January Book Post
Feb. 2nd, 2009 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienSpoilers possible ...
John Scalzi, The Ghost Brigades
In the universe of Old Man's War, but not featuring its protagonist, this one explores life among the Special Forces, genetically created to be super-soldiers in the endless war over habitable planets. The central character was created for an even stranger purpose -- he carries the uploaded mind of a traitor -- but is sent off to fight when he can't access the memories and reveal what the missing villain was up to. Then the memories start to surface ...
Violent in a slightly cartoonish way; also witty. I had enough fun with this that when I finished it I walked back down the concourse at O'Hare to buy the sequel.
John Scalzi, The Last Colony
In which John Perry, protagonist of Old Man's War, and his wife Jane, who also featured in The Ghost Brigades, are pulled from their bucolic colony retirement to lead a new colony despite the existence of an inter-species organization intent on wiping out unauthorized colonies. Not as much fun as its predecessors, but the climax is quite satisfying.
Ruth Rendell, Not in the Flesh
A new(ish) Wexford mystery, opening with a truffle-hunter discovering a buried skeleton on a derelict property. Later another body turns up; are the two connected? What do the neighbors know? There's a B-plot about female genital mutilation in the local Somali community that seems oddly unrelated to the main story; I think usually with Rendell there's some link, but I couldn't see it here. The main plot involves a not-very-successful literary novelist who, oddly, had his one big hit with a "fantasy" novel.
Minette Walters, The Chameleon's Shadow
A young officer returns badly wounded and traumatized from the war in Iraq -- but it gradually emerges, as
he gets entangled in the investigation of a series of murders, that a lot of his damage comes from before he went to war and is connected with his ex-girlfriend. As usual with this author, none of the characters are entirely sympathetic, but they're all unusual and vividly drawn except for the police, who are mere cyphers.
Kage Baker, In the Garden of Iden (e)
Time travelers have set up an organization of cyborged immortals, living in the unrecorded bits of history and rescuing lost treasures for posterity; interesting conceit, but I'm not sure where they are supposed to go once the world starts filling up. This novel mostly concerns the romance between a novice Immortal, newly graduated after being rescued from the Spanish Inquisition as a small child, and a would-be-saintly protestant youth in the grim days of Queen Mary; references to disappearing civil liberties seem oddly topical, but it was written in the eighties!
Elizabeth George, Payment in Blood
Lynley investigates a murder among a theatrical party in a remote Scottish hotel, with his beloved Lady Helen caught in the middle of it all and a tangle of angst and old secrets. The repeated references to an "inquest" (which I understand they don't have in Scotland) jarred me a bit.
Scott Lynch, Red Seas under Red Skies
Sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora, with pirates and deep-laid schemes -- and cats! The multi-flashbacked structure was a bit annoying again, though not as bad in the original.
Margaret Fraser, The Servant's Tale
Another mystery in a medieval nunnery. If I can spot the murderer less than halfway through without really trying, it's not much of a mystery, but it was very evocative of the feel of the period, at least to a non-historian.
Terry Pratchett, Making Money
Moist von Lipwig, hero of the Post Office, finds himself landed with another Ankh-Morpork institution -- the Bank -- to save, and promptly invents paper money. I enjoyed it, but I agree with those who felt it wasn't the best Diskworld novel ever.
Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife: Horizon
Final installment in the tale of Dag the one-armed Lakewalker and his farmer bride Fawn, in which Dag learns more about his newly discovered abilities and heads back northward, acquiring yet more hangers-on along the way until the cast begins to get unwieldy. Starts slowly, but builds to an exciting and fast-moving climax.
John Scalzi, The Ghost Brigades
In the universe of Old Man's War, but not featuring its protagonist, this one explores life among the Special Forces, genetically created to be super-soldiers in the endless war over habitable planets. The central character was created for an even stranger purpose -- he carries the uploaded mind of a traitor -- but is sent off to fight when he can't access the memories and reveal what the missing villain was up to. Then the memories start to surface ...
Violent in a slightly cartoonish way; also witty. I had enough fun with this that when I finished it I walked back down the concourse at O'Hare to buy the sequel.
John Scalzi, The Last Colony
In which John Perry, protagonist of Old Man's War, and his wife Jane, who also featured in The Ghost Brigades, are pulled from their bucolic colony retirement to lead a new colony despite the existence of an inter-species organization intent on wiping out unauthorized colonies. Not as much fun as its predecessors, but the climax is quite satisfying.
Ruth Rendell, Not in the Flesh
A new(ish) Wexford mystery, opening with a truffle-hunter discovering a buried skeleton on a derelict property. Later another body turns up; are the two connected? What do the neighbors know? There's a B-plot about female genital mutilation in the local Somali community that seems oddly unrelated to the main story; I think usually with Rendell there's some link, but I couldn't see it here. The main plot involves a not-very-successful literary novelist who, oddly, had his one big hit with a "fantasy" novel.
Minette Walters, The Chameleon's Shadow
A young officer returns badly wounded and traumatized from the war in Iraq -- but it gradually emerges, as
he gets entangled in the investigation of a series of murders, that a lot of his damage comes from before he went to war and is connected with his ex-girlfriend. As usual with this author, none of the characters are entirely sympathetic, but they're all unusual and vividly drawn except for the police, who are mere cyphers.
Kage Baker, In the Garden of Iden (e)
Time travelers have set up an organization of cyborged immortals, living in the unrecorded bits of history and rescuing lost treasures for posterity; interesting conceit, but I'm not sure where they are supposed to go once the world starts filling up. This novel mostly concerns the romance between a novice Immortal, newly graduated after being rescued from the Spanish Inquisition as a small child, and a would-be-saintly protestant youth in the grim days of Queen Mary; references to disappearing civil liberties seem oddly topical, but it was written in the eighties!
Elizabeth George, Payment in Blood
Lynley investigates a murder among a theatrical party in a remote Scottish hotel, with his beloved Lady Helen caught in the middle of it all and a tangle of angst and old secrets. The repeated references to an "inquest" (which I understand they don't have in Scotland) jarred me a bit.
Scott Lynch, Red Seas under Red Skies
Sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora, with pirates and deep-laid schemes -- and cats! The multi-flashbacked structure was a bit annoying again, though not as bad in the original.
Margaret Fraser, The Servant's Tale
Another mystery in a medieval nunnery. If I can spot the murderer less than halfway through without really trying, it's not much of a mystery, but it was very evocative of the feel of the period, at least to a non-historian.
Terry Pratchett, Making Money
Moist von Lipwig, hero of the Post Office, finds himself landed with another Ankh-Morpork institution -- the Bank -- to save, and promptly invents paper money. I enjoyed it, but I agree with those who felt it wasn't the best Diskworld novel ever.
Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife: Horizon
Final installment in the tale of Dag the one-armed Lakewalker and his farmer bride Fawn, in which Dag learns more about his newly discovered abilities and heads back northward, acquiring yet more hangers-on along the way until the cast begins to get unwieldy. Starts slowly, but builds to an exciting and fast-moving climax.
