Alden's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 02 May 2025 20:45:49 -0700 60 Alden's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)]]> 35519101
And Murderbot would rather those questions went away. For good.

]]> 158 Martha Wells 1250191785 Alden 3 4.21 2018 Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)
author: Martha Wells
name: Alden
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/02
date added: 2025/05/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Space Between Worlds (The Space Between Worlds, #1)]]> 43301353 An outsider who can travel between worlds discovers a secret that threatens her new home and her fragile place in it, in a stunning sci-fi debut that’s both a cross-dimensional adventure and a powerful examination of identity, privilege, and belonging.

Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s just one catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying—from disease, turf wars, or vendettas they couldn’t outrun. Cara’s life has been cut short on 372 worlds in total.

On this Earth, however, Cara has survived. Identified as an outlier and therefore a perfect candidate for multiverse travel, Cara is plucked from the dirt of the wastelands. Now she has a nice apartment on the lower levels of the wealthy and walled-off Wiley City. She works—and shamelessly flirts—with her enticing yet aloof handler, Dell, as the two women collect off-world data for the Eldridge Institute. She even occasionally leaves the city to visit her family in the wastes, though she struggles to feel at home in either place. So long as she can keep her head down and avoid trouble, Cara is on a sure path to citizenship and security.

But trouble finds Cara when one of her eight remaining doppelgängers dies under mysterious circumstances, plunging her into a new world with an old secret. What she discovers will connect her past and her future in ways she could have never imagined—and reveal her own role in a plot that endangers not just her world, but the entire multiverse.]]> 336 Micaiah Johnson Alden 0 currently-reading 3.90 2020 The Space Between Worlds (The Space Between Worlds, #1)
author: Micaiah Johnson
name: Alden
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2025/05/02
date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[War Lord (The Saxon Stories, #13)]]> 52033836 IN THE FINAL RECKONING, CHOOSE YOUR SIDE CAREFULLY�

The epic conclusion to the globally bestselling historical series.

After years fighting to reclaim his rightful home, Uhtred of Bebbanburg has returned to Northumbria. With his loyal band of warriors and a new woman by his side, his household is secure � yet Uhtred is far from safe. Beyond the walls of his impregnable fortress, a battle for power rages.

To the south, King Æthelstan has unified the three kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia � and now eyes a bigger prize. To the north, King Constantine and other Scottish and Irish leaders seek to extend their borders and expand their dominion.

Caught in the eye of the storm is Uhtred. Threatened and bribed by all sides, he faces an impossible choice: stay out of the struggle, risking his freedom, or throw himself into the cauldron of war and the most terrible battle Britain has ever experienced. Only fate can decide the outcome.

The epic story of how England was made concludes in WAR LORD, the magnificent finale to the Last Kingdom series.]]> 333 Bernard Cornwell 0008183953 Alden 4 4.53 2020 War Lord (The Saxon Stories, #13)
author: Bernard Cornwell
name: Alden
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/29
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves:
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]]> Five Ways to Forgiveness 36366224 Set in the same universe as Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, these five linked Hainish stories follow far-future human colonies living in the distant solar system

Here for the first time is the complete suite of five linked stories from Ursula K. Le Guin’s acclaimed Hainish series, which tells the history of the Ekumen, the galactic confederation of human colonies founded by the planet Hain. First published as Four Ways to Forgiveness, and now joined by a fifth story, Five Ways to Forgiveness focuses on the twin planets Werel and Yeowe—two worlds whose peoples, long known as “owners� and “assets,� together face an uncertain future after civil war and revolution.

In “Betrayals� a retired science teacher must make peace with her new neighbor, a disgraced revolutionary leader. In “Forgiveness Day,� a female official from the Ekumen arrives to survey the situation on Werel and struggles against its rigidly patriarchal culture. Embedded within “A Man of the People,� which describes the coming of age of Havzhiva, an Ekumen ambassador to Yeowe, is Le Guin’s most sustained description of the Ur-planet Hain. “A Woman’s Liberation� is the remarkable narrative of Rakam, born an asset on Werel, who must twice escape from slavery to freedom. Joined to them is “Old Music and the Slave Women,� in which the charismatic Hainish embassy worker, who appears in two of the four original stories, returns for a tale of his own. Of this capstone tale Le Guin has written, “the character called Old Music began to tell me a fifth tale about the latter days of the civil war . . . I’m glad to see it joined to the others at last.”]]> 288 Ursula K. Le Guin Alden 3 4.38 2017 Five Ways to Forgiveness
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Alden
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/22
date added: 2025/04/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The Last Dragonslayer (The Last Dragonslayer, #1)]]> 13316328 287 Jasper Fforde 0547738471 Alden 3
That said... Eh. It fell flat. The jokes didn't really sing, the characters seemed broad, and the plot was a bit deus ex machina at the end. I think that this is it for me and Fforde. ]]> 3.87 2010 The Last Dragonslayer (The Last Dragonslayer, #1)
author: Jasper Fforde
name: Alden
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/04/18
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review:
Jasper Fforde doesn't need meta fiction, it seems. After reading both the Thursday Next and Jack Spratt books, it was good to see him try something that didn't rely on the intentional triggering of tropes.

That said... Eh. It fell flat. The jokes didn't really sing, the characters seemed broad, and the plot was a bit deus ex machina at the end. I think that this is it for me and Fforde.
]]> Chalice 2828595
A captivating tale that reveals the healing power of duty and honour, love and honey.
]]> 265 Robin McKinley 0399246762 Alden 3 3.82 2008 Chalice
author: Robin McKinley
name: Alden
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/18
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves:
review:

]]> The Trials (The Red, #2) 22034827
Lieutenant James Shelley and his squad of US Army soldiers were on a quest for justice when they carried out the unauthorized mission known as First Light. They returned home to America to face a court-martial, determined to expose the corruption in the chain of command that compelled their actions. But in a country still reeling from the nuclear terrorism of Coma Day, the courtroom is only one battlefield. A new cycle of violence ignites when rumors of the elusive, rogue AI known as the Red go public--and Shelley is, once again, pulled into the fray.

Challenged by his enemies, driven by ideals, Shelley feels compelled to act--but are the harrowing choices he makes really his own, or are they made for him, by the Red? With millions of lives at stake in a game of nuclear cat-and-mouse, does it even matter?]]> 481 Linda Nagata 1937197182 Alden 0 to-read 3.69 2014 The Trials (The Red, #2)
author: Linda Nagata
name: Alden
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> First Light (The Red, #1) 23309759 Zero Dark Thirty with the classic science fiction of The Forever War.

Lieutenant James Shelley, who has an uncanny knack for premeditating danger, leads a squad of advanced US Army military tasked with enforcing the peace around a conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. The squad members are linked wirelessly 24/7 to themselves and a central intelligence that guides them via drone relay&#8212;and unbeknownst to Shelley and his team, they are being recorded for a reality TV show.

When an airstrike almost destroys their outpost, a plot begins to unravel that&#8217;s worthy of Crichton and Clancy&#8217;s best. The conflict soon involves rogue defense contractors, corrupt US politicians, and homegrown terrorists who possess nuclear bombs. Soon Shelley must accept that the helpful warnings in his head could be AI. But what is the cost of serving its agenda?]]> 405 Linda Nagata 1481440934 Alden 3 3.72 2013 First Light (The Red, #1)
author: Linda Nagata
name: Alden
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/16
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[That Ain’t Witchcraft (InCryptid, #8)]]> 39077187
1. A place where two roads cross.
2. A place where bargains can be made.
3. See also “places to avoid.�

Antimony Price has never done well without a support system. As the youngest of her generation, she has always been able to depend on her parents, siblings, and cousins to help her out when she’s in a pinch—until now. After fleeing from the Covenant of St. George, she’s found herself in debt to the crossroads and running for her life. No family. No mice. No way out.

Lucky for her, she’s always been resourceful, and she’s been gathering allies as she travels: Sam, fūri trapeze artist turned boyfriend; Cylia, jink roller derby captain and designated driver; Fern, sylph friend, confidant, and maker of breakfasts; even Mary, ghost babysitter to the Price family. Annie’s actually starting to feel like they might be able to figure things out—which is probably why things start going wrong again.

New Gravesend, Maine is a nice place to raise a family…or make a binding contract with the crossroads. For James Smith, whose best friend disappeared when she tried to do precisely that, it’s also an excellent place to plot revenge. Now the crossroads want him dead and they want Annie to do the dirty deed. She owes them, after all.

And that’s before Leonard Cunningham, aka, “the next leader of the Covenant,� shows up�

It’s going to take everything Annie has and a little bit more to get out of this one. If she succeeds, she gets to go home. If she fails, she becomes one more cautionary tale about the dangers of bargaining with the crossroads.

But no pressure.]]> 368 Seanan McGuire 0756411807 Alden 0 to-read 4.26 2019 That Ain’t Witchcraft (InCryptid, #8)
author: Seanan McGuire
name: Alden
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Tricks for Free (InCryptid, #7)]]> 23244609 1. Punishment for past actions.
2. An attempt to pay for what can’t be bought.
3. See also “exile.�

Antimony Price is on the run. With the Covenant on her tail and her family still in danger, she needs to get far, far away from anyone who might recognize her—including her own mice. For the first time in a long time, a Price is flying without a safety net. Where do you go when you need to disappear into a crowd without worrying about attracting attention? An amusement park, of course.

Some people would call Lowryland the amusement park. It’s one of the largest in Florida, the keystone of the Lowry entertainment empire…but for Annie, it’s a place to hide. She’s just trying to keep her head down long enough to come up with a plan that will get her home without getting anyone killed. No small order when she’s rooming with gorgons and sylphs, trying to placate frustrated ghosts, and rushing to get to work on time.

Then the accidents begin. The discovery of a dead man brings Annie to the attention of the secret cabal of magic users running Lowryland from behind the scenes. They want the fire that sleeps in her fingers. They want her on their side. They want to help her—although their help, like everything else, comes with a price.

No plan. Minimal backup. No way out. Annie’s about to get a crash course in the reality behind the pretty facade. If she’s lucky, she’ll survive the experience.]]> 432 Seanan McGuire 0698183584 Alden 4 4.13 2018 Tricks for Free (InCryptid, #7)
author: Seanan McGuire
name: Alden
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
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]]> Tree of Smoke 271074
Tree of Smoke was the 2007 National Book Award Winner for Fiction.]]> 614 Denis Johnson 0374279128 Alden 0 dnf 3.60 2004 Tree of Smoke
author: Denis Johnson
name: Alden
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Tomb of Dragons (The Cemeteries of Amalo, #3)]]> 62064986
While his title may be gone, his duties are not. Celehar contends with a municipal cemetery with fifty years of secrets, the damage of a revethavar he’s terrified to remember, and a group of miners who are more than willing to trade Celehar’s life for a chance at what they feel they’re owed.

