Sunday, June 6, 2010

The Leaning Pile of Books

On the reviewing front, I've finished a draft of Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews so I'm hoping to get that up next week, perhaps with the other review I've begun (Servant of a Dark God by John Brown). There are two more to write after that one, including Magic Strikes. I'm also nearly halfway through Magic Bleeds so I should be reviewing all the books in the Kate Daniels series in the near future.

This week I got one book. I was ordering a birthday present for my husband and needed to order something else if I wanted free shipping so of course I had to add something from my wish list...


Song of Scarabaeus by Sara Creasy

This romantic science fiction book just came out in May, but I've had my eye on it for months. Linnea Sinclair made a comment on Goodreads about it being similar to Ann Aguirre's books so that caused me to immediately add it to my wish list. Robin Hobb also said it blended plot/action with well-rounded characters - sounds good to me!

The best cypherteck in the galaxy, Edie can reinvent planets with little more than a thought. Trained since childhood in advanced biocyph seed technology by the all-powerful Crib empire, her mission is to terraform alien worlds while her masters bleed the outlawed Fringe populations dry. When renegade mercenaries kidnap Edie, she's not entirely sure it's a bad thing… until they leash her to a bodyguard, Finn—a former freedom fighter-turned-slave, beaten down but never broken. If Edie strays from Finn's side, he dies. If she doesn't cooperate, the pirates will kill them both.

But Edie's abilities far surpass anything her enemies imagine. And now, with Finn her only ally as the merciless Crib closes in, she'll have to prove it or die on the site of her only failure… a world called Scarabaeus.

5 comments:

Anastasia said...

That sounds interesting! I'm in the mood for pulp. For the past year, I've mostly been reading moody melancholy literary fantasy, and I'm reading for a break. So I just ordered the first 3 of the Ilona Andrews books. Your unabashed endorsement of the books, as well as the comments I read on Amazon (the posts in the book forum actually, with fans talking among themselves rather than the reviews, actually) convinced me. People talked about how awful and misleading the book titles and covers are, and compared the books to Joss Whedon's series.

I look forward to reading these books, as well as lots more military scifi and epic fantasy :-)

Anastasia said...

Also - the Hugos! I've paid my $80 and received the Hugo packet - PDF's of all the nominated novels, novellas, short stories, art, etc. It's actually an AWESOME deal. So my goal is to read all of them before the July 31st deadline and vote.

I just saw that Calico Reaction recently did a giveaway The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, which is one of the nominees for Best Novel, and that triggered my memory. I really want to vote for Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente, which is one of my favorite novels ever, but to be fair, I'll have to read the other nominees as well.

Kristen said...

Anastasia - I keep finding myself drawn to lighter books lately. After I move again and all this craziness is over, I hope to finally read some more complex books (like Calenture which I must read this year!).

I hope you like the Ilona Andrews books. The first book had an interesting setting, but I felt like the plot meandered for the first half and it took me a while to warm up to Kate. The second book was an improvement - Kate was more sympathetic and it seemed to flow better (I should have a review of this one up this week).

But the third and fourth books are what really hooked me. They moved at a good pace and had such a great combination of character moments and action. And I just loved some of the revelations that came up, especially in the third book. But there were still more hints to speculate on, too, and I have just really gotten into theorizing about one of them. Once I started the third book, it became one of those series that really clicked for me.

What are you planning to read for military scifi and epic fantasy?

Reading all the Hugo nominees sounds fun! There are several books on this year's ballot that sound interesting. Let me know what you think. I've always thought it would be fun to vote on those, but I also wouldn't want to without reading every book and that's always sounded like a big undertaking to me at the rate I read.

And thank you again for letting me stay with you in NYC - it was so great to meet you!

orannia said...

Oh, that does sounds like an interesting book.

Oh, and I started Magic Bleeds today. So far so good :)

Kristen said...

Orannia - It does sound interesting and Linnea Sinclair and Robin Hobb both endorsing it just makes it sound even better to me.

I saw you started Magic Bleeds on Goodreads! It is so good. I finished it last night and am kind of sad I read it so soon after the release date since now it will be a while before I can read another book in the series (don't worry, it doesn't have a big cliffhanger ending or anything, I'm just really hooked now and want more).