Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding

Tales of the Ketty Jay #1

3 stars
pirate-y sci-fi ish
language
R-2

So... while yes, fans of Firefly would probably enjoy this.... DO NOT go in thinking "this will be just like Firefly!" because you'll be disappointed.

That was part of my struggle.

The other part simply being this just isn't my thing.  I prefer my sci-fi onscreen.

If sci-fi ish stuff is your thing (which it's only sort of sci-fi ish really.... it's more pirates meet old west meet airplanes)....

If that sounds like it's right up your alley then you should probably pick this one up.

There were some random story elements that didn't fit/felt forced/whatever, but I'm thinking that will possibly straighten itself out over the course of the series.

Also, I didn't actually read the Captain's Log thing at the end... because while the voice started out really amusing it got old fast (for me personally) and I simply didn't care enough.

Behind the Throne by K B Wagers

3 stars
R-1 (no actual sex, but blunt about sex in terms of conception and gay/lesbian relationships)
Language (with a capital L, holy cow)

Good voice-- there were things about the voice that reminded me of Lisa Shearin, and you know I love Raine, but it wasn't maybe as fully developed as would be nice.

World building.... sigh.  It wanted to be better.  I couldn't decide if it just wasn't fully developed or if the author's desire to stick with the "it's INDIA but in SPACE" hampered the development.

Honestly, overall it kind of felt like the writing got better and more mature (to some extent) as the book went along, but then the earlier parts didn't get fixed to match. (If that makes sense... it's getting late as I type this, lol)

Ultimately, though, it was the language that determined the rating here.  There was no way this book was getting more than 3 stars from me.

There were so many F-words in the first 10 pages I almost didn't keep reading.

Now please, no lectures on how it's realistic.  I'm not naive enough to think there aren't people that speak that way in the world, but in my life there aren't.  At least not that speak that way around me.

And at the end of the day, I could maybe forgive the level of language if it hadn't felt like such a forced affectation.

It was ridiculous.

Which is sad, because the book could almost have been a 4.5 star story by the end.

But just no.

The profanity tapered, gratefully, so I'll probably give book 2 a try, but we'll see.

(For the record, this was a Reader's Choice title that I grabbed more for my husband, because it's far more his thing genre-wise.  The development issues bugged him even more than they bugged me, lol.  And even though he DOES know people who talk like that, the profanity irritated the living daylights out of him.)

Volonians: Mysteries of the Vondercrat

by Christopher R Edwards Jr and Carlos O Hardy

2.5 stars
received for review (I think anyway.... a long time ago....)

Meh.

An interesting concept, though I agree with another reviewer that there was too much magic (seriously, opening doors? some things just shouldn't require a spell).  I didn't find many of the characters likable and there was far too much description in some areas (I don't need to know every character's height) and not nearly enough in others (316 pages and I still don't know what a "Guide" is).

Overall, I think this was an awesome early draft that unfortunately didn't get the attention needed from a good editor.

(This is my "something old".... after all I'm pretty sure it's been in my possession longer than at least one of my kids.)

Quantum Lace by Leigh (Bella) St John

3 stars (but I reserve the right to change that depending on future installments)

So......

Where to start?

First of all, major class points to the author-- my review copy was not only inscribed and signed, it came tied up in red ribbon with a personal note on monogrammed stationary sealed with red wax.

I mean, seriously-- how cool is that??

As to the book itself.... I really wish she'd chosen to publish a more full/complete volume.  This is basically a novella with the kind of cliffhanger ending that makes readers want to kill the author... except that then we wouldn't get any resolution.

This first installment is.... confusing, lol.  There's not quite enough there for you to really know what's going on.  Big on questions but super slim on answers.

Actually I'm not sure there were any answers at all.

Anyway.  Reviewing this feels like reading just the first few chapters of a book and then being asked to review that-- you don't know how you really feel about it because most of the story hasn't happened yet.

I'm intrigued, I'll tell you that.

And ready for book 2.

Now, please.

