Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[orlok]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

One year, surely?

Er...yes, that does make sense .

[cgplenty]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

I just finished Virals by Kathy Reichs, the first in her YA series Virals. It tells the story of Temperance Brennan's niece, who is living in a research community in a remote area. She and her friends often visit a research island. There they get infected with something. Of course they also have to solve a mystery of a missing girl.

It was an okay read. Not as good as the Temperance Brennan books IMHO and not good enough for me to continue the series.

Virals was my introduction to Kathy Reichs, thanks to the now defunct audio book channel on SiriusXM Radio. I really enjoyed it and plan to read more of her books.

[cgplenty]

I just finished Grey Peril book #3 of the Harry Dresden Series by Jim Butcher and just started #4 Summer Knight. I started because I tend to go through books quickly (book #1 and 2 in 16 days, #3 in 10), and always hate when it's over. There are so many of these I just jump right into the next one.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by cgplenty

I just finished Grey Peril book #3 of the Harry Dresden Series by Jim Butcher and just started #4 Summer Knight. I started because I tend to go through books quickly (book #1 and 2 in 16 days, #3 in 10), and always hate when it's over. There are so many of these I just jump right into the next one.

That's quite a typo! Grey!! For the record it's Grave Peril.

[Yapyap]

I've started Partials by Dan Wells, post-apocalyptic/dystopia-ish YA. Tentatively rather enjoying it so far - there are some things I find it hard to suspend disbelief over, but the characters feel realistic and the plot, while still slow-going for now, seems solid.

Spoiler:

One thing I just find very hard to believe: if a war and then a virus, about eleven years before, has wiped out nearly all of humanity, apart from ~40,000 people who were immune to the virus, and every single baby born since then has died within days, I just can't believe it's not occurred to anyone before our 16-year-old protagonist now to test the blood of the immune survivors for the key to their immunity, instead of forcing everyone to give birth to more and more babies so they could test the babies when they inevitably die / hope that maybe eventually one is born immune.

They have the technology, there are plenty of adults still around, and in over ten years, it's not occurred to anyone to see what made those ~40,000 people immune when billions died (and newborns still keep dying)?

Maybe there's an explanation later on. ~hopes~

[CRussel]

Just finished listening to The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer, read by Sarah Woodward. Delightful. Heyer at her very best. I always prefer Heyers with audacious and strong female main characters, and Sophy is certainly that. Highly recommended, either as eBook or audio book.

[Dazrin]

I just finished my 5th "book" of the year with George R. Stewart's Earth Abides. A great post-apocalyptic tale from 1949. It is a much different take than most of the dystopian tales I have read in the last couple years, if you have any interest in the genre, I would recommend it.

Really this was only the second book I have finished this year, the other three average out to 10 pages each. Hugh Howey sent out a short in his latest news letter, A Father's Fist; a classic science fiction short, Microcosmic God by Theodore Sturgeon; and The School by Donald Barthelme from the list of short stories I nominated for December's book club. I recommend Microcosmic God highly too but the other two were just ok.

Next will be either Bridge to Terabithia or Fire Watch. My eldest is getting to be almost the age for the first story if I remember it correctly, so I want to re-read it first to check.

[MickeyC]

Just finished Inferno by Dan Brown based on a reco from HarryT and Belle Zora (who never gets it wrong) and it was very good with wholly unpredictable plot changes I never saw coming.

Next up Frozen Heat by Richard Castle

[HarryT]

Just finished "Cards on the Table", by Agatha Christie. This was her 27th book, and was originally published in 1936.

Mr. Shaitana holds a dinner party to which he invites four detectives, and four people he suspects of being murderers. After dinner, the four murderers play bridge in a room with Mr. Shaitana watching; after the game is over Mr. Shaitana is dead. One of the four must be the murderer, but who?

This is a wonderful book - one of my favourite Christie novels. The four detectives have all appeared in earlier Christie novels: Hercule Poirot, of course, together with Superintendent Battle (who appeared in "The Secrets of Chimneys" and "The Seven Dials Mystery"), Colonel Race (a secret service agent, who appeared in "The Man in the Brown Suit"), and the wonderful bumbling crime writer, Ariadne Oliver, who Christie wrote as a caricature of herself, and who would go on to feature in 5 more of Christie's novels.

The book is worth reading just for Ariadne Oliver alone. She is a famed writer of detective stories, and curses the fact that she invented a Finnish detective, "Sven Hjerson", to solve her crimes, because she knows absolutely nothing about Finland and is always getting letters from Finland telling her all the things she got wrong (the parallels with Christie's own Belgian detective, Poirot, are obvious!). Interesting enough, one of the books that Ariadne Oliver is said to have written is "The Body in the Library" - a title that Christie was to use for a Miss Marple novel a few years later!

