Spring book list 2010
First public post in a while, now that my nephew has left its time to list my current selection of books. Lots of books this time because I got some extras for my sister to read.
Currently got from library:
Michelle West's House war #2: City of Night
I have not read this yet due to its size and complicated plot, its due back at the library in 3 days so I'll read it tonight.
Lawrence Watt-Evans's entire Ethshar series: All these books are light-hearted fantasy fun which you can get through pretty quickly. Not a lot of comeback characters unlike Piers Anthony's series, magic of xanth, in which you have to read every book to get the extra characters.
Rob Thurman's Cal Leandros series, currently on Roadkill: A nice change of city sci-fi which has men as main characters and are not werewolves or vampires but goes into the evil elves/demon territory. The level of snark that Cal has is refreshing and I hope that they get to fight evil ninja's a some point since his brother is so fond of them.
James Patterson's Angel Experiment series, currently on Fang: I liked how this series started but lately it seems like...its being written by a 13 year old girl for some odd reason. At least Patterson is keeping up with technology but I hope that some young teens out there are not so obsessed with blogs and twitter rather then the adventure bit.
Carrie Vaughn's Voices of Dragons: This book started to remind me of Elizabeth Kerner's the lesser kindred/song in the silence books where a girl fascinated with dragons falls in love with one. That this book doesn't go down that path made me very happy and the rest of the book was blessed with an action packed plot.
Maureen Johnson's 13 little blue envelopes: Haven't read yet not sure if I will. About a girl who follows directions in envelopes to find her love?
Scott Westerfield's Leviathan: My sister loves all his books and said this one was also good but had a disappointing ending. I haven't read it yet but it's on the pile to read next week.
Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things (short stories): My sister is a great fan of Neil Gaiman so this one I got for her. I'm not really into his brand of humour but I might get around to reading it.
Jeff Somers' Eternal church series, reading Eternal Prison: These books are fun anarchy read with religious cults and gang warfare.
Laura Anne Gilman's Flesh and Fire: This is the last book I've read and loved it from start to finish. The plotline of using wine as the basis of magic use was original and she put a lot of study into the wine making process. Since my brother works on a winery in BC I could picture the rows and rows of vines ripening. I look forward to the next book as the set up for the evil mastermind didn't give away any clue to who/what was behind the mayhem in the world.
Stephen Cole's Sting of the Zygons (Doctor Who series): I love that the BBC is making tie on books for the series, along with the Torchwood books. All of the writers bring a different perspective on the worlds and it's great to make the Dr. Who universe last longer then one episode.
Sarah Monette's The Bone Key: Short stories about various problems in the museum. I read it a long time ago, just got it again for my sister, and forgotten some of it. The one story that stuck with me was when he shackled the evil guy to the wall and bricked him in, not a good way to go.
Jasper Fforde's Thursday next series, on book #2 Lost in a good book: This literary detective in a world where books are alive or where you can visit them is a heavy read. Since I am too young to remember reading some of these books, like Jane Eyre, I get lost in the explanations. This doesn't stop me from enjoying them and then going out and getting all the books that he messes with to see what the original is like. Great way to expand your classical book reading.
Shades of Gray: His most current book is fascinating in that colours rule everything from who you marry to where you live. I went to a book signing and heard him explain everything about it but I still cannot get over the fact that you can come up with something like this. The announcer described it as "sesame street meets......?”
K.E. Mill's Accidental Sorcerer, Witches Incorporated: The books are mostly stand alone with the characters switching importance in each book. Accidental Sorcerer started out like a light hearted fantasy and then got dreadfully depressing as the book went on which was interesting. The Witches Incorporated went on a similar vein but the beginning had the weight of the previous novel to deal with as well, but the women held strong.
