The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch Paperback edition, Bantam, 2007 The Lies of Locke Lamora came out in 2006, but I only got around to it in 2019. I’m coming out of a long period where I did not read current science fiction or fantasy, only old favorites. It caught my attention at …
Jet Age: The Comet, the 707, and the Race to Shrink the World by Sam Howe Verhovek Avery, 2010 [Challenge # 25: A book in which airplanes figure prominently.] Hubris and aviation have a long, intertwined history together. Overconfidence in a flight control system most likely caused the recent crashes of a Boeing 737 Max …
Tales from La Vida: A LatinX Comics Anthology Edited by Frederick Luis Aldama Mad Creek Books, an imprint of Ohio State University Press, 2018 [EXTRA CREDIT: A book about a person of color (PoC), any variety, written by an author of the same variety] I’m tacking on this book as extra credit to the above …
Saga, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan (Writer), Fiona Staples (Artist) Image Comics, 2012 The Saga saga seems to be a graphic novel favorite among readers who don’t ordinarily read graphic novels. The buzz on it has been very good since the series began, and the Goodreads and Amazon ratings high. It was even recommended …
Tales from Watership Down by Richard Adams Avon Books, March 1998 [Challenge # 39: A book with a non-human (animal or fantastic creature) main character] I don’t think any talking-animal story has ever come close to what Richard Adams accomplished with Watership Down, an epic tale of rabbits who flee their doomed warren. It had …
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemison Current, Penguin Group, 2013 [Challenge # 14: A book about a person of color (PoC), any variety, written by an author of the same variety] Up to now, I haven’t read much current fantasy, that is, books published after 2001. In recent years I read fantasy YA …
The Thorn Boy by Storm Constantine Stark House, 2001 Better known as a fantasy novelist, Storm Constantine has also written a surprising number of short stories. This collection, published in 2001, features nine stories set in or around the fictional kingdom of Magravandias, which figures in her Sea Dragon Heir trilogy. The Magravandias world resembles …
It’s the time to clean out my To-Read drawer and boxes for this year’s Challenge. Mostly the drawer and the first box I got my hands on. I’m hoping this year’s list will be easier than last year’s. One of the attributes I have to keep in mind for these 12 months is that a …
This year’s Challenge was full of challenging (read: Difficult) reads for me. Of the twelve here three were substitutions for books I had to drop for various reasons. I think I should have vetted the originals better. As a reader, most of my choices surprised and delighted me. As a writer, the good ones showed …
Octopus! The Most Mysterious Creature in the Sea by Katherine Harmon Courage Current, Penguin Group, 2013 [Substitution: Challenge # 31: Nonfiction of any kind] I was having a lot of trouble finishing Undead Worlds, the collection of zombie short stories I intended as Challenge # 8, because it was only on my iPad and my …