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samvara: Photo of Modesty Blaise with text "All this and brains as well" (Default)
Monday, October 17th, 2011 10:01 am
Number 39 in the Discworld series and a Vimes book - I love Vimes! The usual enjoyable mix of social commentary and humour; "it is a truth universally acknowledged that a policeman taking a holiday would barely have had time to open his suitcase before he finds his first corpse". Not subtle in how it approaches racism, justice and class barriers but I'm OK with that - I'm also sad that a little girl had to die for this story to have a plot (it seems like they have to do that a lot, little girls that is) I'm less OK with that :(

I do really enjoy the characteristic footnotes and I'm hoping we eventually get to an ebook standard that can display them well.
samvara: Photo of Modesty Blaise with text "All this and brains as well" (Default)
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010 01:38 pm
I have been reading, just haven't been reviewing. I've also been comfort reading.
  • Wintersmith, Making Money and I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett. The first and last are Tiffany Aching books who I am still very fond of and I enjoyed her continuing adventures. I particularly liked the bad Don't Pay the Ferryman joke. Making Money follows on from Going Postal and was fun.
  • A Kiss of Shadows, A Caress of Twilight, Seduced by Moonlight, A Stroke of Midnight, Mistral's Kiss, A Lick of Frost, Swallowing Darkness and  Divine Misdemeanors by Laurell K. Hamilton. Re-reading and catching up while sick, good mindless reading.
  • Turning Point, Fortune’s Wheel, Fire Margins, Razor’s Edge, Dark Nadir and Stronghold Rising by Lisanne Norman. Re-reading in preparation for reading book 8 Shades of Gray that I now have sitting on my 'to read' pile at home. First contact space opera with a decent female primary character and a lot of interesting stuff about race and gender.
samvara: Photo of Modesty Blaise with text "All this and brains as well" (Default)
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 11:17 am
  • The Sundered (03) Lady of Mercy by Michelle Sagara West. Early writing, reading it for completeness.
  • The Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer. Rereading because I love Prudence.
  • Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett. Rereading because I love all the jokes about socks.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Issue 19 by Drew Goddard. Winds up the Fray storyline and has least porny cover - must be compensating for last time.
  • Dresden Files: Storm Front and Fool Moon by Jim Butcher. Detective/supernatural/romance mashup, not the greatest but entertaining.
  • House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones. Nothing but love. Charmain looks after her Great-Uncle William's cottage. This has bad guys, laundry, magical dogs, self discovery and much, much more.
samvara: Photo of Modesty Blaise with text "All this and brains as well" (Default)
Sunday, November 16th, 2008 09:10 pm
  • Spike and Co. by Graham McCann. This is a biography of Associated London Scripts, a cosy professional nest of British humour in the 1950's but my heart goes to Spike Milligan (again) for his awful and amazing life. Utterly worthwhile.
  • So hard to say by Alex Sanchez. Young maybe-gay boy coming of age story, gentle and well developed.
  • The Wave Runners and The Shell Magicians by Kai Myer. Adventure on the high seas, with pirates, magic and mysterious men in capes. I didn't get into this and have not picked up book three but suspect it would appeal to pre-teen boys and girls.
  • Castle in the air by Diana Wynne Jones. Re-reading, still funny!
  • The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. The language in this is great. A toddler narrowly escapes being murdered by a dark man named Jack and is adopted by a cemetary of ghosts.
  • Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley. I want to like this because I love many of her other works but the POV character irritated me a lot and the writing style I just could not get into. Young, socially isolated boy inherits baby dragon and raises her.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Issue 17 & 18 by Drew Goddard. Still in love.
  • The Grand Sophie by Georgette Heyer. Re-reading, still one of the best out there.
  • Gone Postal by Terry Pratchett. Re-reading, thoroughly enjoyable.
samvara: Photo of Modesty Blaise with text "All this and brains as well" (Default)
Sunday, January 1st, 2006 08:50 am
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett was fun and witty, read in flying to Brisbane which quite tired so not in the best state to appreciate it properly. Left my copy with Pop but will eventually reacquire and read again.