Celehar does not have to face these impossible tasks alone. Joining him are his mentee Velhiro Tomasaran, still finding her footing with the investigative nature of their job; Iäna Pel-Thenhior, his beloved opera director friend and avid supporter; and the valiant guard captain Hanu Olgarezh.

Amidst the backdrop of a murder and a brewing political uprising, Celehar must seek justice for those who cannot find it themselves under a tense political system. The repercussions of his quest are never as simple they seem, and Celehar’s own life and happiness hang in the balance.]]> Katherine Addison Alden 5 4.32 2025 The Tomb of Dragons (The Cemeteries of Amalo, #3)
author: Katherine Addison
name: Alden
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
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]]> Sea of Tranquility 58446227 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads

"One of [Mandel's] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet." --The New York Times

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.]]> 259 Emily St. John Mandel 0593321448 Alden 4 4.04 2022 Sea of Tranquility
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Alden
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy]]> 46266188

Michael Lewis’s brilliant narrative of the Trump administration’s botched presidential transition takes us into the engine rooms of a government under attack by its leaders through willful ignorance and greed. The government manages a vast array of critical services that keep us safe and underpin our lives, from ensuring the safety of our food and medications and predicting extreme weather events to tracking and locating black- market uranium before the terrorists do. The Fifth Risk masterfully and vividly unspools the consequences of what happens when the people given control over our government have no idea how it works.]]> 255 Michael Lewis 0393357457 Alden 0 to-read 4.09 2018 The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy
author: Michael Lewis
name: Alden
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania]]> 22551730
On May 1, 1915, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were anxious. Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone, and for months, its U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era's great transatlantic "Greyhounds" and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. He knew, moreover, that his ship - the fastest then in service - could outrun any threat.

Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger's U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small - hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more--all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.

It is a story that many of us think we know but don't, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour, mystery, and real-life suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope Riddle to President Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster that helped place America on the road to war.]]> 430 Erik Larson 0307408868 Alden 4 4.10 2015 Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
author: Erik Larson
name: Alden
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Broken Harbor (Dublin Murder Squad, #4)]]> 16171207
On one of the half-abandoned "luxury" developments that litter Ireland, Patrick Spain and his two young children have been murdered. His wife, Jenny, is in intensive care. At first, Scorcher thinks itʼs going to be an easy solve, but too many small things canʼt be explained: the half-dozen baby monitors pointed at holes smashed in the Spainsʼ walls, the files erased from the familyʼs computer, the story Jenny told her sister about a shadowy intruder slipping past the houseʼs locks. And this neighborhood—once called Broken Harbor—holds memories for Scorcher and his troubled sister, Dina: childhood memories that Scorcher thought he had tightly under control.]]> 450 Tana French Alden 5 3.96 2012 Broken Harbor (Dublin Murder Squad, #4)
author: Tana French
name: Alden
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Victory of Eagles (Temeraire, #5)]]> 891593
It is a grim time for the dragon Temeraire. On the heels of his mission to Africa, seeking the cure for a deadly contagion, he has been removed from military service - and his captain, Will Laurence, has been condemned to death for treason. For Britain, conditions are grimmer still: Napoleon's resurgent forces
have breached the Channel and successfully invaded English soil. Napoleon's prime objective: the occupation of London.

Separated by their own government and threatened at every turn by Napoleon's forces, Laurence and Temeraire must struggle to find each other amid the turmoil of war and to aid the resistance against the invasion before Napoleon's foothold on England's shores can become a stranglehold.

If only they can be reunited, master and dragon might rally Britain's scattered forces and take the fight to the enemy as never before - for king and country, and for their own liberty. But can the French aggressors be well and truly routed, or will a treacherous alliance deliver Britain into the hands of her
would-be conquerors?]]> 352 Naomi Novik 0007256752 Alden 0 to-read 4.07 2008 Victory of Eagles (Temeraire, #5)
author: Naomi Novik
name: Alden
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Empire of Ivory (Temeraire, #4)]]> 129510 Bonaparte’s dragons are already harrowing Britain’s ships at sea. Only one recourse remains: Temeraire and his captain, Will Laurence, must take wing to Africa, whose shores may hold the cure to the mysterious and deadly contagion. On this mission there is no time to waste, and no telling what lies in store beyond the horizon or for those left behind to wait, hope, and hold the line.]]> 416 Naomi Novik 0345496876 Alden 4 3.98 2007 Empire of Ivory (Temeraire, #4)
author: Naomi Novik
name: Alden
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sword of Kings (The Saxon Stories, #12)]]> 44056482 Two warring kings.
A destiny he didn’t choose�

England is in turmoil as Vikings and Saxons battle for territory. Rumours build about the fatal sickness of the King, and the country awaits an heir.

A violent clash at sea forces the warrior lord Uhtred to lead his men from his Northumbrian fortress to London and plunge into the eye of the storm. For two kings claim the empty throne, and a new kingdom cannot be born without bloodshed.

Uhtred’s sword will leave one king dead and the other victorious. But sometimes it is hard to know the will of the gods…]]> 349 Bernard Cornwell 0062563238 Alden 4 4.40 2019 Sword of Kings (The Saxon Stories, #12)
author: Bernard Cornwell
name: Alden
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals]]> 54785515 The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.

Nobody needs to be told there ľ±˛ő˛Ô’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and ceaseless battle against distraction; we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient and life hacks to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.

Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern obsession with “getting everything done,� Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing that many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society—and that we could do things differently.]]> 271 Oliver Burkeman 0374159122 Alden 5 4.20 2021 Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
author: Oliver Burkeman
name: Alden
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/08
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection]]> 28595941
Now for the first time anywhere, stories representing each of these planets, and their fully realized and distinct magic systems, have been collected in a single spectacular volume. Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection brings together tales spanning the known limits of Sanderson's universe--including the never-before-published Edgedancer, a thrilling new novella of the Stormlight Archive--along with charts, illustrations, notes...and secrets.

The Cosmere Collection encompasses six worlds in all, explored across nine astonishing works of short fiction: Sel ("The Hope of Elantris" and The Emperor's Soul); Scadrial ("The Eleventh Metal," "Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania, Episodes Twenty-eight Through Thirty," and Mistborn: Secret History); Taldain ("White Sand"); Threnody (“Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell�); First of the Sun (“Sixth of the Dusk�); and Roshar (Edgedancer).

These exciting tales will catapult you onto an unprecedented journey across a cosmos only Brandon Sanderson could have envisioned. Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection is an indispensible volume no Sanderson fan can do without.]]> 672 Brandon Sanderson 0765391163 Alden 0 to-read 4.45 2016 Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Alden
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Lost Metal (Mistborn, #7) 23947089 Return to #1 New York Times bestseller Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn world of Scadrial as its second era, which began with The Alloy of Law, comes to its earth-shattering conclusion in The Lost Metal.

For years, frontier lawman turned big-city senator Waxillium Ladrian has hunted the shadowy organization the Set—with his late uncle and his sister among their leaders—since they started kidnapping people with the power of Allomancy in their bloodlines. When Detective Marasi Colms and her partner, Wayne, find stockpiled weapons bound for the Outer City of Bilming, this opens a new lead. Conflict between the capital, Elendel, and the Outer Cities only favors the Set, and their tendrils now reach to the Elendel Senate—whose corruption Wax and his wife, Steris, have sought to expose—and Bilming is even more entangled.

After Wax discovers a new type of explosive that can unleash unprecedented destruction and realizes that the Set must already have it, an immortal kandra serving Scadrial's god, Harmony, reveals that Bilming has fallen under the influence of another god: Trell, worshipped by the Set. And Trell isn't the only factor at play from the larger Cosmere—Marasi is recruited by offworlders with strange abilities who claim their goal is to protect Scadrial . . . at any cost.

Wax must choose whether to set aside his rocky relationship with God and once again become the Sword that Harmony has groomed him to be. If no one steps forward to be the hero Scadrial needs, the planet and its millions of people will come to a sudden and calamitous ruin.]]> 507 Brandon Sanderson 0765391198 Alden 4 4.46 2022 The Lost Metal (Mistborn, #7)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Alden
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/04
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000-Year History of Human Culture, Conflict, and Connection]]> 43886256 From language to culture to cultural collision: the story of how humans invented history, from the Stone Age to the Virtual Age

Traveling across millennia, weaving the experiences and world views of cultures both extinct and extant, The Invention of Yesterday shows that the engine of history is not so much heroic (battles won), geographic (farmers thrive), or anthropogenic (humans change the planet) as it is narrative.

Many thousands of years ago, when we existed only as countless small autonomous bands of hunter-gatherers widely distributed through the wilderness, we began inventing stories--to organize for survival, to find purpose and meaning, to explain the unfathomable. Ultimately these became the basis for empires, civilizations, and cultures. And when various narratives began to collide and overlap, the encounters produced everything from confusion, chaos, and war to cultural efflorescence, religious awakenings, and intellectual breakthroughs.

Through vivid stories studded with insights, Tamim Ansary illuminates the world-historical consequences of the unique human capacity to invent and communicate abstract ideas. In doing so, he also explains our ever-more-intertwined present: the narratives now shaping us, the reasons we still battle one another, and the future we may yet create.]]> 448 Tamim Ansary 1610397967 Alden 4 4.30 2019 The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000-Year History of Human Culture, Conflict, and Connection
author: Tamim Ansary
name: Alden
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves:
review:

]]> The Library at Mount Char 26892110
After all, she was a normal American herself, once.

That was a long time ago, of course—before the time she calls “adoption day,� when she and a dozen other children found themselves being raised by a man they learned to call Father.

Father could do strange things. He could call light from darkness. Sometimes he raised the dead. And when he was disobeyed, the consequences were terrible.

In the years since Father took her in, Carolyn hasn't gotten out much. Instead, she and her adopted siblings have been raised according to Father's ancient Pelapi customs. They've studied the books in his library and learned some of the secrets behind his equally ancient power.

Sometimes, they've wondered if their cruel tutor might secretly be God.

Now, Father is missing. And if God truly is dead, the only thing that matters is who will inherit his library—and with it, power over all of creation.

As Carolyn gathers the tools she needs for the battle to come, fierce competitors for this prize align against her.

