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Briggs-a-thon

Moon Called, Blood Bound, Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs
So reading Silver Borne brought out a desire in my wife to reread the Mercy series and I felt it my duty to help her. I’m very supportive that way. Picking up Moon Called reminded me that (a) Silver Borne finished off a lot of loose ends including some miscellaneous bits I hadn’t really noticed, and (b) Holy Crap do we enter the universe in medias res.  I remember wondering if I had missed an earlier series when I first read the book and despite knowing I hadn’t this time around I still had to ask my loving wife if we had missed something. Admittedly it is an awesome universe that Briggs keeps deciding to show from various angles (she wanders off onto various werewolf things every now and then in other books and short stories). My need for urban fantasy has been satiated. For this week at least. Rating: A

When Demons Walk by Patricia Briggs

This is a really fun little fantasy book. Highly entertaining, sexual tension but no chapters of pornography to skip over.  I really want to read more with these characters. Rating A.

Tags: 95 Books

Two more books, now over halfway

Thanks to being out of work for four months, having a train ride into work once I got there, and a coping mechanism with depression that has me hide in works of fiction I have managed to surpass the halfway point for the 95 books without really realizing it. The hardest part has been sitting down and writing these posts but after admonishing a friend to read without worrying about the number she’s at I too have to write on this blog without worrying about the fact that I’m behind on my books.

That being said I have two more books to write about.

Book 54 A Mighty Fortress by David Weber

I swear these things should count as four books in and of themselves. This book tops out a 690 pages. We finally get to have some David Weber style countless deaths too. There is even an homage to Honor Harrington which I’m certain that only a few will catch. I still love the interplay between religion, science, and geopolitics that winds its way through the series. I love the fact that people can still have faith in God even though they know their religion is made up. God does seep through the cracks. Rating: A.

Book 55 Silver Borne by Patricia Briggs

Ah yes. My not-so secret passion: urban fantasy. I rather enjoy the Mercy Thompson series. Over the books she has really become a full character. This book ends a few of the outstanding plot lines but opens up a few more. Thankfully the inter-textual references to her other books are ones that I’ve read (and even then they are explained for those who haven’t read them). Even better? The romance sub-plots are not annoying and we don’t veer off into chapters of sex. Very Fun with more than a few “it’s about time you hit/shot/yelled at said person” that were eminently satisfying. Rating: A (if you like this sort of thing which I do and am proud to say it).

Tags: 95 Books

Seven more books

Book 47 – 49  Island in the Sea of Time, Against the Tide of Years, On the Oceans of Eternity by S.M. Stirling

The Island of Nantucket drops out of time to somewhere in the 1250s BCE and is lucky enough to have both a Coast Guard captain who can use sails, an ancient civilizations Professor with the ability with languages and an astronomer who can speak Lithuanian (apparently it’s closest to the Indo-European proto-languages, go figure). As an alternative history it does indeed work. I enjoyed reading as people struggle with the idea that life without the Internet — well it was set in the 1990s initially so it’s more life without cable television — is indeed possible. As a story there are parts that I find difficult. No one dies. Maybe I’m just getting used to David Weber killing off untold millions of people but there needs to be a time when everything does not go well and that half your population will cease to exist. Thankfully I know he makes up for this one in the other series so I’ll cut him some slack. Maybe if I had encountered these books when they were initially written and with nearly a decade of time in between I would have been more gracious of my acceptance. Overall: a decent read but don’t give up your current reading to grab it. Rating: B- to B.

Book 50 In Enemy Hands by David Weber

Rating: A. I was about to write “thankfully this one isn’t as emotionally wrought at the previous one” but that’s not really true. There is still a great deal of personal agony reaching out from Honor Harrington, its just has a different reason. The previous book nearly traumatized me towards the end but then again perhaps reading it during the depths of depression is not the smartest thing I’ve ever done. Honor is just such a well created character and war is just such an ugly mess of needless death and destruction that even though all of these wretched things still happen you still need to keep reading. Personal agony aside this series is quickly coming close to surpassing the Dresden Files on my all time favorite series/character list. Which brings us to …

Book 51 Changes by Jim Butcher

Harry Dresden is back and a metric ton of story arcs are, well, changed. Butcher does an amazing job of tying up all of the various threads that have been hanging around while fixing it so that the series must change if it is to continue. It has no choice. As for the “controversial ending” bit that half of the Internet is aflutter over (according to my wife, I tend to stay away from online reviews which is fairly ironic if you think about what I’m writing at the moment) I saw it as perfectly fitting and I know exactly who did what to whom. There is not cliffhanger wondering bit here. If you’ve paid attention this is not out of left field and it is by far the greatest ending. Rating: A+

[Aside: Wow. I just got off of one of those wonderful Internet tangents where you bounce around for a while and end up writing down something you really ought to read. Focus dammit. Focus. Then wander and start taking notes about the Napoleonic wars.]

