Books Read so far in 2010
JackFruit: A Bicycle Quest Through Latin America, by David Nghiem
Take Me There, by Susane Colasanti
To Climb a Flat Mountain, by G. David Nordley, serialized in Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Towers of Midnight, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Oh boy. Lots to talk about, no time to do it in, and to boot, I'm nearly delirious with the sick. Or possibly to flu. who knows. Who cares?
@JackFruit - My buddy Dave wrote a book. Well, first, he went on an insane adventure through South America and Central America, then he wrote a book. He tells an amazing story, not a cohesive single line narrative of events, but a wide ranging, far reaching tale of economic oppression, neocolonialism, ancient civilizations, and possible alien beings from across the universe. It's a helluva ride. And very engrossing. I link here not to amazon, because the booklocker site gives him higher royalties. Check out his website at Dave's New Adventure for more info. Highly recommended.
@Take Me There - My friend Susane wrote a book. Well, actually, she wrote several books, and has had much acclaim from them to date. So I read one. It was awesome. I didn't really expect to like it, since it's not in a genre I tend to read, but it was awesome in every way imaginable. The book tells the story of a group of high school friends, over the course of 1 week. The really awesome thing is, it tells the same events from 3 different points of view. And can I tell how cool it was to see how different she was able to make each character's 'voice'? As someone trying to actually write fiction on the side, this is the one thing I'm finding harder than almost everything else - varying the character's voice. And she did such a smooth job of it - she makes it looks insanely easy. And for that, I will always envy her. Highly recommended
@To Climb a Flat Mountain - very cool concept. A group of humans in suspended animation are sent to a colony within the solar system to fight a religious war. But the ship misses the target, and rather than taking 5 years to get where they're going, they are awoken 600 years later after crash landing on an artificial cube-shaped planet, with native life. Plus, there is evidence of saboteurs in the survivors. Drama! Awesome concept, very readable, a page turner. Unfortunately, the ending was very trite, confusing, and not-believable. And, used the whole "Body of your dead friend is reanimated as a conduit for God to talk to you" trope. Meh. Enjoyable.
@Towers of Midnight - I can't say enough good things about this friggin' book. Just go read it. No, first, read books 1-12 of the Wheel of Time, as this is book 13. All I will say is that someone gets balefired, and walks it off. WTF? Total awesomeness. Not going with Highly Recommended on this, instead, going with Get Off Your F***in Ass And Read It Now. Yeah, that feels right.
Next up on the plate? Too many deadlines and distractions to deal with reading a new book at the moment, unfortunately. Instead, I decided to reread a classic, one of my favorites. Ender's Game. This will be my first reread since finding out how much of a bigoted asshat the author, Orson Scott Card, is. So, we'll see if it negatively affects my appreciation of the book.
No worries.
Matt