Prey by Michael Crichton was very readable. It featured a programmer interested in intelligent systems having to battle a nano-swarm that is using his predator-prey algorithms to evolve. I'm having trouble with large chunks of the 'science' but was happily immersed the rest of the time.

Over Sea, under Stone by Susan Cooper is children / young adult fantasy and reminds me of Narnia. I wasn't in the mood to read the rest of her stuff but hope to be some time soon. Three siblings on a quest.

Dark Trash series by Christine Feehan. Hehe. Some re-reading for amusement. Oh those 'Old World' accents and cheekbones.

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Re-reading of course; the love is undiminished. My favourite is still The Horse and his Boy and The Last Battle always make me cry.

After the Ecstacy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield. About the difficulty of leading a genuinely spiritual life while enmeshed in living a normal life. It's a lot easier to be an exemplary person while living in a monastery and having things done for you, than it is to mediate, work, raise kids and pay tax. I really appreciate him talking about how you can have all sorts of amazing realisations and still get trapped by every day habits and triggers. The problem of spiritual teachers; who are also living normal lives; disappointing people (and themselves) with their faults can be overwhelming.
samvara: Photo of Modesty Blaise with text "All this and brains as well" (Default)
Tuesday, October 12th, 2004 04:19 pm
Darwin's Children by Greg Bear. Humankind spontaneously does some evolving and the Americans cope as best they can. The virus Sheva scares the pants out of everyone with its lethal potential, but are its children truly dangerous? It's personal and sweeping and enjoyable, wanted to bring it home to lend to people but my father who kept vanishing off to have a quiet read hijacked it.

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett. ’There is a difference,’ said Shufti. ‘I think it’s the socks. It’s like they pull you forward all the time. It’s like the whole world spins around your socks.’  Re-reading because I can. Pratchettiser in good form, saw this as a stage production earlier this year and liked it very much.

Market Forces by Richard Morgan . Chris Faulkner just landed a job with Shorn Conflict Investment where it's not enough to turn up first in the morning - you need the blood of your competition on your wheels. SCI invests in wars of liberation and revolution in return for a slice of the action when the war is won. It's a fast, cynical, brutal lifestyle and Chris has a lot to prove. Would have been a great short story but doesn't quite have the guts to make it as a novel, having said that, it's still good, just not quite a rich as his previous two novels.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel. A Booker prize novel - I have a dodgy relationship with them - I find them thoroughly worth reading but hard work. Not this book though, was happily curled up with it from beginning to end. The back reads

"After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen year old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orangutan . . . and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger."

if you ever wanted to know how to try and tame a tiger with a turtle shell and a whistle now is the time to find out.
samvara: Photo of Modesty Blaise with text "All this and brains as well" (Default)
Thursday, July 22nd, 2004 09:54 am
Sam Vimes sighed when he heard the scream, but he finished shaving before he did anything about it.
Then he put his jacket on and strolled out into the wonderful late spring morning. Birds sang in the trees, bees buzzed in the blossom. The sky was hazy though, and thunderheads on the horizon threatened rain later. But for now, the air was hot and heavy. And in the old cesspit behind the gardener's shed, a young man was treading water.
Well ... treading, anyway.
Vimes stood back a little way and lit a cigar. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to employ a naked flame any nearer to the pit. The fall from the shed roof had broken the crust.
"Good morning!" he said cheerfully.
"Good morning, Your Grace," said the industrious treadler.


Me = Fan.

Give this was Discworld#27 it's more about love of characters, style of books and the way you can curl up with it in a mink blanket and wake up a while later looking at the last page.

Fun things included more insight into Havelock Vetinari's fascinating past, meeting the mysterious Aunt in person and appreciating yet again Sam Vime's relationship with the Assassins Guild.