Hold all your comments till the end please! As predicted, December ended up being a rather fiddley month when it came to reading. Normally I would have posted a mid-month review, but when I had barely finished two books it wasn't worth it. In the future, I'll at least post an note to say, yes yes I'm still here.
On the positive side the last two weeks of month showed an up tick in that I was able to successfully read seven more novels to bring this month's total back up to Nine. They were also all over the map genre wise with Cluthu, Steampunk, Superhero, Crime-Mystery, Romance, and some old fashioned sci-fi.
Jonathan Wood - No Hero - Oxford police detective Arthur Wallace is a no nonsense officer who investigates sometimes gruesome murders. Action is rare, and that suites Arthur just fine, for he isn't a hero, he's just a good cop who loves Kurt Russell. However when he discovers the serial killing he's been tracking, surrounds a secret government agency and horrors from another dimension, he is roped into a struggle to save the planet and hopefully his mind in the process.
Delightfully good read, it reminded the most of Seamus Cooper's The Mall of Cthulhu and Charles Stross's Laundry files. Point, as the novel takes place in England the accents and mannerisms help fill the time between Charles Stross novels. So no complaints, and a strong recommendation for a paperback novel. [cost 4.00 / rated 5.00]
Lev AC Rosen - All Men of Genius - Violet Adams, genius, inventor, and young lady of Victorian England, wants to attend Illyria College, the most prestigous school for the most brilliant scientific minds. The only problem is, this is Victorian England, and women just don't go to College, especially to Illyria. However Violet has a plan. With the aid of her Fraternal twin she disguises herself and enrolls at Illyria, where the gear is king, and the walls flow with them. But when she meets the young Duke of Illyria, she is drawn into one madcamp adventure after the next, testing her resolve to be who she is, while living a most Dickinson life.
Excellent novel, reminding me most of Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series. Both novels feature strong Women, inventors or scientists, in a victorian England in the Golden Age of Steampunk. And in both the writing proves that flash isn't king, instead it's the personality and interplay that is Queen. Highly recommend. [cost 12.00 / rated 9.00]
Janette Rallison - Just One Wish - Seventeen year old Annika has a problem, her very young brother Jeremy is terminally ill with cancer. About to under go major surgery she makes him believe she has a genie that will grant him two wishes, and she wants him to wish for a remission in cancer. Yet Jeremy skews it all when he wishes for his favorite TV character, Teen Robin Hood to meet him. Now before the surgery Annika must make it to Hollywood, find TV-star Steve Raleigh, somehow persuade him to meet her brother, and do it before her parents find out where she went.
Good young adult chick lit novel, it was at times screwball comedy and at times heartfelt drama. More serious then the last book I read by Janette Rallison the ending was kind of bitter sweet. However, the start to finish was still satisfying. Good paperback read for the young adult crowd. [8.00 / 5.00]
Drew Blank - Memoirs of an Antihero - There are no superheroes or super villains, but what if a single father, who is fearless and desperate to keep his cancer stricken daughter alive at any cost, decides he can do so by ripping off the real criminals? What comes out is a violent, emotional & darkly comedic tale of man who doesn't want to be hero, and his friends who make him one just by being what he is, a bad-ass Antihero and defender of the city, just one in it also for the money.
Decent penny novel, it's also fairly obvious a Mary Sue type character that the author is putting himself into. The Novel also promises more installments which might be interesting, although the actual climax of this first book was a little anti-climatic. Some more to it would have made it that much sweeter. Still, a decent recommend for the price. [1.00 / 2.50]
Janet Evanovich - One For The Money - Stephanie Plum #1 - Stephanie Plum is a smart unemployed discount lingerie buyer and New Jersey girl, who is just one beer can away from being broke. So when she is reluctantly forced to go see her cousin Vinnine for a job as a secretary only to find the job not there, she jumps at the only other work available, bounty hunter for his bail-bond business. Her first job being to capture an ex-cop accused of murder, who also happens to be someone from her past that charmed her pants off her behind a pastry case in Trenton. So now she's hitting the town she knows best, learning to be tougher then she's ever had to be before, and sticking a tongue in the cheek of this murder mystery.