The story is predicted in Christie's book, "The ABC Murders" which she'd published earlier that same year. In that book, Poirot is having a conversation with his friend, Captain Hastings, about what sort of murder he'd most like to solve, and he says the following:

‘Supposing,’ murmured Poirot, ‘that four people sit down to play bridge and one, the odd man out, sits in a chair by the fire. At the end of the evening the man by the fire is found dead. One of the four, while he is dummy, has gone over and killed him, and intent on the play of the hand, the other three have not noticed. Ah, there would be a crime for you! Which of the four was it?’

This is precisely the plot of "Cards on the Table", so Poirot didn't have to wait long to get his "perfect" murder to investigate!

A wonderful book with a real "twist in the tale" ending. HIGHLY recommended.

Note: Poirot gives away the solution to "Murder on the Orient Express" in this book, so be warned!

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

My 3rd book of the year will be Steelheart (Reckoners #1) by Brandon Sanderson.

I'm looking forward to this one. This will technically be my first Sanderson novel, as I stopped about a third of the way through the first Mistborn book. I do plan on going back and reading that whole series, though. I liked what I saw in Mistborn, but I just wasn't in the mood, at the time, to finish it.

Still reading Steelheart. Very interesting.

This was my update about it from Wednesday:

I wasn't really sure if I would enjoy this story after reading the violent & traumatic prologue... in fact I put it down for a couple of days. I'm now 14 chapters in and, I like it..so far. Its definitely written in a YA voice, but I don't think its really meant for a YA audience; at least not the younger end of the spectrum. I guess thats why they've now created the category "New Adult" .

One of the supporting characters, Megan, has me quite intrigued. I think, at this point, I'm almost more curious about her, than I am about if/how they succeed on their mission. In fact, seeing how Sanderson himself labels this as a YA series, I'm just assuming they do succeed - so really, Megan has most of my attention at the moment.

I have a lot of chores on my plate, but I really hope I can find the time to finish this today.
Schools are closed due to flooding in some of the surrounding areas (We got drenched last night.) So the kids and I are going to clean out their old playroom. They may have a surprise coming next Monday or Tuesday.

Spoiler:

Her name is Cricket and we're hoping to foster, and then possibly adopt her. I'm waiting to receive a follow up call from the rescue people later today.

I am very much keeping my fingers crossed!

[cgplenty]

Originally Posted by alansplace

That's quite a typo! Grey!! For the record it's Grave Peril.

That's what I get for sneaking a post while at work!!!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next I'll be reading my most recent Asimov's SF magazine.

Which was good. Some excellent stories in this month's issue.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next gift book is Terra by Mitch Benn, which I'll be reading at lunchtimes.

I've started this, and it's humorous in a good way, but I'm not sure whether I'm going to like it in the end. We shall see.

Next up: The Forever Engine by Frank Chadwick.

This is only his second published book but his first, How Dark the World Becomes got a 5/5 from me last January, so I was looking forward to this. To my surprise, it is not a sequel, but an entirely new universe. A professor of ancient history from 2018 is sent by accident to a steam-punk version of 1888. Looking very good so far!

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: The Forever Engine by Frank Chadwick.

This is only his second published book but his first, How Dark the World Becomes got a 5/5 from me last January, so I was looking forward to this. To my surprise, it is not a sequel, but an entirely new universe. A professor of ancient history from 2018 is sent by accident to a steam-punk version of 1888. Looking very good so far!

Normally I would have zero interest in a Steam-punk book, but Chadwick's first book was so good I have to give this one a try. Especially since I hadn't really expected much out of that first one and it turned into a 5/5 from me, too.

[Strether]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Just finished listening to The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer, read by Sarah Woodward. Delightful. Heyer at her very best. I always prefer Heyers with audacious and strong female main characters, and Sophy is certainly that. Highly recommended, either as eBook or audio book.

That's one of my favorites, too, and I gave it to my sister-in-law as an ebook for Christmas, and she enjoyed it also.

I suspect that that massing of all the characters at the end, with baby chicks underfoot and a poet wandering in and out was the inspiration for the hilarious dinner party in Bujold's A Civil Campaign.

Jim

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Strether

That's one of my favorites, too, and I gave it to my sister-in-law as an ebook for Christmas, and she enjoyed it also.

I suspect that that massing of all the characters at the end, with baby chicks underfoot and a poet wandering in and out was the inspiration for the hilarious dinner party in Bujold's A Civil Campaign.

Jim

Could well have been. I love having all these Heyer's here, thanks to the sales that we've had the last few years. Every time I need a break and want to just chuckle and enjoy myself, I pull one out. But now I have several as Audible books too, thanks to a coupon I got for Audible, combined with the WhisperSync for Voice special pricing on some of them.