July '11

MEMORY, THORN AND SORROW: TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER
-T. Williams-epub-1374
-fantasy-the conclusion to the trilogy. Everybody meets up at Green Angel Towers after much trial and hardship; only to learn it is all a trap and that the prophecy of Nisses was a lie by Ineluki, who wanted to use the power of the swords to bring himself back. Everybody has a kum-by-ya moment and they all forgive Ineluki and he can't handle it and so all his plans go poof. Seriously. It was written a bit more epically than that, but that is what it boils down to. Simon turns out to be an heir of the original king of Hayholt and he marries Miriamelle and everybody starts the business of rebuilding. So many things I misremembered or didn't remember at all, made me glad for this reread.

BARDS OF BONE PLAIN
-P. McKillip-dtb-329
-fantasy-a bard misuses his power and is cursed to live without his music until he can fix his error. This was as pretty as any of her other books, but without so much mystery, so I found it easier to deal with.

ABOLETHIC SOVEREIGNTY: CITY OF TORMENT
-B. Cordell-epub-UNFINISHED
-fantasy-I am giving up on the Forgotten Realms universe. I just can't get into it. So I won't waste my time. I leave it to those who do like it. More power to them.

POLITY: HILLDIGGERS
-N. Asher-epub-505
-scifi-an alien entity is messing with 2 worlds. The Polity interferes in its own non-interfering way. I didn't find this very interesting. Not very much AI humor, or over the top brutal war. Oh well, Asher can't write to please me all the time I guess.

COBRA WAR: COBRA GUARDIAN
-T. Zahn-epub-388
-scifi- I came in with such low expectations after the first book that I actually liked this. Still seems a loose story and characterization is so spread between different people that I don't really care about any of them.

GREEN RIDER: BLACKVEIL
-K. Britain-epub-773
-fantasy/romance- I started this book fulling expecting it give it one star. I was uber-pissed about the length of time between book 3 and this. I didn't care about Britain's "reasons" given on her blog or anything else she had to say.
As the story went on, I got over that. This was a half decent story with some real interesting possibilities and I was thinking, OK, this deserves 3 stars 'cause I'm liking this.
Then things got all romance'y. And by romance'y, I mean angsty, poke my eyes out with the characters whining about their love or lack thereof. And the consumation scene? Next thing you know, the next book will be a soft porn romance, sigh. A lot of things felt like they were thrown in because the author would have liked something like that, not because it was integral to the story.
Finally, the ending cliffhanger. Britain really needs to wrap this series up. Instead, she keeps making this bigger and bigger. If I have to wait another 4+ years before the NEXT book, and it isn't the final book, then I will not be reading it. Period.
Miss Britain, get over yourself and wrap this thing up. You want to write more, fine. Do it with another series. I'm just about ready to get rid of my 3 previous hardcovers in the series and be done with you. I can't recommend your Greenrider series anymore because I don't know when it will end and I will not put others through this same path of daggers that I have gone through.

DARK ANGEL: BEFORE THE DAWN
-M. Collins-epub-291
-scifi- Having never seen Dark Angel, just heard of it, I was interested in the books. If the books were interesting, I'd probably check out the tv series [even with the incomplete ending].
Standard prequel. A child super soldier escapes into a post-apocalyptic world and grows up trying to escape her former captives and trying to find her brothers/sisters.
Nothing superduper about this book, but I certainly didn't feel like I'd wasted my time. I'll definitely be checking out the tv series based on my reading of this book.

RANGER'S APPRENTICE: KINGS OF CLONMEL
-J. Flanagan-epub-357
-ya fantasy- Even though Will is a full fledged ranger, he is still working with/under Halt.
In this story, we find out a lot about Halt's past. Will, Horace and Halt are called together as a new task force for dealing with threats outside of the Kingdoms borders.
Once again, tension was just right, laughs were just right. Just a touch of naive'ness and simplicity that makes it a YA title.

RANGER'S APPRENTICE: HALT'S PERIL
-J. Flanagan-epub-348
-ya fantasy- The finishing of the story begun in The Kings of Clonmell. Pretty much the same comments as for Kings of Clonmell. These 2 books really should have been one.

THE LAST DAY
-G. Kleier-dtb-484
-fiction-a book written right before the Y2K craze. A woman is the begotten daughter of god and everything takes place on and around the New Year of 2000. At first I thought it was blasphemous, but several comments made me realize the author didn't know a thing about Christianity and was just kluging popular ideas together. My main tipoff was his off the cuff reaction of the 7th Day Adventists to this "new messiah". He simply didn't have a clue. Second was the repeated references to "church/temple of the self. God is inside." Antithesis to true Christianity. Everything else fell pretty flat as well. Characterization came out candy thin and by the end everyone was all 'lets love everybody and do the right thing' without any real change or reason for change. Romance was forced onto us like an ugly old relative wanting a kiss on the mouth. The plot relied on action sequences driven by mega-maniacal authority figures that made me cringe with their fakeness. Overall, this is one book I really should have not finished, but I had to so I could call it the utter, complete piece of trash it is. AVOID AT ALL COST!

