Jay's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 27 Sep 2024 22:16:48 -0700 60 Jay's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Otherwise 17381878
BeastsIt is the day after tomorrow, and society has been altered dramatically by experimentation that enables scientists to combine the genetic material of different species, mixing DNA of humans with animals. Loren Casaubon is an ethologist drawn into the political and social vortex that results with Leo -- a creature both man and lion -- at its center.

Engine SummerA young man named Rush That Speaks is growing up in a far distant world -- one that only dimly remembers our own age, the wondrous age of the Angels, when men could fly. Now it is the "engine summer of the world," and Rush goes in search of the Saints who can teach him to speak truthfully, and be immortal in the stories he tells. The immortality that awaits him, though, is one he could not have imagined.]]> 564 John Crowley 0061966029 Jay 4 4.00 1991 Otherwise
author: John Crowley
name: Jay
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1991
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Camouflage 6453432 316 Joe Haldeman 1101208309 Jay 4 4.00 2004 Camouflage
author: Joe Haldeman
name: Jay
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2011/05/31
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves:
review:
A much more satisfying read that the other Haldeman I have been reading. Think Alien vs Predator but with a plot and characters and an interesting story. Quite enjoyed this.
]]> 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 isn¡¯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 ¨C an informational topologist with half his mind gone ¨C 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 Jay 5 4.01 2006 Blindsight (Firefall, #1)
author: Peter Watts
name: Jay
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich]]> 17125 The only English translation authorized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dosotevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy"--Harrison Salisbury

This unexpurgated 1991 translation by H. T. Willetts is the only authorized edition available, and fully captures the power and beauty of the original Russian.]]> 182 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Jay 4 3.98 1962 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Jay
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/03/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Deepness in the Sky (Zones of Thought, #2)]]> 226004 A Fire Upon The Deep, this is the story of Pham Nuwen, a small cog in the interstellar trading fleet of the Queng Ho. The Queng Ho and the Emergents are orbiting the dormant planet Arachna, which is about to wake up to technology, but the Emergents' plans are sinister.]]> 775 Vernor Vinge 0812536355 Jay 5 4.31 1999 A Deepness in the Sky (Zones of Thought, #2)
author: Vernor Vinge
name: Jay
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/11/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rimrunners (The Company Wars, #3)]]> 57127 280 C.J. Cherryh 0445209798 Jay 4 3.87 1989 Rimrunners (The Company Wars, #3)
author: C.J. Cherryh
name: Jay
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1989
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/28
shelves:
review:

]]> I Kill 8601262 544 Giorgio Faletti 174266010X Jay 1
Ho hum. Pass it by.]]> 3.69 2002 I Kill
author: Giorgio Faletti
name: Jay
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2002
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2022/11/09
shelves:
review:
Not only did this read like a travelogue of Monte Carlo, there were the standard crime/serial killer cyphers throughout but then. Not only was this book poorly translated, not proofed at all and badly laid out, but the poor translations had numerous downright wrong word choices. Chunks of words run together, others split in strange ways, it became virtually unreadable let along the monotony of the story itself.

Ho hum. Pass it by.
]]> Fear Not (Johanne Vik) 13564365 511 Anne Holt Jay 3 3.69 2009 Fear Not (Johanne Vik)
author: Anne Holt
name: Jay
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2020/10/20
shelves:
review:
Okay, so this is another novel I am two minds about. As a straight crime novel it's good as it goes. Another one of the rash of Scandi writers all over the crime genre. Oslo, an intriguing opening scene and then quite readable. Holt has an interesting literary tic in which she echoes from one passage to the next, quite deliberately, but after a while, it just became annoying. Then as the book progressed, being virtually beaten with the gay agenda was a little like reading a sermon. Hate group, contract hitters, people dying mysteriously, all that stuff, and then it folds back to something local motivated by greed. Okay... The Kristiane character was fascinating and I thought could have been far more developed. Oslo was, well, Oslo. Some lovely writing here and there, but in the end, was glad I read it, but won't be rushing out seeking more.
]]> <![CDATA[Benevolent (The Sirona Cycle, #3)]]> 53400057
Third Book in The Sirona Cycle]]> 294 Anthony James 1728912830 Jay 5 5.00 Benevolent (The Sirona Cycle, #3)
author: Anthony James
name: Jay
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/06/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Arabian Nights Series; The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night: Collection of 16 Volumes]]> 12610348 0 Anonymous Jay 4 did-not-finish 3.00 1925 Arabian Nights Series; The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night: Collection of 16 Volumes
author: Anonymous
name: Jay
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1925
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2020/05/25
shelves: did-not-finish
review:
Fantastic, convoluted and all of that, but actually in this the original, it is quite hard work. Perhaps I will return at a later date, but right now, I just haven't got the headspace to plough through this multitude of pages and the awkward language and footnotes. Perhaps a month in solitude would do it.
]]> Breath 43085208 The child reached up and grasped three of his fingers; it was all that her tiny hand could encompass. She looked up at him, the long dark hair falling around her face, echoing the color of her eyes, and in those eyes, there was trust. No, not trust, but something else...

"Come with me," she said.

Taking a much needed vacation with a group of friends, Avram encounters the girl in the ruins of an ancient building. In the shadow haunted ruins, the girl disappears with a breath like desert wind, taking Avram's memories of the encounter with her. Thus begins a descent into madness, corruption, and death as a growing plague of evil hounds the companions' every step.

¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï¡ï This is a very well crafted and unique story of the horrors of possession, that blends a terrifying story with an original plot and compelling characters. I listened to it straight through. Jackson Creed is definitely a writer to watch]]> 227 Jackson Creed Jay 5 3.42 2017 Breath
author: Jackson Creed
name: Jay
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/04/24
shelves:
review:
Intelligent horror, exploring the origins of the Lilith myth rather than traditional vampire stories. Pre-Christian horror meets Children of the Damned. Makes for a new and different take on an overly done familiar trope.
]]> Binary 36410508 325 Jay Caselberg Jay 5 4.00 2009 Binary
author: Jay Caselberg
name: Jay
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/03/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, #2)]]> 83346 228 Lewis Carroll 0688120490 Jay 5 4.05 1871 Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, #2)
author: Lewis Carroll
name: Jay
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1871
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/12/01
shelves:
review:

]]> The Hollowed 42630464 277 Jay Caselberg Jay 0 my-works 4.67 2018 The Hollowed
author: Jay Caselberg
name: Jay
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/11/12
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> Polyphony, Volume 4 1354733 It's been a long, strange road since the first volume of Polyphony was conceived by the dashboard lights along the lonely miles of I-5 in the Willamette Valley. Two and a half years have gone by, three volumes have been published in the series, markets have changed, production technology has evolved, and somehow, our book has found a home in genre.

When Polyphony first took off, it was on a wing and a prayer, with the help of a few dozen supporters and a hell of a lot of hope. New Weird was not the topic of the hour, the definition of slipstream was even more arguable than it is now. The phrase "interstitial arts" hadn't crept into the critical lexicon, let alone spawned a foundation or a conference. We weren't even sure whether to call Polyphony "cross-genre" or "slipstream" or "literary with a genre sensibility" (the last being the least elegant but most descriptive). As Supreme Court Justice Potter STewart said in another context, "We know it when we see it."

We weren't the first. Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Leviathan and Strange Horizons, to name several, had charted this oh-so-literate genre territory before us. We haven't necessarily been the best?only the years will tell that. But we have been privileged to make a mark, and perhaps even set a standard, for a kind of fiction that many wanted to write, and many more wanted to read.

We could fill this book thanking all the mentors, authors, publishers, reviewers, critics, booksellers, friends, fans, and family members that have helped drive that winding road. Instead we thought we'd fill this book with stories.

Curl up and read. That's what we'll be doing because we still love short fiction. Deborah Layne and Jay Lake
Portland, Oregon
July, 2004

]]> Deborah Layne 0972054766 Jay 5 3.90 2004 Polyphony, Volume 4
author: Deborah Layne
name: Jay
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/11/25
shelves:
review:

]]> Under the Pendulum Sun 34643773 409 Jeannette Ng 0857667270 Jay 2 did-not-finish 3.43 2017 Under the Pendulum Sun
author: Jeannette Ng
name: Jay
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/11/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:
Just coudn't get into this. Gave it 20% but all too mannered and precise for my taste.
]]> The Serpent Road 36314674 376 Anthony James Jay 5 3.94 The Serpent Road
author: Anthony James
name: Jay
average rating: 3.94
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/11/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Memory Box: A Novel of Love, Regret and Memory]]> 34860657 256 Jay Caselberg 1521067724 Jay 5 my-works 5.00 The Memory Box: A Novel of Love, Regret and Memory
author: Jay Caselberg
name: Jay
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/09/18
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> The Jump Point 36102292 360 Anthony James 154950861X Jay 4 4.50 The Jump Point
author: Anthony James
name: Jay
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/09/18
shelves:
review:
A reasonable debut novel. Solid SF concepts and good character driven story arc.
]]> <![CDATA[Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota, #1)]]> 26114545
The world into which Mycroft and Carlyle have been born is as strange to our 21st-century eyes as ours would be to a native of the 1500s. It is a hard-won utopia built on technologically-generated abundance, and also on complex and mandatory systems of labeling all public writing and speech. What seem to us normal gender distinctions are now distinctly taboo in most social situations. And most of the world's population is affiliated with globe-girdling clans of the like-minded, whose endless economic and cultural competition is carefully managed by central planners of inestimable subtlety. To us it seems like a mad combination of heaven and hell. To them, it seems like normal life.

And in this world, Mycroft and Carlyle have stumbled on the wild card that may destablize the system: the boy Bridger, who can effortlessly make his wishes come true. Who can, it would seem, bring inanimate objects to life...]]> 432 Ada Palmer 0765378000 Jay 2 did-not-finish 3.81 2016 Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota, #1)
author: Ada Palmer
name: Jay
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/09/18
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Late Show (Ren¨¦e Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30)]]> 34091380 405 Michael Connelly 0316225983 Jay 2 3.95 2017 The Late Show (Ren¨¦e Ballard, #1; Harry Bosch Universe, #30)
author: Michael Connelly
name: Jay
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/09/12
shelves:
review:
Bosch she is not and this is a very short, paint by numbers plot and story. The back of the book is padded out with a teaser for the new forthcoming Bosch book. When Connelly referenced the Bosch television show, I nearly gave up on the book entirely, however I persisted. Overall, found it very unsatisfying and Ballard quite humdrum as a character. Yep, so she surfs. Yep, so she has a dog. Yep, so she lost her father. All of these seem like filler rather than actual characterisation.
]]> <![CDATA[The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Eighth Annual Collection]]> 10865914
The thirty-three stories in this collection imaginatively take us far across the universe, into the very core of our beings, to the realm of the gods, and the moment just after now. Included here are works by masters of the form and by bright new talents, including: Nina Allan, Eleanor Arnason, Kage Baker, Stephen Baxter, Chris Beckett, Aliette de Bodard, Damien Broderick, Pat Cadigan, Brenda Cooper, Cory Doctorow, Joe Haldeman, Jim Hawkins, Alexander Jablokov, Ted Kosmatka, Jay Lake, Geoffrey A. Landis, Yoon Ha Lee, Ian R. MacLeod, David Moles, Naomi Novik, Steven Popkes, Hannu Rajaniemi, Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Ken Scholes, Allen M. Steele, Michael Swanwick, Rachel Swirsky, Lavi Tidhar, Carrie Vaughn, Peter Watts, and Tad Williams.

Supplementing the stories are the editor's insightful summation of the year's events and a lengthy list of honorable mentions, making this book both a valuable resource and the single best place in the universe to find stories that stir the imagination and the heart.

