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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 15, 2017 12:36:08 GMT -5
Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters by Kim Newman. Newman's Anno Dracula series posits a world where Dracula defeated Van Helsing and company and married Queen Victoria becoming the de facto head of the most powerful country on Earth. It's a Wold Newtonian world where vampires from various mediums mingle with literary characters and real-life folk. And it's a huge amount of fun. That said, I struggled with this one, which is something I've never done before with any of Newman's work. I think a fair part of it is that I have very limited knowledge of Japanese mythology and pop culture and was therefore a bit adrift with many of the references. It also seemed to me that the book was floundering a bit in the first half trying to decide what was going to happen. It definitely picked up in the last half and turned a bit of a slog into an enjoyable read. And I LOVED Popejoy. That character alone might have redeemed the book if it had not taken the turn for the better. If you're an Anno Dracula fan I recommend it. If you have good knowledge of Japanese mythology and pop culture that will probably help a lot. I really needed annotations in this one.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 15, 2017 12:54:18 GMT -5
Scorched Noir by Garnett Elliott. This book of hard-boiled short stories set in the desert heat of the U.S. Southwest is the fourth book I've read by Elliot. And it's the best. I really enjoyed Dragon by the Bay and would love to see a sequel. I was less excited about his two novella SF series Pale Mars and Red Venus, though they were certainly readable. But this is where Elliot really shines. These are short, punchy, hot noir stories with no holding back. There's a neo-noir movement that has been happening for the last 15 or so years and Elliot is a fantastic addition. Highly recommended.
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Post by Jesse on Dec 16, 2017 11:44:38 GMT -5
Without Fail by Lee Child The sixth book in the Jack Reacher series stills finds interesting and exciting situations to throw the lead character into. This time he gets involved in an assassination plot working for the government agency that once employed his dead brother Joe. He also becomes romantically involved with a Secret Service agent who happens to be Joe's ex-girlfriend. One of the things that I felt kept this story interesting is that it often kept me guessing and when I thought it would lead somewhere predictable it instead went somewhere unexpected. Right up until the climactic confrontation with the would be assassins at the end. There's also this sort of "Ramblin' Man" vibe that starts and ends the novel. There are plenty of callbacks to his brother's death which is an important event way back in the first book but I don't think it necessary to read that in order to understand this one. Although having read the books in the order they were published I feel adds a better appreciation for the material.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 19, 2017 0:56:34 GMT -5
Bombs Away! (The Hot War #1) by Harry Turtledove
It's been some time since I read any Harry Turtledove, and this one jumped out at me as what could be a great one.. Turtledove imagines WWIII by allowing MacArtur to convince Truman to use nukes in Korea.. this prompts Stalin to invade Western Europe, and the nuclear exchange in one.. but in slow motion, as there are no missles yet, just bombs that have to be delivered from B-29 bombers that are suspectible to being shot down.
Unfortunately, he fails to deliver on the alternative history part. There's very little there. Sure, we get Stalin and Truman tossing Atomic bombs around like candy, but there's not any depth to it... anyone could have come up with both the scenario that kicked it off, and what happens next. We get nothing of the communist motivations, and very little of the US', just that the war started, so it clearly has to keep going until someone quits. Maybe that the the point he was going for, but if so, he missed.. it just felt lazy.
As in most of his other books, the cast is a wide ensemble that shows lots of little slices of life.. most of those are good, and pretty interesting, but they also all could have fit into any WWII era historical fiction, they didn't need alternative history to be there.
