Posts in the Books category.
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April 11
Book: The Angel of Indian Lake by Stephen Graham Jones
The final installment in the most lauded trilogy in the history of horror novels picks up four years after Don’t Fear the Reaper as Jade returns to Proofrock, Idaho, to build a life after the years of sacrifice—only to find the Lake Witch is waiting for her in New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones’s finale. -- Simon & Schuster [more inside]
April 10
Book: First Lie Wins
Evie Porter has everything a nice, Southern girl could want: a perfect, doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence and a garden, a fancy group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn’t exist. [more inside]
Book: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Cory Doctorow's gonzo science-fiction story of a post-scarcity future where "ad-hoc" worker collectives have taken over various parts of Disney World and compete for whuffie, the reputation-based currency.
March 12
Book: Birnam Wood
A guerilla gardening collective in New Zealand forges an uneasy alliance with a mysterious American billionaire. [more inside]
March 9
Book: By Sound Alone
In a slightly skewed-off timeline of mid-20th-century Earth, the surface of the ocean has become a contested place. International shipping is forced undersea, carried out by subs fitted for transporting cargo. Captain Sylvia Percy and her small crew run one such boat, the "Prospect". They fight a daily battle to keep their rusting submarine from dropping into the depths. It's just another grimy job until they find themselves pursued by a military sub driven by some inexplicable violent purpose. To survive, the crew of the Prospect push the machine that is their home to the very edge of its capabilities, while still trying to make their delivery on time. [more inside]
March 7
Book: Prairie Fires
Rendering this biography as effective at racking nerves as it is at provoking thought, the story of Wilder’s emergence as a major sculptor of American identity pushes far past the usual boundaries of probability and plausibility. For anyone who has drifted into thinking of Wilder’s “Little House” books as relics of a distant and irrelevant past, reading “Prairie Fires” will provide a lasting cure. Just as effectively, for readers with a pre-existing condition of enthusiasm for western American history and literature, this book will refresh and revitalize interpretations that may be ready for some rattling. [more inside]
March 6
Book: Thus Was Adonis Murdered
Reduced to near penury by the iniquitous demands of the Inland Revenue, young barrister Julia Larwood spends the last of her savings on an Art Lovers holiday to Venice. She can't pay her taxes if she takes a vacation, but then again she can't pay her taxes if she doesn't take a vacation. Likewise, her friends worry about her ability to go it alone in a strange city, but that's also true in London. So why not? Her penchant for disaster outdoes itself, though, when a fellow Art Lover is found murdered, himself an employee of the Inland Revenue, with Julia's inscribed copy of the Finance Act beside his corpse.
Book: The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
A thoughtful and provocative exploration of the big ideas of the modern era: Information, communication, and information theory. [more inside]
February 25
Book: House of Flame and Shadow
Bryce Quinlan never expected to see a world other than Midgard, but now that she has, all she wants is to get back. Everything she loves is in Midgard: her family, her friends, her mate. Stranded in a strange new world, she's going to need all her wits about her to get home again. And that's no easy feat when she has no idea who to trust. Hunt Athalar has found himself in some deep holes in his life, but this one might be the deepest of all. After a few brief months with everything he ever wanted, he's in the Asteri's dungeons again, stripped of his freedom and without a clue as to Bryce's fate. He's desperate to help her, but until he can escape the Asteri's leash, his hands are quite literally tied. [more inside]
Book: Raising Steam
All Aboard! The steam engine has come to Discworld, and with it the prototype locomotive known as Iron Girder. It's new! It's flashy! It's noisy! It's smoky! It can get seafood from Quirm to Ankh-Morpork while it's still worth eating! It can easily kill you if things go wrong! It can let you work in Ankh-Morpork while living elsewhere! And it signals undeniable, major social changes for anywhere the tracks can get to. Moist von Lipwig has handled a lot of dangerous enterprises in his life, but he's never had to take on Dwarven terrorists before now... (Industrial Revolution #7, Discworld #40) By Terry Pratchett. [more inside]
February 22
Book: I Shall Wear Midnight
