David Woodger
It was a promising set-up: there's two cousins, they played imaginative games together as kids. Then one, Danny, played a cruel prank on the other, Howard, and soon after they lost touch. Now they're adults. Howard has changed, become exceedingly rich, and has bought a castle somewhere near Prague. He invites Danny over for some nebulous help in Howard's renovation of the castle. What are his motives?
I got a hundred pages in and then... Nope. I'm not finishing this. First of all, Danny is too much of a weird loser to be interested in as the main character. What kind of supposedly straight 30-something guy wears brown lipstick, anyway? And then there's the shifting viewpoints with unexplained other characters. Got kinda meta, kinda fast. And, finally, the whole bit about having people conversing but not including quotation marks in the text... I find that style highly annoying. Not for me.
A linked story collection shot through with a theme of keys, this one sounded promising. I read the first story in its entirety and enjoyed it. But I kept thinking I was missing something. Then into the second story I persevered for at least a dozen pages before skimming to the end because I had no idea what was going on. Tried the third story but quickly lost patience. Nope.
I abandoned this a little past halfway through. Just couldn't do it. It was way too boring and the characters were basically 50-something, drug-running, Irish thugs. They sitting around a Spanish ferry terminal hoping to run into the daughter of one of them. To say that not much happens is to be understating the fact. Their waiting around bemoaning their lot in life and being unpleasant is interspersed with flashbacks to them doing drugs, getting laid, and being unpleasant. I found it pointless.
I have mixed feelings about this one, but on the whole, I enjoyed it. There are several character viewpoints that take their turns. There's Lin, the daughter of the emperor. There's Jovis, a smuggler. There's Phalue, the adult daughter of an island governor and her lover Ranami. And then there's the mysterious Sand. Of them all, I found Lin and Jovis's stories the most interesting. Didn't care much about Phalue and Ranami. And Sand doesn't make many appearances. The more the magic is explained, the more you find it repugnant – which was interesting! There are a few mysteries within the story, and a few surprises. But when all is said and done, it's obvious it's the first book in a series. I think the most telling thing for me, is how long it took me to finish it. Don't know if I'll get to book two.
This novella (a mere 135 pages) is a prequel to the Deepgate Codex trilogy, a favorite of mine. Sal Greene wants to stop the mad angel Carnival from killing him due to a centuries-long vendetta. The Spine assassins want to kill Carnival too. And Carnival wants to just do her thing. This has all the ultra-strange otherness, I expect from this author. There's dangerous wizards (“thaumaturges”), dreamworlds, gods, church assassins, traps, and more. Read it in a rush of pages. Found a used copy that came from a library in Mishawaka, Indiana.
OH MY GOD THIS BOOK WAS INTENSE! Yes, I loved this book. If you're in a reading slump, read this. But beware, this is only for those who enjoy a good horror tale. So, in chapter one, I took it as a good sign that I laughed aloud at least once. By the end of chapter two I was digging the main character, Patricia, a housewife in a small town in South Carolina. The story is set in the early 90s, which means no cell phones. The story moves along so fast and the tension can be such that you need to book the book down every now and then just to think to yourself, Oh God, No, this is bad! What are you doing, Patricia?! And it can suddenly get both super scary and super gruesome. Bloody finish too. Excellent vampire story.
Imagine an updated, classier version of the Scooby Doo gang minus the dog. Now cross that with the sensibility of David Lynch. This story continues the investigations of the Detective Club which we were introduced to in the first book, The Case of the Missing Men. But in this case, the story focuses largely on just two members of the club, when they're sent to a special school over their winter break. And the school is seriously weird, creepy, and alarming. It's another fun story set in the fictional town of Hobtown, Nova Scotia.
Murderbot hops on another transport and lands itself in trouble again. On this third outing, Murderbot's patience is tested by more humans and one with a “pet” robot that really just needs a friend. Fun, fast, and exciting, just like the other ones. And many humorous asides too, just as I've learned to expect. Love this series.
