December '10 Book List
And after much delays from sickness and my normal levels of procrastination I get to year-end book recap. Lots of the once-and-current roommate's books for last month. Though the first one I finished for the month on the 1st was the second book of Suzanne Collins "Hunger Games" books, Catching Fire. Which is a book where the President and the mostly faceless ruling council for the Capitol vault way up on my list of Fictional-People-I-Want-To-See-Cut-to-Pieces-With-Razors. Man do I hate them...
After that I started on the L.E. Modesitt, jr's "Recluce" series. Finishing The Magic of Recluce on the 3rd, the Towers of the Sunset on the 5th, the Magic Engineers on the 8th and the Order War on the 24th. The latter three being prequels to the first. I like the setting and the concept of balancing Order and Chaos magics well enough, but by the 4th book the protagonists and the Chaos Wizards opposing them were all blending together. Though I've been told that gets better as the series progresses and expands the origins for the lead's origins...
On the 6th I finished the final third of the relaunched "Wild Cards" shared-mosiac novels, Suicide Kings, edited by George R.R. Martin. And man, even by this series standards, this one had some darkness to it. And even if it ended up costing several characters I liked, I was pleased with the finale for the Radical and Mark Meadows...
The 10th saw me finishing Lev Grossman's the Magicians. Which could be simplified by just calling it Harry Potter for Adults. But while that is an accurate summation of the book's high concept, it does the book a disservice. The book has more to it than just faux Hogwarts and Narnia, including a truly scary villain introduction...
After that I picked up Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Shadows of the Apt" series. I had intended to alternate them with other books, but once I started them I could just not stop until I'd read all four volumes the roommate owns. Not only full of great characters, heroic and villainous and just-doing-their-job-ous, but a great new setting. Basically a fantasy world whose ecosystem is dominated by giant insects, so that humanity has, somewhere in its distant past, merged with traits of them. Becoming various sub-species or Kinden. For example the main leads from the first book are two Beetle engineers, a Wasp soldier/spy, an Ant/Beetle engineer, a Spider duelist and a Dragonfly prince. Plus the setting is excellent mix of steampunk technology and fantasy magics. The word Apt refers to those species (Beetles, Ants and Wasps) who can master technology and used it to overthrow the old mystic Kinden (Moths, Spiders and Mantids). The books start with the newish Wasp Empire expanding outwards in violent conquest. Great series and I'm still annoyed that I can't download book 5 to my Kindle. Anyway, finished Empire in Black & Gold on the 14th, Dragonfly Fallen on the 15th, Blood of the Mantis on the 17th and Salute the Dark on the 19th...
On the 21st I managed the yearly tradition of reading (or watching one year) Pratchett's Hogfather...
After Christmas were two books bought using work's Secret Santa gift card for Borders. Kelly Link's Magic for Beginers anthology on the 27th and Jane Lindskold's 9 Gates on the 28th. Link has a very lyrical style that reminds me of Cat Valente. Worth checking out for the curious though. 9 Gates is the second in Lindskold's "Breaking the Walls" series with it's Chinese myth realms and mah jong based magic. This second also adds some glimpses at the other magical traditions for the setting...
I ended the month with S. Andrew Swann's Hostile Takeover trilogy omnibus, a sequel of sorts to his "Moreau" quartet, set several hundred years in the future from those near future books. The books concentrate on a plan by the Terran Confederacy to drag the anarchist planet of Bakumin. One created by the ancient spymaster that focuses on a pair of rival brothers. Finished Profiteer and Partisan on the 29th and Revolutionary on the 30th...
Total: 17
After that I started on the L.E. Modesitt, jr's "Recluce" series. Finishing The Magic of Recluce on the 3rd, the Towers of the Sunset on the 5th, the Magic Engineers on the 8th and the Order War on the 24th. The latter three being prequels to the first. I like the setting and the concept of balancing Order and Chaos magics well enough, but by the 4th book the protagonists and the Chaos Wizards opposing them were all blending together. Though I've been told that gets better as the series progresses and expands the origins for the lead's origins...
On the 6th I finished the final third of the relaunched "Wild Cards" shared-mosiac novels, Suicide Kings, edited by George R.R. Martin. And man, even by this series standards, this one had some darkness to it. And even if it ended up costing several characters I liked, I was pleased with the finale for the Radical and Mark Meadows...
The 10th saw me finishing Lev Grossman's the Magicians. Which could be simplified by just calling it Harry Potter for Adults. But while that is an accurate summation of the book's high concept, it does the book a disservice. The book has more to it than just faux Hogwarts and Narnia, including a truly scary villain introduction...
After that I picked up Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Shadows of the Apt" series. I had intended to alternate them with other books, but once I started them I could just not stop until I'd read all four volumes the roommate owns. Not only full of great characters, heroic and villainous and just-doing-their-job-ous, but a great new setting. Basically a fantasy world whose ecosystem is dominated by giant insects, so that humanity has, somewhere in its distant past, merged with traits of them. Becoming various sub-species or Kinden. For example the main leads from the first book are two Beetle engineers, a Wasp soldier/spy, an Ant/Beetle engineer, a Spider duelist and a Dragonfly prince. Plus the setting is excellent mix of steampunk technology and fantasy magics. The word Apt refers to those species (Beetles, Ants and Wasps) who can master technology and used it to overthrow the old mystic Kinden (Moths, Spiders and Mantids). The books start with the newish Wasp Empire expanding outwards in violent conquest. Great series and I'm still annoyed that I can't download book 5 to my Kindle. Anyway, finished Empire in Black & Gold on the 14th, Dragonfly Fallen on the 15th, Blood of the Mantis on the 17th and Salute the Dark on the 19th...
On the 21st I managed the yearly tradition of reading (or watching one year) Pratchett's Hogfather...
After Christmas were two books bought using work's Secret Santa gift card for Borders. Kelly Link's Magic for Beginers anthology on the 27th and Jane Lindskold's 9 Gates on the 28th. Link has a very lyrical style that reminds me of Cat Valente. Worth checking out for the curious though. 9 Gates is the second in Lindskold's "Breaking the Walls" series with it's Chinese myth realms and mah jong based magic. This second also adds some glimpses at the other magical traditions for the setting...
I ended the month with S. Andrew Swann's Hostile Takeover trilogy omnibus, a sequel of sorts to his "Moreau" quartet, set several hundred years in the future from those near future books. The books concentrate on a plan by the Terran Confederacy to drag the anarchist planet of Bakumin. One created by the ancient spymaster that focuses on a pair of rival brothers. Finished Profiteer and Partisan on the 29th and Revolutionary on the 30th...
Total: 17