WHEEL OF TIME: THE FIRES OF HEAVEN
-R. Jordan-epub-877
-fantasy-Intensity ratchets up and we get the famous "Who Killed Asmodean?" scene. A wicked cool battle between Rand and Rhavin, involving bale fire and portals. Matt starts using/acknowledging his martial memories. Moiraine and Lanfear disappear through a Sangreal/Terangreal and seem to die. Rand is starting to fight the madness, which seems to be a mixing of wills with Lews Therin, the former Dragon. The badstuff-every female seems to be so angry. I mean counseling angry. Jordan really let the ball drop in the characterization department with this. It is a real turn off.

GRIMM DRAGONBLASTER: A MAGE IN THE MAKING
-A. Alistair-epub-264
-fantasy-10,000 years in the future. Humanity has almost destroyed itself, then recovered. Magic has come forth and male magic become dominant. A talented mage killed his leader and was banned. Now his grandson is on trail to becoming a mage. We find out that a witch was responsible, behind the scenes, for the grandfather killing the leader, and she is interested in Grimm now. Basically covers from 7-17 years of Grimm's life. I really didn't care for this. I'll keep the rest around for a year or so, but if I don't read any more, I'll get rid of them.

STAR WARS: OLD REPUBLIC: LOST TRIBE OF THE SITH: SENTINEL
-J. Miller-epub-27
-short story-the direct sequel to the story before. The jedi marooned hooks up with a sith and they decide to turn their backs on their respective orders and live in the wilderness.

T2: INFILTRATOR
-S.M. Stirling-dtb-513
-scifi-follows Terminator 2. In many ways this reminded me of the Sarah Connor Chronicles tv show. No time jumping or friendly terminator though. The Connors meet up with the man the T800 was based on. And a more organic terminator, called an Infiltrator, is sent back to try to change things by creating Skynet instead of trying to kill the Connors. Even though that is still a mission priority. The Connors take her down, but she has a replacement hidden away for the next book. Her name was Serena and many of the situations were similar to the T:SCC but John was more charismatic, mature and starting to bear the burden of being mankind's next savior, instead of being a whiny teen with responsibility issues.

STAR WARS: OLD REPUBLIC: DECEIVED
-P. Kemp-epub-348
-scifi-another stand alone novel in the Old Republic era. Basically a Sith engineers the downfall of Coruscant, only to have it be taken away by political intrigue by his sith 'allies'. he kills a jedi master and that Master's former padawan, now a Jedi Knight, comes to Coruscant to take revenge. There is a side story about some smuggler and his crippled daughter. Overall, the last Old Republic book I'll be buying. It was so blase and the characters had no time to get any real depth. It felt like the Star Wars universe was turning into a Forgotten Realms kind of place. Hack and Slash writing with completely forgettable characters.

TIME TRADERS
-A. Norton-epub-400
-scifi-a book with 3 separate short stories all tied together by common characters. Basically, humanity finds the ability to time travel and the Americans are going through history trying to find the Russians, who seem to have found some advanced tech way in the past. Turns out it was from an alien spaceship. The russians get all their bases destroyed and the americans start tiptoeing. Ends with a group of americans finding an intact spaceship and making a trip to the aliens world. The alien empire seems to have fallen and humanity looks to have a free hand.
I really enjoyed this. Norton writes in the classic scifi style and it was nice to have some straight forward adventure stories without all the psychological baggage.

STARSHIP: MERCENARY
-M. Resnick-epub-338
-scifi-The Crew become mercenaries and win battle after battle, usually through brain, not brawn. Clever, witty. Same as the previous books. If you liked them, you'll like this.

WWW: WAKE
-R. Sawyer-epub-388
-scifi-a young blind girl is given sight with some new tech, and along the way a young AI is born, and they come into contact. And some story line about the chinese killing off 20,000 of their own people to stem the start of a H1N5 super flu. Must tie together in the later books. It was interesting, well written and the characterization was very well done. But it wasn't captivating. The birth of the AI isn't explained, it just kind of spontaneously happens.

VLAD TALTOS: ORCA
-S. Brust-epub-313
-fantasy-Vlad tries to save an old ladies land in exchange for healing the boy who helped him from the previous story. In the process, corruption is found to the top level, but nothing can be done about it. And we find out that Keira is Sethra Lavode and that Vlad has a son by Cawti, who he doesn't know about.

MONTHLY SUMMARY
17 Novels
1 Short Story
1 Unfinished Novel
8317 Pages