Ahira's Hangar

It's the Watch's fault...them and their combined sci-fi/fantasy thread.

--A

I dunno. There is so much overlap between the genres. For example, both Erikson and Bakker have spaceships in their fantasy series. Some science fiction is so high tech, it seems like fantasy rather than science.

Interesting point. Must say the spaceships didn't hit me in Erikson, but I found the Bakker reference to one quite jarring.

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Just finished up VanderMeer's Finch. Wow, what a weird book. Enjoyed it, but man, that was a weird book.

Just finished up Storm Glass and Sea Glass by Maria Snyder. Were not my cup of tea. The much too stupid to live heroine was either kidnapped or imprisoned what seemed like every other chapter for both books.

Now reading Gabaldan's Echo in the Bone, her latest Outlander novel. Much more in my line of a read than those other two books.

Rereading Midnight Tides

--A

I'm reading 'A Shadow in Summer' by Daniel Abraham. I've had it for a year or so (it was a tor freebie). I'm maybe 25% of the way in. It's ok, but kind of weird. It reminds me a bit of 'The Prince of Nothing' series. I hope I get hooked before it's over, because I wouldn't mind reading the next 3 books in the series. But if I'm ambivalent, I'm going to bail.

That is actually one of the best fantasy series I have read in years - so please give it a chance for at least the first book. And yes - it is weird, and different. Not your usual thing at all. The magic in that world is very rare but of immeasurable world changing power. Years go by in between the books. From what I recall in the first book, you do not fully understand a lot of the political maneuvering until near the end.

Finished up the latest Wheel of Time book by Brandon Sanderson an Robert Jordan. Was happily surprised that it did not suck, and left me wanting more of the story.

Now to P. N. Elrod's vampire series, where the vampire is a private detective working and un-living in 1930's Depression Era Chicago.

Having started it in the Manhattan Barnes and Noble while visiting there with Xar and Fist, I have finally managed to get a hold of Todd McCaffrey's Dragonheart from the library. I had heard that McCaffrey stayed with subject matter he was familiar with, a plague threatening Pern during the Third Pass, and was afraid of a rehash of his previous Pern novels on his own, which were passable at best.

I'm not even up to page 100 yet, but so far, I am pleasantly surprised. Instead of the miners and Harpers, McCaffrey is concentrating on the weyrs and Weyrfolk, and it seems to fit him. I have a long way to go before making a judgment on the book, but at about 100 pages in, at least I'm not putting it aside in disgust more often than not, like I did as I worked my way through his previous two Pern attempts

I know, Duchess. But I'll continue on in a hopeful vein for awhile, anyway...

Inspired by the television show True Blood I have been rereading the Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Mysteries series by Charlaine Harris. Small town Louisiana with shapeshifters, vampires, and other supernatural beings - and the fundie humans who oppose them getting equal rights with regular humans might be the most frightening beings of all. I am up to the sixth book, and enjoying the reread (and I still think the fourth book is by far the best and the fifth by far the worst).

Return of the Crimson Guard

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The Bell at Sealey Head by Patricia McKillip. Beautifully written and mysterious, and like much of her work, a stand alone.

Have just started Hand of Isis by Jo Graham, historical fantasy about Cleopatra.

Finishing off RG.

TtH Next.

--A