The book had me turning the pages to see what was coming next and all, but nothing really ever did that was interesting enough to live up to the potential of the set up.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2017 1:29:24 GMT -5
Currently reading Autonomous by Annalee Newitz... a book that came to my attention because of a recommendation and an excerpt in Warren Ellis' weekly newsletter Orbital Operations. Neal Stephenson's blurb on the front cover basics compares this with Gibson's Neuromancer (which I just read) in terms of its position as a groundbreaking book in a new field of sci-fi tech (what Neuromacer was to cyberspace this is to biotech), which is the kind of claim I often dismiss as hyperbole, but in this case it's appropriate. I'm about 2.3 of the way through, so it still has some twists and turns to come I hope, but iin this Newitz posits a future world divided not into nations but into trade zones with patent holding corporations being the most powerful entities in the world, especially pharmaceutical corps and their patents. The story focuses on a female pharma patent protester turned pirate named Jack operating out of her submarine (it made me think of Hagberd Celine in Wilson & Shea's Illuminatus Trilogy when I first read this) who reverse engineers drugs and sells them on the black market to undermine the stranglehold pharma-corps have on people and access to the drugs, and on the agent and his robot Paladin (who in many ways has stolen the show so far in terms of interesting character arcs)set on her trail by the corporations after something goes wrong with one of the reverse engineered drugs Jack sold revealing something the pharma-corp desperately wanted kept secret. Newitz's prose flows and the story and characters are engrossing, but I have only managed a few chapters a night as I don;t get a chance to dive in until late when I am already beat, so it's taking me a while to get through, but I am savoring each chapter as I read it. -M
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 19, 2017 14:15:33 GMT -5
Terror Squad (The Destroyer #10) by Richard Sapir & Warren Murphy. Remo has to deal with a strange terrorist organization that is likely to derail a global initiative to fight terrorism. It's making Smith act irrational and Chiun is out of sorts because Nuihc is back. Given that the plots of these books are usually "out there" saying that this one was extra nonsensical says a lot. Easily the worst book so far.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 21, 2017 22:33:46 GMT -5
I finished Autonomous and it was quite good overall. Like the best science fiction, it used its setting to comment on the world today. I also started Strange Weather by Joe Hill,a collection of 4 novellas. Those not familiar with Joe, he is the writer of the fantastic horror comic series Locke and Key (where I first encountered his work) and the son of Stephen King. I've read the first novella in Strange Weather already, called Snapshot, about a camera that steals people's memories when it takes their picture. Quite horrifying and an interesting exploration of the relationship between memory and identity. -M
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Post by berkley on Dec 22, 2017 19:09:03 GMT -5
I hope you keep these Destroyer reviews coming, Slam. I'll be making use of them whenever I finally get around to reading the series myself.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 22, 2017 20:39:17 GMT -5
The Myriad by RM Meluch When I grabbed this book (finally) after Brutalis' reviews, I was picturing David Weber-esque sci fi... what it really is, if you squint, is Star Trek fan fic. The Merrimack (love the civil war reference) is very Enterprise-like, and it's Captain, John Farragut, very much evokes images of Capt. Kirk. Maybe he's a little more personable and nicer. Augustus the 'patterner' from the rival star Empire (based on Rome, which is fun) could easily be Spock, if he was a sarcastic a-hole. Obviously, he was my favorite . The plot involves the Hive, which are somewhere between the Borg and the Buggers from Ender's Game, and are the reason the two human empires aren't at war, and a lost civilization that may have some sort of secret to stable worm holes. The people on the planet were right from TOS central casting, a mostly benevloent dictator that would have been right at home trading barbs, yet ultimately giving Capt. Kirk respect. In very Trek fashion, after a cool battle, there's time travel, and things reset in a most unpleasing way, making it unclear exactly what the heck is going on. That would have been fine if this actualyl was Star Trek, where you know what the canon is and what's going on, here it was painful.. characters dead came back, and my boy Augustus seems to have either gone back home or left all together. While the story and world were very good and definitely would encourage further reading, the time travel bit at the end (as usual) hurt my head and definitely makes me less enthused for further reading.. we'll see how it goes.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 23, 2017 0:26:13 GMT -5
I hope you keep these Destroyer reviews coming, Slam. I'll be making use of them whenever I finally get around to reading the series myself. Will do. But with everything else I’m reading I’m only getting to three or four of them a year.