Description from back cover

Contents
xiii ? Summation: 2010 ? (2011) ? essay by Gardner Dozois
1 ? A History of Terraforming ? (2010) ? novella by Robert Reed
39 ? The Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String ? (2010) ? shortstory by Lavie Tidhar
43 ? The Emperor of Mars ? [Near Space] ? (2010) ? shortstory by Allen Steele [as by Allen M. Steele ]
58 ? The Things ? (2010) ? shortstory by Peter Watts
72 ? The Sultan of the Clouds ? (2010) ? novella by Geoffrey A. Landis
108 ? The Books ? (2010) ? shortstory by Kage Baker
119 ? Re-Crossing the Styx ? (2010) ? shortstory by Ian R. MacLeod (aka Recrossing the Styx)
132 ? And Ministers of Grace ? (2010) ? novelette by Tad Williams
154 ? Mammoths of the Great Plains ? (2010) ? novella by Eleanor Arnason
191 ? Sleeping Dogs ? (2010) ? shortstory by Joe Haldeman
204 ? Jackie's Boy ? (2010) ? novella by Steven Popkes (aka Jackie's-Boy)
246 ? Flying in the Face of God ? (2010) ? shortstory by Nina Allan
262 ? Chicken Little ? (2010) ? novella by Cory Doctorow
298 ? Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain ? (2010) ? shortstory by Yoon Ha Lee
304 ? Return to Titan ? (2010) ? novella by Stephen Baxter
354 ? Under the Moons of Venus ? (2010) ? shortstory by Damien Broderick
370 ? Seven Years from Home ? (2010) ? novelette by Naomi Novik
392 ? The Peacock Cloak ? (2010) ? shortstory by Chris Beckett
405 ? Amaryllis ? (2010) ? shortstory by Carrie Vaughn
416 ? Seven Cities of Gold ? (2010) ? novella by David Moles
452 ? Again and Again and Again ? (2010) ? shortstory by Rachel Swirsky
455 ? Elegy for a Young Elk ? (2010) ? shortstory by Hannu Rajaniemi
468 ? Libertarian Russia ? (2010) ? shortstory by Michael Swanwick
477 ? The Night Train ? (2010) ? shortstory by Lavie Tidhar
488 ? My Father's Singularity ? (2010) ? shortstory by Brenda Cooper
493 ? The Starship Mechanic ? (2010) ? shortstory by Jay Lake and Ken Scholes
499 ? Sleepover ? (2010) ? novelette by Alastair Reynolds
531 ? The Taste of Night ? (2010) ? shortstory by Pat Cadigan
541 ? Blind Cat Dance ? (2010) ? novelette by Alexander Jablokov
563 ? The Shipmaker ? [Universe of Xuya] ? (2010) ? shortstory by Aliette de Bodard
574 ? In-Fall ? (2010) ? shortstory by Ted Kosmatka
582 ? Chimbwi ? (2010) ? shortstory by Jim Hawkins
599 ? Dead Man's Run ? (2010) ? novella by Robert Reed
653 ? Honorable Mentions: 2010 ? (2011) ? essay by Gardner Dozois]]> 662 Gardner Dozois 0312569505 Jay 4 3.82 2011 The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Eighth Annual Collection
author: Gardner Dozois
name: Jay
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/04/28
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, 2012 Edition]]> 15736950
Travel into the best dark fantasy and horror from 2011 with more than five-hundred pages of tales from some of today's best-known writers of the fantastique as well as new talents ¡ª stories that will take you to a diverse assortment of dark places.]]> 578 Paula Guran 1607013681 Jay 3 3.88 2011 The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, 2012 Edition
author: Paula Guran
name: Jay
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2017/04/28
shelves:
review:

]]> Hild (The Hild Sequence, #1) 17332243
Hild is the king¡¯s youngest niece. She has the powerful curiosity of a bright child, a will of adamant, and a way of seeing the world¡ªof studying nature, of matching cause with effect, of observing human nature and predicting what will happen next¡ªthat can seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her. She establishes herself as the king¡¯s seer. And she is indispensable¡ªuntil she should ever lead the king astray. The stakes are life and death: for Hild, her family, her loved ones, and the increasing numbers who seek the protection of the strange girl who can read the world and see the future.

Hild is a young woman at the heart of the violence, subtlety, and mysticism of the early medieval age¡ªall of it brilliantly and accurately evoked by Nicola Griffith¡¯s luminous prose. Recalling such feats of historical fiction as Hilary Mantel¡¯s Wolf Hall and Sigrid Undset¡¯s Kristin Lavransdatter, Hild brings a beautiful, brutal world¡ªand one of its most fascinating, pivotal figures, the girl who would become St. Hilda of Whitby¡ªto vivid, absorbing life.]]> 546 Nicola Griffith 0374280878 Jay 4 3.80 2013 Hild (The Hild Sequence, #1)
author: Nicola Griffith
name: Jay
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2017/04/28
date added: 2017/04/28
shelves:
review:

]]> The Violent Century 18309415
A bold experiment has mutated a small fraction of humanity. Nations race to harness the gifted, putting them to increasingly dark ends. At the dawn of global war, flashy American superheroes square off against sinister Germans and dissolute Russians. Increasingly depraved scientists conduct despicable research in the name of victory

British agents Fogg and Oblivion, recalled to the Retirement Bureau, have kept a treacherous secret for over forty years. But all heroes must choose when to join the fray, and to whom their allegiance is owed¡ªeven for just one perfect summer¡¯s day.

From the World Fantasy and Campbell award-winning author of Central Station comes a sweeping novel of history, adventure, and what it means to be a hero.]]> 352 Lavie Tidhar Jay 4 3.67 2013 The Violent Century
author: Lavie Tidhar
name: Jay
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/04/28
shelves:
review:

]]> The Lemur 2798062
John Glass's life in New York should be plenty comfortable. He's given up his career as a journalist to write an authorized biography of his father-in-law, communications magnate and former CIA agent Big Bill Mulholland. He works in a big office in Mulholland Tower, rent-free, and goes home (most nights) to his wealthy and well-preserved wife, Wild Bill's daughter. He misses his old life sometimes, but all in all things have turned out well.

But when his shifty young researcher--a man he calls "The Lemur"--turns up some unflattering information about the family, Glass's whole easy existence is threatened. Then the young man is murdered, and it's up to Glass to find out what The Lemur knew, and who killed him, before any secrets come out--and before any other bodies appear.Shifting from 1950s Dublin to contemporary New York, the masterful crime writer Benjamin Black returns in this standalone thriller--a story of family secrets so deep, and so dangerous, that anyone might kill to keep them hidden.

**]]> 132 Benjamin Black 0312428081 Jay 1 2.97 2008 The Lemur
author: Benjamin Black
name: Jay
average rating: 2.97
book published: 2008
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2017/04/28
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Jews versus Aliens (Jews Vs, #2)]]> 24965580
¡°If you will it, it is no dream!¡± as Theodor Herzl said: and no doubt he had just such an anthology in mind. With all proceeds going to charity, JEWS VS ALIENS and its companion volume, JEWS VS ZOMBIES, are the must have anthologies of the year.]]> 121 Lavie Tidhar Jay 4 3.57 2015 Jews versus Aliens (Jews Vs, #2)
author: Lavie Tidhar
name: Jay
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/04/28
shelves:
review:

]]> Breath 33680222 272 Jackson Creed 0989866998 Jay 5 5.00 Breath
author: Jackson Creed
name: Jay
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/01/05
shelves:
review:
Think the Midwich Cuckoos meet pre-Judeo-Christian Lilith. Definitely quiet horror.
]]> Half of Paradise 218734 James Lee Burke 0752826395 Jay 3 3.66 1965 Half of Paradise
author: James Lee Burke
name: Jay
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1965
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2017/01/02
shelves:
review:

]]> Death's Realm 24333160
It's at the crossroads of this existence and the next, where the forces of the Living and the Dead converge in a terrifying place known as Death's Realm. And it's here where armies from either side of the veil wage an everlasting battle in the struggle for control.

This is a volume containing sixteen stories of those wars by award-winning modern masters of the horror and speculative fiction genres.

DEATH'S REALM FEATURES:

"OMNISCOPIC" by Rhoads Brazos - Mankind has forever sought proof of existence beyond death. This terrifying Lovecraftian tales proves that sometimes the secrets of the universe are better left undiscovered.

"SOME OTHER DAY" by John F.D. Taff - Following the death of his mother, a boy goes to great lengths to maintain a relationship with his grief-stricken father, no matter the cost to all of mankind.

"HAUNTER" by Hank Schwaeble - Matthew has found love again after a tragic loss, but the nightmares of the past threaten his new reality and seem determined to repeat themselves.

"BURIAL SUIT" by John C. Foster - An ex-con embarks on a dangerous journey to ensure his dead father's soul finds safe passage to eternity, risking his own in the process.

"NINE" by Aaron Polson - An anthropologist's obsession with a lost civilization becomes strangely intertwined with the bizarre behavior of her two young sons.

"PENUMBRA" by Jay Caselberg - Newly dead, a young man is determined to reach across the veil to the woman he left behind, refusing to let death stand in the way of their true love.

"FOXHOLE" by JG Faherty - As the only survivors of a military unit engaged in a jungle battle, soldiers and childhood buddies stop at nothing to protect each other from the unseen enemy that pursues them.

"DROWNING" by Gregory L. Norris - Edgard miraculously escaped death when he survived the sinking of Titanic. Having made a new life for himself in America, a terrifying force threatens to drag him back to the dark and icy waters of the North Atlantic.

"THE WEIGHT" by Jane Brooks - Experiencing debilitating pain that has her at the edge of consciousness, a woman struggles with the events of her past in order to remain alive.

"HARDER YOU FALL" by Brian Fatah Steele - The ability to talk to the dead has provided Madeline a lavish lifestyle. Now, desiring something more, she must find a way to escape the influence of her dark mentor.

"MIRRORWORLD" by Martin Rose - All Jude needed was the signature of a Satanist on divorce papers. What he got instead was an untimely death and a tortured hereafter, thanks to some dangerous black magic.

"MARCH HAYS" by Matthew Pegg - When WWII leaves him wounded, Sam finds himself in a familiar place, where pleasant memories of his youth are darkened by a terrifying specter.

"HIGH ART" by Karen Runge and Simon Dewar - Raymond is living the life he always dreamed of now that his wife is out of the picture. But he quickly begins to question whether divorce would have been less painful.

"A PIRATE'S RANSOM" by Jay O'Shea - Somali pirates discover a disabled, abandoned freighter adrift in the warm waters of the Arabian Sea, yet it is mysteriously covered in ice. They soon realize they should have let this opportunity pass them by.

"TO TOUCH THE DEAD" by Paul Michael Anderson - When our possessions are all that remain of our existence, future psychics from the People's History Project are employed to catalog the energy we've left behind, with horrifying consequences.

"YOU ONLY DIE ONCE" by Stephen Graham Jones - There are no pearly gates or angels on high to welcome the dead into the afterlife. Instead there is only mysterious rooms, filthy shadows and terrifying beings.]]> 258 Anthony Rivera 1940658349 Jay 5 my-works 4.44 2015 Death's Realm
author: Anthony Rivera
name: Jay
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/01/02
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Girl with All the Gifts (The Girl With All the Gifts, #1)]]> 17235026
Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

The Girl with All the Gifts is a sensational thriller, perfect for fans of Stephen King, Justin Cronin, and Neil Gaiman.]]> 461 M.R. Carey 0356500152 Jay 1 did-not-finish 3.94 2014 The Girl with All the Gifts (The Girl With All the Gifts, #1)
author: M.R. Carey
name: Jay
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2014
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2017/01/02
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> Cannibalism 618967 268 Hans Askenasy 0879759062 Jay 2 3.94 1994 Cannibalism
author: Hans Askenasy
name: Jay
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1994
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2017/01/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dinner with a Cannibal: The Complete History of Mankind's Oldest Taboo]]> 2265378 333 Carole A. Travis-Henikoff 1595800301 Jay 3 3.56 2008 Dinner with a Cannibal: The Complete History of Mankind's Oldest Taboo
author: Carole A. Travis-Henikoff
name: Jay
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2017/01/02
shelves:
review:

]]> Different Kinds of Magic 9823510
1. "Except the Music", by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
2. The Parthenopean Scalpel", by Bruce Sterling.
3. "The Astral Disruptor", by Rhys Hughes.
4. "Benchwarmer", by Mike Resnick and Lezli Robyn.]]> 0 Kristine Kathryn Rusch 8865865377 Jay 3 2.80 2010 Different Kinds of Magic
author: Kristine Kathryn Rusch
name: Jay
average rating: 2.80
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2017/01/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Under Heaven (Under Heaven, #1)]]> 7139892 Under Heaven, Kay tells a story of honor and power, this time in a setting that evokes the dazzling Tang Dynasty of eighth-century China. In recognition of his service to the Emperor of Kitai, Shen Tai has been sent a mysterious and dangerous gift: 250 Sardian horses. Wisely the gift comes with the stipulation that the horses must be claimed in person. Otherwise, he would probably be dead already.]]> 592 Guy Gavriel Kay 0007342012 Jay 4 4.15 2010 Under Heaven (Under Heaven, #1)
author: Guy Gavriel Kay
name: Jay
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/01/02
shelves:
review:

