Sci Fi and Fantasy

Cabinet of Wonders

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I loved, loved, LOVED The Cabinet of Wonders! I started it last night and could easily have just read it straight through. But, sleep is important to us old folk so I didn’t. As soon as I finished it, I handed it to RJ telling her she must, must MUST read it right this second. I hope she likes it as much as I did.

What great characters – I want Iris’s power, errr curse, errr power, lol. Acid is cool. Petra is fabulous. I want Astrophil. And the marbles… now wouldn’t those come in handy?

Fantastic story – just the right length and pace. Perfect. Good Cybils finalist! Great, even.

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Marsbound

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

I’m not really a SciFi fan so I would never have picked Marsbound from the library shelf. I would never have even looked at it close enough to see the author’s name and realize, “Hey, that’s Unca Joe!” that way TW did. I just don’t do much SciFi.

But man I’m glad that a) Lorena talks about her Unca Joe b) TW likes SciFi and pays attention to what Lorena says because Marsbound was excellent.

While TW was reading it, I asked her how it was – and she said good, sort of YA-like (though errr YA books don’t generally have their 18 or 19 year old teen girls having space sex with 30 year old men) and sort of “Acorna-like”.

TW was right, it was YA-like and it was Acorna-like because it’s such an easy and interesting read. You don’t have to work TOO hard to follow the story. The characters are likeable (except the “dragon lady”) and the story moves along at a fairly steady pace. No significant dragging, no jumping ahead and causing you to say “Hey, what happened there?!”

Loved the book. I want a sequel. Maybe an entire series.

Oh yea, also good – books about Gainesville that do not contain characters who are falling all over themselves to worship Gator football or basketball or any other GATOR sport. Nice touch, Unca Joe. Very nice.

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Wicked Witch & Curse

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Fiction, From the Stacks Challenge, Queer, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Women /

Wicked Witch & Curse caused an awful lot of confusion. TW was confused because all she saw on the cover was “Wicked” and she couldn’t figure out why I was reading Wicked for my From the Stacks Challenge – surely I’d read that years ago… (and yes, I had – I was not reading THAT Wicked.)

Then, I got confused because it turns out Wicked Witch & Curse is actually two books, in one. I was only a little more than halfway through the book and hit the “Epilogue” – huh? After the “Epilogue”… the next book started. Aye yi yi.

What’s really confusing (and also troubling) is that the story didn’t end at the end of “Wicked Curse” – there’s got to be at least one more volume and now I’m left wondering if I care enough about the characters or stories to track it down… I’m not sure.

It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either. And in the second “book”… the “familiar” incident was pretty troubling to me, which I find totally odd.

I might read more… but I probably won’t unless I just stumble upon another book.

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The Nymphos of Rocky Flats

2008, Books in Bed, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

aye yi yi just typing the title of this book leads me to worry about all of the porn spam I’m going to get. Don’t be surprised if you stumble in here and find comments closed on this post…

It was good but maybe not as good as the third book in the series, the Undead Kama Sutra. Once again, there were a lot of characters – I’d hoped that we would get a bit more background on some of the ones who appear in the third book, but we didn’t – we just got the dirt on Odin (which was helpful!) And we got a tiny glimpse of Carmen.

What was confusing to me was Felix’s feelings about “feeding” in this book – they didn’t gel with his behavior in book three. It took a long time to get all of that resolved and explained but that’s the price you pay for reading books in a series out of order.

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The Undead Kama Sutra

2008, Books in Bed, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

The Undead Kama Sutra is another one of those books plucked off of the “just returned” library shelf. Both the title and the cover were appealing, so into the bag it went.

Darn, it’s the third book in a series. I hate reading books out of order – even if you don’t have to read them all to know what’s going on, I think you get more out of the characters if you’ve watched them in the books that came before.

It’s a wee bit Christopher Moore-like, a wee bit Carl Hiaasen-like, it’s even a week bit Douglas Adams-like. It was also a wee bit amusing. Gotta go back and read the first two!

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Breaking Dawn

3 Comments / 2008, Books in Bed, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I did a pretty good job of avoiding spoilers for Breaking Dawn so I really did not know exactly what Meyer was going to do to resolve the problems with Bella (and the guys) leftover from Eclipse. I don’t think she really did resolve them but she did give Bella more strength and less wishy washyness than before. Too bad it took X to make Bella strong. (X = spoiler and while most people have already read spoilers or already read the book, I don’t want to risk it for those who haven’t.)

I wanted to throw the book about a hundred times. The patriarchy runs rampant! Geez.

And then, the Jacob storyline – how predictable. I figured the whole thing out before the first night on Esme Island. I think the only surprise for me was how the issue with the Volturi was handled – there at the end. I knew Alice was up to something but I didn’t quite know what or how.

When it all comes down to it, I liked Breaking Dawn a heck of a lot more than I liked Eclipse and I look forward to reading about errr the character named Nessie.

Oh, before I go… that racism thing? Just another reminder of why I have no respect for Alisa Valdez Rodriguez. Call out racism if it exists, I’m all for that and I’ll do it with you. But link baiting by falsely attacking someone else who has the spotlight is just wrong. (spoilers contained in the link.)

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First Among Sequels

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Fiction, From the Stacks Challenge, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Women /

Who knew it would take me so long to get around to reading Thursday Next: First Among Sequels? And who knew it would take me so long to finish, once I started.

I enjoyed it considerably more than the last one, but not as much as the first one and I can only barely remember the second one. Or maybe I’ve gotten them all confused, I think that probably happens – all of that time travel or time travel that wasn’t invented, all of those characters. It’s a bit muddled. Probably mindworms. Fun, but muddled.

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The Witch’s Dream

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Women /

Do not ask my why I read The Witch’s Dream. I started it because I thought it was on my “From the Stacks Challenge” list. It was in the box clearly labeled “FtSC” but when I went to look at my FtSC post, it was not there. By then, I’d already added it to my books widgety thing and didn’t feel like taking it off. So, I read it.

And at first, I was really grouchy about reading it. Not only was it NOT on my challenge list, it was confusing as all hell in the beginning. TW kept saying “It’s good! You’ll like it!” (I don’t know why she insists on telling me whether something is good or bad, after that whole Kiterunner incident of 2004 I’m not really listening to her book feedback.)

I kept reading it and by the end of the first night, about 100 pages in, I was hooked. Interesting as all hell and I did actually start to like those witches, mediums, healers and whatnots.

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The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Women /

The first book in what I hope will be a very long series, The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden was fantastic. It should not have taken me a week to read it. I wanted to read it all the way through, from the moment I picked it up. Maybe before I picked it up because TW loved it and I’ve read a lot of blog posts about other people loving it. I loved it.

But then again, I would.

I have a fondness for fairy tales and an even bigger fondness for creation stories.

Now I’m off to reserve the next book and hope it arrives before we move.

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