Books I've Read
Books Listed by Author
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z All
The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year, Volume Twelve
Contents:
“The Mocking Tower”, Daniel Abraham
“Don’t Press Charges and I Won’t Sue”, Charlie Jane Anders
“Probably Still the Chosen One”, Kelly Barnhill
“My English Name”, R. S. Benedict
“Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance”, Tobias Buckell
“Though She Be But Little”, C.S.E. Cooney
“The Moon is Not a Battlefield”, Indrapramit Das
“The Hermit of Houston”, Samuel R. Delany
“The Discrete Charm of the Turing Machine”, Greg Egan
“Crispin’s Model”, Max Gladstone
“Come See the Living Dryad”, Theodora Goss
“Bring Your Own Spoon”, Saad Z. Hossain
“Babylon”, Dave Hutchison
“The Faerie Tree”, Kathleen Kayembe
“Fairy Tale of Wood Street”, Caitlin R Kiernan
“The Worshipful Society of Glovers”, Mary Robinette Kowal
“An Evening with Severyn Grimes”, Rich Larson
“The Chameleon’s Gloves”, Yoon Ha Lee
“The Smoke of Gold is Glory”, Scott Lynch
“Sidewalks”, Maureen McHugh
“Concessions”, Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali
“The Martian Obelisk”, Linda Nagata
“The Secret Life of Bots”, Suzanne Palmer
“A Series of Steaks”, Vina Jie-Min Prasad
“Belladonna Nights”, Alastair Reynolds
“Eminence”, Karl Schroeder
“The Lamentation of their Women”, Kai Ashante Wilson
“Confessions of a Con Girl”, Nick Wolven
“Carnival Nine”, Caroline M. Yoachim
Quote:
"Well then," Corrina said. -- Probably Still The Chosen OneQuote:
Zero-gravity puke was a truly terrible thing. -- The Secret Life Of BotsQuote:
Magic does from time to time so boil one's piss. -- The Smoke Of Gold Is GloryQuote:
"God, this is a good way to die," he said. -- Bring Your Own SpoonRead:
4/2024
A Girl Of The Limberlost
Elora lives near a big swamp/forest in Indiana and collect moths First published in 1909, this 2013 eBook. Pretty much a classic.
Read:
1/2023
Freckles
This book takes place before A Girl Of The Limberlost, and concerns Freckles and the Swamp Angel. Pretty good, if effusive.
Read:
1/2023
That's me all over, Mable
Fun read of fictional letters to home from a soldier in the U.S. Army during World War I.
A few objectionable racist terms appear, sadly.
I read the Project Gutenberg e-book version.
Read:
7/2022
The Grays
A novel about UFOs. Didn't care for it. Check my
blog entry for points of complaint.
Read:
8/2007
2 Guys Named Lenny
A free e-book (short story) download about two guys, cousins, named Lenny (who appeared in another book that takes place before) who have acquired a large quantity of "E" and need to sell to...someone. Good story.
Read:
6/2022
Blockhouse Blues and the Elmore Beast
Brains and Hammers get make dumb decisions and get caught up in the shenanigans of a crime bosses' daughter. Read the Kindle edition.
Read:
6/2022
Early Storm
Amber is on the job as an assassin, but her past keeps interfering. A short story e-book download. Good story!
Read:
6/2022
Scam
Some people try to steal some drug money, but it goes all wrong.
I'd like to know what happened to all the characters!
Read:
5/2022
The Other Hotel
Quite a number of people find their lives intertwining in not necessarily fun (but interesting!) ways at a decrepit hotel located in Melbourne.
Quote:
She was the female equivalent of a [family size] pack of Doritos. - p.177Read:
9/2021Read:
5/2022
The Other Hotel 2 Christmas
I liked the first book so much I read it twice, then I bought the second book and several others by the author. I signed up for his emails and I got one that asked if I wanted to get free preview copies in return for a review. I don't think the author has seen how poorly I write!
Read:
5/2022
Glasshouse
A complicated future cybernistic world with replicators and all kinds of stuff. Robin is some sort of undercover espionage soldier. Took about 80 pages to get going. Good story. Some Prisoner references, some library stuff.
Words I Had To Look Up:
Verminous (pg. 21) -- Having to do with vermin. Obvious!
Auto-da-fe' (pg. 90) -- Act of faith.
Osmotically (pg.115) -- by means of osmosis . Another doh!
Apoptosis (pg. 115) -- A form of cell death.
Panopticon (pg. 131) -- A prison constucted so all prisoners can be seen at one time. I think I've looked this up before.
Sic transit gloria panopticon (pg. 168) --Thus passes the glory of the, well, panopticon!