]]> Saint Odd (Odd Thomas, #7) 15722284 From ¡°one of the master storytellers of this or any age¡± (The Tampa Tribune) comes the stunning final adventure of ¡°one of the most remarkable and appealing characters in current fiction¡±(The Virginian-Pilot)¡ªas #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz brings the unforgettable odyssey of Odd Thomas to its dazzling conclusion.
?
Odd Thomas is back where it all started . . . because the time has come to finish it. Since he left his simple life in the small town of Pico Mundo, California, his journey has taken him to places strange and wonderful, mysterious and terrifying. Across the land, in the company of mortals and spirits alike, he has known kindness and cruelty, felt love and loss, saved lives and taken them¡ªas he¡¯s borne witness to the greatest good and darkest evil humanity is capable of. Again and again, he has gone where he must and done what he had to do¡ªfor better or worse¡ªwith his courage and devotion sorely tested, and his soul forever changed. Every triumph has been hard won. Each sacrifice has taken its toll.
?
Now, whatever destiny drives him has finally steered his steps home, where those he cares for most surround him, the memory of his tragically lost true love haunts him, and one last challenge¡ªvast and dreadful¡ªawaits him. For Odd Thomas, born to serve a purpose far greater than himself, the wandering is done. Only the reckoning remains.]]> 352 Dean Koontz 0345545885 Jay 3 4.20 2014 Saint Odd (Odd Thomas, #7)
author: Dean Koontz
name: Jay
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2017/01/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Feast Day of Fools (Hackberry Holland, #3)]]> 10081131
The danger in the desert increases tenfold with the return of serial murderer Preacher Jack Collins, whom "The New York Times "called "one of Burke's most inspired villains." Presumed dead at the close of "Rain Gods," Preacher Jack has reemerged with a calm, single-minded zeal for killing that is more terrifying than the muzzle flash of his signature machine gun. But this time he and Sheriff Holland have a common enemy.

Praised by Joyce Carol Oates for "the luminosity of his writerly voice," James Lee Burke returns with his most allegorical novel to date, illuminating vital issues of our time--immigration, energy, religious freedom--with the rich atmosphere and devastatingly flawed, authentic characters that readers have come to celebrate during the five decades of his brilliant career.]]> 463 James Lee Burke 145164311X Jay 3 to-read 3.93 2011 Feast Day of Fools (Hackberry Holland, #3)
author: James Lee Burke
name: Jay
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2017/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Quarry 17909006
Feeling his death is imminent, Guy gathers around him his oldest friends ¨C or at least the friends with the most to lose by his death.

Paul ¨C the rising star in the Labour party who dreads the day a tape they all made at university might come to light; Alison and Robbie, corporate bunnies whose relationship is daily more fractious; Pris and Haze, once an item, now estranged, and finally Hol ¨C friend, mentor, former lover and the only one who seemed to care.

But what will happen to Kit when Guy is gone? And why isn¡¯t Kit¡¯s mother in the picture? As the friends reunite for Guy¡¯s last days, old jealousies, affairs and lies come to light as Kit watches on.]]> 336 Iain Banks 1405513144 Jay 4 3.59 2013 The Quarry
author: Iain Banks
name: Jay
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/01/02
shelves:
review:

]]> The Book of Disquiet 45974 The Book of Disquiet, an astonishing work that, in George Steiner's words, "gives to Lisbon the haunting spell of Joyce's Dublin or Kafka's Prague." Published for the first time some fifty years after his death, this unique collection of short, aphoristic paragraphs comprises the "autobiography" of Bernardo Soares, one of Pessoa's alternate selves. Part intimate diary, part prose poetry, part descriptive narrative, captivatingly translated by Richard Zenith, The Book of Disquiet is one of the greatest works of the twentieth century.]]> 544 Fernando Pessoa 0141183047 Jay 2 did-not-finish Just way too obtuse. 4.46 1982 The Book of Disquiet
author: Fernando Pessoa
name: Jay
average rating: 4.46
book published: 1982
rating: 2
read at: 2016/11/18
date added: 2016/11/18
shelves: did-not-finish
review:
Just way too obtuse.
]]> Bleeding Edge 17208457
It is 2001 in New York City, in the lull between the collapse of the dot-com boom and the terrible events of September 11th. Silicon Alley is a ghost town, Web 1.0 is having adolescent angst, Google has yet to IPO, Microsoft is still considered the Evil Empire. There may not be quite as much money around as there was at the height of the tech bubble, but there¡¯s no shortage of swindlers looking to grab a piece of what¡¯s left.

Maxine Tarnow is running a nice little fraud investigation business on the Upper West Side, chasing down different kinds of small-scale con artists. She used to be legally certified but her license got pulled a while back, which has actually turned out to be a blessing because now she can follow her own code of ethics¡ªcarry a Beretta, do business with sleazebags, hack into people¡¯s bank accounts¡ªwithout having too much guilt about any of it. Otherwise, just your average working mom¡ªtwo boys in elementary school, an off-and-on situation with her sort of semi-ex-husband Horst, life as normal as it ever gets in the neighborhood¡ªtill Maxine starts looking into the finances of a computer-security firm and its billionaire geek CEO, whereupon things begin rapidly to jam onto the subway and head downtown. She soon finds herself mixed up with a drug runner in an art deco motorboat, a professional nose obsessed with Hitler¡¯s aftershave, a neoliberal enforcer with footwear issues, plus elements of the Russian mob and various bloggers, hackers, code monkeys, and entrepreneurs, some of whom begin to show up mysteriously dead. Foul play, of course.

With occasional excursions into the DeepWeb and out to Long Island, Thomas Pynchon, channeling his inner Jewish mother, brings us a historical romance of New York in the early days of the internet, not that distant in calendar time but galactically remote from where we¡¯ve journeyed to since.

Will perpetrators be revealed, forget about brought to justice? Will Maxine have to take the handgun out of her purse? Will she and Horst get back together? Will Jerry Seinfeld make an unscheduled guest appearance? Will accounts secular and karmic be brought into balance?

Hey. Who wants to know?]]> 477 Thomas Pynchon 1594204233 Jay 5 3.61 2013 Bleeding Edge
author: Thomas Pynchon
name: Jay
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2016/11/18
date added: 2016/11/18
shelves:
review:
Excellent. Took a while to get into it, and then, totally absorbed.
]]> 1Q84 (1Q84, #3) 7717482
¤½¤·¤Æ2009Äê¡¢¡º1²Ï84¡»¤ÏÄæ¤Î·½Ïò¤«¤é1984Äê¤òÃ褤¤¿½ü¹ýȥСÕh¤Ç¤¢¤ë¡£

¤½¤³¤ËÃ褫¤ì¤Æ¤¤¤ë¤Î¤Ï¡¸¤³¤¦¤Ç¤¢¤Ã¤¿¤«¤â¤·¤ì¤Ê¤¤¡¹ÊÀ½ç¤Ê¤Î¤À¡£

˽¤¿¤Á¤¬Éú¤­¤Æ¤¤¤ëÏÖÔÚ¤¬¡¢¡¸¤½¤¦¤Ç¤Ï¤Ê¤«¤Ã¤¿¤«¤â¤·¤ì¤Ê¤¤¡¹ÊÀ½ç¤Ç¤¢¤ë¤Î¤È¡¢¤Á¤ç¤¦¤Éͬ¤¸¤è¤¦¤Ë¡£±Õ±Õ> 473 Haruki Murakami 4103534257 Jay 4 3.90 2010 1Q84 (1Q84, #3)
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Jay
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2016/11/14
date added: 2016/11/14
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Narrow Road to the Deep North]]> 17905709
Richard Flanagan's story ¡ª of Dorrigo Evans, an Australian doctor haunted by a love affair with his uncle's wife ¡ª journeys from the caves of Tasmanian trappers in the early twentieth century to a crumbling pre-war beachside hotel, from a Thai jungle prison to a Japanese snow festival, from the Changi gallows to a chance meeting of lovers on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Taking its title from 17th-century haiku poet Basho's travel journal, The Narrow Road to the Deep North is about the impossibility of love. At its heart is one day in a Japanese slave labour camp in August 1943. As the day builds to its horrific climax, Dorrigo Evans battles and fails in his quest to save the lives of his fellow POWs, a man is killed for no reason, and a love story unfolds.]]> 467 Richard Flanagan Jay 2 did-not-finish 4.01 2013 The Narrow Road to the Deep North
author: Richard Flanagan
name: Jay
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2016/11/14
date added: 2016/11/14
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Kind Worth Killing (Henry Kimball/Lily Kintner, #1)]]> 21936809 The Girl on the Train will love this modern reimagining of Patricia Highsmith¡¯s classic Strangers on a Train from the author of the acclaimed The Girl with a Clock for a Heart¡ªwhich the Washington Post said ¡°should be a contender for crime fiction¡¯s best first novel of 2014.¡±

On a night flight from London to Boston, Ted Severson meets the stunning and mysterious Lily Kintner. Sharing one too many martinis, the strangers begin to play a game of truth, revealing very intimate details about themselves. Ted talks about his marriage that¡¯s going stale and his wife Miranda, who he¡¯s sure is cheating on him. Ted and his wife were a mismatch from the start¡ªhe the rich businessman, she the artistic free spirit¡ªa contrast that once inflamed their passion, but has now become a clich¨¦.

But their game turns a little darker when Ted jokes that he could kill Miranda for what she¡¯s done. Lily, without missing a beat, says calmly, ¡°I¡¯d like to help.¡± After all, some people are the kind worth killing, like a lying, stinking, cheating spouse. . . .

Back in Boston, Ted and Lily¡¯s twisted bond grows stronger as they begin to plot Miranda's demise. But there are a few things about Lily¡¯s past that she hasn¡¯t shared with Ted, namely her experience in the art and craft of murder, a journey that began in her very precocious youth.

Suddenly these co-conspirators are embroiled in a chilling game of cat-and-mouse, one they both cannot survive . . . with a shrewd and very determined detective on their tail.]]> 320 Peter Swanson 0062267523 Jay 2 3.98 2015 The Kind Worth Killing (Henry Kimball/Lily Kintner, #1)
author: Peter Swanson
name: Jay
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2016/11/14
date added: 2016/11/14
shelves:
review:

]]> The Girl on the Train 22557272
An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.]]> 336 Paula Hawkins 1594633665 Jay 1 did-not-finish 3.97 2015 The Girl on the Train
author: Paula Hawkins
name: Jay
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2015
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2015/07/13
shelves: did-not-finish
review:
Could not connect at all. Felt contrived. Had no identification with the protag at all. Just boring.
]]> <![CDATA[Nemesis Games (The Expanse, #5)]]> 22886612
A thousand worlds have opened, and the greatest land rush in human history has begun. As wave after wave of colonists leave, the power structures of the old solar system begin to buckle.

Ships are disappearing without a trace. Private armies are being secretly formed. The sole remaining protomolecule sample is stolen. Terrorist attacks previously considered impossible bring the inner planets to their knees. The sins of the past are returning to exact a terrible price.

And as a new human order is struggling to be born in blood and fire, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante must struggle to survive and get back to the only home they have left.]]> 536 James S.A. Corey 031621759X Jay 3 4.44 2015 Nemesis Games (The Expanse, #5)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Jay
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2015/07/13
shelves:
review:
To me this was a filler novel, a setup to get to the next. All the crew go off and do their own things and meanwhile a bad man throws rocks at earth and makes a big mess. They all come back together and finally we might get a chance to see what's there in the multpiole worlds...but only in the next book.
]]> Seveneves 22752699
A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain...