Book 52 Without Remorse by Tom Clancy

I needed a train book and picked up this one which lives on from my “I must read Tom Clancy” era. It’s ok. As a precursor to the characters in the Jack Ryan series it explains some things. I do like the concept of a serial killer who is not a psychopath but one who does wonder if what he is doing is indeed the “right” thing to do. Or maybe that is a psychopath and it’s the difference between that and a sociopath. Meh. Rathing: B.
Book 53 The Scourge of God S.M. Stirling

This one came very close to a book fail. As the second book set in the second series I spent a lot of time wondering: who is this person and why should I care? On more than one occasion I had to backtrack to figure out what the hell was going on and in one case I am not entirely certain how someone died. At least I think she died. Like I’m said this book was not the most polished of his I’ve read. Now I’m thinking I may have to re-read this after going through the earlier series and hopefully it makes sense but after loving The Sunrise Lands I was vastly disappointed. Rating: C (for now).

Tags: 95 Books

8 Books, a Miss, and Random Thoughts for the Week

Eight books? Over the span of a week or so? No problem. Why? Well that’s simple. I’m sitting on my rear waiting for the union hall to call and actually get working again. To make matters worse I’m out of EI so I have zero money coming in. What dose that mean? Depression attack. Thankfully I feel like I’m on the goes up side of the sine wave but it still meant that for the past while I’ve been absorbing myself in books as a way to escape reality. Having nice weather to work outside on the yard has helped as has getting over this damned persistent cold. Nevertheless I’ve been a less than ideal human for a bit but thankfully I’ve been productive and not sitting in a ball staring at the wall. That hasn’t happened for a while. The sine wave amplitude has shrunk it seems.

First, some random thoughts.

• Tiger Woods did not betray me. Tiger did not betray his fans or golf. I’m with the Penny Arcade guys on this one. He’s a super rich human being. If he wants to sleep with 3/4 of the female population then more power to him. He’s Tiger freaking Woods. He should not be ostracized for doing what most guys would (or pretend they would) do in this situation. He basically saw someone he wanted, pointed to her, and said “you’re turn.” And unlike a certain former President at least his choice in women is pretty decent. No butterfaces there.
• I can’t remember the last time I wore a t-shirt on my birthday and felt too warm.
• I’m watching more basketball than hockey. Does this make me un-Canadian?
• I might just be getting the hang of using charcoal.
• I’m almost at 40% of the 95 books. Crazy. I need to get some work soon.
• Finally finished God of War II (I gave up on the Zeus battle way back when, got distracted, and forgot I never finished). Fun times. I look forward to number the third.

Now to books.

In going through my files it appears I missed writing up #26. So before I get into the crazy amount of books I’ve devoured let us backtrack.

Book #26 The Inside Game: Race, Power, and Politics in the NBA by Wayne Embry with Mary Scmitt Boyer

This is an amazing tale of what happens behind the scenes in the executive world the of the NBA and what it is like to be Black in a place where that is a problem to some. It amazes me to think that we’re calling this world ‘post-racial’ when a testament to how people were treated just because of the colour of their skin is still alive. We are not a post-racial society. Not when I can be asked “would you let your wife walk past a group of blacks to go to the store” and see the look of stunned apprehension when I say yes. Read this book and find out how hard it is to be on the other side of the coin for a change. I thank Wayne for his honesty and courage in telling his tale.

Books #30, 31, 32 Engaging the Enemy, Command Decision, Victory Conditions by Elizabeth Moon

These books take the initial characters, which have been thoroughly fleshed out, and puts them fully into the space opera that is their lives. I appreciate the complexity of the universe, the fact that it takes forever and a day to get anywhere in the vast cosmos of space, and the fact that not everything goes completely according to plan. Rating: A

Book #33 The Blue-Haired Bombshell by John Zakour

Honestly, this is not my favorite book of the series. It reads more like an regular adventure novel than an absurd/zany adventure novel. That might be because there are just only so many crazy adventures one can get into with future technology and a holographic computer as a best friend. Rating: C+

Book #34 The Sapphire Sirens by John Zakour

It looks like the series is definitely in adventurer mode for good. At least this one was better. A false finish or two, with a standard mystery plot using sci/fi tropes established in the earlier novels. The finish itself felt a little flat to me. Still, it was good for a break. Rating: B-