Ghostly Echoes by William Ritter

5 stars
YF
(Parents of younger readers should be aware that there is a transvestite and a few mild swear words.)

Another thoroughly satisfying and entertaining installment!

I loved seeing more of Jenny's story and getting more character development there.

As always, Abigail's voice is marvelous.

I really do just love these books.

If you haven't tried them yet, start at the beginning certainly.  This is not a series to jump into in the middle.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer, Alyson's Review

Introducing my fabulous friend Alyson, who is going to be doing reviews from time to time around here.  
Since there were a few Beehive Nominees that I had already read and reviewed, I'm having her give another perspective. :)

Cinder may have come highly recommended, but I wouldn't have read it if it hadn't been someone else's book club pick.  It's really, really not my usual kind of book.  That said--I was hooked from the first chapter.  I stayed up past midnight 3 nights in a row to finish it, early rising children notwithstanding.  What better compliment can you give?

The premise is intriguing enough--a Cinderella retelling where 'Cinder' is a cyborg--but I was impressed at how well I liked the plot details.  I sank pretty comfortably into Cinder's world for someone who doesn't generally enjoy sci-fi, and I absolutely loved how the traditional plot elements from the fairy tale fit in.  

Bottom line--a winner for a wide audience (I gave 3 copies as Christmas gifts).  Enjoy!  And don't be surprised if you find yourself hooked enough to put Scarlet on hold at your library...

Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis

5 stars each
R-1
Time Travel books 3 and 4

Oh. My. Gosh.

Tons of threads to track, complex beyond all belief, but so amazingly well done.

AMAZINGLY, I tell you.

Interestingly, Blackout is much more optimistic, while All Clear is more somber overall.

I loved these books.  Both of them.

I do STRONGLY recommend you read Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog before these.  Things will come up and confuse you otherwise.  Especially Doomsday.

I do have one question that makes me desperately wish Connie Willis had a contact page somewhere, but I'll be darned if I can find one...

WHY in the VE-day segments they were calling her Douglas?????????????? Did I totally miss the explanation or was there just not one?? 

That drove me nutty.

I might have just missed it, though.

Overall, highly highly recommended.  Such an amazing perspective on London during WWII.  And on heroism.  And most of all, on the struggles of those left behind.

Glitches and The Queen's Army by Marissa Meyer

4 stars each
Prequels to Cinder and Scarlet, respectively

http://www.tor.com/stories/2011/12/glitches
http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/11/the-queens-army

These short stories give us a glimpse of Cinder's and Wolf's life before the books.

Even though Glitches happens before Cinder, I actually recommend reading both in between Cinder and Scarlet so that you already have a feel for the world.

They probably deserve 5 stars, but I struggle with short stories in general.  Generally there's just not enough to them for me.

I did really enjoy them both.

Overall, they're both definitely worth the read.

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

5 stars
YA
Sequel to Cinder

Oh. My. Gosh.

First of all, way more of a direct continuation than I thought it was going to be.

Second, I need Cress.... like yesterday.

Seriously, this picks up right where Cinder left off and you are in for one heck of a ride.  Craziness.

In a good way.

Very very much recommended.  But read Cinder first.

Preferably right now.

Fire Watch (novella) and Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Fire Watch
5 stars

This novella/short story/whatever you want to call it is the earliest entry, in terms of when they were written, in Connie Willis' time-travel books.

It technically happens after Doomsday Book... or before... or after.... depending on how you look at it... Gah!  Time travel!

Anyway.

In terms of the "present" (which is really the future to us readers, but whatever) in Oxford, it's after.  Let's just leave it at that, shall we?  Otherwise my brain might explode.

So, this is a pretty quick read and really you can read it whenever, but you really want to read it BEFORE reading Blackout/All Clear.

LOVE the philosophical "what is a historian?" "what is history?" "what is important?" stuff in this one!

Doomday Book
5 stars
R-1

As the title may indicate, this is not the most cheerful book.  Darker than the later To Say Nothing of the Dog (which I read first, but I'm reviewing them in order, so be patient), this still isn't that dark.  It's a great read about life in 1348/49.

