then the climax. Second, is the next YA "Stephanie Harrington" prequel Fire Season, co-written with Jane Lindskold. Manages to create a sense of danger using secondary characters, since fans of the setting already know its too soon for the leads to be under a real threat of dying...

With Downpour, I'm almost caught up with Kat Richardson's "Greywalker" series. I was happy that this one stepped away from the vampire related stuff to concentrate back on a more ghost/spirit-centric story...

Got to the newest of Jasper Fforde's "Thursday Next" books, the Woman Who Died a Lot. Very little BookWorld this go, with the story being centered around Thursday getting a new job, the consequences of time travel no longer being possible, an escaped memory-altering psycopath, illegal cloning and plotting by the Goliath Corp. Oh and the threat of God smiting the entire town...

I'd picked up the 2nd and 3rd "Nikki Heat" books, Naked Heat and Heat Rising on the cheap for my Kindle and finally got around to them. And then went and grabbed Frozen Heat. Enjoyable, if light-weight, mystery/police procedural stories. Much like the tv series they're sort of inspired by. I do still wonder who they tapped to ghost them...

Patrick Weekes' the Palace Job is a wonderfully fun "Ocean's 11" style caper story. With sword fighting and martial art masters and ancient artifacts and virgin-obsessed unicorns and more. All part of an attempt to break into an unbreakable vault on a floating island city...

I'm not even sure how I even found Rebecca Gable's Settlers of Catan novelization. But curiousty over the concept led to me getting a pretty darn good historical fiction story with a large group of Viking's working to colonize an out of the way and mostly undiscovered island...

And finished out October with a pair of David Drake's "Lt. Leary" books, Some Golden Harbor and When the Tide Rises. The first has newly made Commander Leary and Warrant Officer Adele Mundy tasked with stopping a planetary invasion with only the most limited of resources. The second has Leary, Mundy and their shipmates sent stiffen a rebellion of a group of worlds against their Alliance enemies. But the rebel leaders seem to be even more half-hearted in their drive to secede then was initially believed...

Total books: 16
lurkerwithout: (Book on bed)
A lot more use of the Kindle this month. Starting with Jim Hines' "Jig the Goblin" series. Which are funny fantasy rpg adventure books told from the point of view of the monsters. Adventurers are tools mostly. Finished Goblin Quest on the 1st, Goblin Hero on the 2nd and Goblin War on the 5th. Also read Goblin Tales an anthology of mostly Jig-based short fiction on the 21st on the Kindle...

On the 6th I reread James Alan Gardner's Trapped about life on a closed off Earth. Where nano-machinery allows some to mimic mystical and psychic powers. And a group of teachers who have to go on a quest to save the world...

On the 8th finished both Steam Powered an anthology of lesbian-themed steampunk stories as well as Grantville Gazette XXXIV. the latest Ring of Fire semi-pro anthology...

After that I checked out Patrick Rothfus' the Name of the Wind on the 9th and the Wise Man's Fear on the 12th. Rothfuss has got a lot of buzz as one of the new up and comers in fantasy. Not undeservedly so I have to say. His books are some of the sharpest new takes in fantasy and well worth reading...

Finished One of Our Thursdays is Missing on the 15th, the newest from Jasper Fforde. This volume follows along with the fiction-within-a-fiction Thursday who was to step into the shoes of the "real" Thursday and stop a plot both within and without Fiction...

Another new name in fantasy is Peter Brett, who's 2nd book the Desert Spear I finished on the 17th. I think the most impressive thing about this series is that Brett makes me like one of the leads even though I hate everything about dude's culture...

On the 18th finished Simon R. Green's the Spy Who Haunted Me. An Eddie Drood book about a supernatural mystery scavenger hunt that guest stars Walker from the Nightside series...

Re-read a big swathe of Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan books in March. Starting with Mirror Dance on the 19th. Which I picked up because I got it confused with Brothers in Arms, the one book in the series I hadn't read. Luckily the roommate had picked it up so I finished it on the 20th. Then Memory on the 25th, Komarr on the 27th, Diplomatic Immunity on the 28th and the Borders of Infinity and Cryoburn on the 29th. Those drabbles that end the last are still giant gut-punches...

More Kindle with Adrian Tchaikovsky's the Scarab Path and the Sea Watch. While I've really liked Rothfuss and Brett, I'd say that Tchaikovsky's "Shadows of the Apt" series is my favorite "new" discovery. The Scarab Path takes newly inApt Che to a pseudo-Cairo city of beetle-kinden alongside Imperial Consort Thalric. The Sea Watch introduces the world of the Sea-kinden...

Finished another of friend Joe Selby's books, Jehovah's Hit List on the 28th. This one is set in a post-civilization collapse world. Featuring an enclosed city of violent gangs that make up the remnants of the U.S. Stylistically reminded me a little of some of Andrew Vachss similar short fiction...

Got done with the latest Ring of Fire book, Eric Flint's 1636: the Saxon Uprising. Which has the United States of Europe in a low-key civil war between the "modern" Committees of Correspondence and 4th of July party and the co-opted forces of Swedish Chancellor Axel Oxenteria and other reactionary nobles following Emperor Gustav's injury at the end of the last book...

And finally ended the month by reading Elizabeth Moon's new Paksworld novel Kings of the North. Again, like the previous Oath of Fealty the focus is mostly split between former mercenary-made-king Kieri Artfiel Phelan, mercenary-made-Duke Dorrin Verrakai and various members of their former company...

Total books: 24

Nice

Dec. 29th, 2009 12:35 pm
lurkerwithout: (iRead)
Got Shades of Grey the new Jasper Fforde book a week early, so that was a pleasant surprise. Even if the UPS guy did wake me up banging on the front door...
lurkerwithout: (iRead)
Rereading Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair and everytime Archeron Hades is mentioned this song springs into my head...



ExpandLyrics )
lurkerwithout: (iRead)
Oh man. The Pippa joke. Not the joke itself. But Jack and Mary's reaction to it. One of the best bits of metahumor I've seen in quite some time. Even the authorial "There was a pause." bit...
lurkerwithout: (Sheriff Bigby)
Finished the first of Fforde's Nursery Crime books. I like the fake adds in the back and the autopsy report for Humpty Dumpty. I am a little sad that there are only two books of his left for me to get.

*sends thought rays to Wales*

Write faster!

A joke

Oct. 21st, 2006 08:54 pm
lurkerwithout: (iRead)
Bartender: How is a raven like a writing desk?

Next: Because B is in both.

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