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes's Persistence of Memory, Token of Darkness: Persistence of Memory was multiple personalities fighting for different bodies and how it affects the people around them. Changing from the Weyvern novels the main characters are human and vampire?/demons?, and there is less family disputes. Token of Darkness is about a guy waking up after a car crash to see ghosts which sounds interesting, I thought it was a sequel to PoM but apparently not. It's on the list to read next week as well.
Robin Hobb's Dragon Keeper: Which also reminds me of Kerner's series about dragons reclaiming their intelligence and flying capacity. In this book though its more of an evolutionary recession which causes the dragons to fail to develop properly in the change from sea lizards into dragons. As in Anne McCaffrey's Dragons of Pern series the dragons are linked to people, but with acid rivers being the danger not toxic thread from the skies. I am currently reading this one and and mid way through, looking forward to finishing it tonight.
Anne McCaffrey + Elizabeth Anne Scarborough's Catalyst: Basically this book is what if the space cats from Acorna where more psychic/important, and the book is from their point of view. This is definitely a cat lovers book combined with Acorna sci-fi, which is precisely why I love it. My cat is way to lazy to have any adventures beyond sleeping in my yard, so to think that cats can actually do stuff was fun to read about.
Jeffery Overstreet's Auralia's Thread series, on book #3 Raven's Ladder: This is another series where the first book was great but has gone downhill since then. The plot shifted away from the parts I liked involving colours and mystery of why the world was warped into royalty politics and warfare (of which there are thousands of books about). I got 1/3 way through and then gave up and moved onto something more interesting.
Picked up today at the library:
Bernard Beckett's Genesis: It had a cool cover and deals with a dystopian society whose main character has to find out what it means to be human or android. Interesting premise and then that led me to other books about what it means to have a soul and whatnot.
Robert Silverberg's A Time of Changes, Dying Inside: Both re-released this year after being published originally in the 1970s. Dying Inside is about a mid-life crisis of a telepath who is losing his power and has to deal with being normal again. Is is a good thing or a bad thing? It's always nice to read old sci-fi novels because they asked more questions about humanity then the current lot does.
A Time of Changes is about a society where the person doesn't count, only the collective, and any selfishness is a huge sin. He wrote this trying not to use the words, “me, I, my” which is tough to do, like korean and not using “you” which I find hard to work around.
Saci Lloyd's Carbon Diaries 2015: This seems like a pretty depressing young sci-fi novel but lets hope it has a happy ending (probably not). The plot is about what happens if global warming just made the world a crap-shoot and then humans make it even worse. Kind of reminds me of the BBC show Survivors where you think that being the only humans left alive would make you bond together more...and really just brings out the worst in humanity.
Books that I recently bought:
All of Joel Shepherd's books. The man is a genius (and Australian to bout)! The Cassandra Kresnov books read like a first class action movie, and the characters are all amazing. Plus most of the population happens to be Indian and Chinese, which would probably happen in the future anyways, not a American/Europe mix. The politics make absolute sense as well, which goes to show how each side can have perfectly reasonable argument for how their way works. I made my father read them, and I'm proud to say that Crossover was his first science fiction novel he's ever read. No more biographies, mysteries and regular fiction for him! (j/k He went back to north korean spies after I made him read some Kage Baker books.)
Books on hold:
Robert J. Sawyer's WWW series, book #2 Watch: I thought book #1: Wake, was a great mix of technology and the limitations of being blind. Like in the Speed of Dark (Elizabeth Moon), technology has increased a bit since now instead of a cure for autism, being blind is the key to this story. The second point of view is the slow awakening of an AI that is born of the internet. How they come together in book 2 and figure out the world is why I'm looking forward to reading it.
Susie Day's My invisible boyfriend: A light teen rom-com about making up a boyfriend to make you more popular. The issues about lying about him and finding a real boyfriend seem to be the main plotline.
Jay Lake's Pinion: About two empires, British and Chinese...and I just realize that this is book #2 of his series. Well then I'll have to read the first one as well, Escapement. Not sure if these are my cup of tea but I'll give them a try.
