David Woodger
Well, it was better than the second book. This one has a new Presger (i.e. alien) Translator character, but it turns out to be mostly an oddball with strange eating habits, but you just know this character will have a bigger impact in the story much later on (wasn't wrong). There's still an obsession with drinking tea that happens so often it's weird. And using she for every pronoun (even for men) was only confusing. I knew Seivarden was a man from the first book, but every other character... who knows? Don't read this for the action because it's mostly a lot of talking. But more of interest happened in this book than the weak second book. Could have stopped with the first book.
So the title caught my eye, and judging this book by its cover, it looks like that was the thinking behind the cover design too. So the girl of the title is a sassy character named Teagan. She's a reluctant member of a shadowy government black-ops team that uses her PK (psychokinesis). And the story starts off with a fun action scene. But then immediately afterward the pace slows. Most of the story is at this slow pace. And way too much of the story is tedious inner monologues that didn't seem to belong or to help the story. This became quite a drag. I began skimming, something I rarely do. I finished the book while stuck on a bus with nothing else to read. Guess I got suckered by the book cover.
This was the final book in the Themis Files trilogy, a cool SF story that all began with finding a giant alien metal hand buried in the ground for thousands of years. (Eventually a huge alien robot is constructed and it gets crazier and bigger from there). I really enjoyed this story. It's told in a series of interviews, dialogue, and journal entries that just zips along. This may be the fastest I've zipped through a trilogy. And this last one was certainly interesting, but really it's the first two that are the most fun.
I loved the author's previous book, Stuff Matters, in which he, a materials scientist, gets into the interesting details on about eleven various solids. Now he's turned his eye towards liquids. In the course of a transatlantic flight, he discourses on several fluids ranging from kerosene, salt water, alcohol, glue, soap, ink, and so forth. Just endlessly fascinating. Both of these books I will probably re-read sometime.
Finally got around to finishing this trilogy and not sure why I waited so long. This author is consistently good. It's three years since the events of the 2nd book. Nathaniel is a young government minister, the commoners are restless and unhappy with a bad war in America, Kitty is learning magic, and Bartimaeus is getting weaker and weaker. Meanwhile, something really bad is brewing and about halfway in the story kicks into high gear and I had to finish it in a rush. Great story. Don't be put off that this is geared towards YA.
This was easily the most incoherent of the three books in the trilogy. I really loved the first one, Annihilation, and the second, Authority, was interesting, but this last was a bit of a slog. Sure, several questions got answered, but I knew not all of them would be. It was only my own stubbornness that made me finish this trilogy.
Set one hundred years before the events of A Song of Ice and Fire, this is collection of three long stories featuring the almost seven-foot-tall hedge knight Dunk and his shaven-headed young squire, Egg. Super fast read and as fun as I would have guessed. Nice diversion, but I'm still waiting for The Winds of Winter.
A horror/pop-culture website owner gathers four horror writers for an extended interview. The twist is that it's held inside a haunted house with a history somehere in Kansas. Sam McGarver is one of the horror writers and the main character of the tale. Story moves quickly and the house and its history are indeed spooky. While I enjoyed it overall, it wasn't as propulsive and as creepy as I'd hoped for. Very nice twist ending though.
This is book 2 in the trilogy and the first one, Ancillary Justice, was excellent. This one, though... SMH. This had some early potential, but then, for the vast majority of the book, became a bit dull. Basically, Breq was investigating some injustices and irregularities in a station around a tea-growing planet. There was nothing exciting about it. A small bit of action occurs near the end. Not enough. I'm seriously wondering if the trilogy is worth finishing at this point.
Which brings up a peeve of mine. Why do blurbs on subsequent books in a series always refer to the first book? That's not helpful. I've already read the first book, how are those blurbs supposed to influence or inform my thinking on reading the next one!? It's frikkin annoying. Cut it out.
This is the fifth book I've read by this author. He's always fun. You might think from the title that this would be a dark novel, but no. It has all of the author's sense of humor throughout. Snappy dialogue, wacky situations, and many silly turns of phrase are within. It's set in 1947 San Francisco and stars a likable bartender named Sammy who falls for a pneumatic dame named Stilton (refered to by Sammy and his friends as the Cheese). It's a light read and includes a deadly snake, men in black, lesbian club owners, and an alien. To name a few.
