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

[bizzybody]

Originally Posted by Quelch

Slow Burn: A Zombie Apocalypse by Bobby Adair
Up to (Book 5): Torrent, two more books to go in the series

Mostly read sci-fi but got into Zombies after seeing a movie about Zombies featuring Woody Harrelson, Zombieland, it was such good fun I decided to try reading a Zombie ebook or two !

You like zombies? Try John Ringo's "Black Tide Rising" series. It's in the vein of "28 Days Later" and the Will Smith remake of "I Am Legend" since the zombies aren't dead, they are done by a virus cooked up by a terrorist. Unlike those movies Ringo's zombies suffer irreparable brain damage so the only "cure" for them is bullets, lots of bullets.

One of the major protagonists is a 12 year old girl who is tall for her age, and (along with her older, normal height, sister), benefited from their father being former Australian Special Forces and insisting his girls know how to shoot. As pre-teen Hope says "Make them lay down and be *good* zombies."

There's plenty of strong language and sexual matter and nudity, especially the zombies. The first sign of zombification is formication (that's an M not an N) which gets the victims to remove their clothes before their brains fry. Zombies don't know how to use toilets, or to drop their drawers before they go so keeping their pants on would be bad for them - whomever designed the virus was quite specific in its effects and after four books Ringo hasn't let the terrorist out of the bag. He's making us wait while he works on other books.

One funny thing/error, in the eARC Ringo ended a scene in one book with the placeholder <big splosions here> and Baen put that into the published edition instead of the scene ending he later wrote. I need to get the latest ebook version to see if they fixed it. Which is better? big splosions here or a lengthy description of submarine launched cruse missiles obliterating a zombie horde, with big splosions?

[HarryT]

Just finished "The Wizardry Consulted" by Rick Cook, originally bought from Baen in 2001. This is the fourth book in the "Wiz Biz" series, and forms the second half of the "Cursed and Consulted" Baen omnibus. Tremendous fun, as is the rest of the series. Highly recommended.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

WAnd now: The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein. This has been recommended by some people here, so I decided to give it a go.

And I'm glad I did. Indeed, I've just bought the next three in the series. The covers are awful. And there was an infelicity and a couple of typos. early on in the book. But it's a good story with interesting characters in a world where we can guess lots more about it then the main characters, which is fun. I'm looking forward to reading the rest.

Next up: Grantville Gazette #60!

[zebradude]

I'm a BIG fan of the "Dresden files" as well as "The Iron Druid Chronicles". As I wait for the next Chapter in either series I have come across the "Sandman Slim" series and I have become hooked!

Quite Dark and different from what I normally read but really into it!

half way through "Aloha from Hell" and it's a WILD ride!

[elaysee]

I read Scott Hawkins' The Library at Mount Char a few days ago, and I thought it worth a large fraction of the hype it seems to be accruing. It's a newly published contemporary fantasy, and I'm not quite sure what to compare it to - certainly not an urban fantasy in the sense of that subgenre. If it doesn't end up somewhere among my favorite books published this year, I'll have had a most excellent year's reading.

For me, it was the type of book where I readjusted my understanding of the characters and what was going on several times throughout. I did think the ending was a bit weaker than much of the book, but if you read it, I think you'll agree it's an awfully difficult ending to pull off well.

In my view, the blurb is one of those that describes a book with a similar plot to the actual one, while failing to convey the flavor of the actual book.

Carolyn's not so different from the other human beings around her. She's sure of it. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. She even remembers what clothes are for.

After all, she was a normal American herself, once.

That was a long time ago, of course—before the time she calls “adoption day,” when she and a dozen other children found themselves being raised by a man they learned to call Father.

Father could do strange things. He could call light from darkness. Sometimes he raised the dead. And when he was disobeyed, the consequences were terrible.

In the years since Father took her in, Carolyn hasn't gotten out much. Instead, she and her adopted siblings have been raised according to Father's ancient Pelapi customs. They've studied the books in his library and learned some of the secrets behind his equally ancient power.

Sometimes, they've wondered if their cruel tutor might secretly be God.

Now, Father is missing. And if God truly is dead, the only thing that matters is who will inherit his library—and with it, power over all of creation.

As Carolyn gathers the tools she needs for the battle to come, fierce competitors for this prize align against her.

But Carolyn can win. She's sure of it. What she doesn't realize is that her victory may come at an unacceptable price—because in becoming a God, she's forgotten a great deal about being human.

