Actually, Readers Do Care

I need to catch up on some reviews around here, do a little blog maintenance, shuffle some covers out for others, that kind of thing. I’m on this really strange scifi kick right now – strange because it’s rare for me to want to read the same genre back to back for three or more books. Hopefully that trend will continue because I’m enjoying them for the most part. For the moment.

Honestly, I haven’t been online much this year and I’m starting to feel a little disconnected to everyone as a result. So today I’m on my twitter feed and see a link to what appears will be a review for a “badly written book” on Goodreads. I click over and from what I can take away from the person’s review, the book indeed sounds pretty badly written. But the book has also gained a lot of praise and even some quotes of “Brilliant!”. I really am of the mindset that you enjoy what you enjoy and that’s all there is to it. But. Yep – but. When I see a comment that readers don’t care about the poor quality in some books, of the grammar/spelling/sentence structure variety, I have to say waitadurnminute.

Actually, readers do care. Continue Reading

REVIEW: Leviathan Wakes

James S.A. Corey
Leviathan Wakes (Expanse #1)
orbit
science fiction
june 15, 2011 (Kindle Edition)

Blurb via Goodreads:

Welcome to the future. Humanity has colonized the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond—but the stars are still out of our reach.

Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, The Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to The Scopuli and rebel sympathizer, Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

I’d had my eye on this one for quite some time before finally opening it up here recently. Earlier this year I read a wonderful scifi book by John Scalzi, Old Man’s War, which had a very engaging human element to it. After awaiting reviews from other readers, I finally felt prompted to try Leviathan Wakes on the recommendation from a friend that it, too, had that engaging human element to it. Unfortunately I found myself not quite as engaged as I’d like to have been and had trouble connecting with almost all of the book. But one thing kept me going and made me interested enough in the second in this series. Continue Reading

REVIEW: Seraphina

Rachel Hartman
seraphina (seraphina #1)
random house for young readers
young adult Fantasy
july 10, 2012

blurb via Goodreads:

Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty’s anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.

Seraphina has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen’s Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift – one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life.

Seraphina is a first person narrated fantasy novel about a young girl hiding a terrible secret, surrounded by even more terrible malice and bigotry. For now, she holds a somewhat favored position at court as the assistant to the master of music (I’m sure his title is different, but I’m still trying to grasp and remember all the unique terms and words the author has coined) and her days are exhausting if not normal. And it’s extremely important that she be seen as normal. To keep her secret safe, she makes herself as unnoticeable as possible, a hard lesson learned after years with a stifling father. A hard lesson because here there be dragons, and people that hate them and intrigues and other such novelish shenanigans. Continue Reading

ARC REVIEW: Midnight Blue-Light Special

Seanan mcguire
Midnight-blue light special(Incryptid #2)
daw
Urban Fantasy
march 5, 2013

I wasn’t going to offer up excuses as to why this review is so late but since I got food poisoning the weekend I intended to finally get my review up – excuses, you can has them!

Seriously, I have been pretty out of it with some of the worst allergy/sinus attacks and infections in a while. Then I had an allergic reaction to my allergy medication. Then this past weekend I had my first ever food poisoning experience – never again, thank you very much – and I literally threw my hands up and said fuck it. None of this kind of crap puts anyone in a good frame of mind, let alone someone trying to write up a book review. So this review’s gonna suck, just be warned.

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REVIEW: Ever After

Kim Harrison
Ever After (Rachel Morgan #11)
Harper Voyager
Urban Fantasy
January 22, 2013 (Kindle Edition)

Blurb via Goodreads (which has spoilers for previous books):

The ever-after, the demonic realm that parallels our own, is shrinking, and if it disappears, so does all magic. It’s up to witch-turned-daywalking-demon Rachel Morgan to fix the ever-after before the fragile balance between magic users and humans falls apart.

Of course, there’s also the small fact that Rachel is the one who caused the ley line to rip in the first place, and her life is forfeit unless she can fix it. Not to mention the most powerful demon in the ever-after—the soul-eater Ku’Sox Sha-Ku’ru—has vowed to destroy her, and has kidnapped her friend and her goddaughter as leverage. If Rachel doesn’t give herself up, they will die.

Forced by circumstance, Rachel teams up with elven tycoon Trent Kalamack—a partnership fraught with dangers of the heart as well as betrayal of the soul—to return to the ever-after and rescue those she loves. One world teeters on the brink of interspecies war, the other on the brink of its very demise—and it’s up to Rachel to keep them both from being destroyed.

I was a little out of sorts with my most ultimate supreme favorite series last year, but I’m happy to say we are BACK, people. Back in black, set to go and pining once more beyond belief for the next book already. And that means that the next book could possibly be the last. Harrison’s FAQ page says 12-13 and her “prerogative”…Ever After is book eleven. SOB.

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