Book Logging
Nov. 10th, 2012 07:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckEpstein, Adam Jay and Andrew Jacobson. The Familiars - I almost didn't finish this, not because there's anything wrong with it so much as because I didn't start it until it was almost due back to the library. The story follows an alley cat who accidentally ends up in a store where apprentice magic users buy their familiars. He's purchased by a boy and quickly realizes that life as a familiar really beats living on the street. He also comes to love the boy. The cat has a hard time because he doesn't know anything about magic and doesn't have the special powers that familiars are supposed to have. Then his owner and two other students are kidnapped. With two other familiars, the cat sets out to try to rescue the kids. I was a little bit disappointed by the ending. I liked seeing the alley cat finding clever ways to get around not having any powers, and, at the end, he turns out to have powers. Still, I'll probably give the next book a try.
Greenwood, Kerry. A Question of Death; Cocaine Blues; Dead Man's Chest - I'm reading these out of order because the library no longer provides any information about the order of books within a series. I can't even go by publication date-- That would have had me put Cocaine Blues, the first in the series, after several other books in the series. At any rate, I'm reading these as the titles catch my fancy. These are mysteries and quick reads. They're set in Australia in the 1920s. The heroine is an extremely wealthy woman named Phryne Fisher who knows what she wants and gets it without apology. There's an interesting cast of supporting characters.
Hoffman, Nina Kiriki. Thresholds; Meeting - After bouncing off of Catalyst, I was wary of these books. As it turns out, I need not have been. I quite enjoyed these. They're the first two books in a middle years series. The main character (whose name escapes me) has just moved to a new house in a new town. During the night before her first day of school, a fairy flies into her room and sleeps on her bed. This leads to her discovering that the neighbors aren't exactly what they seem and to her bonding with an alien symbiote. The second book was a little low on plot. Things happened, but they didn't seem to string together into anything bigger except as hints of things to come. I hope Hoffman writes more in this universe.
Lackey, Mercedes. Redoubt - This is the latest entry in the Collegium series. I liked it less well than preceding volumes because most of the action takes place in the wilderness. There's not so much about the supporting cast in this one, and I like the day to day character interactions. This one ends with enough still unanswered questions that I expect there will be another volume. As with most Lackey I've tried, this one was a popcorn book.
Wrede, Patricia. The Far West - In many ways, this book didn't feel like the end of a trilogy. There were still loose ends that could have been tied up. In this volume, the heroine and her twin brother are part of an expedition deep into unexplored territory. The trip is dangerous. They don't know what sort of animals they're going to run into, but the new creatures that have been coming into settled lands in recent years have been extremely dangerous. I had fun with this story, but I still would like to see what this setting would look like with a Native American population. People find ways to live almost anywhere and with almost any dangers. That would be interesting.
Books I did not finish:
Benz, Derek and J.S. Lewis. The Brimstone Key - This is the first book of the second trilogy about a group of kids called the Grey Griffins who, in alliance with the Templars, fight evil. GoodReads recommended it. The library doesn't own the first trilogy in this series, and I didn't realize, until I started this book, that there were earlier books. The fact that this isn't the first book in the series isn't what stopped me reading. The pace was rapid, so rapid that I had trouble telling the characters apart from one another. I simply couldn't remember who was who. Reading the series from the beginning might have given me a better handle on who these people were.
Gilson, Jamie. Thirteen Ways to Sink a Sub - GoodReads recommended this one, and the library had it, so I figured I might as well try it. I only got a couple of chapters in, though. I wasn't very interested. I don't tend to read books without magic, advanced technology, conspiracies or something similar, and this one was pretty mundane. It's about a class of kids trying to make their new substitute teacher cry. I believe it's a competition between the boys and the girls.
Shulman, Polly. The Grimm Legacy - This one was due back at the library, and I wasn't making much progress on it, so I returned it. I liked the central idea. There's a lending library of objects-- spoons, wigs, clothing, just about anything. The library has a few special collections, and the Grimm Collection consists of magical objects. There's someone stealing objects from the Grimm Collection. I liked this one okay, but I couldn't finish it. I kept putting it down and finding other things to do.