But Carolyn can win. She's sure of it. What she doesn't realize is that her victory may come at an unacceptable price—because in becoming a God, she's forgotten a great deal about being human.]]> 390 Scott Hawkins 0553418629 Alden 0 to-read 4.06 2015 The Library at Mount Char
author: Scott Hawkins
name: Alden
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/26
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]]> The Spear Cuts Through Water 55868456 Two warriors shepherd an ancient god across a broken land to end the tyrannical reign of a royal family in this new epic fantasy from the author of The Vanished Birds.

The people suffer under the centuries-long rule of the Moon Throne. The royal family—the despotic emperor and his monstrous sons, the Three Terrors—hold the countryside in their choking grip. They bleed the land and oppress the citizens with the frightful powers they inherited from the god locked under their palace.

But that god cannot be contained forever.

With the aid of Jun, a guard broken by his guilt-stricken past, and Keema, an outcast fighting for his future, the god escapes from her royal captivity and flees from her own children, the triplet Terrors who would drag her back to her unholy prison. And so it is that she embarks with her young companions on a five-day pilgrimage in search of freedom—and a way to end the Moon Throne forever. The journey ahead will be more dangerous than any of them could have imagined.

Both a sweeping adventure story and an intimate exploration of identity, legacy, and belonging, The Spear Cuts Through Water is an ambitious and profound saga that will transport and transform you—and is like nothing you’ve ever read before.
]]> 525 Simon Jimenez 0593156595 Alden 0 to-read 4.17 2022 The Spear Cuts Through Water
author: Simon Jimenez
name: Alden
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies]]> 13154628 In his celebrated bestsellersĚýAgent ZigzagĚý˛ą˛Ô»ĺĚýOperation Mincemeat, Ben Macintyre told the dazzling true stories of a remarkable WWII double agent and of how the Allies employed a corpse to fool the Nazis and assure a decisive victory.Ěý InĚýDouble Cross, Macintyre returns with the untold story of the grand final deception of the war and of the extraordinary spies who achieved it.

ĚýĚýĚýOn June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy and suffered an astonishingly low rate of casualties.Ěý D-Day was a stunning military accomplishment, but it was also a masterpiece of trickery. Operation Fortitude, which protected and enabled the invasion, and the Double Cross system, which specialized in turning German spies into double agents, deceived the Nazis into believing that the Allies would attack at Calais and Norway rather than Normandy. It was the most sophisticated and successful deception operation ever carried out, ensuring that Hitler kept an entire army awaiting a fake invasion, saving thousands of lives, and securing an Allied victory at the most critical juncture in the war.

ĚýĚýĚýThe story of D-Day has been told from the point of view of the soldiers who fought in it, the tacticians who planned it, and the generals who led it. But this epic event in world history has never before been told from the perspectives of the key individuals in the Double Cross System. These include its director (a brilliant, urbane intelligence officer), a colorful assortment of MI5 handlers (as well as their counterparts in Nazi intelligence), and the five spies who formed Double Cross’s nucleus: a dashingĚý Serbian playboy, a Polish fighter-pilot, a bisexual Peruvian party girl, a deeply eccentric Spaniard with a diploma in chicken farming and a volatile Frenchwoman, whose obsessive love for her pet dog very nearly wrecked the entire plan. The D-Day spies were, without question, one of the oddest military units ever assembled, and their success depended on the delicate, dubious relationship between spy and spymaster, both German and British. Their enterprise was saved from catastrophe by a shadowy sixth spy whose heroic sacrifice is revealed here for the first time.

ĚýĚýĚýWith the same depth of research, eye for the absurd and masterful storytelling that have made Ben Macintyre an international bestseller, ĚýDouble Cross is a captivating narrative of the spies who wove a web so intricate it ensnared Hitler’s army and carried thousands of D-Day troops across the Channel in safety.]]> 399 Ben Macintyre 0307990443 Alden 4 3.92 2012 Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies
author: Ben Macintyre
name: Alden
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/22
date added: 2025/02/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Three Act Tragedy (Hercule Poirot, #11)]]> 10122772 Predictable, says Hercule Poirot, the great detective. But entirely unpredictable is that he can find absolutely no motive for murder.]]> 272 Agatha Christie 0062073834 Alden 3 3.72 1934 Three Act Tragedy (Hercule Poirot, #11)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Alden
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1934
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> The School for Good Mothers 57846320 An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781982156121 can be found here.

In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents� sacrifices. What’s worse is she can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with their angelic daughter Harriet does Frida finally feel she’s attained the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she’s just enough.

Until Frida has a horrible day.

The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida � ones who check their phones while their kids are on the playground; who let their children walk home alone; in other words, mothers who only have one lapse of judgement. Now, a host of government officials will determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion. Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that she can live up to the standards set for mothers � that she can learn to be good.

This propulsive, witty page-turner explores the perils of “perfect� upper-middle-class parenting, the violence enacted upon women by the state and each other, and the boundless love a mother has for her daughter.]]> 336 Jessamine Chan Alden 4 3.51 2022 The School for Good Mothers
author: Jessamine Chan
name: Alden
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption]]> 8664353
The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he'd been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.]]> 475 Laura Hillenbrand 1400064163 Alden 0 to-read 4.38 2010 Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption
author: Laura Hillenbrand
name: Alden
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Voyage of the Basilisk (The Memoirs of Lady Trent, #3)]]> 21893608 Alternate cover edition for this ASIN can be found here

The thrilling adventure of Lady Trent continues in Marie Brennan's Voyage of the Basilisk . . .

Devoted readers of Lady Trent’s earlier memoirs, A Natural History of Dragons and The Tropic of Serpents, may believe themselves already acquainted with the particulars of her historic voyage aboard the Royal Survey Ship Basilisk, but the true story of that illuminating, harrowing, and scandalous journey has never been revealed—until now. Six years after her perilous exploits in Eriga, Isabella embarks on her most ambitious expedition yet: a two-year trip around the world to study all manner of dragons in every place they might be found. From feathered serpents sunning themselves in the ruins of a fallen civilization to the mighty sea serpents of the tropics, these creatures are a source of both endless fascination and frequent peril. Accompanying her is not only her young son, Jake, but a chivalrous foreign archaeologist whose interests converge with Isabella’s in ways both professional and personal.

Science is, of course, the primary objective of the voyage, but Isabella’s life is rarely so simple. She must cope with storms, shipwrecks, intrigue, and warfare, even as she makes a discovery that offers a revolutionary new insight into the ancient history of dragons.]]> 370 Marie Brennan 1429956364 Alden 0 to-read 4.20 2015 The Voyage of the Basilisk (The Memoirs of Lady Trent, #3)
author: Marie Brennan
name: Alden
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Tropic of Serpents (The Memoirs of Lady Trent, #2)]]> 17910078 The Tropic of Serpents . . .

Attentive readers of Lady Trent’s earlier memoir, A Natural History of Dragons, are already familiar with how a bookish and determined young woman named Isabella first set out on the historic course that would one day lead her to becoming the world’s premier dragon naturalist. Now, in this remarkably candid second volume, Lady Trent looks back at the next stage of her illustrious (and occasionally scandalous) career.

Three years after her fateful journeys through the forbidding mountains of Vystrana,ĚýMrs. Camherst defies family and convention to embark on an expedition to theĚýwar-torn continent of Eriga, home of such exotic draconian species as the grass-dwelling snakes of the savannah, arboreal tree snakes, and, most elusive of all, the legendary swamp-wyrms of the tropics.

The expedition is not an easy one. Accompanied by both an old associate and a runaway heiress, Isabella must brave oppressive heat, merciless fevers, palace intrigues, gossip, and other hazards in order to satisfy her boundless fascination with all things draconian, even if it means venturing deep into the forbidden jungle known as the Green Hell . . . where her courage, resourcefulness, and scientific curiosity will be tested as never before.]]> 331 Marie Brennan 0765331977 Alden 4 4.02 2014 The Tropic of Serpents (The Memoirs of Lady Trent, #2)
author: Marie Brennan
name: Alden
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Bands of Mourning (Mistborn, #6)]]> 18739426
The Bands of Mourning are the mythical metal minds owned by the Lord Ruler, said to grant anyone who wears them the powers that the Lord Ruler had at his command. Hardly anyone thinks they really exist. A kandra researcher has returned to Elendel with images that seem to depict the Bands, as well as writings in a language that no one can read. Waxillium Ladrian is recruited to travel south to the city of New Seran to investigate. Along the way he discovers hints that point to the true goals of his uncle Edwarn and the shadowy organization known as The Set.]]> 455 Brandon Sanderson 146686267X Alden 4 4.42 2016 The Bands of Mourning (Mistborn, #6)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Alden
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #3)]]> 7093952
But on the winter night when they were supposed to leave, Rosie didn't show. Frank took it for granted that she'd given him the brush-off--probably because of his alcoholic father, nutcase mother, and generally dysfunctional family. He never went home again.

Neither did Rosie. Everyone thought she had gone to England on her own and was over there living a shiny new life. Then, twenty-two years later, Rosie's suitcase shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place, and Frank is going home whether he likes it or not.

Getting sucked in is a lot easier than getting out again. Frank finds himself straight back in the dark tangle of relationships he left behind. The cops working the case want him out of the way, in case loyalty to his family and community makes him a liability. Faithful Place wants him out because he’s a detective now, and the Place has never liked cops. Frank just wants to find out what happened to Rosie Daly-and he’s willing to do whatever it takes, to himself or anyone else, to get the job done.]]> 400 Tana French 0670021873 Alden 4 3.98 2010 Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #3)
author: Tana French
name: Alden
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/01/29
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]]> The Word for World Is Forest 276767 160 Ursula K. Le Guin Alden 0 to-read 4.06 1972 The Word for World Is Forest
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Alden
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1972
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/21
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]]> <![CDATA[War of the Wolf (The Saxon Stories, #11)]]> 37819082 Game of Thrones, but real" (The Observer)—the basis of the hit Netflix television series The Last Kingdom.

His blood is Saxon
His heart is Viking
His battleground is England

"Perhaps the greatest writer of historical adventure novels today" (Washington Post), Bernard Cornwell has dazzled and entertained readers and critics with his page-turning bestsellers. Of all his protagonists, however, none is as beloved as Uhtred of Bebbanburg.