[Apache]

I read both Lieutenant and Captain by Jonathan P. Brazee and I just started Foreign Deceit by Jeff Carson. I plan to start reading The Dying Season by Martin Walker next. It is number nine in the Bruno Chief of Police series. Although I am very tempted to start in now and finish Foreign Deceit after.
Apache

[Rev. Bob]

I've just started the fourth book (of six) in the Saving Mars series. Good, solid YA SF that irritates me with weird formatting. For instance, in book three the author decided that hyphens ought to be en-dashes... or, as it would appear in the text, "en–dashes." It's a little thing, something you wouldn't think would stick out, but it does. At least en-dashes are only used for that in these books, so a quick search/replace will fix it easily enough. (Dashes between phrases are em-dashes, which work fine.)

Aside from those quirks, the story itself is fine. There are a lot of threads to keep track of, and it takes me a while to progress simply because I don't have much uninterrupted reading time of late, but I can easily plow through half a book in one sitting if I have that time.

[bfisher]

Finished Tubby Dubonnet #3 "Trick Question". On to #4 "Shelter From the Storm". Still highly entertaining.

[Pulpmeister]

The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything, by John D MacDonald.

I picked Fawcett gold medal original cheap, thinking it was a typical early MacDonald hard-boiled crime novel. Imagine my surprise to find that it is a comic crime novel with an sf twist.

Damn good fun and I'm glad I got it.

(I see from Dr Wikipedia that it is one of just 3 sf novels written by MacDonald, although I knew he did write many sf short stories in the 40s and 50s. Now I guess I'll have to hunt down the other two novels.)

[HarryT]

Just finished "Artifact" by Gregory Benford. Excellent hard SF. An American archaeological expedition uncovers a mysterious black cube in a Mycenaean tomb in Greece. The book describes the scientific examinations which uncover the mysterious properties of the cube, and the process of deduction which leads to an understanding what it is, and does, set against a background of international intrigue. Very good indeed.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Grantville Gazette #60!

Which was the usal mix of short stories set in the 1632 universe. Fun.

Moving on: Outskirter's Secret by Rosemary Kirstein. The second in her Steerswoman series.

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything, by John D MacDonald.

I picked Fawcett gold medal original cheap, thinking it was a typical early MacDonald hard-boiled crime novel. Imagine my surprise to find that it is a comic crime novel with an sf twist.

Damn good fun and I'm glad I got it.

(I see from Dr Wikipedia that it is one of just 3 sf novels written by MacDonald, although I knew he did write many sf short stories in the 40s and 50s. Now I guess I'll have to hunt down the other two novels.)

I read a lot of his Travis McGee novels back in the day. I hadn't realized he also wrote SF; I'll have to look out for that. I have his "The Executioners" on my TBR - that's the book the Cape Fear movies was based on.

Update: It's available as an ebook (http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Gold-Watc.../dp/081298529X), but pricey, at least in Canada - I'm shocked
His books were released as ebooks in 2013 - I guess his estate finally got it together. A nice article here on him - http://www.popmatters.com/column/the-end-of-the-night/

[Fbone]

Finished another library book The Monkey's Raincoat by Robert Crais. This was a Goodreads recommendation that I enjoyed very much. Written in 1987 it had that classic PI feel that may have been influenced by Chandler and Hammett. Writing solid with good character development. The awards this title received were deserved. A couple of things that keep me from giving this a higher rating. There were three overly obvious coincidences that made the plot wrap up very neatly and the main character hopped into women's beds too quickly. Rated B- [3 stars].

Next will be Star Wars: Allegiance by Timothy Zahn, a recent Kobo purchase.

[bfisher]

Finished Tubby Dubonnet #4 "Shelter From the Storm". Very tempted to go straight on to #5, but must stop the madness

And now for something completely different, started Jack Ludlow's "The Last Roman: Honour". Currently at the point where Justinian has engineered the succession to the purple of his uncle Justinus, with the assistance of Belisarius.

[Dngrsone]

Finished Triumph: Collected Stories by Lizzie Harwood as well as Next Stop Execution: The Autobiography of Oleg Gordievsky by Oleg Gordievsky (natch).

Harwood's were less like short stories than vignettes; powerful, and engaging writing, though. I was a bit overwhelmed trying to go from scene to scene, always a female first-person POV but oftentimes entirely different stories; so I switched between her book and Gordievsky's.

Harwood's offering was, I believe a free one, designed to advertise some of her novel-length books, some of the characters of which were featured here.

Gordievsky's was the more interesting to me: he was a KGB agent who began working for the British in the 70's and early '80s. Once his cover was blown and the KGB interrogated him, he managed to escape to England and continued to give the West crucial insight into the operations and mindsets of the Soviet Union and the KGB in particular.

Now starting 1066: The Hidden History in the Bayeux Tapestry by Andrew Bridgeford.