For her debut mystery of a 18x book series, Janet Evanovich pulls off are rather good romp. From a rather authentic Trenton, to a character that would make Nancy drew blush, and then fall down laughing with her hilarious first person narrative, this is one book that has it. A strong recommend for anyone who can like mystery, real characters and definitely likes a wise-cracking New Jersey girl. [9.00 / 7.00]
Blake M Petit - Other People's Heroes (The Heroes of Siegel City) - In Siegel City there have always been Superheroes, none greater then Lionheart. But Lionheart has been long gone when ace reporter Josh Corwood, discovers that he two is a Superhero, and that all Superheroes now have been long gone. For now all the heroes are but Super powered actors, fighting for a public that doesn't know any better. Yet beneath even this, Josh begins to suspect something sinister, something that may need real heroes to wake up and defend the city one more.
Another Superhero novel, another smash hit. Reminiscent of Wearing the cape, Blake M Petit paints a colorful picture of a city with actual heroes and actual personal interplay. Although not as good as Wearing the Cape, it's still a very good novel to add to the Superhero genre. strong recommend. [3.00 / 4.50]
Linnea Sinclair - An Accidental Goddess - Gillaine Davré, Raheiran Special Forces, Captain, has just woken up from a very long nap on her damaged starship. Only to find out over three hundred years have gone and the natives she was helping have for some reason made her a goddess. The only good news? They don't exactly have a good picture of her, and so she's able to make it look like's just a freighter captain. Unfortunately things on the station are starting to heat up, and an old enemy apparently has set their eyes on conquering the station. Now she must walk the fine line between being herself, falling for the seductive Admiral Mack Makarian whose in charge of the station, and Lady Kiasidira, holy icon to countless believers, including Mack.
Romance? sci-fi? It reminded me the most of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. It's like the author watched the series, and took a lot of inspiration from it to create their own novel about gods, space stations, and war. Not that there is anything wrong with it, as all the details are sufficiently different to create a new universe with new characters and a new story. Which is the way most writing is about, finding inspiration from one story for another unique tale. I'll give it a recommend to any Romance reader who likes Sci-Fi. [7.00 / 5.00]
Beth Revis - Across the Universe - Amy is a frozen settler from earth on board the Generation Ship Godspeed, destined to be awoken with her parents after 300 years. Yet 60 years before planetfall she is thawed in possibly a murder attempt. She then meets Elder, Godspeed's lone teen and future leader in a highly regimented society of crew. She's now an individual, the ultimate outsider in a dangerous play, where her every move and action makes waves, and death lies possibly at every corner. How will she survive without her parents, marooned to life among people not her own?
Sometimes even the best of novels just seems to reach you the wrong way. Across the Universe is one such, widely recommended but a lot of good writers and readers. Yet when I read it, I just kept thinking, I've read this before. Having read a lot of novellas and short stories in Analog from the 60's and 70's I can say the theme is very familiar. Generation ship on a voyage to another star. Some of the crew are frozen for when they get there, some live all there lives in the ship, then one day someone is accidentally unfrozen. Throw in the fact that the people of the ship have devolved into a tryanny, with very regimented lives and the novel becomes a little two predictable in it's twists and turns. Admittedly the novel is a good read, decent late Young Adult, and is able to assemble previously used ideas in an nicely updated fashion. [10.00 / 7.00]
Dana Stabenow - Second Star - Star Svensdotter #1 - In an alternate universe an alien message was detected in the late 80's, changing everything. Now that we knew we weren't along any more every nation on Earth began to look seriously outward, pushing space stations into orbit, and putting colonies on the moon and mars. Esther “Star” Svensdotter’s job in this new universe is to oversee the completion of the first O’Neill cylinder — a massive space habitat capable of supporting a million people. But all is not rosy in this new frontier, with Luddite terrorists, squabbling bureaucrats, military takeovers or rogue AIs mucking up things. Yet Star Svensdotter doesn't roll over easily, not for anything.
Obviously the first part of a small series, Second Star introduces us to a new future world where people didn't withdraw from space, but instead are colonizing it. Most of the novel is intriguing in the picture it draws of a full working O'Neill cylinder. The down side is some of the soap opera-ish depiction of the politics surrounding everything. Where what could be an intriguing story of independence, just becomes an un-ordinarily violent ending to a colorful tale. Maybe it if wasn't broken from the second novel it might have been better, but still for a Penny Novel, it's a good buy. [1.00 / 2.50]
I'm already ringing in the New Year with John Scalzi's Fuzzy Nations, so stay tuned for more.