And while Uhtred might have regained his family’s fortress, it seems that a peaceful life is not to be â€� as he is under threat from both an old enemy and a new foe. The old enemy comes from Wessex where a dynastic struggle will determine who will be the next king. ĚýAnd the new foe is Sköll, a Norseman, whose ambition is to be King of Northumbria and who leads a frightening army of wolf-warriors, men who fight half-crazed in the belief that they are indeed wolves. Uhtred, believing he is cursed, must fend off one enemy while he tries to destroy the other. In this new chapter of the Saxon Tales series—a rousing adventure of courage, treachery, duty, devotion, majesty, love and battle, as seen through the eyes of a warrior straddling two worlds—Uhtred returns to fight once again for the destiny of England.]]> 0 Bernard Cornwell 006256319X Alden 4 4.30 2018 War of the Wolf (The Saxon Stories, #11)
author: Bernard Cornwell
name: Alden
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
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]]> <![CDATA[The Thousand Eyes (The Serpent Gates, #2)]]> 55077684 The sequel to A. K. Larkwood's stunning debut fantasy, The Unspoken Name, The Thousand Eyes continues The Serpent Gates series--perfect for fans of Jenn Lyons, Joe Abercrombie, and Ursula K. Le Guin.

Two years ago, Csorwe and Shuthmili defied the wizard Belthandros Sethennai and stole his gauntlets. The gauntlets have made Shuthmili extraordinarily powerful, but they're beginning to take a sinister toll on her. She and Csorwe travel to a distant world to discover how to use the gauntlets safely, but when an old enemy arrives on the scene, Shuthmili finds herself torn between clinging to her humanity and embracing eldritch power.

Meanwhile, Tal Charossa returns to Tlaanthothe to find that Sethennai has gone missing. As well as being a wizard of unimaginable power, Sethennai is Tal's old boss and former lover, and Tal wants nothing to do with him. When a magical catastrophe befalls the city, Tal tries to run rather than face his past, but soon learns that something even worse may lurk in the future. Throughout the worlds of the Echo Maze, fragments of an undead goddess begin to awaken, and not all confrontations can be put off forever...]]> 385 A.K. Larkwood 1250238943 Alden 4 4.08 2022 The Thousand Eyes (The Serpent Gates, #2)
author: A.K. Larkwood
name: Alden
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/18
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]]> ShĹŤgun (Asian Saga, #1) 52382796
Powerful and engrossing, capturing both the rich pageantry and stark realities of life in feudal Japan, ShĹŤgun is a critically acclaimed powerhouse of a book. Heart-stopping, edge-of-your-seat action melds seamlessly with intricate historical detail and raw human emotion. Endlessly compelling, this sweeping saga captivated the world to become not only one of the best-selling novels of all time but also one of the highest-rated television miniseries, as well as inspiring a nationwide surge of interest in the culture of Japan. Shakespearean in both scope and depth, ShĹŤgun is, as the New York Times put it, "...not only something you read--you live it." Provocative, absorbing, and endlessly fascinating, there is only one: ShĹŤgun.]]> 1152 James Clavell 1982603844 Alden 0 to-read 4.42 1975 ShĹŤgun (Asian Saga, #1)
author: James Clavell
name: Alden
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1975
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
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]]> The Navigator's Children 60097938
The Hayholt is besieged by the Norns. Once the home of their immortal brethren, the Sithi, now capital of the kingdom of men, the fabled castle is under attack. And as the world is distracted by this strike against humankind, the Norns� deathless witch-queen Utuk’ku turns towards the mysterious fateful valley called Tanakirú—the Vale of Mists.

Meanwhile, Queen Miriamele hurries to save the Hayholt and capture the treacherous noble Pasevalles, but arrives to discover the traitor has escaped.

And inside TanakirĂş, Vale of Mists, the bond between Prince Morgan and Nezeru, a renegade Norn, has become something deeper and stranger than either of them could have anticipated.Ěý They journey ever deeper to the heart of the valley’s mystery, encountering wonder and horror, and come face to face at last with the ancient secret that has kindled the Norn Queen’s war—a secret that will destroy immortals and humans alike.]]> 752 Tad Williams 0756418550 Alden 5 4.62 2024 The Navigator's Children
author: Tad Williams
name: Alden
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Harbors of the Sun (The Books of the Raksura, #5)]]> 28960325 Nominated for the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Series

"Breathtakingly surprising and fun. For readers who missed earlier entry points to this delightful series, now is the time to get on board."
�The New York Times

A former friend has betrayed the Raksura and their groundling companions, and now the survivors must race across the Three Worlds to rescue their kidnapped family members. When Moon and Stone are sent ahead to scout, they quickly encounter an unexpected and potentially deadly ally, and decide to disobey the queens and continue the search alone. Following in a wind-ship, Jade and Malachite make an unlikely alliance of their own, until word reaches them that the Fell are massing for an attack on the Reaches, and that forces of the powerful Empire of Kish are turning against the Raksura and their groundling comrades.

But there may be no time to stage a rescue, as the kidnapped Raksura discover that their captors are heading toward a mysterious destination with a stolen magical artifact that will cause more devastation for the Reaches than anything the lethal Fell can imagine. To stop them, the Raksura will have to take the ultimate risk and follow them into forbidden territory.

The Harbors of the Sun, from celebrated fantasy author Martha Wells, is the thrilling follow-up to The Edge of Worlds, and the conclusion of a new Three Worlds duology of strange lands, uncanny beings, dead cities, and ancient danger.]]> 416 Martha Wells Alden 3 4.15 2017 The Harbors of the Sun (The Books of the Raksura, #5)
author: Martha Wells
name: Alden
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/31
date added: 2024/12/29
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]]> The Wood at Midwinter 206101583 'A church is a sort of wood. A wood is a sort of church. They're the same thing really.'

Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scott is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees—and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods.

One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst—and the path of her life is changed forever.

From the internationally bestselling and prize-winning author of Piranesi and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an enchanting, beautifully illustrated short story set in the Strange universe. Featuring an introduction by Susanna Clarke and gorgeous illustrations from Victoria Sawdon truly worthy of the magic of this story, this is a mesmerising, must-have addition to any fantasy reader's bookshelf.]]> 64 Susanna Clarke 1639734481 Alden 4 3.47 2024 The Wood at Midwinter
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Alden
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
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]]> <![CDATA[A Song of Flight (Warrior Bards, #3)]]> 56987049 464 Juliet Marillier 0451492838 Alden 4 4.23 2021 A Song of Flight (Warrior Bards, #3)
author: Juliet Marillier
name: Alden
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Journey to the Center of the Earth]]> 32829
The expedition descends into an extinct volcano toward a sunless sea, where they encounter a subterranean world of luminous rocks, antediluvian forests, and fantastic marine life � a living past that holds the secrets to the origins of human existence.]]> 240 Jules Verne 0553213970 Alden 3 3.87 1864 Journey to the Center of the Earth
author: Jules Verne
name: Alden
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1864
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> Gerald's Game 28111711
Master storyteller Stephen King presents this classic, terrifying #1 New York Times bestseller. When a game of seduction between a husband and wife ends in death, the nightmare has only begun�

“And now the voice which spoke belonged to no one but herself. Oh my God , it said. Oh my God, I am all alone out here. I am all alone. �

Once again, Jessie Burlingame has been talked into submitting to her husband Gerald’s kinky sex games—something that she’s frankly had enough of, and they never held much charm for her to begin with. So much for a “romantic getaway� at their secluded summer home. After Jessie is handcuffed to the bedposts—and Gerald crosses a line with his wife—the day ends with deadly consequences. Now Jessie is utterly trapped in an isolated lakeside house that has become her prison—and comes face-to-face with her deepest, darkest fears and memories. Her only company is that of the various voices filling her mind…as well as the shadows of nightfall that may conceal an imagined or very real threat right there with her…]]> 468 Stephen King 1501144200 Alden 4 3.74 1992 Gerald's Game
author: Stephen King
name: Alden
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> Solutions and Other Problems 51323365
Solutions and Other Problems includes humorous stories from Allie Brosh’s childhood; the adventures of her very bad animals; merciless dissection of her own character flaws; incisive essays on grief, loneliness, and powerlessness; as well as reflections on the absurdity of modern life.

This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features all-new material with more than 1,600 pieces of art.]]> 519 Allie Brosh 1982156945 Alden 4 4.21 2020 Solutions and Other Problems
author: Allie Brosh
name: Alden
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/01/01
date added: 2024/12/21
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]]> One Piece: East Blue 10-11-12 134717386
High jinx on the high seas! Buy three volumes of One Piece for the price of two!

R to L (Japanese Style).

Follow the beginning of Luffy’s search for the greatest treasure in the world� one guy alone in a rowboat, in search of the legendary " One Piece .� Three volumes of One Piece for the price of two! (Contains volumes 10,11,12).

As a child, Monkey D. Luffy dreamed of becoming the King of the Pirates. But his life changed when he accidentally gained the power to stretch like rubber…at the cost of never being able to swim again! Now Luffy, with the help of a motley collection of pirate wannabes, is setting off in search of the "One Piece," said to be the greatest treasure in the world...]]> 0 Eiichiro Oda Alden 3 4.47 2010 One Piece: East Blue 10-11-12
author: Eiichiro Oda
name: Alden
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/20
date added: 2024/12/20
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]]> The Book of Love 157981682 The Book of Love showcases Kelly Link at the height of her powers, channeling potent magic and attuned to all varieties of love—from friendship to romance to abiding family ties—with her trademark compassion, wit, and literary derring-do. Readers will find joy (and a little terror) and an affirmation that love goes on, even when we cannot.

Late one night, Laura, Daniel, and Mo find themselves beneath the fluorescent lights of a high school classroom, almost a year after disappearing from their hometown, the small seaside community of Lovesend, Massachusetts, having long been presumed dead. Which, in fact, they are.

With them in the room is their previously unremarkable high school music teacher, who seems to know something about their disappearance—and what has brought them back again. Desperate to reclaim their lives, the three agree to the terms of the bargain their music teacher proposes. They will be given a series of magical tasks; while they undertake them, they may return to their families and friends, but they can tell no one where they’ve been. In the end, there will be winners and there will be losers.

But their resurrection has attracted the notice of other supernatural figures, all with their own agendas. As Laura, Daniel, and Mo grapple with the pieces of the lives they left behind, and Laura’s sister, Susannah, attempts to reconcile what she remembers with what she fears, these mysterious others begin to arrive, engulfing their community in danger and chaos, and it becomes imperative that the teens solve the mystery of their deaths to avert a looming disaster.]]> 628 Kelly Link 0812996585 Alden 0 to-read 3.45 2024 The Book of Love
author: Kelly Link
name: Alden
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Long Live Evil (Time of Iron #1)]]> 201626991
She wakes in a castle on the edge of a hellish chasm, in a kingdom on the brink of war. Home to dangerous monsters, scheming courtiers and her favourite fictional character: the Once and Forever Emperor. He’s impossibly alluring, as only fiction can be. And in this fantasy world, she discovers she's not the heroine, but the villainess in the Emperor's tale.

