The Oracle Year by Charles Soule
Started: 1/4/19
Finished: 1/5/19
Fun story, couldn’t put it down. I feel like I haven’t read one of those in a while.
source: Scalzi’s Big Idea
The Girl With The Red Balloon by Katherine Locke
Started: 11/23/18
Finished: 11/27/18
Young adult novel with a little time travel, a little magic, and some linked narratives. Mostly set in East Germany in the late 80s, which is a setting I don’t think I’ve ever read before. Pretty good!
The Wrong Stars by Tim Pratt
Started: 10/13/18
Finished: 10/25/18
Not great. Again, it’s the writing. The story is fine, but there’s SO much exposition dumped into dialogue, there’s lampshading which only serves to point out small inconsistencies or weirdnesses that I might not have noticed without it, and there’s too much telling and not showing. Callie’s an expert at this or that? Show me, don’t tell me. I will not be continuing this series.
Stone Cold Bastards by Jake Bible
Started: 10/10/18
Gave Up: 10/11/18
This sounded like fun – the gates of Hell open, demons possess most humans, and the only ones saved are those who make it to cathedrals which are being guarded by the gargoyles who came to life. I couldn’t get into it. The characters didn’t grab me and the dialogue was annoying.
The Punch Escrow by Tal M. Klein
Started: 9/12/18
Gave up: 9/15/18
The premise is interesting, but the explanations were mind-numbing. Most books explain the necessary future tech within the plot of the book, but here, we’re getting some of it that way and some of it in footnotes. Usually, I love footnotes in novels, but that’s because usually, footnotes in novels are amusing. These were dry. So dry. And filled with information that explained stuff characters mentioned but did not appear to be relevant to the actual story. This is bad worldbuilding. Pass. I’m just annoyed it took me three days to give it up.
Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos
Started: 9/3/18
Finished: 9/5/18
The first in the Frontlines series, future military, reminiscent of Starship Troopers, but in a good way. Easy read.
Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn
Started: 7/12/18
Finished: 7/17/18
Entertaining, but not great. Superheroes are a thing, but the main character is the assistant to one of the heroes because she’s afraid of her own powers and blah blah blah. It wasn’t exactly gripping.
We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory
Started: 6/2/18
Finished: 6/3/18
SO strange. The characters all belong to a support group for survivors of events that only happen in horror stories. They don’t like or trust each other, they don’t share their stories easily (or equally), and why were they brought together in the first place?
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
Started: 4/2/18
Finished: 4/7/18
I REALLY enjoyed this book – it’s all court intrigue, not a lot of ACTION-action, but lots of maneuvering and politics. It’s not perfect, though, and if you’re going to read it (and I think some of you should), maybe don’t read this next part. The new emperor is young, only semi-educated and only about some things, never expected to be emperor, and knows nothing about governing or court life. He has a head for logic and reasoning because of his guardian, but that’s about it. So he ends up the emperor, and…then he never makes a mistake (not any serious ones). He picks the right people as his close advisors (when he has the opportunity to make a choice), even though he knows NO ONE, and he says the right thing to the right people when it counts. You’re in his head, and he’s scared all the time and you like him and you want him to succeed, but shouldn’t he stumble over something? All of his problems come from outside forces. I really did like this book, and I would absolutely read more about him, but this tiny thing gets to me a little.
Lotus Blue by Cat Sparks
Started: 2/10/18
Finished: 2/17/18
Post-apocalyptic Australia, so lots of desert. For whatever reason, I’m not a huge fan of desert stories, and this has been kind of a slog for me. Update: a slog through to the end.
The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley
Started: 2/3/18
Finished: 2/5/18
WEIRD. Like, I still don’t know what was going on exactly, or how that society worked. Are the ships alive? And there was this journey segment that, while it gathered up some companions for our hero, didn’t really teach her anything, so what was the point of that exactly? I found a lot of it offputting.
The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne Valente
Started: 1/21/18
Finished: 1/23/18
There’s a trope in comics, movies, TV, books, everything, about how the hero’s love interest has to die or be raped or whatever in order to give the hero a reason to go be heroic. The love interest is an object, a plot device, not a character. The trope (and there’s a website) is called Women in Refrigerators because a particularly egregious example involved a Green Lantern comic where the girlfriend was killed and actually stuffed into a fridge for the hero to find. This novella, focused on the comics aspect, is about turning those women into characters. Pretty darn good, too.
Autonomous by Annalee Newitz
Started: 1/18/18
Finished: 1/21/18
Interesting, but not great. It suffers from telling, not showing, and the descriptions of locations were decidedly NOT clear. I couldn’t picture any of those locations, despite the descriptive text. I almost put it down a couple of times.
The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden
Started: 1/14/18
Finished: 1/15/18
It was interesting and not at all what I expected and I LIKED it but I didn’t love it. A kid and a teenager and a demigod and some sentient robots in South Africa.
Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty
Started: 1/2/18
Gave up: 1/4/18
Clones. I like clone stories, and this one is also a murder mystery in space, but it’s a first novel, and the writing feels like it. Good story, but the writing is getting to me. Update: NOT a first novel, so that excuse is gone. Couldn’t handle the writing, and I put it down without finishing.