Half-Blood Blues by Esi EdugyanSomewhat ironically, I'm really bad at book summaries, so I apologize for not doing this justice. The book follows a group of jazz musicians living in pre-war Berlin as they try to deal with their own intragroup problems in an atmosphere of growing intolerance and tension. Edugyan does a remarkable job of exploring ( Read more... )

I just finished reading The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence by Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks! Whew, what a title. The book itself is about as interesting as the title itself, by which I mean it was actually very dry. It's also full of all these DELETED passages, because the CIA got their hands on the book before publication. Apparently most ( Read more... )

Last night, I finished reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, and holy CRAP it was basically everything I have ever wanted out of a story. I can see how it might not be for everyone (I GUESS), but if you are
( Read more... )

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The Broken Kingdoms was almost exactly, completely what I wanted out of it. And you know? I'm willing to forgive the bit that wasn't perfect because it still fits with the characters, so I'm going to call it golden.

( Vague spoilers )

There are a lot of posts I keep thinking I should reply to but don't. Busy being selfish writing. Sorry! I am reading posts, though, and thinking things at you!

I am also re-reading The Last Unicorn in an attempt to recapture my writing skill (reading Pretty Little Liars kind of destroyed my ability to describe things, although it was a lot of fun ( Read more... )

( Spoilers for Affinity, by Sarah Waters )

I finished Starfish by Peter Watts today! And by the way, that link takes you to a free online copy if you want to read it yourself, which I highly encourage you to do, especially if you enjoy reading about fucked up characters presented in a more or less sympathetic light. (Sympathetic in this case means non-judgmental and relatable, not ( Read more... )

So I spent all of yesterday reading Blindsight by Peter Watts. I'm not entirely sure what my thoughts are -- mix of positive and negative -- but I think one of the most important things is that it made me think about things.

( Thoughts and spoilers and too many bullet points. )

I started re-reading Skulduggery Pleasant, since I realized that a) I never read the last (two?!) books, and b) it's a little boring watching Baco run around fighting things in Dragon Age, but dialogue happens to frequently for me to actually start working on things.

( Three quarters through the first book, probably no spoilers )

So today I thought, "Hey, let's go somewhere nice to eat out now that I can actually make it out the door and infect everyone I see!" To accomplish this goal, I forced Baco to eat at Olive Garden with me ( Read more... )