Five thousand years later, their progeny -- seven distinct races now three billion strong -- embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown ... to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.]]> 880 Neal Stephenson 0062190415 Jay 2 3.97 2015 Seveneves
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Jay
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2015/07/13
shelves:
review:
Stephenson is either hit or miss. This one was a miss for me. Although his research is immaculate, volumes of infodump do not an engaging read make. I really didn't not want to explore the ins and outs of delta-v. Guess I'll wait for the next one.
]]> The Jackal Dreaming 24994548 315 J.A. Caselberg 1508586691 Jay 5 my-works 5.00 2011 The Jackal Dreaming
author: J.A. Caselberg
name: Jay
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/02/22
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Halloween: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre]]> 17864395
Stories:
¡°Black Dog¡± by Laird Barron
¡°From Dust¡± by Laura Bickle
¡°Angelic¡± by Jay Caselberg
¡°Pumpkin Head Escapes¡± by Lawrence Connolly
¡°All Hallows in the High Hills¡± by Brenda Cooper
¡°We, the Fortunate Bereaved¡± by Brian Hodge
¡°Thirteen¡± by Stephen Graham Jones
¡°Whilst the Night Rejoices Profound and Still¡± by Caitl¨ªn R. Kiernan
¡°Trick or Treat¡± by Nancy Kilpatrick
¡°Long Way Home: A Pine Deep Story¡± by Jonathan Maberry
¡°The Mummy¡¯s Kiss¡± by Norman Partridge
¡°All Souls Day¡± by Barbara Roden
¡°And When You Called Us We Came To You¡± by John Shirley
¡°The Halloween Men¡± by Maria V. Snyder
¡°Lesser Fires¡± by Steve Rasnic Tem & Melanie Tem
¡°Unternehmen Werwolf¡± by Carrie Vaughn
¡°For the Removal of Unwanted Guests¡± by A.C. Wise
¡°Quadruple Whammy¡± by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro]]> 384 Paula Guran 1607014025 Jay 4 my-works 3.77 2011 Halloween: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre
author: Paula Guran
name: Jay
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2015/02/19
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Australian Horror Writers Sampler 2013]]> 19202163
¡°The Grief School¡± by Matthew Tait ¨C as a man of chance, Myles Lacey understood all too well the whims of the universe, and that meant death was a constant in life.

¡°Harry's Dead Poodle¡± by David Kernot ¨C tells us there is more to people than what you see on the outside, like ex-butcher Harry Mills, who is good with a knife.

¡°Hear No Evil¡± by Shane Jiraiya Cummings ¨C Blaine wakes in hospital after an accident. Although deaf, only he can hear a distant, desperate scream. What evil will he face when he answers the call?

¡°The Nightmare Dimension¡± by David Conyers ¨C modern day mage Gordon McColley might not have sold his soul to the demons of hell, but they still have work for him to do, and he can¡¯t refuse.

¡°The End of Ever¡± by Troy Barnes ¨C In a world where nightmares reign, an unlikely group of friends must face the unknown and travel through the sinister heart of Ever in search of a way home. Friendships will be torn apart. Lives will be lost. Will anyone live happy after Ever?

This sampler collection provides links to the various author¡¯s works, personal interviews, and further information on their e-books.

Step inside, and discover the horror lurking in the Land of Oz¡­]]> 255 David Conyers Jay 5 my-works 4.43 2013 Australian Horror Writers Sampler 2013
author: David Conyers
name: Jay
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/02/19
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Best of Electric Velocipede]]> 23286281
The Best of Electric Velocipede showcases a breathtaking thirty-four pieces of high quality work published during its run. If you¡¯ve never read the magazine, you¡¯re in for a treat. If you¡¯re already a fan, you¡¯ll find all your favorites and a lot of great writing that deserves a second look. With a foreword by editor John Klima and introduction by Shane Jones.

Stories and poetry by:

Mark Rich ? William Shunn ? Alan DeNiro ? Liz Williams ? Chris Roberson ? Heather Martin ? Jay Caselberg ? Hal Duncan ? Jeffrey Ford ? Catherynne M. Valente ? Brendan Connell ? Richard Howard ? Rachel Swirsky ? Sandra McDonald ? Shira Lipkin ? Patrick O¡¯Leary ? Jonathan Wood ? Toiya Kirsten Finley ? Richard Bowes ? Mark Teppo ? KJ Bishop ? Cyril Simsa ? Darin C. Bradley ? E. Lily Yu ? Dennis Danvers ? Aliette de Bodard ? Ken Liu ? Megan Kurashige ? Michael Constantine McConnell ? Damien Angelica Walters ? Val Nolan ? Cislyn Smith ? Sam J. Miller ? Caroline M. Yoachim]]> 348 John Klima 193384647X Jay 4 my-works 3.64 2012 The Best of Electric Velocipede
author: John Klima
name: Jay
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2015/02/19
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lovecraft eZine Issue 20 - December 2012]]> 19183489
Enjoy!]]> 86 Mike Davis Jay 4 my-works 3.00 2012 Lovecraft eZine Issue 20 - December 2012
author: Mike Davis
name: Jay
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2015/02/19
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> The City (The City, #1) 18773627
For one bright morning, a single earth-shattering event will show Jonah that, in his city, the darkest side of humanity sometimes triumphs. But it will also teach him that courage and honour are found in the most unexpected places, and the way forward lies deep inside the heart.

If he can just survive to find it...]]> 398 Dean Koontz 0345545931 Jay 3 3.72 2014 The City (The City, #1)
author: Dean Koontz
name: Jay
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2015/02/18
shelves:
review:
Okay, but not the best outing from Koontz. A young black talented musical prodigy meets a woman who is the embodiment of the spirit of the city and steers his life in a certain way. Readable enough, but didn't knock my socks off.
]]> Genocide of One 21920942
During a briefing in Washington D.C., the President is informed of a threat to national a three-year-old boy named Akili, who is already the smartest being on the planet. Representing the next step in human evolution, Akili can perceive patterns and predict future events better than most supercomputers, and is capable of manipulating grand-scale events like pieces on a chess board. And yet, for all that power, Akili has the emotional maturity of a child -- which might make him the most dangerous threat humanity has ever faced.

An American soldier, Jonathan Yeager, leads an international team of elite operatives deep into the heart of the Congolese jungle under Presidential orders to destroy this threat to humanity before Akili's full potential can be realized. But Yeager has a very sick child, and Akili's advanced knowledge of all things, medicine included, may be Yeager's only hope for saving his son's life. Soon Yeager finds himself caught between following his orders and saving a creature with a hidden agenda, who plans to either save humanity as we know it -- or destroy it.]]> 506 Kazuaki Takano 031622622X Jay 2 did-not-finish 3.95 2011 Genocide of One
author: Kazuaki Takano
name: Jay
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2015/02/18
shelves: did-not-finish
review:
Had to give up on this. Even making allowances for the translation, the stilted interactions and continual info-dumps forged within a tissue-thin premise made it impossible to continue. There's a new lifeform in the Congo and it has the potential to wipe out humanity and there's a new strain of ebola and we have to employ a bunch of mercenaries who have to go in and kill all the pygmies who have contracted the disease which also has a two year incubation period, and and and....
]]> <![CDATA[Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances]]> 22522808 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman returns to dazzle, captivate, haunt, and entertain with this third collection of short fiction following Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things--which includes a never-before published American Gods story, "Black Dog," written exclusively for this volume.

In this new anthology, Neil Gaiman pierces the veil of reality to reveal the enigmatic, shadowy world that lies beneath. Trigger Warning includes previously published pieces of short fiction--stories, verse, and a very special Doctor Who story that was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved series in 2013--as well "Black Dog," a new tale that revisits the world of American Gods, exclusive to this collection.

Trigger Warning explores the masks we all wear and the people we are beneath them to reveal our vulnerabilities and our truest selves. Here is a rich cornucopia of horror and ghosts stories, science fiction and fairy tales, fabulism and poetry that explore the realm of experience and emotion. In "Adventure Story"--a thematic companion to The Ocean at the End of the Lane--Gaiman ponders death and the way people take their stories with them when they die. His social media experience "A Calendar of Tales" are short takes inspired by replies to fan tweets about the months of the year--stories of pirates and the March winds, an igloo made of books, and a Mother's Day card that portends disturbances in the universe. Gaiman offers his own ingenious spin on Sherlock Holmes in his award-nominated mystery tale "The Case of Death and Honey". And "Click-Clack the Rattlebag" explains the creaks and clatter we hear when we're all alone in the darkness.

A sophisticated writer whose creative genius is unparalleled, Gaiman entrances with his literary alchemy, transporting us deep into the realm of imagination, where the fantastical becomes real and the everyday incandescent. Full of wonder and terror, surprises and amusements, Trigger Warning is a treasury of delights that engage the mind, stir the heart, and shake the soul from one of the most unique and popular literary artists of our day.]]> 310 Neil Gaiman 0062330268 Jay 0 to-read 3.90 2015 Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Jay
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2015/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet]]> 7141642
But Jacob¡¯s original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city¡¯s powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken. The consequences will extend beyond Jacob¡¯s worst imaginings. As one cynical colleague asks, ¡°Who ain¡¯t a gambler in the glorious Orient, with his very life?¡±

A magnificent mix of luminous writing, prodigious research, and heedless imagination, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is the most impressive achievement of its eminent author.]]> 479 David Mitchell 1400065453 Jay 4 4.01 2010 The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
author: David Mitchell
name: Jay
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2015/02/18
shelves:
review:
At last, at last I have finished this. Impeccably researched and full of touches of the Mitchell flair for creative prose form, this was a worthy read. Mitchell meanders here and there, but mostly, this historical portrayal of the Dutch in early Japan is pretty absorbing. A long book though, very long.
]]> The Spirit of Poe 15766505 338 W.J. Rosser 478224029 Jay 5 my-works 4.67 2012 The Spirit of Poe
author: W.J. Rosser
name: Jay
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/01/20
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> Polyphony Volume 5 13500041 - Nick Gevers
Locus Magazine]]> Deborah Layne Jay 5 my-works 5.00 2005 Polyphony Volume 5
author: Deborah Layne
name: Jay
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/01/19
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> Damnation and Dames 13583631 324 Liz Grzyb 192185703X Jay 5 my-works 4.25 2012 Damnation and Dames
author: Liz Grzyb
name: Jay
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/01/19
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> Black Box Anthology 4128729 Shane Jiraiya Cummings Jay 5 my-works 4.33 2008 Black Box Anthology
author: Shane Jiraiya Cummings
name: Jay
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/01/19
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Angel on the Beach: Collected Short Stories]]> 18137415 192 Jay Caselberg 1490504729 Jay 5 my-works 5.00 2003 Angel on the Beach: Collected Short Stories
author: Jay Caselberg
name: Jay
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/01/19
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> End of the Road 17571738
Here are stories of misfits, spectral hitch-hikers, nightmare travel tales and the rogues, freaks and monsters to be found on the road.

The critically acclaimed editor of Magic, The End of The Line and House of Fear has brought together the contemporary masters and mistresses of the weird from around the globe in an anthology of travel tales like no other. Strap on your seatbelt, or shoulder your backpack, and wait for that next ride... into darkness.

An incredible anthology of orginal short stories from an exciting list of writers including the best-selling Philip Reeve, the World Fantasy Award-winning Lavie Tidhar and the incredible talents of Sarah Lotz, Ian Whates, Jay Caselberg, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, Zen Cho, Sophia McDougall, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Anil Menon, Rio Youers, Vandana Singh, Paul Meloy, Adam Nevill, Helen Marshall.]]> 304 Jonathan Oliver 1781081549 Jay 5 my-works 3.49 2013 End of the Road
author: Jonathan Oliver
name: Jay
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/01/19
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Unnatural Conditions: Collected Short Stories 2013]]> 18723251
¡°Jay Caselberg, a writer whose star is in ascendance.¡±¡ªSFSite

¡°Caselberg excels at weaving a fast-paced story, but one that is multi-faceted as a diamond.¡±¡ªBook of Dark Wisdom-]]> 354 Jay Caselberg 1493588176 Jay 5 my-works 5.00 2013 Unnatural Conditions: Collected Short Stories 2013
author: Jay Caselberg
name: Jay
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/01/19
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dark Visions: A Collection of Modern Horror; Volume One]]> 18586237
This book is their instruction manual. And it¡¯s only the beginning...

DARK VISIONS: A COLLECTION OF MODERN HORROR - Volume One includes thirteen disturbing tales of dread from some of the most visionary minds writing horror, Sci-Fi and speculative fiction today. DARK VISIONS uncovers the truth behind our own misguided concepts of reality.

FEATURING:

MISTER POCKETS: A PINE DEEP STORY by Jonathan Maberry
Pine Deep is a typical small town, but one with a dark and troubled past. For young Lefty Horrigan, it¡¯s just another ordinary day until there's a mysterious murder and he comes face-to-face with the town's very strange hobo. Has The Trouble returned to ¡°the most haunted town in America?¡±

COLLAGE by Jay Caselberg
What would you do if you lost your one true love? Most of us will be faced with that question at some point. Unless we're the one lucky enough to get out first. Love hurts. But does it have to hurt this much?

