Authors: Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
Volume three of the NextGen “A Time To…” series, includes a new alien race desperate for survival, and sabotage, as well as some nice interpersonal bits.
Author Archives
Kushiel’s Chosen
by Jacqueline Carey
The second installment of Carey’s trilogy that began with Kushiel’s Dart. Very much a “middle” novel, but with some interesting plot twists.
Read in February; logged in April.
Kushiel’s Dart
by Jacqueline Carey
Read in February, logging in April.
For the first fifty pages of this book, I was thinking, “This is stupid, this is boring, this is badly written, and oh, God, I bought the sequel!”
But I realized I wasn’t really giving it a chance. I still think the author overwrites, but the story of palace intrigue and alternative-earth politics is still pretty entertaining. Good characters, just too much purple prose.
American Gods
by Neil Gaiman
I read this at the beginning of February, 2005, and am posting this in April (backdated), so I’m not posting a review, just this: gripping, creepy, stark, horrible, visceral, and amazing. Recommended.
STTNG: A Time to Die
John Vornholt
Book two in the “To Every Season” series was a bit darker than book one, but enjoyable nonetheless. Again, I read it in eBook format, which means I have to sit and read on purpose, and not in the bathroom.
I thought it would delve more into Data reacting to no longer having his emotion chip (after all, he’s on the cover), but instead it was a Wesley story. If they had filmed this sort of wrap-up, I think people might have hated Wesley less.
Or not.
Anyway, it’s still brain-candy, but it’s fun brain candy.
STTNG: A Time to be Born
John Vornholt
I can’t talk about this sub-series of the Star Trek: The Next Generation novels without hearing the song in my head
To everything
(Turn, turn, turn)
There is a season
(Turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose
Under heaven
Ok, now that that’s purged – I’d resisted buying these until now because the ninth book wasn’t published until October, and nothing irks me more than having to wait for sequels. So, I was strong, and as a result, I get to read the whole series, over the next few weeks.
The cover blurbs tells us that this series of nine novels is designed to fill in the blanks between Insurrection and Nemesis in the TNG universe, and it does a great job. Already in book one we’ve seen what Wesley’s been up to all this time, and found out just why Data no longer had a functional emotion chip in the last movie.
I read it in ebook format in one sitting while half-watching the Monk marathon on television, and I’m not sure if it was the show, or the format, but I feel like I’ve missed something by not having a tangible book in my hands.
Still, it was a great read, and makes me wish they’d filmed THIS instead of the movies they actually made.
Memoirs of a Geisha
Arthur Golden
I read this, initially, a couple of years ago, and fell in love with it. I remember posting in my open diary account, in fact, that this was so well written, and Sayuri (the main character) so vivid and real,that I had difficulty believing it was written by a man.
Desperate for something, anything, to read, and in the mood for something gentle and lyrical, I pulled it off my shelves again a couple of days ago, read most of it on various trips to the bathroom, and then finished it during one of the times I was awake last night.
I still love the story, and have no problem envisioning the inherent grace of the geisha as they dance or sing, no problem letting my mind’s ear hear their high tittering laughter.
It’s a great book.
A fabulous book.
The Quilter’s Apprentice
Jennifer Chiaverini
I picked this book up on impulse – it looked interesting, and I’ve had quilting on the brain lately – and was instantly hooked. Some of the formatting is annoying, specifically the lack of quotation marks in the ‘flashback’ sequences, but it does a good job of meshing lessons in quilting technique with the plot.
The story is a simple one, a young couple moves from a Pennsylvania college town to another town a bit farther away, because the husband, who has a degree in landscape engineering, has been offered a permanent stable position, and the wife has recently come to realize she hates her job as an accountant.
The husband’s clients include the owner of an estate that used to be owned by a horse breeder, and the wife bonds with the sister of the dead owner, who agrees to teach her how to quilt. From that point, the narrative is interrupted by flashbacks from the woman in charge of the estate, as well as quilting lessons.
There are, apparently, other novels in the series, as well as a website where you can see the quilts mentioned
in the story (some are ugly).
The Well of Lost Plots
Jasper Fforde
The thing about Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series is that, while they’re entertaining if you only read modern literature, they’re even more entertaining if you have a thorough grounding in the classics.
The Well of Lost Plots, the third installment in the life and times of Ms. Next, is just as much fun as the first two books in the series – so much so that I don’t know why I waited so long to read it.
In a sense, it’s the ultimate crossover – what else would you call a novel that mixes original characters with visitors from Dickens, the Bronte sisters, and even a cameo by a certain bleached-blonde vampire named Spike?
But being a crossover doesn’t make it any less smart, or make the plot turns any less convoluted.
Highly recommended, especially to English majors.
Citizen Girl
Two years ago, this same writing team of Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Klaus offered the world a novel called The Nanny Diaries, which I read, and found delightful, so I thought picking up their second title, Citizen Girl, would be safe enough.
Wow, was I wrong.
It wasn’t just that the title character was known as Girl, and that her boss was the too-cute Guy, it was that none of the characters seemed three-dimensional, with the possible exception of the sixteen-year-old little brother who graced a couple of scenes.
If the cheery red cover sporting a latte cup tempts you to pick up this book, do yourself a favor – put it down, and get a real latte instead.