It begins with a kidnapping and soon our hero wakes up in an alternate universe. Somewhere in the multiverse he needs to get back to his real family. There are few books I've read as fast as I plowed through this one. Looking for a propulsive thriller with a sci-fi twist? This is one I gobbled up as fast as I could. Wicked fun. I think it's getting the movie treatment soon. A perfect beach read / airport book.
In this fantasy world there's Spanners, Walkers, and another group I can't remember. The first have the ability to travel great distances in a moment, the second can travel backwards in time, and then return, and the third can walk through walls but no one does that in this book. Tobias is a Walker, and is tasked with going back farther than anyone has. The catch is, he'll age those years he travels, too. There's also some demons – creatures with abilities of their own. But for such a fat book, not that much happens beyond a couple of fights, torture, and a lot of babysitting a royal baby. I stuck it out because, well, I'd got pretty far in and kept hoping it would improve. I won't be reading the concluding second part.
This was a cool story about what began as a very small operation and blossomed into a huge network of spies, saboteurs, and a bomb-making and weapons-making factory. Essentially the beginning of Britain's guerrilla forces. It brought together very brave, very tough soldiers and eccentric thinkers who developed all sorts of bombs from small sticky bombs to the “hedgehog” which was devastating against Japanese and German submarines. To read first-hand what a huge impact these players had on D-Day alone was amazing.
It was time to get back to science fiction, so what could be better than one that one the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Arthur C. Clarke awards!? (The only book to win all three). This was a cool story that made it easy for me to put away my smartphone and keep picking up the book. Got a little confused at times but that tended to clear up as I kept reading. Looking forward to finishing the rest of the trilogy.
This is a historical fiction adventure set in southwestern Germany from 1524 to 1525. The castle of the title is Trifels Castle (a real place) near the town of Annweiler. Our two protagonists are Agnes, the young daughter of the castellan of Trifels, Philip von Erfenstein, and Mathis, her childhood friend and son of the castle blacksmith. Around this time there's a peasant uprising. At 644 pages, this one took some time, and takes a little time to get the story really moving along. But it was worth it. There's family secrets, hidden passages, castle sieges, robber knights, dungeons, fights, escapes, betrayals, mysterious characters and so forth. The second half of the book has so much going on. Very enjoyable tale.
The first book was way cool (Annihilation), this one is a little less so, but still compelling. John Rodriguez aka “Control” is appointed new head of the Southern Reach facility. His mission is to make sense of what's going on. But he's not exactly given all the information available. He's also interviewing the biologist (from the first book) about her experiences and remembrances. And there's definitely some weird things at the facility and strange co-workers. And Central, his employer, what's up with that? Hard to describe this book. But I'm eager to finish the trilogy with the last book, Acceptance.
My son had to read this for school assigned summer reading not that long ago. He zipped right through it and then was very keen to read Ms. Miller's next book, Circe. He read Circe in three days. So they got added to my TBR pile and I decided to read this one first. It's a different telling of the events of the Iliad and by no means tries to include everything, but here the story is told from what was a secondary character in the Iliad, Patroclus, the companion of Achilles. To say that Patroclus and Achilles are close is to understate things extremely. The writing has that effortless feel to it and the story zips along. I enjoyed the story. Be sure to read the extras at the end too (if you read the paperback “PS” version). I asked my son how the book was reviewed by his classmates. He told me a story of the teacher asking a general question about the book and the first comment was “It's gay!” (I had to laugh.) The teacher's response was, “Well, yeah, it was.” But that's picking out just a smaller part of the story. For the record, my son says Circe is even better (and since I've read The Odyssey, I'm looking forward to that one too.)