THE WEIGHT OF PARADISE by Jeff Hemenway
For years, humans have tried to live without pain. For Alfie this means fighting off the leukemia that¡¯s killing him, while hoping for a cure. But sometimes it¡¯s important to be careful for what we ask.

THREE MINUTES by Sarah L. Johnson
Orphaned John doesn¡¯t have a future. Awakened each night by the same horrifying nightmare, he takes to late-night swims in order to avoid the Dream Eater that plagues his sleep. His goal: hold his breath underwater, for only three minutes until his nightmares go away.

SECOND OPINION by Ray Garton
Author Greg hasn¡¯t had a bestseller in years. But he believes he has just the right story to revive his career. In need of a fresh set of eyes, he shares it with a friend who offers him a bit more than a second opinion.

THE LAST ICE CREAM KISS by Jason S. Ridler
The mind of a disturbed child is filled with dark and dangerous hallways. There are passages that shouldn't be walked, doors better left unopened and rooms whose secrets are best never revealed.

SCRAP by David A. Riley
Childhood should be a time for innocent days spent playing in the sun. But for two abused brothers coming to grips with life on their new English estate, an adventure opens the door into a world of evil and sets in motion a chain of events from which there seems no escape.

WHAT DO YOU NEED? by Milo James Fowler
John wakes up in a motel room in the 1970s. But the problem is, it¡¯s not the ¡®70s. What is he doing here? How long has he been here? And whose is the terrifying voice on the phone?

THE TROLL by Jonathan Balog
Summer's over and the school year has begun. Marty's life will once again be filled with the drudgery of bullies and homework, until he hears a voice from beneath a bridge. Once he meets the troll, life becomes a lot more interesting.

DELICATE SPACES by Brian Fatah Steele
There are places the world over where the veil between the living and the dead is paper thin. It¡¯s only when the dead choose to step through that it's a problem.

RAINING STONES by Sean Logan
A series of gruesome murders plagues San Francisco while memories of an absent father point an alcoholic reporter in a direction he may not want. Are Lonnie¡¯s dreams mere hallucinations, or will they lead him down the path into a dark world of religious fanaticism?

SHOW ME by John F.D. Taff
There's something wrong with Joe, and everyone knows it. But that doesn¡¯t mean this college junior is off limits when it comes to trying to get into his pants. Beware, once you know Joe, you won't be the same again.

THANATOS PARK by Charles Austin Muir
Horrors exist beyond the barrier of human perception. We sometimes hear them in the drone of a world humming along. Or we stumble upon them in the dark, unable to grasp the magnitude of our wholly inaccurate concept of reality.]]> 256 Anthony Rivera 1940658012 Jay 5 my-works 4.02 2013 Dark Visions: A Collection of Modern Horror; Volume One
author: Anthony Rivera
name: Jay
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/01/19
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> Empties 23298218 Now Chris has a new purpose: find out what¡¯s been done to his wife, and who the smiling men are. But these are secrets that don¡¯t want to be found, and they¡¯ll go to great lengths to stay hidden.

"Painful, powerful and haunting, Empties is a tour-de-force" -- Lavie Tidhar]]> 280 Jay Caselberg Jay 5 my-works 4.50 2014 Empties
author: Jay Caselberg
name: Jay
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/01/19
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Equilibrium Overturned: A Volume of Apocalyptic Horrors]]> 22700635

Exploring terrifying dystopian societies, post-apocalyptic survival, the whitewashing of our own terrifying past, and supernatural worlds both near and far, Equilibrium Overturned offers 14 shocking revelations into the true origins of evil. Come with us on a journey into malignant terror that will drive a nail through all that remains of your own humanity.


FEATURING:


THE FINAL TESTIMONY OF MOLLY RYDER by Jeff Hemenway - In the future, prisoners serve their sentences in drug-induced comas. Via psychic link, an investigator journeys into the mind of a killer to uncover the details of a murder. What's revealed has terrifying repercussions for all of humanity.


AMNION by John Everson - A scientist developing a modern day fountain of youth stops at nothing to test his theories. The results of his work have dire consequences for his life and for those closest to him.


MARTIAL LAW by JG Faherty - The United States is thrown into chaos as mysterious invaders attack a small town, turning streets into rivers of blood. A group of neighbors struggle to come to grips with the terrifying events taking place.


THROUGH THE GHOSTLANDS by Rose Blackthorn - Survivors of a global calamity are searching a dead world for the remnants of civilization. Pursued by a menacing supernatural force, they must put their differences aside to ensure their survival.


THE COLLECTED SYLVIA, VOLUME 1 TO 1388 by Geoffrey W. Cole - A routine scouting mission to the surface of a distant planet threatens to maroon a couple on the forbidding alien world. Unwilling to give up hope against terrifying odds, one man goes to terrible lengths to escape.


PERFECT SOLDIERS by S.G. Larner - A terrifying evil from the other side of the veil is gaining momentum by feeding off the hatred and fear of humankind. To battle the onslaught, armies of Earth are forced to resort to unspeakable measures to fight the world's last war.


WOMBIE by Martin Slag - A small-town veterinarian is shocked to learn the species of his newest patient. And he's overcome with fear when he uncovers an unimaginable hidden agenda.


NO-MAN'S LAND by Roger Jackson - A regiment of English soldiers battle the Nazi war machine. But a horror far more terrifying than war quickly consumes the shattered platoon.


THE ALAMO INCIDENT: FROM THE CHRONICLES OF TIMAEUS SHIELDS by Sean Eads - In the West that's known as wild for a reason, a man investigates the force that's been eradicating soldiers stationed at the legendary outpost. What he learns shines new light into the darkness of Manifest Destiny.


THE BUTCHER OF GAD STREET by Stephen T. Vessels - Acrid believes he was put on Earth to serve an elusive purpose. A citywide riot sparks a dark adventure into the horrifying nature of mankind.


QUEEN OF THERMODYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM by Josh Vogt - A revolutionary believing that Death is a cleansing force aims to stop its eradication. She takes her quest to the wreckage of a derelict intergalactic battleship where she aims to breath new life into old death.


COMPARTMENTAL by Jay Caselberg - Humans are made up of small pieces of knowledge, experience and memory. What happens when these remnants bleed from their mental compartments creates a psychological nightmare for one man.


THIS IS NOT A HORROR STORY by Tim Waggoner - Living in a surveillance state run amok, a woman visiting the DMV is horrified to learn that the government knows far more about her than her driving record.


SUNRISE by Tony Knighton - Forced to battle oppressive protocol, a callous healthcare system, black market criminals and dangerous environmental hazards, a father faces insurmountable odds.]]> Anthony Rivera 1940658276 Jay 5 my-works 5.00 2014 Equilibrium Overturned: A Volume of Apocalyptic Horrors
author: Anthony Rivera
name: Jay
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/01/19
shelves: my-works
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Honourable Schoolboy (George Smiley, #6; Karla Trilogy, #2)]]> 18990 In this classic masterwork, le Carr¨¦ expands upon his extraordinary vision of a secret world as George Smiley goes on the attack.

In the wake of a demoralizing infiltration by a Soviet double agent, Smiley has been made ringmaster of the Circus (aka the British Secret Service). Determined to restore the organization's health and reputation, and bent on revenge, Smiley thrusts his own handpicked operative into action. Jerry Westerby, "The Honourable Schoolboy," is dispatched to the Far East. A burial ground of French, British, and American colonial cultures, the region is a fabled testing ground of patriotic allegiances?and a new showdown is about to begin.

]]> 589 John Le Carr¨¦ 0743457919 Jay 3 3.98 1977 The Honourable Schoolboy (George Smiley, #6; Karla Trilogy, #2)
author: John Le Carr¨¦
name: Jay
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1977
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2015/01/19
shelves:
review:
I found this the least satisfying of the Karla trilogy. As usual, very mannered but import laden prose, however the end, the lack of real closure, the glossing of consequence left me a little underwhelmed.
]]> End of Secrets 23387398 Though her specialty is foreign cyberterrorism, CIA agent Kera Mersal finds herself plunged into a bizarre domestic case. Singers, writers, and artists are disappearing, leaving no trace in a world where everyone leaves a digital footprint. Posing as a journalist, Kera attempts to track the artists¡¯ last-known movements.

On a hunt that takes her from the underground art scene to a rogue domestic spying program, Kera finds her investigation on a deadly collision course with ONE Corp., the world¡¯s largest multimedia conglomerate. As she¡¯s drawn deeper into the investigation, she discovers that an enigmatic young ad exec, a wealthy playboy, and a mysterious website may connect the missing artists and ONE¡¯s growing power. And with each discovery comes confirmation of a terrifying truth¡ªno one¡¯s secrets are safe.

A smartly suspenseful and timely thriller, End of Secrets dives into the depths of our culture¡¯s two most relentless obsessions: entertainment and profit.

]]> 401 Ryan Quinn 1477875514 Jay 3 3.59 2014 End of Secrets
author: Ryan Quinn
name: Jay
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2015/01/19
shelves:
review:
A fast-paced, loss of privacy in the world of the digital conspiracy theory sort of thriller. Engaging enough for its over the top implausability and a quick read. Not bad for something lighter.
]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Strange New Things]]> 20697435
It begins with Peter, a devoted man of faith, as he is called to the mission of a lifetime, one that takes him galaxies away from his wife, Bea. Peter becomes immersed in the mysteries of an astonishing new environment, overseen by an enigmatic corporation known only as USIC. His work introduces him to a seemingly friendly native population struggling with a dangerous illness and hungry for Peter's teachings¡ªhis Bible is their "book of strange new things." But Peter is rattled when Bea's letters from home become increasingly desperate: typhoons and earthquakes are devastating whole countries, and governments are crumbling. Bea's faith, once the guiding light of their lives, begins to falter.

Suddenly, a separation measured by an otherworldly distance, and defined both by one newly discovered world and another in a state of collapse, is threatened by an ever-widening gulf that is much less quantifiable. While Peter is reconciling the needs of his congregation with the desires of his strange employer, Bea is struggling for survival. Their trials lay bare a profound meditation on faith, love tested beyond endurance, and our responsibility to those closest to us.

Marked by the same bravura storytelling and precise language that made The Crimson Petal and the White such an international success, The Book of Strange New Things is extraordinary, mesmerizing, and replete with emotional complexity and genuine pathos.]]> 500 Michel Faber 055341884X Jay 2 did-not-finish 3.65 2014 The Book of Strange New Things
author: Michel Faber
name: Jay
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2015/01/19
shelves: did-not-finish
review:
Well, I made it about 10% of the way through this. Not very far. Seems like an alien first contact novel, but my problem was the protagonist, a deeply Christian missionary guy. Found it annoying the entire length of what I read so I did not persist.
]]> The Girl in the Road 18297954 Stunningly original and wildly inventive, The Girl in the Road melds the influences of Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, and Erin Morgenstern for a dazzling debut.

Meena, a young woman living in a futuristic Mumbai, wakes up with five snake bites on her chest. She doesn't know how or why, but she must flee India and return to Ethiopia, the place of her birth. Having long heard about The Trail -- an energy-harvesting bridge that spans the Arabian Sea -- she embarks on foot on this forbidden bridge, with its own subculture and rules. What awaits her in Ethiopia is unclear; she's hoping the journey will illuminate it for her.

Mariama, a girl from a different time, is on a quest of her own. After witnessing her mother's rape, she joins up with a caravan of strangers heading across Saharan Africa. She meets Yemaya, a beautiful and enigmatic woman who becomes her protector and confidante. Yemaya tells Mariama of Ethiopia, where revolution is brewing and life will be better. Mariama hopes against hope that it offers much more than Yemaya ever promised.

As one heads east and the other west, Meena and Mariama's fates will entwine in ways that are profoundly moving and shocking to the core. Vividly imagined and artfully told, written with stunning clarity and deep emotion, The Girl in the Road is a true tour de force.]]> 323 Monica Byrne 0804138842 Jay 2 did-not-finish 3.46 2014 The Girl in the Road
author: Monica Byrne
name: Jay
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2015/01/12
shelves: did-not-finish
review:
Conceptually, all very nice. Two combined road stories seen from the viewpoint of two cultures. Some decent and interesting science in here, but ultimately nothing happens. I gave up 75% of the way through because still nothing had really happened apart from lots of banging on about culture and deities and different geographies and of course some non traditional sexual fantasies. Finally thought to myself, what's the point?
]]> The Language of Dying 6691674
There has never been anything normal about the lives raised in this house. It seems to her that sometimes her family is so colorful that the brightness hurts, and as they all join together in this time of impending loss she examines how they came to be the way they are and how it came to just be her, the drifter, that her father came home to die with.