Louche (pg. 240) -- Of questionable taste or morality; decadent.
Quote:
Be seeing you. (pg. 275)Quote:
Neither Janis--nor I--is remotely qualified to be a real dark age librarian, with their esoteric mastery of catalogue systems and controlled information classification vocabularies, but we can run a small municipal lending library and reference section with a bit of scurrying around and a lot of patience. (pg. 127)Read:
7/2008
Halting State
Crime in near-future Edinburgh. Lots of cybertalk, very Neal Stephensonish, but about two hundred pages shorter. On Amazon a commenter says the book is told in second person. I don't know if that is correct, but it certainly is written in a different-than-usual style.
Words I Had To Look Up:
Pre-prandial (pg. 271) -- Before meals.
Haptic (pg. 315) -- Tactile, sense of touch.
Read:
6/2008
Missile Gap
Earth is taken up and stuck on a big, flat disk. A really BIG, flat disk!
On page 86, if Lenin is one head, Stalin is another, and the big is third, who is the fourth head mentioned in the text. And I quote, "Gagarin brings his binoculars to focus on the fourth head." Not to mention that the illustration on the facing page shows three heads...
The book jackets says this is the "Signed, Lettered Edition" priced at 150 bucks. But I don't see any signing, nor lettering. Did the library get ripped off? Is this some scam edition?
Words I Had To Look Up:
Dirigiste (pg. 44) -- Directed by a central authority.
S Doradus (pg. 62) -- The brightest star in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Gnomically (pg. 78) -- In a gnomic, didactic, or sententious manner. Yeah, cleared THAT up!
Fraught (pg.84) -- . "...boring and fraught." 1. Filled with a specified element or elements; charged: an incident fraught with danger; an evening fraught with high drama. 2. Marked by or causing distress; emotional. I think, it's #2.
Instantiations (pg. 96) -- A representation of an idea in the form of an instance of itRead:
5/2008
Rule 34
I was afraid I had already read this, but it turned out I read a previous book. Edinburgh Detective Inspector Liz Kavanaugh runs a unit that specializes in finding criminals using the internet. I'm not quite sure how the book ended. I was not always able to decipher the author's mixture of computer jargon and Scottish accent.
Read:
3/2012
The Atrocity Archives
Bob Howard, UK investigator of the occult, goes to a lot of meetings in between saving the world incidents. Really hate the typeface used on chapter and sectional headings!
Read:
7/2020
The Clan Corporate
Book three in the The Merchant Princes series. Miriam gets in serious trouble, gets engaged for a few minutes, and is either a prisoner or on the run most of the book. Mike the DEA agent and former date of Miriam shows.
Read:
6/2009Read:
6/2010
The Family Trade
A sort of parallel world corporate science fiction import-export story. Pretty good stuff.
Words I Had To Look Up:
Aeron chairs (pg. 13) -- Never heard of them until my son mentioned the other day, and here they are in this book!
Demesne (pg. 95) -- manorial land actually possessed by the lord and not held by tenants.
Plaited (pg. 153) -- A braid, especially of hair. Or in this case, complicated family relationships.
Orangery (pg. 203) -- A sheltered place, especially a greenhouse, used for the cultivation of orange trees in cool climates. Quotes:
...discreetly holstered M-16s... (pg. 177) -- Big holster! But these were on horses, so maybe they are in scabbards.
...patented dumb-schoolgirl simper... (pg. 177) -- I just like that image.
...the locket from the chair around her neck...(pg. 202) -- I've heard of millstones around the neck, but a CHAIR?
...that a prince's wife wll not die of childbed fever... (pg. 127) -- semi-dup.
...some countess doesn't succumb to childbed fever... (pg. 247) -- semi-dup.Read:
5/2008
The Hidden Family
Miriam finds out stuff about her mother. Miriam starts up her business. Lots of people die, bloodily. More confusing Wu/Lee stuff.
Words I Had To Look Up:
hunting hide (pg.102 ) -- A camoflaged tent, used in hunting game.
electric shower (pg. 89) -- A mini water heater, located in the shower!
Ames rooms (pg. 123) -- A distorted room that is used to create an optical illusion.
nevergreen tree (pg. 178) -- "Deadly Nevergreen, that bears fruit all the year round". The gallows.
coves and queans (pg. 199) -- Men and desruptable women, i.e., prostitutes..
Quote:
... a Dahon mountain bike, built out of chromed aluminium tubes. (pg. 32) -- I see a red aluminium Dahon, and a Reynolds 631 steel Dahon, but I doon't see no chromed aluminium Dahon.
