January '12 Book List
Opened up the month with still more David Weber. This time the 2nd through 5th books of his "Safehold" series, By Schism Rent Asunder, By Heresies Distressed, a Mighty Fortress and How Firm a Foundation. Thats the one where the remnants of humanity escape a genocidal alien race to a secret colony. And then the people running the colony warp the minds of the colonists so that they'll be trapped in a Dark Ages, theocratic controlled group of nation states indefinitely. For our own protection. And then after a few hundred years the cracks in this concept start to show, even before the arrival of "Merlin", an android with the downloaded personality of one the officers who sacrificed themselves so that the last group of colonists could escape. Its a toss-up for me which I enjoy more from Weber, this or his "Honor Harrington" books. But I still wonder if the whole thing isn't some kind of bet he had with friend and fellow writers Eric Flint and S.M.Stirling to top their best known book lines...
Also from Weber are the far future milspec In Fury Born which has a really accurate title which serves as a clue to the major plot twist. And Out of the Dark, which is an expanded version of one of his short stories. One where space Wolf-Men attack the Earth and wipe out huge numbers of humanity before they push things far enough for someone else to come out of retirement to fight them...
After the "Safehold" books I had both a new print Grantville Gazette and a new e-book one. Volume six for the former and thirty-nine for the latter. Mostly they both made me impatient for the next "Ring of Fire" novel due out this summer...
Then I tried out the roommates copies of a newish urban fantasy series by Seanan McGuire. Secret fairy society with a noir-ish female detective half-fairy lead. First Rosemary & Rue and then A Local Habitation. I didn't realize until most of the way thru this series that McGuire also wrote the "Newsflesh" zombie series as Mira Grant...
Then I took a brief break from McGuire to read the second of Eric Flint's "Arkansas War" alternate histories, 1824: the Arkansas War. This one has the young Free Black/Native American nation under threat from pro-Slavery Union forces...
I also read the first of Patrick O'Brian's Master & Commander books. Which isn't the one they made a movie out of. Still I couldn't help seeing Russel Crowe when reading it...
Then I finished up McGuire's "October Daye" series with An Artificial Night (which has one of the creepier and nastier bad guys from an urban fantasy series I've come across), Late Eclipse and One Salt Sea...
At that point I was in the mood for some Pratchett (probably from a work shift spent reading tv trops) and so went with a reread of Snuff...
I followed that with a new to me John Scalzi book, Agent to the Stars. About a talent agent who is brought on by an alien species that is essentially a kind of really disgusting and smelly mold with mind control powers to engineer a positive first contact situation...
Then I decided to follow up on one of the roommates suggestions and try out Vernor Vinge. And after a Darkness in the Sky its going to be a while before I try them again. Not because of poor writing. But because the main bad guy for it is such a horrific fucking bastard from a society of horrible fucking bastards. Just the mind-slaver of the Focus alone. *shudder*
I decided to finish off the month with a big fat book, Neal Stephenson's Reamde. But first some brain and palate cleansing rereading with Jim Butcher's Ghost Story and Flint's 1635: the Eastern Front, 1636: the Saxon Uprising and the Ring of Fire III anthology...
But back to Reamde, which is probably the most easily accessible thing I've read by Stephenson since Snow Crash or Zodiac. But at times while reading the globetrotting plot with its large cast that pin-balled off each other I had to wonder. Why did Stephenson glue together two or three Bruce Sterling novels?
Total Books: 23
Also from Weber are the far future milspec In Fury Born which has a really accurate title which serves as a clue to the major plot twist. And Out of the Dark, which is an expanded version of one of his short stories. One where space Wolf-Men attack the Earth and wipe out huge numbers of humanity before they push things far enough for someone else to come out of retirement to fight them...
After the "Safehold" books I had both a new print Grantville Gazette and a new e-book one. Volume six for the former and thirty-nine for the latter. Mostly they both made me impatient for the next "Ring of Fire" novel due out this summer...
Then I tried out the roommates copies of a newish urban fantasy series by Seanan McGuire. Secret fairy society with a noir-ish female detective half-fairy lead. First Rosemary & Rue and then A Local Habitation. I didn't realize until most of the way thru this series that McGuire also wrote the "Newsflesh" zombie series as Mira Grant...
Then I took a brief break from McGuire to read the second of Eric Flint's "Arkansas War" alternate histories, 1824: the Arkansas War. This one has the young Free Black/Native American nation under threat from pro-Slavery Union forces...
I also read the first of Patrick O'Brian's Master & Commander books. Which isn't the one they made a movie out of. Still I couldn't help seeing Russel Crowe when reading it...
Then I finished up McGuire's "October Daye" series with An Artificial Night (which has one of the creepier and nastier bad guys from an urban fantasy series I've come across), Late Eclipse and One Salt Sea...
At that point I was in the mood for some Pratchett (probably from a work shift spent reading tv trops) and so went with a reread of Snuff...
I followed that with a new to me John Scalzi book, Agent to the Stars. About a talent agent who is brought on by an alien species that is essentially a kind of really disgusting and smelly mold with mind control powers to engineer a positive first contact situation...
Then I decided to follow up on one of the roommates suggestions and try out Vernor Vinge. And after a Darkness in the Sky its going to be a while before I try them again. Not because of poor writing. But because the main bad guy for it is such a horrific fucking bastard from a society of horrible fucking bastards. Just the mind-slaver of the Focus alone. *shudder*
I decided to finish off the month with a big fat book, Neal Stephenson's Reamde. But first some brain and palate cleansing rereading with Jim Butcher's Ghost Story and Flint's 1635: the Eastern Front, 1636: the Saxon Uprising and the Ring of Fire III anthology...
But back to Reamde, which is probably the most easily accessible thing I've read by Stephenson since Snow Crash or Zodiac. But at times while reading the globetrotting plot with its large cast that pin-balled off each other I had to wonder. Why did Stephenson glue together two or three Bruce Sterling novels?
Total Books: 23