Books #35, 36, 37 On Basilisk Station, The Honor of the Queen, The Short Victorious War by David Weber

It looks like I needed a good space war and anyone who can include a technical appendix on how missiles, hyperspace currents, and breakdown of the overall tonnage of the various warring navies can fill that need. It helps that David Weber creates a great character in Honor Harrington and the back-story revelations which show why she reacts certain ways (including one in the third novel) are not gratuitous or unbelievable. I even did an “oooh” to the one in the third novel but was not really surprised. You knew something else must have happened and this was completely consistent. How do I know? It didn’t have to be added but its addition was useful to the character development. You can tell it’s a well done war when a whole lot of people die and the survivors are left with the guilt. Rating: A

Tags: 95 Books, God of War II, Tiger Woods

A weekend of reading

Ever get sucked into something and the next thing you know the entire day has past? Yeah. On Friday I played close to nine hours of Dragon Age so I switched gears and went a booking.

Book 27: Blood and Honor by Simon R. Green

My lovely wife put this on interlibrary loan a while back and was surprised when it came in. Back in 1993 Simon R. Green had an idea about a castle that could eat people. Seriously. One of the rooms turns into a stomach and digests someone. I’m sure this is just one of the ideas which later became the Nightside. But it was a fun little read with royal intrigue, absurdity, and what some would call horror. I don’t really see it as such but then again I laughed at weird things. Rating: B

Book 28: Shalador’s Lady by Anne Bishop

Rating: A

I love Anne Bishop’s Dark Jewels universe. It is dark, majestically laid out, and thoughtfully produced. By creating a secondary set of characters we can still see the main characters that we loved so much in the original trilogy (plus two) without having them face yet another crisis. This book picks up a week or so after The Shadow Queen and finishes a number of open questions and problems that exist in Dena Nehele. At 476 pages it is almost as big as the first two books in the series combined yet it still works as a fast read. There appears to even be a bit of a false finish halfway through that keeps you wondering just what will happen. Is it as dark as the original trilogy? Not by any means. It does, however, explore the depths of a number of the characters and lets us know what life is like in the rest of the world outside of Janelle’s court.

And like some books, which will remain not-so nameless in a moment, its ‘erotic’ moments aren’t filled with chapters of skippable sex scenes. We even get a few “the next morning” bits that let us know the sex was good. But we didn’t have to see it.

Which brings me to …

Book 29: Divine Misdemeanors by Laurell K. Hamilton

Sigh. Thankfully this is a Merry Gentry novel which means it is supposed to have sex scenes and, unlike the Anita Blake series, they follow a pattern of three or four sex moments to pass the time. Seriously. These people don’t watch tv. They screw.It gets humourous after a while but there are only so many ways to describe what they are up to and I get bored.

As I look at the book in front of me I admit to having no idea what the cover art has to do with the book. Merry is back in LA and working at her job as a private detective. Almost all of the original book’s characters are in it including Uther, one of my favorites. This is a Laurell Hamilton mystery. The culprit is somewhat obvious, a lot of weird things happen (that the characters find weird not the reader I should point out) and we are left with a new set of possible story directions. What else? Faerie is making them go “um, I didn’t know it could do that” which if you are a few millennia old can be a teensy bit worrisome, Cel’s former bodyguards are seriously traumatized (one of the few areas Hamilton excels at in this series is pointing out how horrifically the insanity that is the Unseelie Court affects people), and Merry has a few wtf moments about living with babies growing inside her. My own guess is that the twins will start growing at an exponential rate and be ready to pop out after two months. Why?  It wouldn’t surprise me. Especially if you know how she got knocked up.

I only had to skip a couple of the sex chapters, which is high praise in my mind for her work these days. I really wish Hamilton would write something other than “erotica” every now and then because there could be an amazing film noir/P.I. spin off with Rhys’ character. I still find it odd that her actual erotica series has more gore and political intrigue than the vampire series. But that’s the fey for you.

Decent mystery. Fun moments. A few laugh out louds. Bits you can skip are in chapter form making you less likely to miss something important. Rating: solid B

Tags: 95 Books

Religion, SciFi, War, and not much else

Book 24

By Schism Rent Asunder by  David Weber

It is at this point that anyone following my rating system will sit up, look at what I give this book, and pronounce me a complete and utter moron. Why? Because unlike the huddled masses I happen to believe that religion is a vital part of the human condition. Even the decision to not have a religion is a religious decision in my mind. In Schism, David Weber actively tries to work out the problem of whether not you can have a religion based on a false assumption (i.e, that the religion itself is a lie meant to control humanity) and yet still believe in God. Anyone who has no desire to think about this problem will hate this book. I, on the other hand, love it. When the great revelation happens I found my mind getting distracted by my own theological thoughts and exploring those ideas  only to resume reading and find them stated, in one case almost word for word, by the characters. For example the characters have an awesome conversation that pretty much boils down to the religiously useful bit of Pascal’s Wager (i.e. I don’t know if there’s a God but if there isn’t and I’ve lived a Godly life then I’ve really lost nothing in the long run.)