So be it. The wicked are better dressed, with better one-liners, even if they're doomed to bad ends. She assembles the wildly disparate villains of the story under her evil leadership, plotting to change their fate. But as the body count rises and the Emperor's fury increases, it seems Rae and her allies may not survive to see the final page.

This adult epic fantasy debut from Sarah Rees Brennan puts the reader in the villain's shoes, for an adventure that is both 'brilliant' (Holly Black) and 'supremely satisfying' (Leigh Bardugo). Expect a rogue's gallery of villains including an axe wielding maid, a shining knight with dark moods, a homicidal bodyguard, and a playboy spymaster with a golden heart and a filthy reputation.]]> 435 Sarah Rees Brennan 0316568716 Alden 0 to-read 3.87 2024 Long Live Evil (Time of Iron #1)
author: Sarah Rees Brennan
name: Alden
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> Exordia 65213781
Anna Sinjari―refugee, survivor of genocide, disaffected office worker―has a close encounter that reveals universe-threatening stakes. While humanity reels from disaster, she must join a small team of civilians, soldiers, and scientists to investigate a mysterious broadcast and unknowable horror. If they can manage to face their own demons, they just might save the world.]]> 532 Seth Dickinson 1250233011 Alden 0 to-read 3.60 2024 Exordia
author: Seth Dickinson
name: Alden
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/18
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]]> <![CDATA[The Mercy of Gods (The Captive’s War #1)]]> 201930181
Caught up in academic intrigue and affairs of the heart, Dafyd Alkhor is pleased just to be an assistant to a brilliant scientist and his celebrated research team. ĚýThen the Carryx ships descend, decimating the human population and taking the best and brightest of Anjiin society away to serve on the Carryx homeworld, and Dafyd is swept along with them. They are dropped in the middle of a struggle they barely understand, set in a competition against the other captive species with extinction as the price of failure.

Only Dafyd and a handful of his companions see past the Darwinian contest to the deeper game that they must play to learning to understand â€� and manipulate â€� the Carryx themselves. With a noble but suicidal human rebellion on one hand and strange and murderous enemies on the other, the team pays a terrible price to become the trusted servants of their new rulers. Dafyd Alkhor is a simple man swept up in events that are beyond his control and more vast than his imagination. ĚýHe will become the champion of humanity and its betrayer, the most hated man in history and the guardian of his people. This is where his story begins.]]> 422 James S.A. Corey 031652557X Alden 0 to-read 4.11 2024 The Mercy of Gods (The Captive’s War #1)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Alden
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Vacuum Diagrams (Xeelee Sequence, #5)]]> 63960 This dazzling future history, winner of the 2000 Philip K. Dick Award, is the most ambitious and exciting since Asimov's classic Foundation saga. It tells the story of Humankind - all the way to the end of the Universe itself.

Here, in luminous and vivid narratives spanning five million years, are the first Poole wormholes spanning the solar system; the conquest of Human planets by Squeem; GUTships that outrace light; the back-time invasion of the Qax; the mystery and legacy of the Xeelee, and their artifacts as large as small galaxies; photino birds and Dark Matter; and the Ring, where Ghost, Human, and Xeelee contemplate the awesome end of Time.


Eve (1997)
The Sun-People (1993)
The Logic Pool (1994)
Gossamer (1995)
Cilia-of-Gold (1994)
Lieserl (1993)
Pilot (1993)
The Xeelee Flower (1987)
More Than Time or Distance (1988)
The Switch (1990)
Blue Shift (1989)
The Quagma Datum (1989)
Planck Zero (1992)
The Gödel Sunflowers (1992)
Vacuum Diagrams (1990)
Stowaway (1991)
The Tyranny of Heaven (1990)
Hero (1995)
Secret History (1991)
Shell (1987)
The Eighth Room (1989)
The Baryonic Lords (1991)
Eve (1997)]]> 512 Stephen Baxter 0061059048 Alden 2 4.06 1997 Vacuum Diagrams (Xeelee Sequence, #5)
author: Stephen Baxter
name: Alden
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1997
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #2)]]> 199347538 Somewhere Beyond the Sea is the hugely anticipated sequel to TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea, one of the best-loved and best-selling fantasy novels of the past decade. Featuring gorgeous orange sprayed edges!

A magical house. A secret past. A summons that could change everything.

Arthur Parnassus lives a good life built on the ashes of a bad one.

He’s the master of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six dangerous and magical children who live there.

Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. He is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department In Charge of Magical Youth. And there’s the island’s sprite, Zoe Chapelwhite, and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.

But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.

And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home—one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name that Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from—Arthur knows they’re at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.

Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur’s story.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a story of resistance, lovingly told, about the daunting experience of fighting for the life you want to live and doing the work to keep it.]]> 416 T.J. Klune 125088120X Alden 4 4.17 2024 Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #2)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Alden
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/15
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]]> Blackfish City 35068768
“Simmers with menace and heartache, suspense and wonder.� —Ann Leckie

A Best Book of the Month in

Entertainment Weekly

The Washington Post

Tor.com

B&N Sci-Fi Fantasy Blog

Amazon

After the climate wars, a floating city is constructed in the Arctic Circle, a remarkable feat of mechanical and social engineering, complete with geothermal heating and sustainable energy.ĚýThe city’s denizens have become accustomed to a roughshod new way of living, however, the city is starting to fray along the edges—crime and corruption have set in, the contradictions of incredible wealth alongside direst poverty are spawning unrest, and a new disease called “the breaksâ€� is ravaging the population.

When a strange new visitor arrives—a woman riding an orca, with a polar bear at her side—the city is entranced. The “orcamancer,â€� as she’s known, very subtly brings together four people—each living on the periphery—to stage unprecedented acts of resistance. By banding together to save their city before it crumbles under the weight of its own decay, they will learn shocking truths about themselves.Ěý

Blackfish City is a remarkably urgent—and ultimately very hopeful—novel about political corruption, organized crime, technology run amok, the consequences of climate change, gender identity, and the unifying power of human connection.Ěý

Ěý±Ő±Ő> 336 Sam J. Miller 0062684841 Alden 3 3.54 2018 Blackfish City
author: Sam J. Miller
name: Alden
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2024/12/11
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Into the Drowning Deep (Rolling in the Deep, #1)]]> 34523174
Now, a new crew has been assembled. But this time they’re not out to entertain. Some seek to validate their life’s work. Some seek the greatest hunt of all. Some seek the truth. But for the ambitious young scientist Victoria Stewart this is a voyage to uncover the fate of the sister she lost.

Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the waves. But the secrets of the deep come with a price.]]> 448 Mira Grant 0316379409 Alden 4 3.94 2017 Into the Drowning Deep (Rolling in the Deep, #1)
author: Mira Grant
name: Alden
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/06
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s]]> 195790601
With the Soviet Union extinct, Saddam Hussein defeated, and U.S. power at its zenith, the early 1990s promised a “kinder, gentler America.� Instead, it was a period of rising anger and domestic turmoil, anticipating the polarization and resurgent extremism we know today.

In When the Clock Broke , the acclaimed political writer John Ganz tells the story of America’s late-century discontents. Ranging from upheavals in Crown Heights and Los Angeles to the advent of David Duke and the heartland survivalists, the broadcasts of Rush Limbaugh, and the bitter disputes between neoconservatives and the “paleo-con� right, Ganz immerses us in a time when what Philip Roth called the “indigenous American berserk� took new and ever-wilder forms. In the 1992 campaign, Pat Buchanan's and Ross Perot’s insurgent populist bids upended the political establishment, all while Americans struggled through recession, alarm about racial and social change, the specter of a new power in Asia, and the end of Cold War–era political norms. Conspiracy theories surged, and intellectuals and activists strove to understand the “Middle American Radicals� whose alienation fueled new causes. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton appeared to forge a new, vital center, though it would not hold for long.

In a rollicking, eye-opening book, Ganz narrates the fall of the Reagan order and the rise of a new and more turbulent America.]]> 432 John Ganz 0374605440 Alden 0 to-read 4.08 2024 When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s
author: John Ganz
name: Alden
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/30
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]]> Playground 205478762 The Overstory at the height of his skills. Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world’s first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. Two polar opposites at an elite Chicago high school bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game; Rafi Young will get lost in literature, while Todd Keane’s work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough.

They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity’s next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island’s residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away.

Set in the world’s largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.]]> 381 Richard Powers 1324086033 Alden 0 to-read 4.16 2024 Playground
author: Richard Powers
name: Alden
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/30
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]]> James 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]> 303 Percival Everett Alden 0 to-read 4.46 2024 James
author: Percival Everett
name: Alden
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/30
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]]> One Piece. Omnibus, Vol. 3 7825529
The Straw Hat crew makes a pit stop at the oceangoing restaurant the Baratie, where the cooks are as rough-and-tumble as the pirates who frequent it. Don Krieg, a notorious pirate whose ship was battered in the treacherous seas of the Grand Line, has set his sights on the Baratie, but sous-chef Sanji isn't going to stand idly by while these ruthless pirates take the ship by force!

Containing Volumes 7, 8 and 9 of One Piece!

R to L (Japanese Style)]]> 592 Eiichiro Oda 1421536277 Alden 4 4.54 2010 One Piece. Omnibus, Vol. 3
author: Eiichiro Oda
name: Alden
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/30
date added: 2024/11/30
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War]]> 195608683 The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War—a slow-burning crisis that finally tore a deeply divided nation in two.

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston: Fort Sumter.
Ěý
Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.�
Ěý
At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between both. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous Secretary of State, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans.
Ěý
Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.]]> 565 Erik Larson 0385348746 Alden 0 to-read 4.13 2024 The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
author: Erik Larson
name: Alden
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/26
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]]> The Wings Upon Her Back 198821102
Five gods lie mysteriously sleeping above the city of Radezhda. Five gods who once bestowed great technologies and wisdom, each inspiring the devotion of their own sect. When the gods turned away from humanity, their followers built towers to the heavens to find out why. But when no answer was given, the collective grief of the sects turned to desperation, and eventually to war.

Zenya was a teenager when she ran away from home to join the mechanically-modified warrior sect. She was determined to earn mechanized wings and protect the people and city she loved. Under the strict tutelage of a mercurial, charismatic leader, Zenya became Winged Zemolai.

