And the trend in decreasing ability to get through books continues. Holidays and work added up to make it really hard to finish even three books for the second half of November, and is continuing into the December. Weather forecasters believe this trend will continue through the New Year, with a possible increase in reading by January.
Which is also the smart-ass way of partly explaining the tardiness of this update. However, we shall start with:
Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding - [Tale of the Ketty Jay 01] - Darian Frey, rogue, smuggler, captain of the airship Ketty Jay, even sometimes thief, yet never an outright pirate until the day arrives, when he is given a tip on a cargo that will make him a very rich man. Yet when he and his crew attack it all goes horribly wrong. Suddenly the Ketty Jay finds itself wanted by everyone, and stuck in the middle of a complex plot. A plot with only one foreseeable future, their death. However to the Ketty Jay's crew, maybe it's also a time to become something better then they are...
Retribution Falls is a steampunk like novel, set in a world in which great steel airships ply the skies like the Navies of the 18th and 19th century. However the quickest explanation for what the novel and the series is really like I have one word, Firefly. Darian Frey is no Captain Reynolds, and the crew of the Ketty Jay is more bloodthirsty, but in it's own way the novel makes us feel as if we are watching Firefly all over again. Strong recommend. [12.00 / 8.00]
Norse Code - Greg Van Eekhout - It's Ragnarok and everyone is invited to the party of the new age. Initially recommended to a friend because he was researching female protagonists written by men, and based on the blurb the book was supposed to be centered around a new Valkyrie named Mist, sorting men for Valhalla based on their DNA, the novel was much less about Mist and more about one god's (Hermod) quest to advert Ragnarok. So quite a bit deceptive in that although Mist is a protagonist, she is definitely not the lead and doesn't even get but a third of the book. However for fans of Neil Gaiman's American Gods, or DC's Thor, Norse Code isn't half bad as it attempts to weave Viking Mythology, modern life, and the end of times together. [8.00 / 5.00]
iBoy - Kevin Brooks - Tom Harvey, London ghetto teen, now superhero. When an iPod is thrown at him, at terminal velocity from a great height, it shatters his skull and embeds part of itself in his brain. Afterwards he finds he is now able to wirelessly access the web, and even control electricity around him. In short he now hows superpowers. However he is still in the London ghettos, where his best girl friends has just been attacked and the police appear helpless to stop. So he's got to decide, what's the line between justice and revenge?
On my list of possible books since August when I was on a Superhero kick, the book iBoy was worth the wait. Admittedly I still quibbled with the whole iPod gets merged with our hero, finding the explanation a little far fetched. Point if the author had gone more fantastical with the merge, it might have been more believable. Instead by making it seem almost mundane, it just falls into "the doesn't sit right" category. However not withstanding, the book as a whole is quite a good read. It's Young Adult-ish, however touching on some weighty subjects such as rape, and revenge. For fans of grittier superheroes however, it's a strong recommend [10.00 / 7.00]
Up next, we still have Tim Akers' The Horns of Ruin, and Jonthan Wood's No Hero