But, the middle of five children, the woman has her own secrets . . . particularly the draw that pulled her back to the house when her own life looked set to crumble. And sitting through her lonely vigil, she remembers the thing she saw out in the fields all those years ago . . . the thing that they found her screaming for outside in the mud. As she peers through the familiar glass, she can't help but hope and wonder if it will come again.

Because it's one of those nights, isn't it Dad? A special terrible night. A full night. And that's always when it comes. If it comes at all.]]> 88 Sarah Pinborough 1906301824 Jay 4 3.78 2009 The Language of Dying
author: Sarah Pinborough
name: Jay
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2015/01/02
shelves:
review:
Surely a decent read, but definitely feels like a personal catharsis with enough allegorical weirdness to push it into the strange. Not necessarily my kind of book, but at novella length, it is certainly worth picking up.
]]> Big Driver 23291102 Now a Lifetime original movie, Stephen King's haunting story about an author of a series of mystery novels who tries to reconcile her old life with her life after a horrific attack and the one thing that can save Revenge.Tess Thorne, a famous mystery writer, faces a long drive home following a book signing engagement. Advised to take a shortcut at the suggestion of the event¡¯s planner, Tess sets out for home, well after dark. On a lonely stretch of New England road, her tire blows out, and when a man in a pick up stops, it is not to help her, but to repeatedly assault her and leave her for dead. Tess survives, and she plots a revenge that will bring her face-to-face with another the one inside herself, capable of gruesome violence.This story was originally published in Stephen King¡¯s acclaimed collection, Full Dark, No Stars.]]> 206 Stephen King 1501104438 Jay 3 4.16 2010 Big Driver
author: Stephen King
name: Jay
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2015/01/02
shelves:
review:
Be warned. More than half of this is familiar, half not. We really need to see health warnings on re-releases of short fiction that have already appeared in other collections. Oh, I thought, something new! Ha, ha, ha. If you've read Full Dark No Stars, well....
]]> A Good Marriage 23266550
When her husband of more than 20 years is away on one of his business trips, Darcy Anderson looks for batteries in the garage. Her toe knocks up against a box under a worktable and she discovers the stranger inside her husband. It's a horrifying discovery, rendered with bristling intensity, and it definitively ends a good marriage.

Listening Length: 3 hours and 33 minutes]]> 270 Stephen King Jay 3 3.98 2014 A Good Marriage
author: Stephen King
name: Jay
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2015/01/02
shelves:
review:
Be warned. Half of this is familiar, half not. We really need to see health warnings on re-releases of short fiction that have already appeared in other collections. Oh, I thought, something new! Ha, ha, ha.
]]> Black Swan Green 14316
Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys¡¯ games on a frozen lake; of ¡°nightcreeping¡± through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigr¨¦ who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason¡¯s search to replace his dead grandfather¡¯s irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran LPs, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher¡¯s recession; of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons.

Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell¡¯s most subtlest and effective achievement to date.]]> 296 David Mitchell 0812974018 Jay 2 3.97 2006 Black Swan Green
author: David Mitchell
name: Jay
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2006
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2014/12/31
shelves:
review:
I'm not a big fan of slice of life seen through the eyes of a thirteen year old boy novels. Sure it was a lovely depiction of the late seventies early eighties in deepest darkest Worcestershire, however, for me this did not make a novel; it was more of a vignette. Sure, our boy goes through changes, struggles with his stammering, finds courage to face up to the bullies, ho hum.
]]> <![CDATA[All Day and a Night (Ellie Hatcher, #5)]]> 18635057 A murder case with ties to a convicted serial killer leads a young defense lawyer and an NYPD homicide detective into parallel investigations with explosive and deadly results in this superb mystery.

The latest story dominating the tabloids - the murder of psychotherapist Helen Brunswick-couldn't be further from Carrie Blank's world handling federal appeals at an elite Manhattan law firm. But then a hard-charging celebrity trial lawyer calls Carrie with an offer she can't refuse: Anthony Amaro, the serial killer police blamed for the murder of Carrie's older sister, Donna, has new evidence related to Brunswick's murder that he believes can exonerate him. Determined to force the government to catch Donna's real killer, Carrie takes on Amaro's wrongful conviction claim.

On the other side of Amaro's case is NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher, who, along with her partner, JJ Rogan, is tapped as the "fresh look" team to reassess the investigation that led to Amaro's conviction. The case is personal for them, too: Ellie wonders whether they got the assignment because of her relationship with the lead prosecutor, and Rogan has his own reasons to distrust Amaro's defense team.

As the NYPD and Amaro's lawyers search for certainty among years of conflicting evidence, their investigations take them back to Carrie's hometown and secrets left behind there. And when Carrie falls victim to a brutal attack, it becomes clear that the young attorney got too close to the truth.]]> 368 Alafair Burke 0062208381 Jay 3 3.74 2014 All Day and a Night (Ellie Hatcher, #5)
author: Alafair Burke
name: Jay
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/12/29
shelves:
review:
Run of the mill procedural. Man makes a plea to say he is falsely accused and celebrity lawyer hires half sister of one of the victims. There was some relationship stuff going on with the lead, but I was asking myself why she was staying with him if it was so clearly uncomfortable. Cover ups, baby twists, nothing very challenging. Won't be looking for another in the series.
]]> <![CDATA[The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes]]> 10000063 Marcus Sakey returns with his most ambitious novel, a captivating story of love and memory, where the only thing more frightening than the questions are the answers.

A man wakes up naked and cold, half-drowned on an abandoned beach. The only sign of life for miles is an empty BMW. Inside the expensive car he finds clothes that fit perfectly, shoes for his tattered feet, a Rolex, and a bank envelope stuffed with cash and an auto registration in the name of Daniel Hayes, resident of Malibu, California.
None of it is familiar.
What is he doing here? How did he get into the ocean? Is he Daniel Hayes, and if so, why doesn't he remember? While he searches for answers, the world searches for him¡ªbeginning with the cops that kick in the door of his dingy motel, with guns drawn. Lost, alone, and on the run, the man who might be Daniel Hayes flees into the night.
All he remembers is a woman's face, so he sets off for the only place he might find her. The fantasy of her becomes his home, his world, his hope. And maybe, just maybe, the way back to himself.
But that raises the most chilling question of all: What will he find when he gets there?]]> 390 Marcus Sakey 052595211X Jay 1 did-not-finish 3.45 2011 The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes
author: Marcus Sakey
name: Jay
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2011
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2014/12/28
shelves: did-not-finish
review:
I tried to read this. Fast paced sure enough but really really shallow. Daniel Hayes wakes up on a beach after trying to commit suicide and he has amnesia, and spends some time trying to piece things together and we find out that he's a successful Hollywood writer with a gorgeous actress wife and she's dead and he is suspected and now he's on the run. And wait, no there's another guy after him for a payment of something and porn's involved and his wife isn't really dead and I close the book and reconcile it to the trash bin.
]]> <![CDATA[The Secret Lovers (Paul Christopher #3)]]> 915930
These two seemingly discrete events set in motion a spiral of operational and personal intrigue that leads Christopher from meetings with an aging agent in the cafes of old Europe to a rendezvous with an operative on the front lines of the Cold War in the Congo as he secretly arranges the publication of a novel that could bring the Soviet system to its knees and races to identify the leak that compromised the messenger¡ªand possibly his entire mission.

The Secret Lovers is McCarry at his best¡ªan exploration of the epic scope of "the great game," but also a riveting psychological portrait of a man ensnared by a profession that never failed to exert its insidious influence outside the professional boundaries that, like the facade of diplomacy that outwardly held the Cold War in check, could never contain its violence essence.]]> 320 Charles McCarry 1585678546 Jay 2 3.89 1977 The Secret Lovers (Paul Christopher #3)
author: Charles McCarry
name: Jay
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1977
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2014/12/28
shelves:
review:
Good enough for its expositions of tradecraft, but there were several things that annoyed me about this one. I picked it up on the back of The Shanghai Factor, which was quite absorbing, but I found the underlying premise in this, the smuggling of a novel out of Soviet Russia to discredit the regime a bit tenuous, and certainly, the characterisation of Christopher was probably accurate, but the wife was such a cliche that I found the scenes where she appeared annoying in the extreme. It would have been much better if she actually played some sort of part in the story, but she was there as window dressing.
]]> Ghostwritten 6819
A writer of pyrotechnic virtuosity and profound compassion, a mind to which nothing human is alien, David Mitchell spins genres, cultures, and ideas like gossamer threads around and through these nine linked stories. Many forces bind these lives, but at root all involve the same universal longing for connection and transcendence, an axis of commonality that leads in two directions¡ªto creation and to destruction. In the end, as lives converge with a fearful symmetry, Ghostwritten comes full circle, to a point at which a familiar idea¡ªthat whether the planet is vast or small is merely a matter of perspective¡ªstrikes home with the force of a new revelation. It marks the debut novel of a writer with astonishing gifts.]]> 426 David Mitchell 0375724508 Jay 4 4.06 1999 Ghostwritten
author: David Mitchell
name: Jay
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2014/12/28
shelves:
review:
Another vast canvas with ideas teeming through, speculative and literary at the same time. This one again shows Mitchell's propensity for interconnected snippets forming a collage of background to pursue an idea that is vast beyond the mainstream and wandering across the world. In the ned, I was not quite as satisfied by this as The Bone Clocks, but still absorbing and complex.
]]> Echopraxia (Firefall, #2) 18490708
It's the eve of the twenty-second century: a world where the dearly departed send postcards back from Heaven and evangelicals make scientific breakthroughs by speaking in tongues; where genetically engineered vampires solve problems intractable to baseline humans and soldiers come with zombie switches that shut off self-awareness during combat. And it¡¯s all under surveillance by an alien presence that refuses to show itself.

Daniel Bruks is a living fossil: a field biologist in a world where biology has turned computational, a cat's-paw used by terrorists to kill thousands. Taking refuge in the Oregon desert, he¡¯s turned his back on a humanity that shatters into strange new subspecies with every heartbeat. But he awakens one night to find himself at the center of a storm that will turn all of history inside-out.

Now he¡¯s trapped on a ship bound for the center of the solar system. To his left is a grief-stricken soldier, obsessed by whispered messages from a dead son. To his right is a pilot who hasn¡¯t yet found the man she's sworn to kill on sight. A vampire and its entourage of zombie bodyguards lurk in the shadows behind. And dead ahead, a handful of rapture-stricken monks takes them all to a meeting with something they will only call ¡°The Angels of the Asteroids.¡±

Their pilgrimage brings Dan Bruks, the fossil man, face-to-face with the biggest evolutionary breakpoint since the origin of thought itself.]]> 384 Peter Watts 076532802X Jay 5 3.81 2014 Echopraxia (Firefall, #2)
author: Peter Watts
name: Jay
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2014/12/23
shelves:
review:
Really enjoyed this. Good, intelligent and informed science fiction. To my mind Watts has reached a new level with this novel. I was sorely disappointed when Valerie bought it, but read the book to find out what I mean. She was really, really interesting. The hive mind exploration was also immensely well done.
]]> Station Eleven 20170404 An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization¡¯s collapse¡ªthe spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band¡¯s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.]]> 333 Emily St. John Mandel 0385353308 Jay 3 4.05 2014 Station Eleven
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Jay
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/12/23
shelves:
review:
It was okay as a post-apocalyptic treatise, you know, after the plague. I guess it was kind of The Road meets David Mitchell in a roundabout sort of way but doesn't quite reach either of them. A plague wipes out 99% of the world's population and then we get a travelling symphony that also performs Shakespeare and travels from town to town. Backflash to life before the plague. Forward flash to life after. Strings and connections to the characters all the way through. I wasn't entirely convinced and it could really have been so much more.
]]> F 18339155
Daniel Kehlmann erz?hlt von drei Br¨¹dern, die ¨C jeder auf seine Weise ¨C Betr¨¹ger, Heuchler, F?lscher sind. Sie haben sich eingerichtet in ihrem Leben, doch pl?tzlich klafft ein Abgrund auf. Ein Augenblick der Unaufmerksamkeit, ein Zufall, ein falscher Schritt, und was gespenstischer Albtraum schien, wird wahr.