But after twenty-six years of service, Zemolai is disillusioned with her role as an enforcer in an increasingly fascist state. After one tragic act of mercy, she is cast out, and loses everything she worked for. As Zemolai fights for her life, she begins to understand the true nature of her sect, her leader, and the gods themselves.]]> 336 Samantha Mills 1616964146 Alden 4 3.95 2024 The Wings Upon Her Back
author: Samantha Mills
name: Alden
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/24
date added: 2024/11/24
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]]> For Whom the Bell Tolls 46170 For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote to Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.]]> 471 Ernest Hemingway Alden 0 to-read 3.98 1940 For Whom the Bell Tolls
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Alden
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1940
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/24
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]]> The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle 11275
In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force equal in scope to the masterpieces of Mishima and Pynchon.]]> 607 Haruki Murakami 0965341984 Alden 0 dnf 4.16 1994 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Alden
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/17
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> Blackout (All Clear, #1) 6506307 491 Connie Willis 0553803190 Alden 0 to-read 3.85 2010 Blackout (All Clear, #1)
author: Connie Willis
name: Alden
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Shadows of Self (Mistborn, #5)]]> 16065004
Three hundred years after the events of the Mistborn trilogy, Scadrial is now on the verge of modernity, with railroads to supplement the canals, electric lighting in the streets and the homes of the wealthy, and the first steel-framed skyscrapers racing for the clouds.

When family obligations forced Waxillium Ladrian to forsake the frontier lands and return to the metropolis of his birth to take his place as head of a noble House, he little imagined that the crime-fighting skills acquired during twenty years in the dusty plains would be just as applicable in the big city. He soon learned that there too, just being a talented Twinborn � one who can use both Allomancy and Feruchemy, the dominant magical modes on Scadrial � would not suffice.

This bustling, optimistic, but still shaky society will now face its first test by terrorism and assassination, crimes intended to stir up labor strife and religious conflict. Wax, his eccentric sidekick Wayne, and brilliant, beautiful young Marasi, now officially part of the constabulary, must unravel the conspiracy before civil strife can stop Scadrial’s progress in its tracks.]]> 376 Brandon Sanderson 0765378558 Alden 4 4.27 2015 Shadows of Self (Mistborn, #5)
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Alden
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/12
date added: 2024/11/12
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]]> <![CDATA[A Dance with Fate (Warrior Bards, #2)]]> 36253130 A young woman who is both a bard--and a warrior--seeks to repay her debts and settle scores in this thrilling historical fantasy series.

The young warrior and bard Liobhan has lost her brother to the Otherworld. Even more determined to gain a place as an elite fighter, she returns to Swan Island to continue her training. But Liobhan is devastated when her comrade Dau is injured and loses his sight in their final display bout. Blamed by Dau's family for the accident, she agrees to go to Dau's home as a bond servant for the span of one year.

There, she soon learns that Oakhill is a place of dark secrets. The vicious Crow Folk still threaten both worlds. And Dau, battling the demon of despair, is not an easy man to help.

When Liobhan and Dau start to expose the rot at the center of Oakhill, they place themselves in deadly danger. For their enemy wields great power and will stop at nothing to get his way. It will take all the skills of a Swan Island warrior and a touch of the uncanny to give them a hope of survival. . . .]]> 507 Juliet Marillier Alden 4 4.17 2020 A Dance with Fate (Warrior Bards, #2)
author: Juliet Marillier
name: Alden
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/05
date added: 2024/11/05
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]]> <![CDATA[The Palace Job (Rogues of the Republic, #1)]]> 18685436

It would help if she wasn’t in jail.

The plan: to steal a priceless elven manuscript that once belonged to her family, but now is in the hands of the most powerful man in the Republic. To do so Loch—former soldier, former prisoner, current fugitive—must assemble a crack team of magical misfits that includes a cynical illusionist, a shapeshifting unicorn, a repentant death priestess, a talking magical warhammer, and a lad with seemingly no skills to help her break into the floating fortress of Heaven’s Spire and the vault that holds her family’s treasure—all while eluding the unrelenting pursuit of Justicar Pyvic, whose only mission is to see the law upheld.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Palace Job is a funny, action-packed, high-fantasy heist caper in the tradition of Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastards series, from debut author Patrick Weekes.

]]> 439 Patrick Weekes 1477898204 Alden 4 3.89 2012 The Palace Job (Rogues of the Republic, #1)
author: Patrick Weekes
name: Alden
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/04
date added: 2024/11/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Robopocalypse (Robopocalypse, #1)]]> 9634967
In the months leading up to this, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of unconnected humans—a single mother disconcerted by her daughter's menacing "smart" toys, a lonely Japanese bachelor who is victimized by his domestic robot companion, an isolated U.S. soldier who witnesses a "pacification unit" go haywire—but most are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late.

When the Robot War ignites—at a moment known later as Zero Hour—humankind will be both decimated and, possibly, for the first time in history, united. Robopocalypse is a brilliantly conceived action-filled epic, a terrifying story with heart-stopping implications for the real technology all around us ... and an entertaining and engaging thriller unlike anything else written in years.]]> 368 Daniel H. Wilson 0385533853 Alden 3 3.70 2011 Robopocalypse (Robopocalypse, #1)
author: Daniel H. Wilson
name: Alden
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/26
date added: 2024/10/26
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]]> <![CDATA[The Flame Bearer (The Saxon Stories, #10)]]> 28949218
Under the cover of this fragile calm, Uhtred must begin his campaign that will end with the assault on Bebbanburg, the great fortress that is rightly his and was stolen from him in childhood. But his plans are shattered when the Scots surge down and lay claim to the north of England, as the West Saxons, under Uhtred’s old enemy, Æthelhelm, invade Northumbria from the south. If Uhtred is to succeed in recapturing Bebbanburg he must both defeat Æthelhelm’s forces and drive the Scots away before he can attack the formidable fortress by the sea. He has a small army and many enemies, but Uhtred is not the supreme warlord of Britain for nothing...]]> 284 Bernard Cornwell 0007504217 Alden 4 4.37 2016 The Flame Bearer (The Saxon Stories, #10)
author: Bernard Cornwell
name: Alden
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/18
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves:
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]]> Solaris 95558
When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the living physical likeness of a long-dead lover. Others examining the planet, Kelvin learns, are plagued with their own repressed and newly corporeal memories. The Solaris ocean may be a massive brain that creates these incarnate memories, though its purpose in doing so is unknown, forcing the scientists to shift the focus of their quest and wonder if they can truly understand the universe without first understanding what lies within their hearts.]]> 204 Stanisław Lem Alden 0 to-read 4.00 1961 Solaris
author: Stanisław Lem
name: Alden
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Magic for Nothing (InCryptid, #6)]]> 30712676 1. Not very likely to happen; not probable.
2. Probably not a very good idea anyway.
3. See also “bad plan.�

As the youngest of the three Price children, Antimony is used to people not expecting much from her. She’s been happy playing roller derby and hanging out with her cousins, leaving the globe-trotting to her older siblings while she stays at home and tries to decide what she wants to do with her life. She always knew that one day, things would have to change. She didn’t think they’d change so fast.

Annie’s expectations keep getting shattered. She didn’t expect Verity to declare war on the Covenant of St. George on live television. She didn’t expect the Covenant to take her sister’s threat seriously. And she definitely didn’t expect to be packed off to London to infiltrate the Covenant from the inside…but as the only Price in her generation without a strong resemblance to the rest of the family, she’s the perfect choice to play spy. They need to know what’s coming. Their lives may depend on it.

But Annie has some secrets of her own, like the fact that she’s started setting things on fire when she touches them, and has no idea how to control it. Now she’s headed halfway around the world, into the den of the enemy, where blowing her cover could get her killed. She’s pretty sure things can’t get much worse.

Antimony Price is about to learn just how wrong it’s possible for one cryptozoologist to be.]]> 360 Seanan McGuire 0698183541 Alden 4 4.24 2017 Magic for Nothing (InCryptid, #6)
author: Seanan McGuire
name: Alden
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/12
date added: 2024/10/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The Living Sword (Living Sword, #1)]]> 18341526
Reluctant to go, yet curious, Eurik sets out to discover who they were, and what happened to them. But is he ready for all the attention his heritage will earn him? Can he survive in a world he has only read about?]]> 124 Pemry Janes Alden 2 3.42 2013 The Living Sword (Living Sword, #1)
author: Pemry Janes
name: Alden
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/08
date added: 2024/10/08
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]]> Light from Uncommon Stars 56179360
Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate. But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn't have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan's kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul's worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline. As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 372 Ryka Aoki 1250789060 Alden 4 4.03 2021 Light from Uncommon Stars
author: Ryka Aoki
name: Alden
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/05
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #2)]]> 77565 517 Dan Simmons 0553288202 Alden 0 to-read 4.23 1990 The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #2)
author: Dan Simmons
name: Alden
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1)]]> 77566 500 Dan Simmons 0553283685 Alden 4 4.26 1989 Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1)
author: Dan Simmons
name: Alden
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1989
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/29
date added: 2024/09/29
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Black Powder War (Temeraire, #3)]]> 91989 365 Naomi Novik 0345481305 Alden 4 3.90 2006 Black Powder War (Temeraire, #3)
author: Naomi Novik
name: Alden
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/24
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves:
review:

]]> One Piece. Omnibus, Vol. 2 7790696
Usopp is the local liar who likes to stir up trouble by shouting "The pirates are coming!" But he never expected his harmless prank to become a reality! Captain Kuro of the Black Cat Pirates has been lying low, posing as a mild-mannered butler while waiting for the right time to strike it rich with his devious plan. With no one believing him, all hope seems lost for Usopp--until he has Luffy on his side!

Containing Volumes 4, 5 and 6 of One Piece!

R to L (Japanese Style)]]> 600 Eiichiro Oda 1421536269 Alden 3 4.40 2010 One Piece. Omnibus, Vol. 2
author: Eiichiro Oda
name: Alden
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/18
date added: 2024/09/18
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]]> <![CDATA[For We Are Many (Bobiverse, #2)]]> 33395557
Bob and his copies have been spreading out from Earth for 40 years now, looking for habitable planets. But that's the only part of the plan that's still in one piece. A system-wide war has killed off 99.9 percent of the human race; nuclear winter is slowly making the Earth uninhabitable; a radical group wants to finish the job on the remnants of humanity; the Brazilian space probes are still out there, still trying to blow up the competition; and the Bobs have discovered a spacefaring species that sees all other life as food.

Bob left Earth anticipating a life of exploration and blissful solitude. Instead he's become a sky god to a primitive native species, the only hope for getting humanity to a new home, and possibly the only thing that can prevent every living thing in the local sphere from ending up as dinner.]]> 311 Dennis E. Taylor Alden 0 to-read 4.37 2017 For We Are Many (Bobiverse, #2)
author: Dennis E. Taylor
name: Alden
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/15
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]]> <![CDATA[We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse, #1)]]> 32109569 Alternate Cover Edition can be found here.

Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and movies to watch. So it's a little unfair when he gets himself killed crossing the street.

Bob wakes up a century later to find that corpsicles have been declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state. He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets. The stakes are high: no less than the first claim to entire worlds. If he declines the honor, he'll be switched off, and they'll try again with someone else. If he accepts, he becomes a prime target. There are at least three other countries trying to get their own probes launched first, and they play dirty.

The safest place for Bob is in space, heading away from Earth at top speed. Or so he thinks. Because the universe is full of nasties, and trespassers make them mad - very mad.]]> 383 Dennis E. Taylor Alden 4 4.29 2016 We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse, #1)
author: Dennis E. Taylor
name: Alden
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/15
date added: 2024/09/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Battle of Stonington: Torpedoes, Submarines, and Rockets in the War of 1812]]> 4511214 De Kay, James T. 216 James Tertius de Kay 0940160730 Alden 0 to-read 4.50 1990 The Battle of Stonington: Torpedoes, Submarines, and Rockets in the War of 1812
author: James Tertius de Kay
name: Alden
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/13
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]]> <![CDATA[The Unspoken Name (The Serpent Gates, #1)]]> 45046552
Csorwe does. She will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice. On the day of her foretold death, however, a powerful mage offers her a new fate.

Csorwe leaves her home, her destiny, and her god to become the wizard's loyal sword-hand -- stealing, spying, and killing to help him reclaim his seat of power in the homeland from which he was exiled.

But Csorwe and the wizard will soon learn � gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.]]> 464 A.K. Larkwood 1250238900 Alden 4 3.70 2020 The Unspoken Name (The Serpent Gates, #1)
author: A.K. Larkwood
name: Alden
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/13
date added: 2024/09/13
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]]> <![CDATA[A Natural History of Dragons (The Memoirs of Lady Trent, #1)]]> 12974372 You, dear reader, continue at your own risk. It is not for the faint of heart—no more so than the study of dragons itself. But such study offers rewards beyond compare: to stand in a dragon's presence, even for the briefest of moments—even at the risk of one's life—is a delight that, once experienced, can never be forgotten. . . .

All the world, from Scirland to the farthest reaches of Eriga, know Isabella, Lady Trent, to be the world's preeminent dragon naturalist. She is the remarkable woman who brought the study of dragons out of the misty shadows of myth and misunderstanding into the clear light of modern science. But before she became the illustrious figure we know today, there was a bookish young woman whose passion for learning, natural history, and, yes, dragons defied the stifling conventions of her day.

Here at last, in her own words, is the true story of a pioneering spirit who risked her reputation, her prospects, and her fragile flesh and bone to satisfy her scientific curiosity; of how she sought true love and happiness despite her lamentable eccentricities; and of her thrilling expedition to the perilous mountains of Vystrana, where she made the first of many historic discoveries that would change the world forever.]]> 334 Marie Brennan 0765331969 Alden 4 3.83 2013 A Natural History of Dragons (The Memoirs of Lady Trent, #1)
author: Marie Brennan
name: Alden
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/08
date added: 2024/09/08
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]]> <![CDATA[A View from the Stars: Stories and Essays]]> 158043792 "We’re mysterious aliens in the crowd. We jump like fleas from future to past and back again, and float like clouds of gas between nebulae; in a flash, we can reach the edge of the universe, or tunnel into a quark, or swim within a star-core. . . . We’re as unassuming as fireflies, yet our numbers grow like grass in spring. We sci-fi fans are people from the future."—Cixin Liu, from the essay "Sci-Fi Fans"

A VIEW FROM THE STARS features a range of short works from the past three decades of New York Times bestselling author Cixin Liu's prolific career, putting his nonfiction essays and short stories side-by-side for the first time. This collection includes essays and interviews that shed light on Liu's experiences as a reader, writer, and lover of science fiction throughout his life, as well as short fiction that gives glimpses into the evolution of his imaginative voice over the years.

"Science fiction without guile, without snark, without ironic disaffection and all its exhausting modern baggage. It just asks what would happen? Waits for someone to answer. And then it asks again."—NPR on the works of Cixin Liu

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 201 Cixin Liu 1250292123 Alden 0 to-read 3.55 2023 A View from the Stars: Stories and Essays
author: Cixin Liu
name: Alden
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/01
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]]> Lest Darkness Fall 94715 174 L. Sprague de Camp 0515608173 Alden 0 to-read 3.96 1941 Lest Darkness Fall
author: L. Sprague de Camp
name: Alden
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1941
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/25
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]]> Thornhedge 61884932 There’s a princess trapped in a tower. This ľ±˛ő˛Ô’t her story.

Meet Toadling. On the day of her birth, she was stolen from her family by the fairies, but she grew up safe and loved in the warm waters of faerieland. Once an adult though, the fae ask a favor of Toadling: return to the human world and offer a blessing of protection to a newborn child. Simple, right?

But nothing with fairies is ever simple.

Centuries later, a knight approaches a towering wall of brambles, where the thorns are as thick as your arm and as sharp as swords. He's heard there's a curse here that needs breaking, but it's a curse Toadling will do anything to uphold…]]> 116 T. Kingfisher 1250244099 Alden 4 3.95 2023 Thornhedge
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Alden
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/23
date added: 2024/08/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The Last Watch (The Divide, #1)]]> 53205794 The Expanse meets Game of Thrones in J. S. Dewes's fast-paced, sci-fi adventure The Last Watch, where a handful of soldiers stand between humanity and annihilation.

The Divide.

It’s the edge of the universe.

Now it’s collapsing—and taking everyone and everything with it.

The only ones who can stop it are the Sentinels—the recruits, exiles, and court-martialed dregs of the military.

At the Divide, Adequin Rake commands the Argus. She has no resources, no comms—nothing, except for the soldiers that no one wanted. Her ace in the hole could be Cavalon Mercer--genius, asshole, and exiled prince who nuked his grandfather's genetic facility for “reasons.�

She knows they’re humanity's last chance.]]> 480 J.S. Dewes 1250236347 Alden 3 3.89 2021 The Last Watch (The Divide, #1)
author: J.S. Dewes
name: Alden
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/21
date added: 2024/08/21
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]]> <![CDATA[A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan, #2)]]> 45154547 WINNER OF THE 2022 HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
Now a USA Today bestseller!
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2021
Amazon's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2021
Bookpage's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2021
Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ Choice Awards Nominee for Best Science Fiction Book of 2021

A Desolation Called Peace is the spectacular space opera sequel to Arkady Martine's genre-reinventing, Hugo Award-winning debut, A Memory Called Empire.

An alien armada lurks on the edges of Teixcalaanli space. No one can communicate with it, no one can destroy it, and Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus is running out of options.

In a desperate attempt at diplomacy with the mysterious invaders, the fleet captain has sent for a diplomatic envoy. Now Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass—still reeling from the recent upheaval in the Empire—face the impossible task of trying to communicate with a hostile entity.

Their failure will guarantee millions of deaths in an endless war. Their success might prevent Teixcalaan’s destruction—and allow the empire to continue its rapacious expansion.

Or it might create something far stranger . . .
]]> 496 Arkady Martine 125018648X Alden 4 4.31 2021 A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan, #2)
author: Arkady Martine
name: Alden
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/14
date added: 2024/08/14
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]]> Blindsight (Firefall, #1) 48484 Two months since the stars fell...

Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that moment of brief, bright surveillance by agents unknown.

Two months of silence while a world holds its breath.

Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune’s orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever’s out there ľ±˛ő˛Ô’t talking to us. It’s talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.

So who do you send to force introductions on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn’t want to meet?

You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees X-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won’t be needed, and a fainter hope she’ll do any good if she is needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called “vampire,� recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist � an informational topologist with half his mind gone � as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge.

You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they’ve been sent to find.

But you’d give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them…]]> 384 Peter Watts 0765312182 Alden 4 4.01 2006 Blindsight (Firefall, #1)
author: Peter Watts
name: Alden
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2021/07/28
date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Harp of Kings (Warrior Bards, #1)]]> 43316755 A young woman is both a bard--and a warrior--in this thrilling historical fantasy from the author of the Sevenwaters novels.

Eighteen-year-old Liobhan is a powerful singer and an expert whistle player. Her brother has a voice to melt the hardest heart, and a rare talent on the harp. But Liobhan's burning ambition is to join the elite warrior band on Swan Island. She and her brother train there to compete for places, and find themselves joining a mission while still candidates. Their unusual blend of skills makes them ideal for this particular job, which requires going undercover as traveling minstrels. For Swan Island trains both warriors and spies.

Their mission: to find and retrieve a precious harp, an ancient symbol of kingship, which has gone mysteriously missing. If the instrument is not played at the upcoming coronation, the candidate will not be accepted and the people could revolt. Faced with plotting courtiers and tight-lipped druids, an insightful storyteller, and a boorish Crown Prince, Liobhan soon realizes an Otherworld power may be meddling in the affairs of the kingdom. When ambition clashes with conscience, Liobhan must make a bold decision and is faced with a heartbreaking choice. . . .]]> 463 Juliet Marillier 045149279X Alden 4 4.06 2019 The Harp of Kings (Warrior Bards, #1)
author: Juliet Marillier
name: Alden
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/07
date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> <![CDATA[I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer]]> 35068432
"You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark."

For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.

Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.

At the time of the crimes, the Golden State Killer was between the ages of eighteen and thirty, Caucasian, and athletic—capable of vaulting tall fences. He always wore a mask. After choosing a victim—he favored suburban couples—he often entered their home when no one was there, studying family pictures, mastering the layout. He attacked while they slept, using a flashlight to awaken and blind them. Though they could not recognize him, his victims recalled his voice: a guttural whisper through clenched teeth, abrupt and threatening.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death—offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth. Framed by an introduction by Gillian Flynn and an afterword by her husband, Patton Oswalt, the book was completed by Michelle’s lead researcher and a close colleague. Utterly original and compelling, it is destined to become a true crime classic—and may at last unmask the Golden State Killer.]]> 352 Michelle McNamara 0062319809 Alden 0 to-read 4.12 2018 I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer
author: Michelle McNamara
name: Alden
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Mirrored Heavens (Between Earth and Sky, #3)]]> 60656015 The interwoven destinies of the people of Meridian will finally be determined in this stunning conclusion to New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Roanhorse’s Between Earth and Sky trilogy.

Even the sea cannot stay calm before the storm. —Teek saying

Serapio, avatar of the Crow God Reborn and the newly crowned Carrion King, rules Tova. But his enemies gather both on distant shores and within his own city as the matrons of the clans scheme to destroy him. And deep in the alleys of the Maw, a new prophecy is whispered, this one from the Coyote God. It promises Serapio certain doom if its terrible dictates are not fulfilled.