This story spans about 300 years and follows the two Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet, as they arrive in New France (Canada), and become wood-cutters, a.k.a. barkskins. Set mostly in Canada, and New England, the story also moves to Europe, China, New Zealand, and across the United States. It's a story about the rampant deforestation that occurred in the name of business, and the cultural annihilation of the Indian tribes of the area. I was in the mood for a big meaty novel and I'm a big fan of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Shipping News, so this one sounded interesting. And it was. I was hooked from the get-go. Ms. Proulx is an accomplished writer – this is her tenth book – and a wonderful storyteller. You can tell a ton of research went into this fat novel. I never got bored and finished it in about a month.
Ha! My Science Book Club picked this (mostly because I suggested it and they're too lazy to come up with other ideas!) Maybe telling the gang that this book was short got it picked. And it IS short. Just over 200 pages of large print on small pages. But what an interesting 200 pages it was! Filled with anecdotes that illustrate the points the author was making, I learned so many cool things about the brain as I zipped through this book in three days (that's fast for me). It's told in a breezy, perfect-for-laymen fashion and has only further piqued my interest in this subject. It also poses some ideas that will linger with you. It's a great introduction to this subject.
As a family, we all decided to read a different work of classic literature in the summer of 2018. This was my choice, a book that's been waiting on my bookshelf for 21 years. This was as good as any excuse to finally tackle this large book of small print that goes on for 1077 pages. It's a fairly easy read for a book so old (written from 1844 to 1845). It's the story of young Edmond Dantès, a sailor betrayed by jealous friends who unjustly ends up a prisoner in the notorious Chateau d'If, where he lingers for years before escaping, finding a fortune and plotting his revenge. Most people know these bare bones of the story, but this fuller translation contains all the details. It's not so much an action story as it a story of the plotting of revenge and all the family dynamics between the main players. It's a large cast of characters and the story is set mostly in Paris from 1815 to 1838. I enjoyed it but had it been written today, I'm sure an editor would say, hey, this can be trimmed down. Pretty sure Dumas was paid by the word when this came out. This story held my interest throughout and I'm glad I read it. But I will say that The Three Musketeers is still my favorite book by Alexandre Dumas (and one I plan on reading again someday). Oh, one more thing: the introduction to this book (which I wisely read after finishing the book) contains a brief history of the true story that Dumas discovered that inspired this story. Fascinating little tidbit there.
As an aside, our family book club has a name based on the street we live on, Avon. It's called the Avon Society of Super Extraordinary Studies, or ASSES, for short. Thank my son for that one.
This third book in the trilogy has got plenty of coolness in it. Wraps up the story nicely and answers many questions. The two main characters, Essun and her daughter Nassun, take interesting paths to the final scene. Really enjoyed this trilogy, especially the whole strange otherness about it. Writing was faultless. I'll likely read more by this author.
Sam Kean is a fun science-y storyteller. This is the second book I've read by him and it was some fascinating stuff. From the earth's earliest atmospheres, to the various elements in the air we breathe, this tells a wide-ranging story of scientists, their history, and elements in the air around us. The last chapter which touches on climate change was chilling. Climate change can not be ignored.
At some point months ago I listened to a book-related podcast that basically said, “Read this as soon as it's published.” And it grabs quickly too. A young girl rides her new bike into the woods and falls into a large hole in ground. She's found and is okay, but she's sitting in the palm of a giant metal hand that carbon dates as older than thousands of years. It's in a shaft surrounded by glowing runes of unknown origin. The story is largely told in a series of interviews. But don't let that put you off, it was a very fast read with several good surprises and was just plain wicked cool and lots of fun. First of a trilogy called The Themis Files.
A wacky fantasy adventure in which adventurers are revered like rock stars and speak in a contemporary fashion. Golden Gabe's daughter rose is trapped in a city under siege and seeks Clay Cooper's help in getting their band of adventurers back together in order to embark on a suicidally perilous journey through the dangerous forest known as the Heartwyld and thence to Castia, a city under siege by a horde of beasties. Or, I should say, Horde with a capital H. And it's entertaining and so easy to read and moves along at a decent clip... But, all the contemporary talk and slang keeps yanking me out of the world as it were. And this world contains such an unfathomable plethora of strange beasts and monsters, that it strains credulity. Those two things kept bothering me. Yet I persevered and finished the story. Kinda fun and all but no real surprises.