After an ancient cataclysm called the Rupture, the world has been split into “arks.” Ophelia is from the ark called Anima. She has the power to read the history of objects by touching them, and she can also travel through mirrors. But then, young Ophelia is set up in an impending marriage to Thorn from the icy cold ark called Pole. From there, Ophelia has to navigate a hostile court of a different clan, and figure out what's going on, and who she can trust. This is the first of four books in a best-selling series from France. I thought it had strong Alice in Wonderland vibes and while not chock-full of action, it kept me interested throughout the story.
I found this one browsing in a Swedish SF bookstore. Usually Swedish book prices are a bit too steep for me, but this was marked down to about ten bucks so I snapped it up. This story began with a seriously good hook, essentially an encounter with an alien race goes spectacularly badly. We quickly move on to a crew of four aboard a massive warship of the new Providence class. It's a ship that is controlled by AI and the crew feel largely irrelevant. You get to know these four pretty well and the story zips along so fast. I gobbled this one up. The Daily Mail likened it to “Starship Troopers with added brain” and that's pretty spot on. This is my second book I've read by this author and won't be my last.
Kell Kressia was a reluctant and largely accidental hero ten years ago when he alone, survived an encounter in the far north against the dreaded Ice Lich. A famous telling of how he slew the Ice Lich, distorts the truth, and he'd like all of that to be behind him. But now there's new trouble afoot, and the king sends him north once more. The story moves pretty quickly and there's a few surprises in store. It got more interesting as it went along, although the story struck me as a little simplistic, though I did see that it was setting up some plot points for the second book. Either way, I now would like to read the second book in this duology when it becomes available.
This is a huge single-volume fantasy epic. It has a lot going for it, there are assassins, pirates, two kinds of dragons, conflicting religions, and sapphic romance (if you like that sorta thing – meh). But it's mostly about three main characters plus one not-as-interesting one. The most interesting characters are the women, Ead (a mage from the South on a secret mission in the North), and Tané, a young woman destined to be a dragonrider from the East. There's also a Queen without an heir, a witch, and a sisterhood of the title. There's a lot going on. There's an historic timeline in the back, lists of characters, and a glossary of terms.
I struggled a bit with this one. I thought there was too much description that was not essential to the story. And I put the book down multiple times, detouring with other reading. But then, around page 290, things started to get more interesting, and the middle of the book had a LOT more going on and I got much more invested in the story.
There's some cool surprises in store and an epic denouement. Overall, I thought it was fun but I wouldn't rave about it.
I was in the mood for a light SF adventure and this fit the bill. It has some fun characters, some weird ones, strange tech, and two different kinds of aliens. It was amusing that one prominent alien race is know as the Liars because of their penchant for giving wildly implausible explanations for things large and small. Moved quickly enough, but the denouement maybe wasn't as exciting as hoped for. 3 stars.
I don't really know how this book works, but it does. There's very little action, and little suspense, and yet I just kept turning the pages wanting to read more. The titular character is a half-goblin teenager relegated to a far-off town in the empire. But when his father, the emperor, along with a sizable portion of his family die in an airship disaster, Maia, the half-goblin, suddenly finds himself the heir apparent. Knowing little, and somewhat shy and insecure, he's navigating the duties of emperor and all the court intrigue that goes with it. He's a great character which I think is the big reason I kept reading. I can't think of a story quite like this one. It's well-written and somehow never really gets boring. You just root for Maia to succeed.
This one kept popping up on my radar. Steve Martin is my favorite comedian and this book is short. Once I started it I just kept going – read it in one day. (Some Saturdays can be like that). It's a very interesting account of his trajectory to being the hottest stand-up performer in 1978. He quit stand-up in 1981. He was not an overnight success. There are many illuminating bits in this short memoir. It also includes the reasons for the white three-piece suit he wore during his heyday in stand-up. And yeah, of course, it's funny... in places. It's not a joke book. But's it's a fascinating account of a comedian's life.
