September '11 Book List
Started off the month with the most recent Grantville Gazette (Paula Goodlette editor) e-book. This one includes a murder mystery that lacks a body, a new Dr. Phil - Modern Alchemist story (a favorite of mine that hasn't been used much of late) and also another chapter in the Saving the Dodo serial, among other stories set in the Ring of Fire shared setting. I also finished Mike Shevdon's 61 Nails that same day. A pretty good modern faerie story. A bit like Gaiman's Neverwhere in feel...
Then I finally got around to the second and third books in Brent Weeks' Night Angel trilogy, Shadow's Edge and Beyond the Shadows. Dark fantasy, with lots of thieves and assassins and whores and corrupt leaders and evil barbarians and callous wizards and so forth. I liked the final book more than the middle, mostly because the middle has a lot from the evil God-King's perspective. And he's a Total Monster type of bad guy. Which are sooooooooo boring. Murder, rape, plot, murder, plot, plot, murder, mind games, blah blah blah. The only interesting thing about Total Monster's are their feelings of shock when someone finally puts them down. But a pretty good mud and blood fantasy in spite of that...
Roommate got me to try out Richard Kadrey's fantasy noir "Sandman Slim" books. Only two, Sandman Slim and Kill the Dead, so far of this series about a magician condemned by his "friends" sent to Hell who escapes and returns to enact vengeance. My only real quibble with the series so far is that the lead engages in a lot of car theft using a magic knife/bone he got while fighting demons. And even if it magically pops locks, dude also hits the highest end of cars and all I can think is "don't any of these people have LoJack for their hundred thousand dollar cars"?
Then I went back for more Carrie Vaughn, getting her short story collection Kitty's Greatest Hits. A bit of a misnomer, since not all of the collection is about Vaughn's Kitty the werewolf radio talk-show host. In fact, if I'm rembering right, a few aren't even for that setting. More than a few enjoyable stories though...
Than another from the roommate's collection. This one a harder SF one, David S. Goyer & Michael Cassutt's Heaven's Shadow. Where two rival science space missions to study a comet lead to a First Contact situation. Interesting enough that I'll likely try out the sequel when it eventually comes out...
I ending up going on a bit of a Tamora Pierce tear for a while. Rereading all four of her "Immortals" books (Wildmagic, Wolf-Speaker, Emperor Mage and the Realms of the Gods), the Protector of the Small omnibus and then Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen. Really all of her Tortall books except the "Lioness" quartet ('cause I just don't care for the Lioness for some reason) and the Beka Cooper ones. And those I'm saving for later in this month when the third and final book for that sub-series comes out. Oh, and I even reread the Tortall related short stories in my e-book copy of Tortall and Other Lands. Much harder to pick and choose from an anthology on the Kindle by the way...
In the midst of all that Pierce rereading I tried some more from the roommate's books. He's been trying out a lot of new paperbacks of late, so that means more new stuff for me. First with Harry Connolly's "Twenty Palaces", which is more fantasy noir, but more Chaosium's Call of Cthulu than White Wolf's World of Darkness. Child of Fire has the protaginst ray Lilly and his near sociopath boss investigating a suspiscious toy company in the Pacific Northwest. Game of Cages has Ray mostly on his own and looking into the auction of a powerful supernatural creature. And in Circle of Enemies Ray's back in his home town of L.A. because of something going on with old circle of car thief friends...
After that was Larry Correia's "Monster Hunter" books, Monster Hunter International, Monster Hunter Vendetta and Monster Hunter Alpha. Which are about a corporation that hunts monster bountys as part of the world's governments' efforts to keep the supernatural and paranatural a secret from the general public. The series has a lot of heavy gun porn and is definitely higher on the action than the angst. More like, I don't know, Mack Bolan books or something. Except with werewolves and zombies and vampires and shit...
After that I got the Warriors anthology (George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois editing). Which was pretty good, only had a couple clunkers in it. I especially liked the David Weber one, enough that I'm thinking of getting both the expanded novel length version of the short story and also checking out some of his other military scifi stuff...
More rereading next, this time of Sherwood Smith and Dave Trowbridge's "Exordium" series, the Phoenix in Flight, Ruler of Naught, a Prison Unsought, Rifter's Convenant and the Throne of Kronos. I'm actually starting to wear out my copies of these. Maybe there are Kindle versions? The books are far future space opera, full of weird aliens, noble court drama, space naval battles (that aren't written like dog-fights), romance, villains both despisable and admirable. Really great series and one of my favorites...
After that a pair of new steampunk novels. First, Scott Westerfeld's Goliath, the finale to his alternate World War I trilogy. Which has the two leads forced to balance their feelings for each other with their personal feelings of duty. Plus Nicolai Tesla, who believes he's discovered a weapon that can end war forever. Second is the latest "Clockwork Century" book from Cherie Priest, Ganymede. In this one an airship captain has a chance for one final big score that will let him retire from the pirate/smuggler's life. He just has to get to New Orleans and pilot an experimental submarine out from occupied Louisiana and to the Union forces...