Ein Roman ¨¹ber L¨¹ge und Wahrheit, ¨¹ber Familie, F?lschung und die Kraft der Fiktion: ein virtuoses Kunstwerk ¨C vielschichtig, geheimnisvoll und k¨¹hn.]]> 384 Daniel Kehlmann 3498035444 Jay 4 3.72 2013 F
author: Daniel Kehlmann
name: Jay
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2014/12/23
shelves:
review:
This was quite good, quite complex and interwoven and a sort of other worldly magic realist feel to it along the way. In its thinking and expressions, quite German, but then one would expect such. Three brothers, divergent paths, an author father and a hypnotist that changes their lives and destinies. Quite an interesting read.
]]> Christine Falls (Quirke, #1) 199600
It¡¯s not the dead that seem strange to Quirke. It¡¯s the living. One night, after a few drinks at an office party, Quirke shuffles down into the morgue where he works and finds his brother-in-law, Malachy, altering a file he has no business even reading. Odd enough in itself to find Malachy there, but the next morning, when the haze has lifted, it looks an awful lot like his brother-in-law, the esteemed doctor, was in fact tampering with a corpse¡ªand concealing the cause of death.

It turns out the body belonged to a young woman named Christine Falls. And as Quirke reluctantly presses on toward the true facts behind her death, he comes up against some insidious¡ªand very well-guarded¡ªsecrets of Dublin¡¯s high Catholic society, among them members of his own family.

Set in Dublin and Boston in the 1950s, the first novel in the Quirke series brings all the vividness and psychological insight of Booker Prize winner John Banville¡¯s fiction to a thrilling, atmospheric crime story. Quirke is a fascinating and subtly drawn hero, Christine Falls is a classic tale of suspense, and Benjamin Black¡¯s debut marks him as a true master of the form.]]> 352 Benjamin Black 0805081526 Jay 2 did-not-finish 3.52 2006 Christine Falls (Quirke, #1)
author: Benjamin Black
name: Jay
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2006
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2014/12/23
shelves: did-not-finish
review:
Won't be reading any more of these. Could see why this was made into a TV series but the continual meandering about how drunk Quirke is at any one time and how big he is and on and on subsumes the story and the plot. Became very tiresome very quickly.
]]> <![CDATA[QI: The Book of General Ignorance (Pocket Edition)]]> 2395015 300 John Lloyd 0571241395 Jay 4 3.84 2006 QI: The Book of General Ignorance (Pocket Edition)
author: John Lloyd
name: Jay
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2014/12/04
shelves:
review:
Just a lot of fun, in the same way as the television show that spawned it.
]]> Amnesia 22930198
Because Australian prison security was, in the year 2010, mostly designed and sold by American corporations the worm immediately infected 117 US federal correctional facilities, 1,700 prisons, and over 3,000 county jails. Wherever it went, it traveled underground, in darkness, like a bushfire burning in the roots of trees. Reaching its destinations it announced itself: THE CORPORATION IS UNDER OUR CONTROL. THE ANGEL DECLARES YOU FREE.

Has a young Australian woman declared cyber war on the United States? Or was her Angel Worm intended only to open the prison doors of those unfortunates detained by Australia's harsh immigration policies? Did America suffer collateral damage? Is she innocent? Can she be saved?

Peter Carey's masterful new novel, AMNESIA.]]> 384 Peter Carey 1926428609 Jay 4 2.91 2014 Amnesia
author: Peter Carey
name: Jay
average rating: 2.91
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2014/12/04
shelves:
review:
Wow, political agenda anyone? It's all there. 1975, Hawke, Pine Gap, the Left and the loony Left. Layered and enfolded in on itself, this absolutely Australian novel takes the themes of the mid-70s and slaps them down on the page, seen from the point of view of a disgraced writer/journalist who is writing a book about the child hacker daughter of his long lost love. The place, the circumstance, the people, you can see them all. A little bit self referential, that's for sure, but there's a lot to chew on here.
]]> <![CDATA[MaddAddam (MaddAddam Trilogy, #3)]]> 18365684 ???? Meanwhile, Zeb searches for Adam One, founder of the God's Gardeners, the pacifist green religion from which Zeb broke years ago to lead the MaddAddamites in active resistance against the destructive CorpSeCorps. Now, under threat of an imminent Painballer attack, the MaddAddamites must fight back with the aid of their newfound allies, some of whom have four trotters.
???? At the centre, is the extraordinary story of Zeb's past, which involves a lost brother, a hidden murder, a bear, and a bizarre act of revenge.
????Combining adventure, humour, romance, superb storytelling, and an imagination that is at once dazzlingly inventive and grounded in a recognizable world, MaddAddam is vintage Margaret Atwood, and a moving and dramatic conclusion to her internationally celebrated dystopian trilogy.]]> 416 Margaret Atwood Jay 4 3.96 2013 MaddAddam (MaddAddam Trilogy, #3)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Jay
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2014/12/04
shelves:
review:
A reasonably satisfying conclusion to the Oryx and Crake series, although told in the style of backfill Zeb and Toby story with a bit of Jimmy thrown in. Must admit, I was a little disappointed with the ending--the redundant humans disappear off into the sunset with not much explanation and then you know who are left to inherit the earth. It felt a little bit like, hmmm, I have to close the story arc in a way which resonates with the underlying philosophy, how do I do that.
]]> Revival 20926278
In a small New England town, over half a century ago, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls feel the same about Reverend Jacobs¡ªincluding Jamie's mother and beloved sister, Claire. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deeper bond based on a secret obsession. When tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, this charismatic preacher curses God, mocks all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town.

Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from the age of thirteen, he plays in bands across the country, living the nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll while fleeing from his family's horrific loss. In his mid-thirties¡ªaddicted to heroin, stranded, desperate¡ªJamie meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil's devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings.

This rich and disturbing novel spans five decades on its way to the most terrifying conclusion Stephen King has ever written. It's a masterpiece from King, in the great American tradition of Frank Norris, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe.]]> 405 Stephen King 1476770387 Jay 3 3.78 2014 Revival
author: Stephen King
name: Jay
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/11/16
shelves:
review:
King is still clearly riffing off the research done for Joyland. The whole carny, tent revival thing and that old time religion except the religion is electricity a "secret" electricity that holds the power over life and cures and all things miraculous. Standard King themes appear here, coming of age, addiction, the writer recounting and of course wrapped into the end, an horrific other-worldly climax. The end felt rushed and contrived. All the rest was the addiction, the cure, the rock and roll life of a rhythm guitarist and well, pretty formula to my mind.
]]> The Dark Descent 23793
Contents:

Pt. 1 - The Color of Evil

The Reach / Stephen King
Evening Primrose / John Collier
The Ash-Tree / M. R. James
The New Mother / Lucy Clifford
There's a Long, Long Trail A-winding / Russell Kirk
The Call of Cthulhu / H. P. Lovecraft
The Summer People / Shirley Jackson
The Whimper of Whipped Dogs / Harlan Ellison
Young Goodman Brown / Nathaniel Hawthorne
Mr. Justice Harbottle / J. Sheridan Le Fanu
The Crowd / Ray Bradbury
The Autopsy / Michael Shea
John Charrington's Wedding / E. Nesbit
Sticks / Karl Edward Wagner
Larger Than Oneself / Robert Aickman
Belsen Express / Fritz Leiber
Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper / Robert Bloch
If Damon Comes / Charles L. Grant
Vandy, Vandy / Manly Wade Wellman

Pt. 2 - The Medusa in the Shield

The Swords / Robert Aickman
The Roaches / Thomas M. Disch
Bright Segment / Theodore Sturgeon
Dread / Clive Barker
The Fall of the House of Usher / Edgar Allan Poe
The Monkey / Stephen King
Within the Walls of Tyre / Michael Bishop
The Rats in the Walls / H. P. Lovecraft
Schalken the Painter / J. Sheridan Le Fanu
The Yellow Wallpaper / Charlotte Perkins Gilman
A Rose for Emily / William Faulkner
How Love Came to Professor Guildea / Robert Hichens
Born of Man and Woman / Richard Matheson
My Dear Emily / Joanna Russ
You Can Go Now / Dennis Etchison
The Rocking-Horse Winner / D. H. Lawrence
Three Days / Tanith Lee
Good Country People / Flannery O'Connor
Mackintosh Willy / Ramsey Campbell
The Jolly Corner / Henry James

Pt. 3 - A Fabulous Formless Darkness

Smoke Ghost / Fritz Leiber
Seven American Nights / Gene Wolfe
The Signal-Man / Charles Dickens
Crouch End / Stephen King
Night-Side / Joyce Carol Oates
Seaton's Aunt / Walter de la Mare
Clara Militch / Ivan Turgenev
The Repairer of Reputations / Robert W. Chambers
The Beckoning Fair One / Oliver Onions
What Was It? / Fitz-James O'Brien
The Beautiful Stranger / Shirley Jackson
The Damned Thing / Ambrose Bierce
Afterward / Edith Wharton
The Willows / Algernon Blackwood
The Asian Shore / Thomas M. Disch
The Hospice / Robert Aickman
A Little Something for Us Tempunauts / Philip K. Dick]]> 1011 David G. Hartwell 0312862172 Jay 0 4.26 1987 The Dark Descent
author: David G. Hartwell
name: Jay
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/11/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge]]> 106653 It has been said that science fiction is an ongoing dialogue about the future, and the front line of that dialogue is the short story. The field has a long history of producing famous anthologies to showcase its distinguished short fiction, but it has been several years since there has been a prestigious all-original science fiction anthology series.

Fast Forward is offered in the tradition of Damon Knight¡¯s prestigious and influential anthology series, Orbit, and Frederik Pohl¡¯s landmark Star SF. Fast Forward marks the start of a new hard science fiction anthology series, dedicated to presenting the vanguard of the genre and charting the undiscovered country that is the future.

Contributors scheduled for the first volume include:

Robert Charles Wilson - YFL-500
Justina Robson - The Girl Hero's Mirror Says He's Not the One
Paolo Bacigalupi - Small Offerings
Robyn Hitchcock - They Came From the Future
Kage Baker - Plotters and Shooters
Tony Ballantyne - Aristotle OS
Elizabeth Bear - The Something-Dreaming Game
Stephen Baxter - No More Stories
A.M. Dellamonica - Time of the Snake
Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper - The Terror Bard
Louise Marley - p dolce
Ken MacLeod - Jesus Christ, Reanimator
Mike Resnick and Nancy Kress - Solomon's Choice
Ian McDonald - Sanjeev and Robotwallah
Pamela Sargent - A Smaller Government
Mary A. Turzillo - Pride
Robyn Hitchcock - I Caught Intelligence
George Zebrowski - Settlements
Gene Wolfe - The Hour of the Sheep
John Meaney - Sideways from Now
Paul Di Filippo - Wikiworld

]]> 409 Lou Anders 1591024862 Jay 3 3.62 2007 Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge
author: Lou Anders
name: Jay
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/11/13
shelves:
review:
SO so and extremely self-referential. Wasn't really convinced except for one or two of the tales.
]]> <![CDATA[The Burning Room (Harry Bosch, #17; Harry Bosch Universe, #27)]]> 20881071 Now Bosch and his new partner, rookie Detective Lucia Soto, are tasked with solving what turns out to be a highly charged, politically sensitive case. Starting with the bullet that's been lodged for years in the victim's spine, they must pull new leads from years-old information, which soon reveals that this shooting may have been anything but random.

]]> 388 Michael Connelly 0316225932 Jay 3 4.03 2014 The Burning Room (Harry Bosch, #17; Harry Bosch Universe, #27)
author: Michael Connelly
name: Jay
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/11/13
shelves:
review:
Good to see Harry again, but this one I am starting to get the feeling that Harry really is winding down. You are left with the opening or the uncertainty whether Harry is gone. He's still blunt, driven, Harry, young female partner, pissed with the politics, but somehow there was a little less substance. I was looking forward to this one, as I'm far more a fan of Bosch than Haller, still, read it quickly and was left unfulfilled.
]]> Strange Bodies 17452206
Nicholas Slopen has been dead for months. So when a man claiming to be Nicholas turns up to visit an old girlfriend, deception seems the only possible motive.

Yet nothing can make him change his story.