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Post by berkley on Dec 23, 2017 0:51:10 GMT -5
I hope you keep these Destroyer reviews coming, Slam. I'll be making use of them whenever I finally get around to reading the series myself. Will do. But with everything else I’m reading I’m only getting to three or four of them a year. Excellent. It'll probably be some time before I start so I'm not in any hurry. Last thing in the action/thriller line I read was Mickey Spillane's I, the Jury. This was my first time reading any of the Mike Hammer books or anything else by Spillane, for that matter (I think he had a spy series too, though not nearly as popular as the Hammers). It was pretty much what I expected, only more so: in fact, it was so over the top that in this day and age it almost reads like a parody of the hard-boiled detective genre. Highly entertaining, though, and I'll most likely read at least the next few instalments in the series. There seems to have been a gap of a few years between the first two books so I'll probably try a Frederic Brown or two before getting to the 2nd Mike Hammer novel, My Gun is Quick. Looking at my virtual stack, I see I have two fantasy books coming up soon: H. Rider Haggard's Eric Brighteyes, which was apparently his attempt at an Icelandic saga sort of yarn, and William Morris's The Glittering Plain. The latter I think is the first of Morris's true fantasies - his earlier books along those lines, e.g. The Roots of the Mountains, were more or less straight historical fiction. Morris was very influential on later generations of English fantasy writers, including Tolkien, so I'm particularly looking forward to getting into his work.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 25, 2017 23:59:16 GMT -5
the Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden
Why do strong female characters always have to dress up as boys? I get it, it adds a small bit of historical accuracy, but just once I'd like them to not, and jsut be a strong female character.
Outside of that, though, this is a great sequel.. probably slightly better than the first book. It takes story from the countryside to Moscow, and adds a bit of politics to the fairy tale mix, with good results. Vasya is a fantastic main character.. she manages to make mistakes and feel like a real person and still be the hero. Having a literal deux ex machina helps, of course, but it worked really well.
There's plenty of good characters to go around, even Vasya's horse is awesome (is it wrong to have a horse be one's favorite character?) Their motivations stay consistent and logical throughout, which is nice, and they feel very authentic to the period. (I'm not sure if they actually are, as this is not an area I know much about).
Besides the story, there are plenty of interesting bits of Russian folklore and history that defintely make me want to check out an actual history book on the subject. Highly recommended!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2017 2:45:37 GMT -5
Finished the second novella in Joe Hill's Strange Weather collection, Loaded, a terrifying tale about gun violence. Just an absolutely chilling story.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2017 15:45:16 GMT -5
Have now finished three of the novellas in Joe Hill's Strange Weather, having read Aloft over the past few days. Of the three so far, I liked this one the least, mostly because I disliked the protagonist in so many ways. Was still an interesting read and an intriguing premise, well executed, I just couldn't connect with the main character, so it just didn't click with me.
-M
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Post by brutalis on Dec 28, 2017 16:30:59 GMT -5
The Myriad by RM Meluch When I grabbed this book (finally) after Brutalis' reviews, I was picturing David Weber-esque sci fi... what it really is, if you squint, is Star Trek fan fic. The Merrimack (love the civil war reference) is very Enterprise-like, and it's Captain, John Farragut, very much evokes images of Capt. Kirk. Maybe he's a little more personable and nicer. Augustus the 'patterner' from the rival star Empire (based on Rome, which is fun) could easily be Spock, if he was a sarcastic a-hole. Obviously, he was my favorite . The plot involves the Hive, which are somewhere between the Borg and the Buggers from Ender's Game, and are the reason the two human empires aren't at war, and a lost civilization that may have some sort of secret to stable worm holes. The people on the planet were right from TOS central casting, a mostly benevloent dictator that would have been right at home trading barbs, yet ultimately giving Capt. Kirk respect. In very Trek fashion, after a cool battle, there's time travel, and things reset in a most unpleasing way, making it unclear exactly what the heck is going on. That would have been fine if this actualyl was Star Trek, where you know what the canon is and what's going on, here it was painful.. characters dead came back, and my boy Augustus seems to have either gone back home or left all together. While the story and world were very good and definitely would encourage further reading, the time travel bit at the end (as usual) hurt my head and definitely makes me less enthused for further reading.. we'll see how it goes. Keep on reading because it just gets more crazy fun as you go. Yes some of the time travel isn't very well thought out but like you say it is the characters and action that makes the reading enjoyable. The arrogant Augustus is sheer joy to read. Farragut and Steele are pure testosterone action leaders and later on Callista Carmel becomes a true bad ass commander. For all of its flaws it is entertaining...
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