Yeah, I know, that's the black death, so maybe "a great book about death" would be more appropriate.

Whatever.

Look, it's been a long week, okay?

Technically this is a reread for me, but I must have originally read it before I started blogging, because somehow I've never reviewed it.

Okay, this review makes even less sense than my reviews normally do.

Let's just say TOTALLY RECOMMENDED and leave it at that, eh?

Star Risk, Ltd. by Chris Bunch

4 stars
R- 1.5

So this quirky sci-fi is recommended for fans of Firefly.  :)

Similar set up... they'll do most anything if you've got the money... but it's more security/mercenary than smuggling.

My husband has been bugging me to read this for years... and I enjoyed it.  Maybe not as much as he did, but it was fun.

I didn't think it was quite as funny as Firefly, but it kept getting funnier as the book went on.

I haven't decided about the rest of the series... It's not the kind of thing I read much of anymore, but I do want to follow the characters on more adventures, so I may have to pick them up.

(Hey, this is a book I OWN!  Remember my challenge about reading books I own?  Well, here's one at least.)

A New Birth of Freedom: The Translator

By Robert G Pielke

4 stars
R-1 maybe... if you're feeling sensitive, lol

Hey, I actually finished a book.  Sheesh.

Have you ever had a book that you were totally enjoying, but at the same time couldn't wait to be done with?  That was this book... purely because it NEVER takes me so long to read a book and that fact was driving me completely nuts.

Here's another random picture of my excuse (who's 3 months old now... how did that happen?), just to remind you... ;)

And now that I've finished it, I'm going nuts because the ending was possibly an EVEN WORSE cliffhanger than the first book was.  Pielke is trying to make me crazy... not that I have far to go. ;)

I'm really not sure how much I can say about this one without giving too much away... and you know me, I hate putting spoilers in my reviews.

Overall, I enjoyed it.  I want the third book, you know, YESTERDAY, but I will try to be patient. :)

A New Birth of Freedom: The Translator by Robert G. Pielke

Copy received for review
Sequel to A New Birth of Freedom: The Visitor (See my review)

Confession:  I haven't finished the book yet.

I blame her:

At least my excuse is cute though, right?

This book is absolutely just as bizarre as the first... and at least as fascinating.

YOU MUST READ THE FIRST BOOK FIRST.  Absolutely must.  I'm struggling a little because it's been two years since I read it... and I didn't take the time to find my copy and reread it.  Possibly a mistake, but I'm far enough now not to want to go back.

I am absolutely enjoying it.  Again, the writing could be a little tighter in places, and the editing could be better, but the premise is just too weird to not capture my attention fairly completely.

Update:  I finished it!  :)  See my full real review here.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

5 stars
R- 0
YA

A very interesting, enjoyable book.

Predictable, but not in a bad way.

A sci-fi almost post-apocalyptic retelling of Cinderella.  (I want to call in steampunk, but it's really not.)

Definitely recommended.  Can't wait to read the sequel!

Copy received for review.

1632 by Eric Flint

3 stars
R- 3

So my husband has been trying to get me to read this for years.  And I finally did.

And... meh.

Really interesting premise, good research, fun characters but two words for you: BAD PLOTTING.

Characters cannot simply disappear for over 300 pages when they are inconvenient.  They also cannot simply appear over 450 pages into the book when up until then the reader has assumed (if he or she has thought about it at all) that said person didn't exist/was dead/didn't get caught up in this mess.

The idea of scooping up a town of coal miners and plopping them into the middle of the Thirty Years War is great.  One of the coal miners having an M60 tucked away is a little too convenient.  Ditto the random "father of a friend" who is a surgeon and conveniently happened to be invited to the wedding that opens the book, thus getting scooped up along with everyone else.  Good thing, they were going to need a surgeon.

And on and on and on.