Quote:
Patricia Thorold-Hjorth and Alfredo Wu (pg. 248) -- So Miriam is a Wu? Where is this plotline going?
Read:
7/2009
The Merchants' War
Book four of the The Merchant Princes. Things just get more and more complicated. I'm losing track of the Wus and the Lees.
Quote:
It was like standing in that baseball court at the University Of Chicago i942, when they finished adding graphite blocks to the heap in the middle of the court... (pg. 115) Baseball? I thought it was a squash court.
Read:
6/2009Read:
6/2010
20 books displayed
[Abadzis - Adams] [Adams - Albert] [Alcott - Anderson] [Anderson - Arngrim] [Arnow - Auxier] [Aveyard - Baen Publishing Enterprises] [Baen Publishing Enterprises - Barker] [Barnard - Barnard] [Barnard - Barr] [Barr - Bauer] [Baum - Beaton] [Beaton - Beaton] [Beaton - Beattie] [Beattie, editor - Birdsall] [Birney - Block] [Block - Block] [Bloor - Bosch] [Bosch - Brashares] [Breathed - Brucker] [Bruère - Bujold] [Bujold - Bujold] [Bujold - Cain] [Cain - Card] [Card - Carlson editor] [Carr - Chambers] [Chambers - Choldenko] [Choldenko - Clarke] [Clarke - Cody] [Cody - Colfer] [Colfer - Collins] [Collins - Connelly] [Connelly - Constantine] [Constantine - Corbett] [Corcoran - Cornwell] [Cornwell - Crais] [Crais - Crichton] [Crichton - Curry] [Curry - Cussler] [Cussler - Davis] [Davis - Dilloway] [Dilloway - Dorsey] [Dorsey - Dowd] [Dowell - Duble] [Duncan - Elkins] [Elkins - Evanovich] [Evanovich - Fairstein] [Fairstein - Ferber] [Ferris - Flanagan] [Flanagan - Flint] [Flint - Foster] [Foster - Francis] [Francis - Francis] [Francis - Franklin] [Frazier - Gailey] [Gaiman - Gash] [Gash - Gleason] [Gleason - Gores] [Gores - Granger] [Granger - Greenleaf] [Greenleaf - Grimes] [Grimes - Grisham] [Grisham - Haddix] [Haig - Hall] [Hall - Hammett] [Hannah - Hautman] [Hautman - Heinlein] [Heinlein - Heller] [Heller - Henry] [Henry - Hess] [Hess - Hiaasen] [Hiaasen - Hillerman] [Hilton - Hochschild] [Hoeg - Horowitz] [Horton - Hyland] [Hyman - Jemisin] [Jemisin - Jones] [Jones - Kaminsky] [Kaminsky - Kelly] [Kelly - King] [King - Kline] [Klise - Kowal] [Kowal - Lahiri] [Lamott - Lawrence] [Lawrence - Lederer] [Lee - Leonard] [Leonard - Lewis] [Lewis - Little] [Little - Lowry] [Lowry - Lutz] [Lynch - Magary] [Magary - Marcinko] [Marcinko - Marusek] [Masiel - McBain] [McBain - McCaughrean] [McCormack - McDevitt] [McDevitt - Meluch] [Meluch - Modesitt Jr.] [Modesitt, Jr. - Moon] [Moon - Mosley] [Mosley - Nance] [Napoli - Nimmo] [Niven - Nourse] [Novik - O'Brian] [O'Brian - O'Rourke] [Oates - Palmer] [Palmer - Pargin] [Pargin - Parker] [Parker - Parker] [Parker - Patterson] [Patterson - Peacock] [Pears - Perkins] [Perry - Piper] [Platt - Poyer] [Poyer - Pratchett] [Pratchett - Pratchett] [Pratchett - Pronzini] [Pronzini - Pullman] [Pullman - Quinn] [Quinn - Reeve] [Reeve - Ringo] [Ringo - Robinson] [Robinson - Rothfuss] [Rowling - Russell] [Russo - Sampson] [Sampson - Scalzi] [Scalzi - Scalzi] [Scalzi - Scott] [Scott - Sedgwick] [See - Shetterly] [Shields - Skloot] [Sleator - Snelling] [Snicket - Springer] [Standiford - Steinhauer] [Stephens - Strahan] [Strahan - Stross] [Stross - Tapply] [Tapply - Thorp] [Thurber - Turtledove] [Turtledove - Van Draanen] [Van Draanen - Varley] [Varley - Watkins] [Watson - Weber] [Weber - Wells] [Wells - Westlake] [Westlake - Whelan] [White - Willis] [Winchester - Wolff] [Wollheim - Zahn] [Zahn - Zusak]