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

[Care]

I am starting Glory In Death. I really liked the first one, Naked In Death.

Finished Misguided angel and it was a flop.

[ATDrake]

Finished Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's A Mortal Glamour, which I thought would be a more-or-less straight historical about the secular world encroaching upon a religious retreat, but turned out to be a psychological horror novel about faith-fueled hysteria instead. Not that the seeds weren't planted throughout the story, but I'd kind of forgotten what the blurb was by the time I started reading. Pretty good, with nicely grounded detail into medieval attitudes and cloister practices etc. without being overwhelming.

Coincidentally, R.A. MacAvoy's Damiano's Lute, which I broke down and started flipping between AMG and, is also set in France during one of those periods where the Black Death was active and when the Popes were stationed at Avignon. Made for an interesting contrast, and both books certainly gave the built-in dictionary a workout (it choked on "terpsichorean"). Another book which took an unexpected direction which was in retrospect kind of telegraphed throughout.

This was apparently the Road-Trip of Self-Discovery volume in the Trilogy, and the final book, Raphael felt mildly superfluous afterwards, but it had an interesting guest appearance which made it kind of a surprise prequel to one of MacAvoy's other books. Suffers from the exact same errors (U instead of li, lack of scene breaks) as Damiano did; I suspect they were all scanned and processed in a batch, and I'll browse the used bookshops to see if they've got paper copies I can at least grab the scene break placements from.

Finished two paper books, Mischief in Mudbug and Showdown in Mudbug, which are sequels to Trouble in Mudbug by Janna De Leon, which was a free giveaway at Kobo or Borders some months back and which I was entertained by enough to pick up the next in series when I spotted them at the library.

I've discovered a mild liking for zany screwball romantic comedies, and these are mystery/thriller/suspense/humour variants on them, with the heroine of each book finding love while being targeted for death and assisted by an overbearing ghost who drives them to distraction. The first two were enjoyable enough, but the final book was a bit over-the-top, what with what turned out to be the suspension-of-disbelief-straining motivating factor for the attempted murder in that one. Yes, even accounting for the ghost premise.

Note to aspiring authors: when your character is supposed to be a highly skilled computer hacker yet seems to confuse IP with MAC address and uses the former as the reason why she has to abandon to destruction her cheapie laptops after each and every attempted system break-in session because it's now marked for life and the computer itself can and will be unmistakeably traced by the unique IP address the second time she uses it while sitting at a randomly-selected-and-varied Internet café, well, I'm just going to channel Morbo from Futurama and say: IP ADDRESSES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY.

Now dividing my time between Yarbro's Blood Games, one of her popular vampire Saint-Germain stories set in Neronian Rome, MacAvoy's Twisting the Rope, sequel to Tea with a Black Dragon, and starting Vonda N. McIntyre's Starfarers, which is currently a promotional free giveaway (for a limited time) at the BookView Café.

The first two are pretty good so far, but despite McIntyre's reputation, her prose just isn't doing it for me. I remember the same effect from trying her Star Trek novels, which seemed to have interesting ideas put together well enough, but for some reason just fell flat even though I was trying to like them. I'll give it a few more chapters, though.

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Finished Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's A Mortal Glamour, which I thought would be a more-or-less straight historical about the secular world encroaching upon a religious retreat, but turned out to be a psychological horror novel about faith-fueled hysteria instead. Not that the seeds weren't planted throughout the story, but I'd kind of forgotten what the blurb was by the time I started reading. Pretty good, with nicely grounded detail into medieval attitudes and cloister practices etc. without being overwhelming.

Coincidentally, R.A. MacAvoy's Damiano's Lute, which I broke down and started flipping between AMG and, is also set in France during one of those periods where the Black Death was active and when the Popes were stationed at Avignon. Made for an interesting contrast, and both books certainly gave the built-in dictionary a workout (it choked on "terpsichorean"). Another book which took an unexpected direction which was in retrospect kind of telegraphed throughout.

This was apparently the Road-Trip of Self-Discovery volume in the Trilogy, and the final book, Raphael felt mildly superfluous afterwards, but it had an interesting guest appearance which made it kind of a surprise prequel to one of MacAvoy's other books. Suffers from the exact same errors (U instead of li, lack of scene breaks) as Damiano did; I suspect they were all scanned and processed in a batch, and I'll browse the used bookshops to see if they've got paper copies I can at least grab the scene break placements from.

Finished two paper books, Mischief in Mudbug and Showdown in Mudbug, which are sequels to Trouble in Mudbug by Janna De Leon, which was a free giveaway at Kobo or Borders some months back and which I was entertained by enough to pick up the next in series when I spotted them at the library.

I've discovered a mild liking for zany screwball romantic comedies, and these are mystery/thriller/suspense/humour variants on them, with the heroine of each book finding love while being targeted for death and assisted by an overbearing ghost who drives them to distraction. The first two were enjoyable enough, but the final book was a bit over-the-top, what with what turned out to be the suspension-of-disbelief-straining motivating factor for the attempted murder in that one. Yes, even accounting for the ghost premise.

Note to aspiring authors: when your character is supposed to be a highly skilled computer hacker yet seems to confuse IP with MAC address and uses the former as the reason why she has to abandon to destruction her cheapie laptops after each and every attempted system break-in session because it's now marked for life and the computer itself can and will be unmistakeably traced by the unique IP address the second time she uses it while sitting at a randomly-selected-and-varied Internet café, well, I'm just going to channel Morbo from Futurama and say: IP ADDRESSES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY.