I wanted to read this before the movie comes to Netflix on May 14. I remember first seeing the trailer for this movie over a year ago and thinking it looked really good. Well the book was great. Reading this in a week is fairly fast for me. Some really nice twists. It'll be fun to see how the movie does it.
This is the second book in the Books of the Raksura series. The winged shapeshifter Moon and his usual cohorts find themselves searching for the thieves of a vitally important artefact to his Indigo Cloud court. This search takes them over the Serpent Sea to an exceedingly strange island. Once there, things get really interesting. I find this world and this series fascinating and fun.
This was a fascinating book. Trees are amazing. This short book was written in short chapters so it was the perfect science book to dip into here and there for a chapter or two. I learned many interesting things. A smattering:
> Trees need their sleep. Four percent of oak deaths in one American city happened because the trees were subjected to light every night.
> Every day in summer trees release about 29 tons of oxygen per square mile of forest (which is the daily requirement for about 10,000 people). Every walk in the forest is like taking a shower in oxygen. But only during the day.
> Cutting off a tree limb starves a section of the trees roots.
> Compacting the earth around a tree trunk makes it harder for the roots to grow, making the tree less stable. This is a big reason why trees in the city struggle to survive and stay healthy.
I was never really into any of the Brontë sisters' novels. I read Wuthering Heights back in high school and didn't like it. In fact, I don't think much of the class liked it. One day we had a substitute teacher in for our English class and when we figured out she hadn't read Wuthering Heights, we filled her in on the plot and added our own characters and plot points. But I digress. Not being a huge Brontë fan in no way detracts from my enjoyment of this short graphic novel that delves into the Brontë sisters (with brother Branwell) creation of two imaginary cities. The siblings would tell stories about these cities and their inhabitants. This book shows that off well and its fun to learn of all the creativity behind it as well as learning more about the Brontës themselves. Pretty cool.
Charley Sutherland can “read” literary characters into the real world. He's especially keen on Charles Dickens, but Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, and some of Jane Austen's characters also make appearances. Told from the point of view of Charley's older brother Rob, a lawyer, the story begins with tracking down a version of Uriah Heep (from Dicken's David Copperfield) that has got loose. Personally, I have not read many of these referenced books with the exception of Dicken's Oliver Twist – which also comes into play. But that doesn't matter. I have a passing familiarity with much of this via movies anyway. It's a fun story, really centered on the two brothers, but sometimes it can get bogged down in long conversations. This debut is a well-written story, though. Oh, also, it takes place in Wellington, New Zealand.
Based in western Pennsylvania in 1997, Shannon Moss, a clandestine agent of the NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) is investigating a murder of a Navy SEAL's family. The SEAL was also an astronaut aboard the spaceship U.S.S. Libra, a ship assumed lost in “Deep Time.” Moss herself, seeks clues by traveling roughly 19 years into the future aboard these special ships seeking clues. When she returns, she returns to the same moment she left, but she's aged by however long she spent in the IFT (Inadmissable Future Trajectory) – she goes on multiple trips. This investigation turns up some very gory murder scenes, some serious violence, and some baffling weirdness caused by time-travel shenanigans. The story has some very cool SF ideas, but sometimes I found keeping track of who's who a little difficult. And wow, the author really puts his protagonist through the wringer. It's a bit bleak (an end-of-times scenario is also worked into the plot), but I was interested to see how it all plays out.
I think The Guardian said it best: “It's Lovecraft meets the Brontës in Latin America, and after a slow-burn start Mexican Gothic gets seriously weird.” It's set in 1950s Mexico and our young heroine, Noemí, is visiting strange relatives after receiving a disquieting letter from her beloved cousin, Catalina. The remote house she visits and the family that lives there is odd to say the least. The story wastes no time getting started, but it is a slow-burn – until two-thirds in when it's Oh My GOD! I read the last hundred pages in a rush. It's a cool, weird, thrilling tale, a modern update on gothic horror.