Total books: 28
Then I finally got around to the second and third books in Brent Weeks' Night Angel trilogy, Shadow's Edge and Beyond the Shadows. Dark fantasy, with lots of thieves and assassins and whores and corrupt leaders and evil barbarians and callous wizards and so forth. I liked the final book more than the middle, mostly because the middle has a lot from the evil God-King's perspective. And he's a Total Monster type of bad guy. Which are sooooooooo boring. Murder, rape, plot, murder, plot, plot, murder, mind games, blah blah blah. The only interesting thing about Total Monster's are their feelings of shock when someone finally puts them down. But a pretty good mud and blood fantasy in spite of that...
Roommate got me to try out Richard Kadrey's fantasy noir "Sandman Slim" books. Only two, Sandman Slim and Kill the Dead, so far of this series about a magician condemned by his "friends" sent to Hell who escapes and returns to enact vengeance. My only real quibble with the series so far is that the lead engages in a lot of car theft using a magic knife/bone he got while fighting demons. And even if it magically pops locks, dude also hits the highest end of cars and all I can think is "don't any of these people have LoJack for their hundred thousand dollar cars"?
Then I went back for more Carrie Vaughn, getting her short story collection Kitty's Greatest Hits. A bit of a misnomer, since not all of the collection is about Vaughn's Kitty the werewolf radio talk-show host. In fact, if I'm rembering right, a few aren't even for that setting. More than a few enjoyable stories though...
Than another from the roommate's collection. This one a harder SF one, David S. Goyer & Michael Cassutt's Heaven's Shadow. Where two rival science space missions to study a comet lead to a First Contact situation. Interesting enough that I'll likely try out the sequel when it eventually comes out...
I ending up going on a bit of a Tamora Pierce tear for a while. Rereading all four of her "Immortals" books (Wildmagic, Wolf-Speaker, Emperor Mage and the Realms of the Gods), the Protector of the Small omnibus and then Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen. Really all of her Tortall books except the "Lioness" quartet ('cause I just don't care for the Lioness for some reason) and the Beka Cooper ones. And those I'm saving for later in this month when the third and final book for that sub-series comes out. Oh, and I even reread the Tortall related short stories in my e-book copy of Tortall and Other Lands. Much harder to pick and choose from an anthology on the Kindle by the way...
In the midst of all that Pierce rereading I tried some more from the roommate's books. He's been trying out a lot of new paperbacks of late, so that means more new stuff for me. First with Harry Connolly's "Twenty Palaces", which is more fantasy noir, but more Chaosium's Call of Cthulu than White Wolf's World of Darkness. Child of Fire has the protaginst ray Lilly and his near sociopath boss investigating a suspiscious toy company in the Pacific Northwest. Game of Cages has Ray mostly on his own and looking into the auction of a powerful supernatural creature. And in Circle of Enemies Ray's back in his home town of L.A. because of something going on with old circle of car thief friends...
After that was Larry Correia's "Monster Hunter" books, Monster Hunter International, Monster Hunter Vendetta and Monster Hunter Alpha. Which are about a corporation that hunts monster bountys as part of the world's governments' efforts to keep the supernatural and paranatural a secret from the general public. The series has a lot of heavy gun porn and is definitely higher on the action than the angst. More like, I don't know, Mack Bolan books or something. Except with werewolves and zombies and vampires and shit...
After that I got the Warriors anthology (George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois editing). Which was pretty good, only had a couple clunkers in it. I especially liked the David Weber one, enough that I'm thinking of getting both the expanded novel length version of the short story and also checking out some of his other military scifi stuff...
More rereading next, this time of Sherwood Smith and Dave Trowbridge's "Exordium" series, the Phoenix in Flight, Ruler of Naught, a Prison Unsought, Rifter's Convenant and the Throne of Kronos. I'm actually starting to wear out my copies of these. Maybe there are Kindle versions? The books are far future space opera, full of weird aliens, noble court drama, space naval battles (that aren't written like dog-fights), romance, villains both despisable and admirable. Really great series and one of my favorites...
After that a pair of new steampunk novels. First, Scott Westerfeld's Goliath, the finale to his alternate World War I trilogy. Which has the two leads forced to balance their feelings for each other with their personal feelings of duty. Plus Nicolai Tesla, who believes he's discovered a weapon that can end war forever. Second is the latest "Clockwork Century" book from Cherie Priest, Ganymede. In this one an airship captain has a chance for one final big score that will let him retire from the pirate/smuggler's life. He just has to get to New Orleans and pilot an experimental submarine out from occupied Louisiana and to the Union forces...
Total books: 28