Now dividing my time between Yarbro's Blood Games, one of her popular vampire Saint-Germain stories set in Neronian Rome, MacAvoy's Twisting the Rope, sequel to Tea with a Black Dragon, and starting Vonda N. McIntyre's Starfarers, which is currently a promotional free giveaway (for a limited time) at the BookView Café.

The first two are pretty good so far, but despite McIntyre's reputation, her prose just isn't doing it for me. I remember the same effect from trying her Star Trek novels, which seemed to have interesting ideas put together well enough, but for some reason just fell flat even though I was trying to like them. I'll give it a few more chapters, though.

I absolutely ADORE Jana Deleon's Mudbug series. The first one had me laughing so hard I snorted tea on my monitor. (Yeah, I know, nice visual hmm?)

At the moment I seem to be hooked on historical mysteries. I just finished the first three in the Lady Julia Grey series by Deanna Raybourn, and thoroughly enjoyed them. Now I'm on to A Cadger's Curse by Diane Gilbert Madsen.

[hellraiser06]

Just got done with "Stars, like dust" by Isaac Asimov. Am going to start either Farseer trilogy or Outlander book two next, not sure which.

Happy New year people.......

[MickeyC]

Originally Posted by Paul Levine

Started Michael Connelly's "The Reversal." He uses the technique of first-person POV for lawyer Mickey Haller, then third-person for other characters, including Harry Bosch.

He's used that technique in other books and it works.

Would be interested in your opinion of The Reversal. I just read Nine Dragons and though it was one of his better books

[issybird]

Just finished Suite Française and before that Wolf Hall. Don't know what's up next.

[SeaBookGuy]

Print: I'm nearly finished with A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses -- one of those impulse grabs off the library's New Books shelf, that turned out great, definitely recommended!

Ebook: Last night I started Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America, a library download, and
another that's definitely recommended!

Audio: Now that Overdrive's back to normal (fingers crossed for the Holiday weekend!), I've gotten out
Miss Mapp, the third in Benson's "Lucia" sextet.

[lilac_jive]

I finally just finished "The Good, The Bad, and The Undead" by Kim Harrison which I picked up for $1.99. The first half was incredibly boring to me, but it finally picked up in the second half enough for me to consider buying the third book.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

I finally just finished "The Good, The Bad, and The Undead" by Kim Harrison which I picked up for $1.99. The first half was incredibly boring to me, but it finally picked up in the second half enough for me to consider buying the third book.

I have most of The Hollows/Rachel Morgan series and am enjoying it. I think I'm either missing the last book or the last two books, not sure. I wait for them to come out in paperback. What I like most are the characters and their interactions with one another.

[Phebe]

I'm reading Surface Detail (on the iPad) by Iain M. Banks, this author using his middle initial to differentiate his "Contact" or Culture novels from other work.

These are delightful sci-fis, of a vaguely British "Culture" spread out in large ships with very high artificial intelligence all over the galaxy (no planets, all navy). The ships have ominous names reminiscent of the Royal Navy, which actually DID have ships named Lurcher, Irresistable, Inflexible, and other comically dire names.

The Culture ships have names like "I'm Counting," "I Blame the Parents," and "Well Paved and Gently Sloping."

The Culture has a diplomatic service named "Contact," which tries to improve with negotiation some of the worst of the pan-human civilizations, and their "Special Circumstances" branch with license to kill and very amusing flying drone robots of high intelligence and personality to do the killing with.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by Phebe

... the Royal Navy, which actually DID have ships named Lurcher, Irresistable, Inflexible, and other comically dire names ...

If HMS Lurcher, HMS Irresistible and HMS Inflexible are comical, then perhaps HMS Enterprise would be more apt.

[Rakgi]

Finished reading The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène
Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar by Maurice Leblanc this morning, starting The Blonde Lady(aka Arsène Lupin vs. Herlock Sholmes) next.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy

Audio: Now that Overdrive's back to normal (fingers crossed for the Holiday weekend!), I've gotten out
Miss Mapp, the third in Benson's "Lucia" sextet.

How are the Lucia books as audio? I just checked out my first audiobook, Cleopatra, but it will wait for drivetime Monday. The news is too depressing to listen to these days, I decided.

Otherwise, I've started The Perfect Summer by Juliet Nicolson. Nothing I don't know, but I can't revist that time too often.

[SeaBookGuy]

They aren't bad - there are only #1 and #3 available (public domain items) at present, but I'm looking forward to reading the last three as part of the Lucia omnibus available here at MR.

Some other time I'll tackle Miss Read's series set at Thrush Green. I liked her Fairacre ones read by Sian Phillips (Empress Livia from the "I,Claudius" television drama).

[issybird]

I've read both the Fairacre and Thrush Green books; I think the Thrush Green ones are technically better, since they're in the third person. But I loved Sian Phillips in Claudius! I shall have to look more closely at the audio options at my Overdrive libraries, once I see how Cleopatra goes. Shall have to check for the Lucia ones, too--that would be a pleasant way to kill my commute and it wouldn't matter if I zoned out, as I am wont to do. I have those books darn near memorized.