Now its time to check the next three months books and list them later this week, along with some follow ups from books that I read in the past couple of months.
Currently got from library:
Michelle West's House war #2: City of Night
I have not read this yet due to its size and complicated plot, its due back at the library in 3 days so I'll read it tonight.
Lawrence Watt-Evans's entire Ethshar series: All these books are light-hearted fantasy fun which you can get through pretty quickly. Not a lot of comeback characters unlike Piers Anthony's series, magic of xanth, in which you have to read every book to get the extra characters.
Rob Thurman's Cal Leandros series, currently on Roadkill: A nice change of city sci-fi which has men as main characters and are not werewolves or vampires but goes into the evil elves/demon territory. The level of snark that Cal has is refreshing and I hope that they get to fight evil ninja's a some point since his brother is so fond of them.
James Patterson's Angel Experiment series, currently on Fang: I liked how this series started but lately it seems like...its being written by a 13 year old girl for some odd reason. At least Patterson is keeping up with technology but I hope that some young teens out there are not so obsessed with blogs and twitter rather then the adventure bit.
Carrie Vaughn's Voices of Dragons: This book started to remind me of Elizabeth Kerner's the lesser kindred/song in the silence books where a girl fascinated with dragons falls in love with one. That this book doesn't go down that path made me very happy and the rest of the book was blessed with an action packed plot.
Maureen Johnson's 13 little blue envelopes: Haven't read yet not sure if I will. About a girl who follows directions in envelopes to find her love?
Scott Westerfield's Leviathan: My sister loves all his books and said this one was also good but had a disappointing ending. I haven't read it yet but it's on the pile to read next week.
Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things (short stories): My sister is a great fan of Neil Gaiman so this one I got for her. I'm not really into his brand of humour but I might get around to reading it.
Jeff Somers' Eternal church series, reading Eternal Prison: These books are fun anarchy read with religious cults and gang warfare.
Laura Anne Gilman's Flesh and Fire: This is the last book I've read and loved it from start to finish. The plotline of using wine as the basis of magic use was original and she put a lot of study into the wine making process. Since my brother works on a winery in BC I could picture the rows and rows of vines ripening. I look forward to the next book as the set up for the evil mastermind didn't give away any clue to who/what was behind the mayhem in the world.
Stephen Cole's Sting of the Zygons (Doctor Who series): I love that the BBC is making tie on books for the series, along with the Torchwood books. All of the writers bring a different perspective on the worlds and it's great to make the Dr. Who universe last longer then one episode.
Sarah Monette's The Bone Key: Short stories about various problems in the museum. I read it a long time ago, just got it again for my sister, and forgotten some of it. The one story that stuck with me was when he shackled the evil guy to the wall and bricked him in, not a good way to go.
Jasper Fforde's Thursday next series, on book #2 Lost in a good book: This literary detective in a world where books are alive or where you can visit them is a heavy read. Since I am too young to remember reading some of these books, like Jane Eyre, I get lost in the explanations. This doesn't stop me from enjoying them and then going out and getting all the books that he messes with to see what the original is like. Great way to expand your classical book reading.
Shades of Gray: His most current book is fascinating in that colours rule everything from who you marry to where you live. I went to a book signing and heard him explain everything about it but I still cannot get over the fact that you can come up with something like this. The announcer described it as "sesame street meets......?”
K.E. Mill's Accidental Sorcerer, Witches Incorporated: The books are mostly stand alone with the characters switching importance in each book. Accidental Sorcerer started out like a light hearted fantasy and then got dreadfully depressing as the book went on which was interesting. The Witches Incorporated went on a similar vein but the beginning had the weight of the previous novel to deal with as well, but the women held strong.
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes's Persistence of Memory, Token of Darkness: Persistence of Memory was multiple personalities fighting for different bodies and how it affects the people around them. Changing from the Weyvern novels the main characters are human and vampire?/demons?, and there is less family disputes. Token of Darkness is about a guy waking up after a car crash to see ghosts which sounds interesting, I thought it was a sequel to PoM but apparently not. It's on the list to read next week as well.
