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

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by alansplace

I enjoyed reading The Horrible Man a lot.

Next, a freebie from Amazon, The Harbinger Collection by Carolyn McCray. I'll start with the 1st selection, a short story called Anatomy.

I read the prequel short story, Anatomy and enjoyed it, but after starting the first novel, Plain Jane, I decided I was not interested in continuing it. Next I tried a Kindle $0.99 special titled, Queen Mab: A Tale Entwined with William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet by Kate Danley.



I got 7% into it and then realized that I'd not yet read the newest Nikki Heat novel , so began reading Driving Heat (Nikki Heat #7) by Richard Castle. It's pretty likely that I'll actually finish reading this one!

[BenG]

My year in books according to Goodreads.

https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_...s/2015/1637717

[BookJunkieLI]

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

Good question. I am one of those scientific-minded persons who likes to read all the nitty-gritty details (but skip the equations because I've only learned up to trig), and to me these books read like a broad overview suited more to the disinterested teenager than to someone like myself.

I guess I am just a little beyond the intended audience for Charles River... I'm more interested in white papers and college-level theses.

Thanks for the info. Sometimes I'm in the mood for nitty-gritty detail and sometimes I just want the For Dummies version. At least now I know where these will tend to fall on that scale.

[ATDrake]

Finally got caught up with some favourite series I've been following for years, but had neglected to read the more recent installments of until now.

Returned to the library Clariel by Garth Nix, a standalone prequel novel to his Old Kingdom YA fantasy series, which was an interesting look into a past version of said kingdom. It's set about 600 years before Sabriel, and the world has a more retro-period feel to it, with Guilds and etiquette lessons for the titular character, as well as some political intrigue (and the obligatory dangers of the Free Magic necromantic creatures plot).

We get to find out the history of a few things that were mentioned in the later books. And given that this doesn't seem to have the constraints of the current ongoing "modern" series in terms of continuing the story of the leads, this went to somewhat unexpectedly darker and more surprising places with what it was willing to do with its characters. But some of the conditions that led to that did seem rather artificially contrived in order to set up the main character to take a particular path by essentially pushing her in that direction.

Overall, medium entertaining. It wasn't as compelling as previous books in the series and some of the personal/political situations felt shaky, but the eventual character outcome did feel somewhat novel for YA, and I liked the additional world-building things we learned about how the Old Kingdom used to be before the Interregnum, back when there was a thriving civilization that didn't live in complete fear of the risen dead and various dread creatures, and Charter Magic was integrated into daily life and professional occupations.

Nicholas Sayre and the Creature in the Case is a novella in Nix's collection Across the Wall & Other Stories, which I've owned for years but never got around to reading until now. It's set directly after Abhorsen and follows up directly on several threads from that, while providing an adventure in which the titular Nicholas has to use what he learned from his inadvertent experiences in the Old Kingdom to deal with the titular Free Magic Creature while in mostly-magicless Ancelstierre, far from magical aid. I rather liked this one, which blended a solid standalone adventure tale with story-relevant character catch-up from the dramatic events of the main series. Apparently, there will be another book in the series which will directly follow this novella.

To Hold the Bridge from Nix's newest eponymous collection which I bought during a Kobo sale a few months ago, is another novella, this one a standalone set in some indefinite unspecified period before the Interregnum, and probably going to be my last completed read of the year. It's a coming of age tale for a young man from an unfortunate background, seeking a relatively secure place for him among some sort of guardian crew for the titular bridge, which is an important defense against both mundane and magical invasions. It seemed pretty standard for that sort of thing, but charmingly told, with a nice amount of detail about the setting which made it feel different from those of Clariel and Sabriel, but still part of the same universe.

All recommended as worthwhile continuations of a solidly entertaining YA fantasy series with a very interesting magic system setup and world backstory.

Starting in on Diane Duane's Interim Errantry novella collection in her Young Wizards series, which I bought during one of her holiday sales and is one of my current unfinished titles, made me realize that I'd never gotten around to reading my previously also holiday-sale-purchased A Wizard of Mars, which is the latest YW novel until the new one is published next year, and which it turns out the IE stories directly follow up from.

This was pretty standard for a YW tale. Strange stuff is going on on Mars, which has to do with some vanished species' Choice or other wizardly decisions, the YW kids go to investigate (well, Nita and Kit and their friends do, since Dairine seems to be occupied dealing with some aftermath from Wizards at War), and thwart the Lone Power's schemes yet again. It seems to be a partial tribute to Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom, and has some nods to H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds and other sfnal and NASA Martian things.

Mild recommend. It was quite readable and overall okay, and it seems to be one of the more self-contained novels, although it does continue to advance various continuing plot threads from previously in the series. But I didn't find it as interesting or compelling as previous installments, and I'm not too convinced that some of the personal developments are all that good an idea. If one is a fan of old-school pulp Mars depictions, YMMV.

[Apache]

I finished the old year in the middle of 1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies and started the new year in the same spot.
Apache

[CRussel]

I finished the year by reading a Miss Silver book from Patricia Wentworth - The Chinese Shawl. This was #5 in the series, and an excellent version.

All of Patricia Wentworth's books are in the Public Domain in Canada, and are available for download from FadedPage. (Please only use this link if she is also in the public domain where you are! If you are where she isn't in the public domain, such as all Life+75 countries, you can find excellent versions of these books on Kindle Unlimited or for reasonable prices from your favourite reseller. Or check out your Public Library!)

I highly recommend the Miss Silver books for anyone who enjoys a good English cozy mystery, and especially for fans of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, who very much follows on in the tradition started by Miss Silver.

