Posts from 2013 :: Page 3

When you first novel is THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA (EBR Review), you’ve made things very difficult on yourself. Scott Lynch’s first novel was incredible. So incredible that it set the expectations for RED SEAS UNDER RED SKIES (Amazon) incredibly high. I remember reading RED SEAS UNDER RED SKIES and feeling a bit disappointed. Why? Because it wasn’t the best novel ever, of course. How could I expect anything less after reading the first novel? It wasn’t fair, and now that I’ve finished a re-read, I have a much better point of view on the novel than I did originally.
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I love Horror novels. I absolutely love them. I love when an author can terrify me with things that prey on the most basic fears we feel as humans. A great story teller can spin a tale in which I’m scared to look at the next page, and yet I’m equally thrilled to do just that. I also love the unexplained, and it is in short fiction that the unexplained aspect of Horror really shines. If you want great Horror short fiction, the place to look right now, in my opinion, is either with Subterranean Press or with Tachyon Publications. For this review, I want to draw the attention of every reader to IMPOSSIBLE MONSTERS (Amazon), which is edited by Kasey Lansdale.
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I know, I know. The book is old. You already know I love it. But here’s the thing, THE REPUBLIC OF THIEVES (Amazon) is finally about to be released. Before I jumped into Scott Lynch’s newest, I needed to go back and revisit both THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA (Amazon) and RED SEAS UNDER RED SKIES (Amazon). So I’m taking the opportunity to share my thoughts with all of you discerning readers. Think of this as a re-read review.
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Bryn is addicted to a drug that keeps her alive. Being tested for military purposes, Returné contains nanites that keep a body from decomposing even after it’s been killed. Bryn is, in essence, a drug-induced zombie. Now, in Rachel Caine’s TERMINATED (Amazon), Bryn will do anything to stop the Fountain Group from seeing its nefarious goals come to fruition: eliminating the addicted test subjects and selling the upgraded drug to the highest bidders.
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An anthology of vampires and other dark creatures that go bump in the night, BLOOD AND OTHER CRAVINGS (Amazon) attempts to explore the unexplained. While the concept is interesting, the selected stories are a mish-mash of clever, creepy, predictable, and just plain weird.
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It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book in three days.  (You have to understand that I work two jobs and have four kids, one of which is a two-month old, so reading a book in three days is kind of like reading it in one sitting for me.)  From the prologue, STEELHEART by Brandon Sanderson (Amazon) hooked me in and never let me go.  This is the type of book that begged me to slip away from family and read for just a few minutes more; to let the dishes sit in the sink for just a bit longer so I could read another chapter; to stay up late, no matter that I had work early the next day. I just had to know what was coming next.
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Jarra lives on Earth. But what sounds normal to us doesn’t to those who live in 2788, when man has since left Earth for other worlds, thanks to the invention of portals. Unfortunately, not every human’s immune system can handle what the universe has to offer. One in every thousand born can’t survive on other planets and must return to Earth within hours of birth or they die. Jarra’s parents sent her to Earth right after she was born and haven’t been a part of her life since.
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The aliens have arrived.

Now mankind is on the verge of extinction, and Cassie is alone, having lost her family and escaped to the forests outside Dayton, Ohio. She can’t trust anyone, even other humans, because she’s convinced that some of them work for the aliens.
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I don’t get as much time to read books these days as I’d like to, so I’ve widened my available reading time by opening up to the wonderful world of audiobooks. I found myself with a long drive ahead of me and nothing picked out to read, so I went to my library and checked out a digital audiobook. Time was short, so I didn’t have much of a chance to research what I wanted to read.
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I recently re-watched Back to the Future. A good movie, if I do say so myself. (And I do.) Though when it came time for Doc Brown’s monologue about how he’d measured the distance from the “starting line” to the hanging wire he’d previously strung that Marty would need to start from at exactly the right time, so that at the precise moment that Marty’s car reached 88 miles per hour, the lightning bolt would hit the clock tower, travel down the electrical line the doc had hung, through the long hook extending from Marty’s car, and directly into the flux capacitor to send Marty back to the future… I had to take a moment to ask myself if I honestly cared that so much of the plot was based on ridiculously stupid timing and outright luck. And you know what I found?

I didn’t care. Not a lick.
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