From the secure unit of a notorious psychiatric hospital, he begins to tell his tale: an account of attempted forgery that draws the reader towards an extraordinary truth ¨C a metaphysical conspiracy that lies on the other side of madness and death.

With echoes of Jorge Luis Borges, Philip K. Dick, Mary Shelley,
Dostoevsky¡¯s Double, and George Eliot¡¯s The Lifted Veil, Strange
Bodies takes the reader on a dizzying speculative journey that poses questions about identity, authenticity, and what it means to be truly human.]]> 376 Marcel Theroux 0571297897 Jay 3 3.60 2013 Strange Bodies
author: Marcel Theroux
name: Jay
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/11/13
shelves:
review:
At leas I can say that I finished it. I found this to be too clever by far and based upon a reasonably tissue-thin premise. Impressing empty bodies with personalities with the use of language. Of course there's some esoteric research and many many literary illusions, but really I felt it was an exhibition of how clever and knowledgeable the author was about all things literature related. As I say, read it through to the bitter end, but found myself being annoyed continually.
]]> The Peripheral (Jackpot #1) 20821159 William Gibson returns with his first novel since 2010's New York Times¨C²ú±ð²õ³Ù²õ±ð±ô±ô¾±²Ô²µ Zero History.

Where Flynne and her brother, Burton, live, jobs outside the drug business are rare. Fortunately, Burton has his veteran's benefits, for neural damage he suffered from implants during his time in the USMC's elite Haptic Recon force. Then one night Burton has to go out, but there's a job he's supposed to do¡ªa job Flynne didn't know he had. Beta-testing part of a new game, he tells her. The job seems to be simple: work a perimeter around the image of a tower building. Little buglike things turn up. He's supposed to get in their way, edge them back. That's all there is to it. He's offering Flynne a good price to take over for him. What she sees, though, isn't what Burton told her to expect. It might be a game, but it might also be murder.]]> 485 William Gibson 0399158448 Jay 5 3.90 2014 The Peripheral (Jackpot #1)
author: William Gibson
name: Jay
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2014/11/05
shelves:
review:
Gibson rebooted and reloaded. This novel is nothing like Pattern Recognition and the following. This is more early Gibson remodeled and upgraded for the contemporary age. A quarter of the way through the book and I had no idea what was going on, but Gibson's terse, matter-of-fact but descriptive prose dragged me through. Heavy on the truncated but intricate dialogue characteristic of his earlier work, he plays with time, with an upgraded concept of almost virtual reality, introducing gaming, economy, speculative politics and some great images. Even though Flynne, the main protag was fun, Lowbeer will remain as my favourite character. And Connor, come to think of it. By the time I got 75% through I had a fairly good sense of what was going on, but not quite really. Read it.
]]> Number9Dream 6820 Ghostwritten, with a work that is in its way even more ambitious. In outward form, number9dream is a Dickensian coming-of-age journey: Young dreamer Eiji Miyake, from remote rural Japan, thrust out on his own by his sister¡¯s death and his mother¡¯s breakdown, comes to Tokyo in pursuit of the father who abandoned him. Stumbling around this strange, awesome city, he trips over and crosses¡ªthrough a hidden destiny or just monstrously bad luck¡ªa number of its secret power centers. Suddenly, the riddle of his father¡¯s identity becomes just one of the increasingly urgent questions Eiji must answer. Why is the line between the world of his experiences and the world of his dreams so blurry? Why do so many horrible things keep happening to him? What is it about the number 9? To answer these questions, and ultimately to come to terms with his inheritance, Eiji must somehow acquire an insight into the workings of history and fate that would be rare in anyone, much less in a boy from out of town with a price on his head and less than the cost of a Beatles disc to his name.]]> 401 David Mitchell 0812966929 Jay 3 3.88 2001 Number9Dream
author: David Mitchell
name: Jay
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/10/25
shelves:
review:
Less successful as an outing than Bone Clocks or Cloud Atlas. I was wondering if Mitchell was playing at being Murikami here as it happens. All very sliding realities and weird construction, and all very set in Japan. I think this one was a little bit too clever for its own good. Read with absorption, but found myself being annoyed with the artful dodger for some of it.
]]> An Officer and a Spy 18007532
Paris in 1895. Alfred Dreyfus, a young Jewish officer, has just been convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment at Devil¡¯s Island, and stripped of his rank in front of a baying crowd of twenty-thousand. Among the witnesses to his humiliation is Georges Picquart, the ambitious, intellectual, recently promoted head of the counterespionage agency that ¡°proved¡± Dreyfus had passed secrets to the Germans. At first, Picquart firmly believes in Dreyfus¡¯s guilt. But it is not long after Dreyfus is delivered to his desolate prison that Picquart stumbles on information that leads him to suspect that there is still a spy at large in the French military. As evidence of the most malignant deceit mounts and spirals inexorably toward the uppermost levels of government, Picquart is compelled to question not only the case against Dreyfus but also his most deeply held beliefs about his country, and about himself.

Bringing to life the scandal that mesmerized the world at the turn of the twentieth century, Robert Harris tells a tale of uncanny timeliness¨C¨Ca witch hunt, secret tribunals, out-of-control intelligence agencies, the fate of a whistle-blower--richly dramatized with the singular storytelling mastery that has marked all of his internationally best-selling novels.]]> 429 Robert Harris 0385349580 Jay 2 did-not-finish 4.18 2013 An Officer and a Spy
author: Robert Harris
name: Jay
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2014/10/25
shelves: did-not-finish
review:
I managed to struggle through about 50% of this. A spy novel in 19th C Paris. Okay. About Paris and society all very detailed, but, pages and pages of stuff I was skipping over, flashbacks and ruminations, excruciating descriptions of characters and things repeated. Halfway through the novel and well, someone was disclosed as a spy early on, and maybe they actually are not. They might have got the wrong guy. By this point, it was so drawn out that I really didn't care one way or the other.
]]> Joyland 13596166
A riveting story about love and loss, about growing up and growing old - and about those who don't get to do either because death comes for them before their time. It is at once a mystery, a horror story, and a bittersweet coming-of-age novel, one that will leave even the most hard-boiled reader profoundly moved.]]> 285 Stephen King 1781162646 Jay 3 3.90 2013 Joyland
author: Stephen King
name: Jay
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/10/22
shelves:
review:
Ultimately I guess this is Stephen King light. Certainly no way this is a crime novel, more a quiet ghost story meets coming of age tale. As is often the case, King toys with the psychic and the ghosts and depicts the carny life quite well, because yes, most of it is set in a seaside funfair. Readable, but pretty light really.
]]> <![CDATA[Ancillary Sword (Imperial Radch, #2)]]> 20706284 Seeking atonement for past crimes, Breq takes on a mission as captain of a troublesome new crew of Radchai soldiers.

Breq is a soldier who used to be a warship. Once a weapon of conquest controlling thousands of minds, now she has only a single body and serves the emperor.

With a new ship and a troublesome crew, Breq is ordered to go to the only place in the galaxy she would agree to go: to Athoek Station to protect the family of a lieutenant she once knew - a lieutenant she murdered in cold blood.]]> 359 Ann Leckie 0316246654 Jay 3 4.05 2014 Ancillary Sword (Imperial Radch, #2)
author: Ann Leckie
name: Jay
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/10/18
shelves:
review:
To be honest, after the stunning first, it was going to be a hard act to follow, but this was somewhat of a comedown. So much of the intricacy of plotting and politics were gone, and it felt like a filler. Most of the novel is about tea sets. Of course there's some little justice righting, but it's minor in comparison to the vast moral conflict of the first...Breq becomes local do-gooder. There's a bomb, but it's the result of a spoiled brat's pouting. And Breq deals with the plant that was glaringly foisted on here very early on really. Mannered chit chat, breaking convention and watching everyone's thought patterns does not a satisfying novel make.
]]> <![CDATA[The Best of Our Spies (Spy Masters, #1)]]> 17207689
Based on real events of the Second World War The Best of Our Spies is a thrilling tale of international intrigue, love, deception and espionage.]]> 541 Alex Gerlis 1782920013 Jay 3 4.16 2012 The Best of Our Spies (Spy Masters, #1)
author: Alex Gerlis
name: Jay
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/10/16
shelves:
review:
Historical German/English spy novel. I found a great deal of convenient and unlikely plot devices throughout and though probably as mannered as required for its historical setting, this too was a bit laboured. At least I finished it, though in the end was less than satisfied.
]]> The Bone Clocks 20819685
For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics¡ªand their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly¡¯s life, affecting all the people Holly loves¡ªeven the ones who are not yet born.

A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting from occupied Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list¡ªall have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder.]]> 624 David Mitchell 1400065674 Jay 5 3.82 2014 The Bone Clocks
author: David Mitchell
name: Jay
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2014/10/16
shelves:
review:
Absorbing, engaging, clever, complex and detailed. Found myself glued to this novel and of course it is the Cloud Atlas format and construction. Multiple reviewers have written glowing stuff. I'm another. As a result, I've run off and purchased most of Mitchell's output.
]]> <![CDATA[The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Six]]> 18406579 ¡°The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.¡±
¡ªH. P. Lovecraft

This statement was true when H. P. Lovecraft first wrote it at the beginning of the twentieth century, and it remains true at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The only thing that has changed is what is unknown.

With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. But this ¡°light¡± creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year, edited by Ellen Datlow, chronicles these shifting shadows. It is a catalog of terror, fear, and unpleasantness, as articulated by today¡¯s most challenging and exciting writers.

The best horror writers of today do the same thing that horror writers of a hundred years ago did. They tell good stories¡ªstories that scare us. And when these writers tell really good stories that really scare us, Ellen Datlow notices. She¡¯s been noticing for more than a quarter century. For twenty-one years, she coedited The Year¡¯s Best Fantasy and Horror, and for the last six years, she¡¯s edited this series. In addition to this monumental cataloging of the best, she has edited hundreds of other horror anthologies and won numerous awards, including the Hugo, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards.

More than any other editor or critic, Ellen Datlow has charted the shadowy abyss of horror fiction. Join her on this journey into the dark parts of the human heart . . . either for the first time . . . or once again.

Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.]]> 448 Ellen Datlow 1597805033 Jay 5 3.71 2014 The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Six
author: Ellen Datlow
name: Jay
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2014/10/16
shelves:
review:
Reading this volume shows me how solid a horror anthology can be. A very strong selection which resonated with me for the depth and quality of writing, only a couple of which didn't resonate. Of course every antho is subjective in the selection, but this certainly shows Ellen's capacity to pick winning fiction.
]]> <![CDATA[On the Steel Breeze (Poseidon's Children, #2)]]> 15999018
On the Steel Breeze is the follow-up to Blue Remembered Earth. It is both a sequel and a standalone novel, which just happens to be set in the same universe and revolves around members of the Akinya family.

The central character, Chiku, is totally new, although she is closely related to characters in the first book. The action involves a 220-year expedition to an extrasolar planet aboard a caravan of huge iceteroid 'holoships', the tension between human and artificial intelligence... and, of course, elephants.

Lots of elephants.]]> 496 Alastair Reynolds 0575090456 Jay 3 4.01 2013 On the Steel Breeze (Poseidon's Children, #2)
author: Alastair Reynolds
name: Jay
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/10/16
shelves:
review:
This was good enough as a followup to the Akinya family saga, space opera, AIs and the continuity of the family over the hundreds of years allowed by skipover. I found quite a lot of the text somewhat matter of fact and dipping between true characterisation and interaction and going to mere observational, especially in the opening sequence with the blowout of the seedship. I also found the ending to be moderately anticlimactic. Generally this matter-of-factness and the over observationally descriptive makes this series difficult for me.
]]> Savage Night 118151 149 Jim Thompson 0679733108 Jay 3 3.85 1953 Savage Night
author: Jim Thompson
name: Jay
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1953
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2014/10/14
shelves:
review:

]]> The Drawing of the Dark 209693 336 Tim Powers 0575074264 Jay 4 3.93 1979 The Drawing of the Dark
author: Tim Powers
name: Jay
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1979
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2014/10/14
shelves:
review:
So yes, probably a classic fantasy novel. The Dark of course is a magical ale and has particular arcane powers so must be protected at all cost. Broad canvas fantasy abounding with mythical and historical creatures. Also a hefty dose of the tongue in cheek. The latter, of which, makes it probably not my kind of novel, but well executed for its type.
]]>