Well, it's the Chalk's annual Summer festival, and Tiffany Aching has no one to kiss, as her erstwhile beau Roland is now engaged to Leticia Keepsake, daughter of the Duchess. Not that it really matters, as Tiffany is busy enough with making the rounds, burying bodies, stopping lynch mobs, tending to the dying Baron, being accused of the Baron's murder, flying back and forth to Ankh-Morpork to find the heir, escaping from the castle dungeons, guiding two very different young untrained witches, and battling a foul-smelling demonic ghost that is turning the whole disc suddenly and viciously against her... (Tiffany Aching #4, Discworld #38) By Terry Pratchett. [more inside]
February 21
Book: Unseen Academicals
Lord Vetinari, the tyrant Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, hates Football. Everyone knows this. It doesn't stop the mob-rules sides from battling it out in the back streets of the city, but the chaos and violence that inevitably results is at odds with his ability to impose order. When the Wizards at Unseen University discover that their beloved food budget is dependent on them fielding a team at least once every twenty years, though, it seems like it's time for the disc to finally organize the beautiful game. And four lowly employees at UU get swept along in all the furor, catching a whiff of dreams they never would have previously thought possible... (Industrial Revolution #6, Discworld #37) By Terry Pratchett. [more inside]
February 20
Book: Wintersmith
Oh, to be on the cusp of thirteen, with all the attendant emotions swirling around that you can't quite comprehend yet, going to a dance for the first time and locking eyes with some handsome young beau... Of course, there's always the chance that the young man in question will develop an unhealthy fixation on you afterwards. And if you're a young witch-in-training, like for instance Tiffany Aching, that young man might also be the personification of Winter, and have a little trouble understanding rejection... (Tiffany Aching #3, Discworld #35) By Terry Pratchett. [more inside]
Book: Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore
Whale researcher Nathan Quinn has a problem. It’s not a new problem; in fact, it’s been around for nearly 20 million years. And Nate’s spent most of his adult life working to solve it. You see, although everybody (well, almost everybody) knows that humpback whales sing (outside of human composition, the most complex songs on the planet) no one knows why. Nate, a Ph.D. in behavior biology, intends to discover the answer to this burning question―and soon. [more inside]
February 19
Book: Cahokia Jazz
A 1920s-noir crime thriller set in an alternate US where the ancient indigenous city of Cahokia is still a thriving metropolis. From Francis Spufford, the author of Red Plenty, and Golden Hill. Equal parts world-building and detective fiction. [more inside]
Book: Whalefall by Daniel Kraus
Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand—to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. [more inside]
Book: A Hat Full of Sky
It's been about two years since her adventure into the Land of the Faeries to battle the Queen and rescue her brother, and Tiffany Aching is off to see a bit more of the world as an apprentice. Witchfinder Miss Tick brings her to the very curious Miss Level, who teaches her the ways of folk medicine and generally being a good person to have in a community, while the local girls teach her what they understand about witchcraft. But something is after Tiffany, a being as old as the universe itself, with no thoughts, no body, and capable only of craving and fear... (Discworld #32, Tiffany Aching #2). By Terry Pratchett. [more inside]
Book: Witch King
After being murdered, his consciousness dormant and unaware of the passing of time while confined in an elaborate water trap, Kai wakes to find a lesser mage attempting to harness Kai's magic to his own advantage. That was never going to go well.
But why was Kai imprisoned in the first place? What has changed in the world since his assassination? And why does the Rising World Coalition appear to be growing in influence?
Kai will need to pull his allies close and draw on all his pain magic if he is to answer even the least of these questions.
He's not going to like the answers. [more inside]
February 6
Book: Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens
A tale of power, glory, and gore from Arthur to Elizabeth 1
by David Mitchell [more inside]
February 4
Book: Machine Vendetta
Panoply is a small, efficient police force, dedicated to maintaining the rule of democracy among the ten thousand disparate city-states orbiting the planet Yellowstone.
Ingvar Tench was one of Panoply's most experienced operatives. So why did she walk alone and unarmed into a habitat with a vicious grudge against her organization?
As his colleagues pick up the pieces following her death, Prefect Tom Dreyfus must face his conscience. Four years ago, when an investigation linked to one of his most dangerous adversaries got a little too personal, Dreyfus arranged for Tench to continue the inquiry by proxy. In using her, did Dreyfus also put her in the line of fire? And what does Tench's attack tell him about an enemy he had hoped was dormant?
The third [cursing in linked item] volume in the Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies series. This is author Alastair Reynolds' 21st novel.