Wilce, Ysabeau S. Flora's Fury - I keep trying books in this series because I'm fascinated by the setting and find the characters appealing. I just, for some reason, can't seem to get through the books. The idea of Flora traveling has great appeal. I liked the idea of seeing more of the world. I just couldn't do it. I opened the book randomly at several points to see if reading non-linearly would help. It didn't. I may just have to accept that I'm never going to succeed in reading these books.
Greenwood, Kerry. A Question of Death; Cocaine Blues; Dead Man's Chest - I'm reading these out of order because the library no longer provides any information about the order of books within a series. I can't even go by publication date-- That would have had me put Cocaine Blues, the first in the series, after several other books in the series. At any rate, I'm reading these as the titles catch my fancy. These are mysteries and quick reads. They're set in Australia in the 1920s. The heroine is an extremely wealthy woman named Phryne Fisher who knows what she wants and gets it without apology. There's an interesting cast of supporting characters.
Hoffman, Nina Kiriki. Thresholds; Meeting - After bouncing off of Catalyst, I was wary of these books. As it turns out, I need not have been. I quite enjoyed these. They're the first two books in a middle years series. The main character (whose name escapes me) has just moved to a new house in a new town. During the night before her first day of school, a fairy flies into her room and sleeps on her bed. This leads to her discovering that the neighbors aren't exactly what they seem and to her bonding with an alien symbiote. The second book was a little low on plot. Things happened, but they didn't seem to string together into anything bigger except as hints of things to come. I hope Hoffman writes more in this universe.
Lackey, Mercedes. Redoubt - This is the latest entry in the Collegium series. I liked it less well than preceding volumes because most of the action takes place in the wilderness. There's not so much about the supporting cast in this one, and I like the day to day character interactions. This one ends with enough still unanswered questions that I expect there will be another volume. As with most Lackey I've tried, this one was a popcorn book.
Wrede, Patricia. The Far West - In many ways, this book didn't feel like the end of a trilogy. There were still loose ends that could have been tied up. In this volume, the heroine and her twin brother are part of an expedition deep into unexplored territory. The trip is dangerous. They don't know what sort of animals they're going to run into, but the new creatures that have been coming into settled lands in recent years have been extremely dangerous. I had fun with this story, but I still would like to see what this setting would look like with a Native American population. People find ways to live almost anywhere and with almost any dangers. That would be interesting.
Books I did not finish:
Benz, Derek and J.S. Lewis. The Brimstone Key - This is the first book of the second trilogy about a group of kids called the Grey Griffins who, in alliance with the Templars, fight evil. GoodReads recommended it. The library doesn't own the first trilogy in this series, and I didn't realize, until I started this book, that there were earlier books. The fact that this isn't the first book in the series isn't what stopped me reading. The pace was rapid, so rapid that I had trouble telling the characters apart from one another. I simply couldn't remember who was who. Reading the series from the beginning might have given me a better handle on who these people were.
Gilson, Jamie. Thirteen Ways to Sink a Sub - GoodReads recommended this one, and the library had it, so I figured I might as well try it. I only got a couple of chapters in, though. I wasn't very interested. I don't tend to read books without magic, advanced technology, conspiracies or something similar, and this one was pretty mundane. It's about a class of kids trying to make their new substitute teacher cry. I believe it's a competition between the boys and the girls.
Shulman, Polly. The Grimm Legacy - This one was due back at the library, and I wasn't making much progress on it, so I returned it. I liked the central idea. There's a lending library of objects-- spoons, wigs, clothing, just about anything. The library has a few special collections, and the Grimm Collection consists of magical objects. There's someone stealing objects from the Grimm Collection. I liked this one okay, but I couldn't finish it. I kept putting it down and finding other things to do.
Wilce, Ysabeau S. Flora's Fury - I keep trying books in this series because I'm fascinated by the setting and find the characters appealing. I just, for some reason, can't seem to get through the books. The idea of Flora traveling has great appeal. I liked the idea of seeing more of the world. I just couldn't do it. I opened the book randomly at several points to see if reading non-linearly would help. It didn't. I may just have to accept that I'm never going to succeed in reading these books.