I was going to quote extensively from the book and make a wonderful essay on scifi and religion but I can’t type on either my computer or Kate’s without inflicting some form of forearm/wrist pain on myself and I don’t feel like going downstairs, booting up the ‘writing computer’ (with Puppy Linux ftw) and using the sneaker net to form a blog post.

Book 25

By Heresies Distressed by David Weber

Once again if you like Space Opera you will probably enjoy this book. If not, you will do something horrible to your eyes. Or put the book down. Either way you won’t finish. Where the previous book dealt with religion this one deals with a war. As I enjoyed the first volume of the three volume set on the American Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression) for any readers from the Deep South) I rather liked this book. Basically this is what would happen if aliens (or humans from the future, er, or previously developed past) were involved in supporting one government over another. The ones being attacked would be demolished.

And there’s another sword battle. I like SciFi with swords.

Tags: 95 Books

Three more books

Book 21: Off Armageddon Reef by  David Weber

This fills my sci-fi niche for the moment. Humanity is almost dead so we send out an ark to the other side of the galaxy and then enforce a limit to their technological growth through a created religion. Only the people making the religion kind of get caught up in it and, well, make themselves demi-powers. So the android body with a human (pre-ark) consciousness has to intervene. Two thoughts: 1. there are sailing ships and sword fights. Yay! 2. No one realizes how much you can do with water power until its far too late.  Rating: A

Book 22: Buddha Vol. 3: Devadatta by Osamu Tezuka

I read most of the series last year but this volume just now made it to the library. Weird. Tezuka is the man who created Astroboy for those who think he sounds familiar. I’ve been trying to think of a corollary. Mabye Neil Gaiman writes the story of Jesus? Anyways, this is the story of Buddha with a decided Mahayana bent. As most of my Buddhist knowledge is Theravandan in origin it is part eh? and part enlightening. Rating: A

Book 23: They Call Me Coach by  John Wooden
Another of the Doug Smith books. This is the autobiography of one of the most successful NCAA coaches of all time. He includes his life, his beliefs, and how to run a basketball team. He is (literally) old school. The team is the most important part of the game. No deviations. No personal actions that go outside that construct. That goes for clothing, hair, and vulgarity. An interesting read but put-downable at times. It took me a bit to get through it.  Rating: B

Tags: 95 Books

Two quick notes

Note the First:

Apparently I have a +5 modifier to “things occurring for the good if I randomly mention I have the ability to do a particular task to someone important” which, looking back on my life these last few years is not surprising. I can’t mention anything more until I get confirmation but I think it’s neat. This modifier by the way is why I tend to not go to church all that often at the moment. If I don’t pay attention I could end up on a committee and have to deal with religious people.

Note the Second:

Book 20: The Flaxen Femme Fatale by John Zakour

Nothing like the last Private Investigator on the planet Earth (in the 2070′s to boot) with a holographic high-powered computer assistant attached to his brain to help a guy relax after a long day of work. Absurd, funny, and light. I still enjoy DOS and Gates being swear words. Rating: B+

Tags: 95 Books

One up, one down

Book Fail: Loose Balls: the Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association by Terry Pluto

This was one of Doug Smith’s suggested readings. I just couldn’t get into it. The story of the oddities surrounding the league that really shouldn’t have existed is interesting in theory but nothing I really care about right now. Compounding the fact is the style. Since the ABA kept no records whatsoever this book is an oral history which is just not my thing at the moment.

Book 19

Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Sigh. Terry Pratchett. Such fun. Such irreverence. This time the irreverence is directed at the twin institutions of football (the one where you use the foot not the one where you use your hands) and academia. Rating: A

Tags: 95 Books

Book 16

Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon

Squee! Spaceships and Capitalism with a side order of Military Bearing. I love Elizabeth Moon’s Serrano Legacy. This is, to me, what FTL space flight should be: a whole bunch of traders, mercenaries, military officers (ex or otherwise), and intrigue. She even keeps up with her Dick Francis legacy and has people using polo horses as a particularly non-plot event.

Tags: 95 Books