Books Read: 2007
Feb. 26th, 2007 10:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendi12. Cirque du Freak #1: A Living Nightmare, by Darren Shan. This was a surprisingly decent YA book, with some interesting twists on the traditional vampire legends, and some surprisingly dark turns. I'll probably hunt down at least the next book or so at the library. As with too many YA novels nowadays, the major problem here is that the first book is basically just a way to kick off the series, so I'm not sure I'd recommend this on its own, and until I find the next two (which round out the first plotline, it seems), I'll hold off on recommending it too highly, although it's certainly worth grabbing from your local library. Paul Weitz is going to be directing the film adaptation, which will have to be better than his last genre movie (Down to Earth).
13. Gil's All-Fright Diner, by A. Lee Martinez. I don't know why it took me so long to finally read this book. Martinez's debut has the feel of a Christopher Moore novel, which is about the highest praise I could offer. It tells the story of a vampire and a werewolf who end up in a small Texas town, and have to fight off the teen witch and assorted other baddies to stop the end of the world. It's a damned funny novel. Highly recommended.
14. Behomoth: B-Max, by Peter Watts. First, I adore the pun in the title (which you can't see, because LJ keeps choking on the characters, but the two capital "B"s are supposed to be Greek "Beta"s). Which is about the only true humor here -- the first half of the third book in the Rifters trilogy (which is out of print, but which I managed to snag at Boskone) is every bit as fucked-up as the previous books were. Maybe moreso, as the events of the previous books have messed the world up pretty drastically as of the opening of this novel. Don't read this without grabbing Starfish and Maelstrom first, but do read them; as soon as I can find my copy of the final book (which I know is somewhere in the house), it's getting bumped right to the top of my reading stack.
15. A Soul in a Bottle, by Tim Powers. Annoying computer geek nitpick: Powers explicitly mentions the lead character using an HP with Windows XP (because Tim likes to create dangerously flawed heroes), but illustrator J.K. Potter, likely overlooking that bit because he assumed the hero would have good taste in computers, shows a screen that is clearly OSX. That minor detail aside, this is a dark little tale, although one that's much more concerned with one's ability to recognize and do the right thing than with gore or shock. It doesn't feature many of the usual Powers tropes -- there's some very minor time travel stuff and some ghosts, but the massive conspiracies across time and space get a rest. Definitely worth reading, although (as with many limited editions) probably not worth buying unless you're a collector or make a lot more money in a year than we do. Fortunately, the H20Town public library has nifty books like this in stock.
13. Gil's All-Fright Diner, by A. Lee Martinez. I don't know why it took me so long to finally read this book. Martinez's debut has the feel of a Christopher Moore novel, which is about the highest praise I could offer. It tells the story of a vampire and a werewolf who end up in a small Texas town, and have to fight off the teen witch and assorted other baddies to stop the end of the world. It's a damned funny novel. Highly recommended.
14. Behomoth: B-Max, by Peter Watts. First, I adore the pun in the title (which you can't see, because LJ keeps choking on the characters, but the two capital "B"s are supposed to be Greek "Beta"s). Which is about the only true humor here -- the first half of the third book in the Rifters trilogy (which is out of print, but which I managed to snag at Boskone) is every bit as fucked-up as the previous books were. Maybe moreso, as the events of the previous books have messed the world up pretty drastically as of the opening of this novel. Don't read this without grabbing Starfish and Maelstrom first, but do read them; as soon as I can find my copy of the final book (which I know is somewhere in the house), it's getting bumped right to the top of my reading stack.
15. A Soul in a Bottle, by Tim Powers. Annoying computer geek nitpick: Powers explicitly mentions the lead character using an HP with Windows XP (because Tim likes to create dangerously flawed heroes), but illustrator J.K. Potter, likely overlooking that bit because he assumed the hero would have good taste in computers, shows a screen that is clearly OSX. That minor detail aside, this is a dark little tale, although one that's much more concerned with one's ability to recognize and do the right thing than with gore or shock. It doesn't feature many of the usual Powers tropes -- there's some very minor time travel stuff and some ghosts, but the massive conspiracies across time and space get a rest. Definitely worth reading, although (as with many limited editions) probably not worth buying unless you're a collector or make a lot more money in a year than we do. Fortunately, the H20Town public library has nifty books like this in stock.
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Date: 2007-02-26 03:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 03:53 pm (UTC)