But really, the disappearing characters were much more annoying.  The girl who has a nursing baby... right up until she gets married and then the baby drops off the face of the earth.  The sister of the main character (who was the bride in the opening wedding) disappears from the time they run out of the wedding reception to see what happened until about page 350... nevermind the fact that she and her new husband live with the main character... who has been elected leader, fought in at least one battle, met a girl, fallen in love AND gotten engaged in those intervening pages... all without a single thought about his family.  (Somewhere between page 450 and page 500 you find out that his mother, who has NEVER been mentioned in the book, is alive and lives with them also.)

Anyway, I think my husband is disappointed, but the poor plotting drove me nutty.  And since it's nearly 600 pages.... that's a long time to be nutty, lol.

One note though-- the one big sex scene is psychologically very interesting.  You take a girl who has only known rape-- 2 years of rape-- and marry her to a man who honestly loves her (insta-love, yea!) and wants to please her and her transition from "I must do my duty to satisfy my husband" to "I can experience pleasure also" is interesting.  Well done there.  A little explicit, but that is fairly brief.

This is the beginning of a 12 book series (yes, TWELVE)... I haven't decided if I care to read any more of them.... if they were 200-400 pages that would be one thing but sheesh.

A New Birth of Freedom: The Visitor by Robert G. Pielke

3.5 stars
R-0
Copy provided for review

This is quite possibly the most bizarre thing I've ever read.  And that's saying something, really.

So we start with a man boarding a train.... in the 1800s... wearing Nikes and a leather jacket and Levis.

He has a conversation with future president Abe Lincoln.

Fourteen years later, he reappears in the president's life... asking for help.... at Gettysburg.

And it honestly gets weirder from there.

This was a slow start for me-- I don't know a ton about the little details of the Civil War like people and places.  And the writing could have been tightened up a bit.

But I am fascinated.  How completely strange and yet wholly captivating.

I will warn you-- it's a total cliffhanger.  Now I have to figure out how to get my hands on the next book.  Sheesh.

Anyway, I recommend it.  It may blow your mind, lol.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

4 stars
R- 2

This was my book club pick this month.  (Yeah, I know, a non-Reader's Choice, what was I thinking?  Oh well.)

Reminiscent of Connie Willis' books, I found this to be a bizarre and amusing book, half sci-fi, half philosophical treatise. 

(I haven't read anything by Douglas Adams, but I imagine there are similarities there, too.)

The first half is funnier, while the second have does have a tendency to wax confusingly philosophical.  I still enjoyed that though.

My favorite parts-- the Microsoft references.  Without a doubt.  Hilarious.

And while this is a total geek/engineer book, it's also totally a book for grammar nerds.  Because really, time travel is all about tense: present, past, future.

So really, I recommend it to any engineering major, humanities or English major, computer science major, etc.  :)

I really think I need to own this one.  :D

Counts for my book club (obviously) and the Support Your Local Library Challenge.

Regression by Kathy Bell

*This was SUPPOSED to post Friday... Blogger ate it!*

4.5 stars
R- 2.5
Copy received for review through Virtual Book Tours

This is possibly one of the most fascinating concepts I have ever read.  It's time travel, and yet it's not.  It's so interesting.

Adya wakes up from a head injury frantic about her baby, who'd been in the car with her in the accident, only to find that it's 1985, not 2011, and she's 14, not 40.  (As if anyone would want to be 14 again, ugh.)

As Adya starts to notice differences in the world around her from what she remembers, she becomes involved with the Three Eleven Corporation and their quest to save the world and finds that the leaders of Three Eleven are all like her.

Of course, the problem is they're all men and think she's a fluke.  After all, she was just a stay-at-home mom in her former life.  Can I tell you how much I LOVED seeing her put them in their places about that?!  AWESOME.

So, there were some formatting/editing issues and a couple places where it was hard to follow, but the idea was so intriguing that it didn't bother me anywhere near as much as that stuff normally does.

Be aware-- there IS a sequel and a third book will be coming out next year, I think.  This book does NOT complete the story.  Totally left hanging.  In a "when can I get my hands on the next book" kind of way.