Meanwhile, Xiala is thrust back amongst her people as war comes first to the island of Teek. With their way of life and their magic under threat, she is their last best hope. But the sea won’t talk to her the way it used to, and doubts riddle her mind. She will have to sacrifice the things that matter most to unleash her powers and become the queen they were promised.

And in the far northern wastelands, Naranpa, avatar of the Sun God, seeks a way to save Tova from the visions of fire that engulf her dreams. But another presence has begun stalking her nightmares, and the Jaguar God is on the hunt.]]> 597 Rebecca Roanhorse 1534437703 Alden 3 4.20 2024 Mirrored Heavens (Between Earth and Sky, #3)
author: Rebecca Roanhorse
name: Alden
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2024
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/07/28
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]]> Deeplight 44647479 The gods of The Myriad were as real as the coastlines and currents, and as merciless as the winds and whirlpools. Now the gods are dead, but their remains are stirring beneath the waves . . .

On the streets of the Island of Lady's Crave live 14-year-old street urchins Hark and his best friend Jelt. They are scavengers: diving for relics of the gods, desperate for anything they can sell. But there is something dangerous in the deep waters of the undersea, calling to someone brave enough to retrieve it.

When the waves try to claim Jelt, Hark will do anything to save him. Even if it means compromising not just who Jelt is, but what he is . . .]]> 416 Frances Hardinge 1509836950 Alden 4 4.08 2019 Deeplight
author: Frances Hardinge
name: Alden
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/23
date added: 2024/07/23
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]]> Matterhorn 6411016
Intense, powerful, and compelling, Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead and James Jones's The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood. Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition. Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers. But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the Marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat. The experience will change them forever.

Written over the course of thirty years by a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, Matterhorn is a visceral and spellbinding novel about what it is like to be a young man at war. It is an unforgettable novel that transforms the tragedy of Vietnam into a powerful and universal story of courage, camaraderie, and sacrifice: a parable not only of the war in Vietnam but of all war, and a testament to the redemptive power of literature.

A graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Karl Marlantes served as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. This is his first novel. He lives in rural Washington State.]]> 663 Karl Marlantes 0979528534 Alden 0 to-read 4.23 2010 Matterhorn
author: Karl Marlantes
name: Alden
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/21
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]]> <![CDATA[All the Hidden Paths (The Tithenai Chronicles, #2)]]> 65213171
With the plot against them foiled and the city of Qi-Katai in safe hands, Velasin and Caethari have begun to test the waters of their relationship. But the wider political ramifications of their marriage are still playing out across two nations, and all too soon, they’re summoned north to Tithena’s capital city, Qi-Xihan, to present themselves to its monarch.

With Caethari newly invested as his grandmother’s heir and Velasin’s old ghosts gnawing at his heels, what little peace they’ve managed to find is swiftly put to the test. Cae’s recent losses have left him racked with grief and guilt, while Vel struggles with the disconnect between instincts that have kept him safe in secrecy and what an open life requires of him now.

Pursued by unknown assailants and with Qi-Xihan’s court factions jockeying for power, Vel and Cae must use all the skills at their disposal to not only survive, but thrive � because there’s more than one way to end an alliance, and more than one person who wants to see them fail.]]> 528 Foz Meadows 1250829305 Alden 4 4.17 2023 All the Hidden Paths (The Tithenai Chronicles, #2)
author: Foz Meadows
name: Alden
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/21
date added: 2024/07/21
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]]> Starling House 65213595 A grim and gothic new tale from author Alix E. Harrow about a small town haunted by secrets that can't stay buried and the sinister house that sits at the crossroads of it all.

Eden, Kentucky, is just another dying, bad-luck town, known only for the legend of E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth-century author and illustrator who wrote The Underland--and disappeared. Before she vanished, Starling House appeared. But everyone agrees that it’s best to let the uncanny house―and its last lonely heir, Arthur Starling―go to rot.

Opal knows better than to mess with haunted houses or brooding men, but an unexpected job offer might be a chance to get her brother out of Eden. Too quickly, though, Starling House starts to feel dangerously like something she’s never had: a home.

As sinister forces converge on Starling House, Opal and Arthur are going to have to make a dire choice to dig up the buried secrets of the past and confront their own fears, or let Eden be taken over by literal nightmares.

If Opal wants a home, she’ll have to fight for it.]]> 320 Alix E. Harrow 1250799058 Alden 5 3.77 2023 Starling House
author: Alix E. Harrow
name: Alden
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/14
date added: 2024/07/14
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]]> <![CDATA[You Feel It Just Below the Ribs]]> 57094312 A fictional autobiography in an alternate twentieth century that chronicles one woman’s unusual life, including the price she pays to survive and the cost her choices hold for the society she is trying to save.

Born at the end of the old world, Miriam grows up during The Great Reckoning, a sprawling, decades-long war that nearly decimates humanity and strips her of friends and family. Devastated by grief and loneliness, she emotionally exiles herself, avoiding relationships or allegiances, and throws herself into her work—disengagement that serves her when the war finally ends, and The New Society arises.

To ensure a lasting peace, The New Society forbids anything that may cause tribal loyalties, including traditional families. Suddenly, everyone must live as Miriam has chosen to—disconnected and unattached. A researcher at heart, Miriam becomes involved in implementing this detachment process. She does not know it is the beginning of a darkly sinister program that will transform this new world and the lives of everyone in it. Eventually, the harmful effects of her research become too much for Miriam, and she devises a secret plan to destroy the system from within, endangering her own life.

But is her “confession� honest—or is it a fabrication riddled with lies meant to conceal the truth?]]> 384 Jeffrey Cranor 0063066629 Alden 0 to-read 3.99 2021 You Feel It Just Below the Ribs
author: Jeffrey Cranor
name: Alden
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/13
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World]]> 28256439 The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben shares his deep love of woods and forests and explains the amazing processes of life, death, and regeneration he has observed in the woodland and the amazing scientific processes behind the wonders of which we are blissfully unaware. Much like human families, tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, and support them as they grow, sharing nutrients with those who are sick or struggling and creating an ecosystem that mitigates the impact of extremes of heat and cold for the whole group. As a result of such interactions, trees in a family or community are protected and can live to be very old. In contrast, solitary trees, like street kids, have a tough time of it and in most cases die much earlier than those in a group.

Drawing on groundbreaking new discoveries, Wohlleben presents the science behind the secret and previously unknown life of trees and their communication abilities; he describes how these discoveries have informed his own practices in the forest around him. As he says, a happy forest is a healthy forest, and he believes that eco-friendly practices not only are economically sustainable but also benefit the health of our planet and the mental and physical health of all who live on Earth.]]> 272 Peter Wohlleben 1771642483 Alden 0 to-read 4.06 2015 The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World
author: Peter Wohlleben
name: Alden
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals]]> 45894050 A breathtaking exploration of the lives of young black women in the early twentieth century.

In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman examines the revolution of black intimate life that unfolded in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. Free love, common-law and transient marriages, serial partners, cohabitation outside of wedlock, queer relations, and single motherhood were among the sweeping changes that altered the character of everyday life and challenged traditional Victorian beliefs about courtship, love, and marriage. Hartman narrates the story of this radical social transformation against the grain of the prevailing century-old argument about the crisis of the black family.

In wrestling with the question of what a free life is, many young black women created forms of intimacy and kinship that were indifferent to the dictates of respectability and outside the bounds of law. They cleaved to and cast off lovers, exchanged sex to subsist, and revised the meaning of marriage. Longing and desire fueled their experiments in how to live. They refused to labor like slaves or to accept degrading conditions of work.

Beautifully written and deeply researched, Wayward Lives recreates the experience of young urban black women who desired an existence qualitatively different than the one that had been scripted for them—domestic service, second-class citizenship, and respectable poverty—and whose intimate revolution was apprehended as crime and pathology. For the first time, young black women are credited with shaping a cultural movement that transformed the urban landscape. Through a melding of history and literary imagination, Wayward Lives recovers their radical aspirations and insurgent desires.]]> 441 Saidiya Hartman 0393357627 Alden 0 to-read 4.43 2019 Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals
author: Saidiya Hartman
name: Alden
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The Human Stain (The American Trilogy, #3)]]> 11734
Coleman Silk has a secret, one which has been kept for fifty years from his wife, his four children, his colleagues, and his friends, including the writer Nathan Zuckerman. It is Zuckerman who stumbles upon Silk's secret and sets out to reconstruct the unknown biography of this eminent, upright man, esteemed as an educator for nearly all his life, and to understand how this ingeniously contrived life came unraveled. And to understand also how Silk's astonishing private history is, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, "magnificently" interwoven with "the larger public history of modern America."]]> 361 Philip Roth Alden 0 to-read 3.89 2000 The Human Stain (The American Trilogy, #3)
author: Philip Roth
name: Alden
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer, #1)]]> 23168277
The Sympathizer is the story of this captain: a man brought up by an absent French father and a poor Vietnamese mother, a man who went to university in America, but returned to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause. A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics, and a moving love story, The Sympathizer explores a life between two worlds and examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today.]]> 371 Viet Thanh Nguyen 0802123457 Alden 0 to-read 4.00 2015 The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer, #1)
author: Viet Thanh Nguyen
name: Alden
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
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]]> <![CDATA[Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom]]> 38530663
Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass spoke widely, using his own story to condemn slavery. By the Civil War, Douglass had become the most famed and widely travelled orator in the nation. In his unique and eloquent voice, written and spoken, Douglass was a fierce critic of the United States as well as a radical patriot. After the war he sometimes argued politically with younger African Americans, but he never forsook either the Republican party or the cause of black civil and political rights.

In this biography, David Blight has drawn on new information held in a private collection that few other historian have consulted, as well as recently discovered issues of Douglass’s newspapers.]]> 888 David W. Blight 1416590315 Alden 0 to-read 4.14 2018 Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
author: David W. Blight
name: Alden
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2018
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]]> Pastoralia 14295
The stories in Pastoralia are set in a slightly skewed version of America, where elements of contemporary life have been merged, twisted, and amplified, casting their absurdity—and our humanity—in a startling new light. Whether he writes a gothic morality tale in which a male exotic dancer is haunted by his maiden aunt from beyond the grave, or about a self-help guru who tells his followers his mission is to discover who's been "crapping in your oatmeal," Saunders's stories are both indelibly strange and vividly real.]]> 188 George Saunders 0747553866 Alden 0 to-read 4.10 2000 Pastoralia
author: George Saunders
name: Alden
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2000
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