Sci Fi and Fantasy

Tithe

2006, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale was a nice little young adult DARK fantasy novel. A pixie changling, black knights, some faery queens, kelpies and just about any other fae being you can think of are included here. Completely fun and probably a little scarey at times for young readers just venturing into DARK fantasy faerie worlds. Oh and there’s some gay boy stuff tossed in for good measure, too. Pay attention the DARK descriptive I keep using. It is dark. This is not a light-hearted aren’t the faeries cute sort of tale. There’s a line about how the sunset looks like slit wrists in the bathtub, a pretty dumb but interesting line and an example of the type of “shock” writing in here.

This isn’t a series but there is another by the same author called Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie. I guess I’ll try and reserve that at the library too.

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Sky Pirates

2006, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

The fifth book in The Edge Chronicles Series was better than the last couple have been. Possibly because Twig, hero of book one, is back – granted he’s and old dude now but he’s still back.

And while more Banderbears are killed in this book than in any others, I wasn’t quite as troubled as I have been in the other books. RJ bought the 6th book a few months ago so I don’t have to wait til my library list gets short before reading it. Which is good, because Rook returns in this one, as does Vox, and I think I’ll enjoy it.

Care to guess about the Banderbear death count in the next one? I’m guessing at least one but probably 2 will die. Sigh.

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Over Easy or Scrambled?

2 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

From the author of the Thursday Next series, Nursery Crimes! The first installment, The Big Over Easy, asks was he pushed? Did he get sloshed and fall off? Was it suicide? Just what really happened to Humpty Dumpty? Jack (the giant killer!) and Mary, Mary don’t stop til they find out!

TW read this months ago and I’ve started it two or three times, never quite getting past the first chapter or two. I was afraid I was going to hate it, or at least be disappointed, so I kept putting it off. I should have read it months ago, it was fun!

TW says not as good as the Thursday Next books but I think it might have been better. TW liked the really ridiculous inventions and stuff in Thursday Next more than I did. I really enjoyed the nusery rhyme character twists more than she did. Regardless, both series are fun. I can’t wait for the next Nursery Crime – The Fourth Bear. And of course more Thursday Next are always welcome.

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The Lightning Thief

2005, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

TW, Michelle and I really enjoyed listening to The Lightning Thief on the way to Charleston and back again this weekend. Michelle seemed highly disappointed when it was over. She’ll be glad to hear the next book in the series is coming soon – though April seems a long time to wait, at least it’s not like waiting for the next HP book.

Percy Jackson is a troubled 12 year old who finally discovers just WHY he’s troubled – he’s a half-God, son of …. I won’t tell you whose son he is because that would ruin a good part of the book for you. Imagine being half mortal and half God… and having monsters sniffing around after you to try and kill you for being half-God. Troublin, troubling, troubling!

A quest, lots of monsters, lots of Greek mythology presented in a fun way.

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Trolls and Gay Boys???

2005, Books in Bed, Fiction, GLBT, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

Troll: A love story – now that was a weird book! I can barely believe that I spent time on this little bit of fantasy but on the other hand it was oddly endearing. Weird but endearing? So that’s why I spent time on it!

A gay man and those who love him (which include a veterinarian, a Filipina mail order prostitute bride, a not-gay man who is really gay, some other really smart dude with a lot of books and a troll cub). WEIRD, WEIRD, WEIRD.

Really short chapters with bits of troll lore and news articles and stuff tossed in between the chapters. Weird, weird, weird.

I mostly didn’t understand the abused Filipina prostitute mail order bride bit. Was that really necessary to the story? I mean really.

I don’t think I can actually recommend this but if you’re looking for weird gay boy troll stories, this is a good one.

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I finished a book! Son of a ….

2005, Books in Bed, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

I’m not sure how long it’s been since I finished a book but today I am happy to report I FINISHED! Son of a Witch, by Gregory Maguire. Yea Me! Even bigger Yea Me ’cause TW didn’t finish it. She said it bored her to death. I don’t know why it bored her, except that she didn’t really like any of Maguire’s books very much. I liked all of them except Lost. This one was long, and rambling and not nearly as compelling as the other Maguire books we’ve read. I didn’t love it but…

Son of Ephaba, dragons, gay boy sex it just doesn’t get better than that, does it? I don’t think it does. I wonder if there will be a sequel to this sequel. Or maybe a prequel?

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No Vindication for Me, Magic Instead

2005, Books in Bed, Fiction, Mystery, Non-Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, short stories /

You might have noticed a new book, well two actually, appeared on my reading list and that means I’ve given up on Wollstonecroft and Vindication I just couldn’t do it. Maybe another day, another time, but right now I’m having trouble enough reading. So, I gave up. The first part of it wasn’t bad, it was just a little bit too slow for me to stay focused on.

Instead, I turned to Magic for Beginners. A book of “magical” short stories that were, indeed, about magical topics. But like a lot of short stories, I hated the endings of almost all of them. The stories were terrific and then the ending just went really WEIRD in what felt like an attempt to just finish and finish quickly. I’m ok with weirdness in a story about magic, zombies, witches, etc… but the weirdness has to make SOME sense based on what has happened in the first 10-20 pages of the story.

I loved the faery purse story. Loved the canon story. Enjoyed the catskin story. The endings worked for these. Was really enjoying the zombie/painting story when the ending poofed out on me. The stone rabbits story was really terrific but again, what was with that ending????

Now, I’ve picked up Jasper Fforde’s The Big Over Easy, which TW said was good but not up to par with the Thursday Next series, which is too bad…

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Acorna – Anne McCaffrey

2005, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

Long, long ago or maybe just a year ago, I’m not really clear on time when it comes to books, some friends were going on and on about some woman named Anne McCaffrey and her dragon books. I informed these folks that either I’d never read them (possible, because I am not a huge “fantasy” buff) or if I had, they hadn’t impressed me enough to remember them. They were shocked and insisted I must read Anne McCaffrey.

So, I headed to my library website (which I love) and searched for Anne McCaffrey. She’s written a lot of books but the thing I hate about my library website is that it is not good about explaining which books belong to which series or which order these books were published. You can’t right click to open the search findings in a new window to check publish date either. I was short of time and wasn’t all that keen on some dumb fantasy books anyway so I reserved all of the books that seemed to be in a series called “Acorna: The Unicorn Girl“.

TW has read McCaffrey’s dragon books, probably not all of them but a lot, but she had not read Acorna so that was a nice bonus. Needless to say, we got hooked on the series and either read or listened to them on audio just as quickly as they came in or as quickly as they were published.

The most recent edition to the series is about Acorna’s daughter Khorri and since I don’t want to give away what happens to Acorna (it’s bad enough I just told you she has a daughter since in the first book she’s just an infant Linyaari!) I’ll just say that you ought to go grab the Acornas and if you have kids who like to listen to audio books, get them on audio and listen to them together. 🙂

By the way, I still haven’t actually read any McCaffrey dragon books! I started one, some collection of stories or something and got bored and took it back to the library. I think I will stick with the Linyaari instead.

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