There are also some really interesting moral/ethical questions.  What would you do with knowledge of the future?  And the moral implications of Adya's role are... tricky.  But the concept is amazing. 

I can't wait to find out more!  The local library doesn't have these books in their system... I think I'm going to put in a request!

Guest Post-- Barry Pollack!!

In writing FORTY-EIGHT X, I wanted not only to entertain readers with a contemporary science fiction thriller but also hoped to foster debate again about the theory of eugenics. Eugenics is a scientific theory formulated by Francis Galton (Charles Darwin's cousin) in the late 19th century. It is the theory that our preeminent traits are almost entirely due to heredity. Eugenics also proposes that the human gene pool cannot only be altered by lengthy process of evolution but by man’s self involvement as well. Galton's theory emphasized that it was predominantly good breeding that allowed one to succeed in life, that nature was more important than nurture. The wealthy titled classes of that era certainly accepted that premise but it was an intolerable theory for most other people to accept since it relegated the masses of the world’s poor to a lifetime of lower class life with little chance of rising up.


Eugenics as a scientific theory therefore fell by the wayside and got a further bad rap in the 1920’s-40’s with forced sterilization of the “mentally deficient” in the United States and then Hitler’s horrific extermination of what he described as inferior races.

Eugenics took another turn in the 1970’s when Robert Graham, a eugenicist and entrepreneur, aimed to improve the species by creating a genius sperm bank, what he called his Repository of Germinal Choice, a sperm bank for Nobel Prize winners. That project also became controversial because one prominent donor to Graham’s sperm bank was William Shockley, a Nobel winner, who was derided for his views that there were inferior races, such as blacks. But unlike in decades passed, Graham perceived eugenics not as a plan to rid the world of inferior people but rather to breed better ones.

The belief that “nature is more important than nurture…. Doesn’t mean people have to be blessed or cursed by their genes – just that adjustments needed to be made.” (Forty-Eight X, page 48)

Does eugenics deserve a comeback? In today’s contest between nature and nurture, has nurture won? Why is it okay to use our limited resources to preserve and reward the least productive among us and less popular to use those resources to promote our very best? For example, American schools spend more than $8 billion a year educating the mentally deficient. Spending on the gifted isn't even tabulated in some states, but by the most generous calculation, we spend no more than $800 million on gifted programs. Does it make sense to spend 10 times as much to “nurture” those with the least potential among us than those with the greatest? Certainly no one today would fall into the trap of labeling inferior genes as malignant and worthy of destroying, like Hitler. But is it wrong to seek genetic enhancement? While we might fault the frivolous use of genetic engineering – to alter our children’s eye color, height, or color – might it not be worthwhile to engineer smarter and healthier people?

Today, we are able to manipulate genes. We’re busy doing it for disease prevention. But we could manipulate genes for other purposes, breeding preferences such as male or female, intelligence, body shape. With that capability come ethical quandaries. Are we playing god? Will manipulation of the human genome mean we can reach our higher potentials or will it pose darker risks allowing us to fall prey to our baser instincts?
 
I know I don't feel qualified to answer any of those questions!  It certainly makes me think!  What do YOU think??
Thanks to Barry Pollack for stopping by!! :D

Forty-Eight X: The Lemuria Project by Barry Pollack

4 stars
R-3
Language
Copy from Publisher for review

Interesting, if somewhat creepy, storyline.  I enjoyed the overall story.

The only thing lacking was character development.  The story is very plot driven, which is fine, but it does mean that the "love triangle" fell flat and you just don't really care a ton about any of the characters.  You just don't get to know them well enough.  The love triangle thing is also just weird.  It doesn't make sense-- feels contrived.  Same with the other random "romance" in the book.

They don't detract from the story, but they don't need to be there.  Leave the focus on the plot. :)

The plot itself is an interesting combination of military thriller and genetics-based sci-fi.  Plus some random mythology, archaeology and mysticism.

Like I said, a little creepy, but a good story.  Very interesting.  Some risque garbage and coarse language, though.  Overall a good read.