Robin Hobb's Dragon Keeper: Which also reminds me of Kerner's series about dragons reclaiming their intelligence and flying capacity. In this book though its more of an evolutionary recession which causes the dragons to fail to develop properly in the change from sea lizards into dragons. As in Anne McCaffrey's Dragons of Pern series the dragons are linked to people, but with acid rivers being the danger not toxic thread from the skies. I am currently reading this one and and mid way through, looking forward to finishing it tonight.
Anne McCaffrey + Elizabeth Anne Scarborough's Catalyst: Basically this book is what if the space cats from Acorna where more psychic/important, and the book is from their point of view. This is definitely a cat lovers book combined with Acorna sci-fi, which is precisely why I love it. My cat is way to lazy to have any adventures beyond sleeping in my yard, so to think that cats can actually do stuff was fun to read about.
Jeffery Overstreet's Auralia's Thread series, on book #3 Raven's Ladder: This is another series where the first book was great but has gone downhill since then. The plot shifted away from the parts I liked involving colours and mystery of why the world was warped into royalty politics and warfare (of which there are thousands of books about). I got 1/3 way through and then gave up and moved onto something more interesting.
Picked up today at the library:
Bernard Beckett's Genesis: It had a cool cover and deals with a dystopian society whose main character has to find out what it means to be human or android. Interesting premise and then that led me to other books about what it means to have a soul and whatnot.
Robert Silverberg's A Time of Changes, Dying Inside: Both re-released this year after being published originally in the 1970s. Dying Inside is about a mid-life crisis of a telepath who is losing his power and has to deal with being normal again. Is is a good thing or a bad thing? It's always nice to read old sci-fi novels because they asked more questions about humanity then the current lot does.
A Time of Changes is about a society where the person doesn't count, only the collective, and any selfishness is a huge sin. He wrote this trying not to use the words, “me, I, my” which is tough to do, like korean and not using “you” which I find hard to work around.
Saci Lloyd's Carbon Diaries 2015: This seems like a pretty depressing young sci-fi novel but lets hope it has a happy ending (probably not). The plot is about what happens if global warming just made the world a crap-shoot and then humans make it even worse. Kind of reminds me of the BBC show Survivors where you think that being the only humans left alive would make you bond together more...and really just brings out the worst in humanity.
Books that I recently bought:
All of Joel Shepherd's books. The man is a genius (and Australian to bout)! The Cassandra Kresnov books read like a first class action movie, and the characters are all amazing. Plus most of the population happens to be Indian and Chinese, which would probably happen in the future anyways, not a American/Europe mix. The politics make absolute sense as well, which goes to show how each side can have perfectly reasonable argument for how their way works. I made my father read them, and I'm proud to say that Crossover was his first science fiction novel he's ever read. No more biographies, mysteries and regular fiction for him! (j/k He went back to north korean spies after I made him read some Kage Baker books.)
Books on hold:
Robert J. Sawyer's WWW series, book #2 Watch: I thought book #1: Wake, was a great mix of technology and the limitations of being blind. Like in the Speed of Dark (Elizabeth Moon), technology has increased a bit since now instead of a cure for autism, being blind is the key to this story. The second point of view is the slow awakening of an AI that is born of the internet. How they come together in book 2 and figure out the world is why I'm looking forward to reading it.
Susie Day's My invisible boyfriend: A light teen rom-com about making up a boyfriend to make you more popular. The issues about lying about him and finding a real boyfriend seem to be the main plotline.
Jay Lake's Pinion: About two empires, British and Chinese...and I just realize that this is book #2 of his series. Well then I'll have to read the first one as well, Escapement. Not sure if these are my cup of tea but I'll give them a try.
Now its time to check the next three months books and list them later this week, along with some follow ups from books that I read in the past couple of months.