Having ended the year with Miss Silver, I rather think I'll start the new year with another. Next in the series is Miss Silver Deals With Death.

[astrangerhere]

Just started a book that has been on my physical shelves for a few years but that I had not yet got to:

Shinto the Kami Way by Sokyo Ono

[fantasyfan]

This is a remarkable novel. Normally, I love a book with a well-wrought plot and this story concerns nothing more than a community performing a play written by the local celebrity poet, Stanhope. But into this apparently innocuous framework Williams introduces a suicide and a doppelgänger. Further, the various characters involved in the play soon reveal various jealousies, motives and rivalries.

As usual, Williams is adroit in creating believable and sympathetic women. Margaret and Pauline Anstruher are examples. Margaret is Pauline's dying grandmother and is a beautifully drawn character. She gives me an idea of what Sybil of "The Greater Trumps" might have become. Pauline is a deeply tormented person and through her relationship with Stanhope we learn of the law of "substituted love", an aspect of Williams' theological concept of Co-inherence.

Finally, there is the strange, ambiguous figure of the historian, Wentworth. Much of the novel focuses on his choices and he is the character that gives the novel its name.

"Descent Into Hell" weaves a brilliant tapestry of symbolism, mysticism, philosophy, spirituality, life, death and intensely powerful psychological characterisation. It is a novel that goes to the roots of being and combines the visions of the eagle and the worm. It is frightening and consoling.

It is unforgettable.

[Nyssa]

I started my first book of the year, Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick, earlier today. I've had to start over a few times - the intro was a bit confusing, my ability to concentrate has been a bit off, and there have been quite a few distractions - but I think I'm finally at a spot where I can continue less inhibited. The antagonist is quite intriguing and I'm look forward to seeing what happens by the end.

[Dngrsone]

Currently reading the fourth V.I. Warshawski novel, Bitter Medicine by Sara Paretsky. After that, I think I will tackle one of the Free Kindle books of the month.

[ATDrake]

Finished the first completed read of the new year (technically, it was half-started before that, but only about 50% through): Denise Rudberg's A Small Indiscretion, which appears to be the 1st in her Marianne Jidhoff series of Stockholm-set crime novels starring a widow returning to the workforce as the secretary for a prosecutor. This was an AmazonCrossing translation title I bought when it was on sale last year, and the bio-blurb for the author says that she was known as the "Queen of Swedish Chick-Lit" before she turned her hand to writing mysteries as well.

With that in mind, I was kind of expecting a lighter, fluffier tone to this than the rather darker and gloomier mood that seems to be the trend in most "Nordic Noir" novels, but it seemed actually pretty standard in approach, with perhaps the chick-lit elements coming in with the greater incorporation of class divides depicted via assorted behaviour in social circles and relative fashionability and such. And there was something of an emphasis on failed marriages and infidelity dramas, but that might have simply because they provided fodder for the criminal motivation.

Anyway, this set up an interesting intertwining drama that mixed both the actual casework as well as the returning-to-the-workforce office politics and personal complications in the lives of all the leads, with four sets of shifting POVs between the middle-aged Marianne who's returning to the workforce after taking a year off to care for her deceased husband whose inadvertent deathbed confession involved revealing that he'd been cheating on her and encounters hostilities from her replacement co-workers, divorced policeman Torsten who apparently works for her boss' office and will be reporting to her in between juggling a teenaged son and getting used to a new police partner who investigates a fatal hit-and-run, a lonely and dissatisfied suburban housewife who's the apparent victim of a stalker her husband doesn't believe exists, and the apparent stalker with an unknown but disturbing agenda.

While this sounds like it could get overly-complicated, actually all the story threads were delineated quite clearly, with each POV dealing with a particular aspect of the central case and keeping them quite separate apart from the bits where they would naturally overlap, as characters intersected by calling each other for help (or just to leave creepy messages), but otherwise having their own fully-developed activities and inner lives to return to.

The effect when reading was of a neatly laid-out web that didn't really need to be untangled, just followed to the centre as the plot points began to hook up more and more. This was also pretty strong on character development, which seemed to be done with a good deal of depth for many of the individuals involved, and gave the impression that their lives would be continuing into the next novels (and didn't wrap up at the end of this one, with some clear "to be continued" hints at the end).

Medium recommend if you think you might be interested. The setup and setting seem a little unusual for typical Scandinavian crime subgenre, with more social and personal and background cultural stuff incorporated into it than seems to usually be the case, but not overly so, adding up to a nifty peek into Swedish society. And the story is unfolded rather neatly, even if the wrap-up and explanation feels slightly rushed and sketchy in relation to the slow set-up of whodunnit. I ended up liking this a bit more than I thought I might, and I'm interested enough to buy further installments if AmazonCrossing translates them (and for that matter, Rudberg's "Swedish Chick-Lit", just to see what it looks like).

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Lucifer's Crown by Lillian Stewart Carl

OK, but not wonderful for me. I couldn't suspend my disbelief in the situation or the characters.

Next up: Lock In by John Scalzi. A recent purchase - November 2015!

[MatthewAngelo]

I am reading Patrick Son of Ireland by Stephen Lawhead. I'm not used to reading historical fantasy fiction, but I find this one quite fascinating.

[PurpleStar]

A little over halfway through Come the Revolution by Frank Chadwick. This series is addicting somehow.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by PurpleStar

A little over halfway through Come the Revolution by Frank Chadwick. This series is addicting somehow.

Isn't it? And in a completely unexpected way. I only read the first in the series out of curiosity, and since I had it for free in the bundle. But then I was hooked.