I’ve been on a roll lately, book-wise. I have liked every book I’ve read in the past three weeks (ever since giving up on The Lake House). Some of that was planned: two of the seven books were sequels, so it was pretty much a given that I would like them. One (Word Puppets) is a collection of short stories by an author I’ve heard a lot about but had never tried. Her short stories were really good (yay!), so I’ll be reading more of her. The next book (Serpentine) was recommended by a couple of the authors I follow on Twitter – young adult, fantasy/Chinese mythology – very good. I found the other three just browsing in Powell’s. It’s riskier than going on recommendations, but one of those turned out to be pretty good (The Girl With All The Gifts), and the other two are why I’m writing this post because they were SO FREAKIN’ GOOD.
Illuminae is told through documentation found by a researcher trying to piece together what actually happened out in space after a planet was attacked, so the format is all letters, emails, chats, transcripts of videos, interviews, etc. It was funny and it totally captured my imagination. I didn’t want to put it down, and when I had to, I was thinking about it.
Then I read His Majesty’s Dragon, and – THANK EVERYTHING – it is the first in a nine-book series. It’s set in pseudo-1800s Britain, with the British Navy and a war with Napoleon and DRAGONS. The dragons and their riders (!) make up the air force, basically, and it’s like a mash-up of the Patrick O’Brien novels and the Pern novels (!!), and it makes me very happy. Like, the-world-is-a-better-place-with-these-books-in-it kind of happy.
I started the second book in the series last night. I’m so happy.
momma betty
What could be better (for you)? Dragons mixed in with real history. Sort of like Game of Thrones with less gore?
Zannah
Not as serious as Game of Thrones.