Books 2011 - 7
Aug. 15th, 2011 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redroseGifts - Ursula Le Guin - First of a YA trilogy. A good read.
Voices - Ursula Le Guin - nook - Second in the same trilogy. Better than the first, about people who love books!
Both of the above have Le Guin's fantastic worldbuilding and culture-building, good characters and characterization. I have already started, and started enjoying, the third book.
The Sixth Wife - Susannah Dunn - nook - Retelling of the last few years of Catherine Parr's life. I found it very annoying that I had to use Wikipedia halfway through to figure out who the first person narrator was. The author took some definite liberties with the plot. Would not recommend.
Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 6 - Fumi Yoshinaga - another in the series. Very much enjoyed. Manga for grownups.
Lord John and the Private Matter - Diana Gabaldon - nook - unintentional reread. If I had realized earlier, I would not have finished it. Not a bad book, but not great either.
Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry - I think I am re/reading the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series. This is the first one I've read in a while, though it is not the first in the series. Decent read, though from reading Marriage: A History, the author's take on Victorian marriage may not be accurate.
Imperial Hostage - Phil Cantrell - free through librarything's early review program:
This book was a bit clunkily written, and very obviously the first in a series (Book 1 of the Destruction Series is printed on the cover.).
It is set in an Atlantis-like place called Poseidia, capital of an empire which sort of has modern technology, but also ESP-type stuff. Iron and airships (hydrogen lifted, of course), with no real backstory on how/why they're there.
I grew bored with the amazing, multitalented boy who is the focus of the story. He is the hostage of the title, and befriends various Empire people, but seems to have little or no concern over what would happen to them if he follows his father's directions and figures out how to invade the island that Poseidia is on.
Nitpicking: The Poseidians' names are all hyphenated, which I found incredibly annoying. The elephants, mentioned in passing living on the/an island, kicked me right out of the book. No way! Looking back, they're supposed to be smaller than African elephants, but considering they're called "mammoth elephants," I don't feel bad about my confusion.
Year's total: 130
Voices - Ursula Le Guin - nook - Second in the same trilogy. Better than the first, about people who love books!
Both of the above have Le Guin's fantastic worldbuilding and culture-building, good characters and characterization. I have already started, and started enjoying, the third book.
The Sixth Wife - Susannah Dunn - nook - Retelling of the last few years of Catherine Parr's life. I found it very annoying that I had to use Wikipedia halfway through to figure out who the first person narrator was. The author took some definite liberties with the plot. Would not recommend.
Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 6 - Fumi Yoshinaga - another in the series. Very much enjoyed. Manga for grownups.
Lord John and the Private Matter - Diana Gabaldon - nook - unintentional reread. If I had realized earlier, I would not have finished it. Not a bad book, but not great either.
Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry - I think I am re/reading the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series. This is the first one I've read in a while, though it is not the first in the series. Decent read, though from reading Marriage: A History, the author's take on Victorian marriage may not be accurate.
Imperial Hostage - Phil Cantrell - free through librarything's early review program:
This book was a bit clunkily written, and very obviously the first in a series (Book 1 of the Destruction Series is printed on the cover.).
It is set in an Atlantis-like place called Poseidia, capital of an empire which sort of has modern technology, but also ESP-type stuff. Iron and airships (hydrogen lifted, of course), with no real backstory on how/why they're there.
I grew bored with the amazing, multitalented boy who is the focus of the story. He is the hostage of the title, and befriends various Empire people, but seems to have little or no concern over what would happen to them if he follows his father's directions and figures out how to invade the island that Poseidia is on.
Nitpicking: The Poseidians' names are all hyphenated, which I found incredibly annoying. The elephants, mentioned in passing living on the/an island, kicked me right out of the book. No way! Looking back, they're supposed to be smaller than African elephants, but considering they're called "mammoth elephants," I don't feel bad about my confusion.
Year's total: 130
