This week I’m reading Khe, by Alexes Razevich, which is one of those unusual SF novels which (so far, at least, and I’m 79% of the way through it according to my Kindle) takes place entirely on an alien world, with no human beings present at all. The majority of the characters are doumanas, members of a race which seems to be quite birdlike, only without the wings, the feathers, the beaks, or the claws. Umm, well, I guess they’re not actually birdlike at all, except that they can “see” the magnetic field of their planet, and they’re migratory, unlike African swallows. The story concerns one of these doumanas, Khe, who, after undergoing an experimental treatment to sort of help her lay eggs (it’s complicated) develops the ability to accelerate the growth of plants, at the cost of taking years off her own life. Upon realizing that she’s likely to die a very early death due to being continually pushed to improve crop production at her commune (yes, they live in communes … again, it’s complicated), she decides to take her chances in the wilderness.
Tag: the war of the ravels
Teaser Tuesday 12/31/2013: “Beginning of a Hero (Legends of Windemere)”
Still reading Beginning of a Hero, by Charles E. Yallowitz, this week. Our hero, one Luke Callindor, is not having much luck yet dealing with the Lich, but has assembled an actual D&D party at this point, consisting of Luke, the “forest tracker”, which appears to correspond to a D&D Ranger; Nimby, the halfling thief; Fritz Warrenberg, the gnome illusionist from, apparently, Germany; and Aedyn the half-elven cleric. They are also being assisted by a “drite”, which seems to amount to a faerie dragon, right down to its use of a confusion-inducing breath weapon. (There is a very slight possibility that I still have most of the old Monster Manual memorized.)
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Teaser Tuesday 12/24/2013: “Beginning of a Hero (Legends of Windemere)”
This week, I’m reading a book called Beginning of a Hero, by Charles E. Yallowitz, in which a half-elf “forest tracker” and his, apparently, German Shepherd dog battle the forces of evil.
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Teaser Tuesday 12/10/2013: “Diary of the Displaced”
So this week I’m reading a free Kindle book called Diary of the Displaced (Omnibus Edition), by Glynn James, in which an unfortunate fellow visits a gas station bathroom and then wakes up in a nightmarish alternate dimension populated by zombies, dog-things, giant snails, and a deranged dual-knife-wielding maniac who I suspect may be Jack the Ripper. I’m pretty sure he’s not Moonglum of Elwher; he’s much too tall. Anyway, if you needed another reason to avoid gas station bathrooms, there you go.
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Teaser Tuesday 11/26/2013: “Subpoena Colada”
Still reading Subpoena Colada this week, in which our hero, a frequently-drunken lawyer (is there any other kind in fiction?), is trying to salvage the wreckage of his career and that of his highest-profile client, the apparently washed-up rock star Brian Fey (or as I keep thinking of him, Bryan Ferry — who I am NOT calling washed-up, so don’t start hating), who is being taken to the cleaners by a lawsuit from his former band-mates and who is, apparently, about to become a suspect in the murder of his replacement. Sort of like if Peter Gabriel had been suspected of killing Phil Collins, I guess.
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Teaser Tuesday 11/12/2013: “Subpoena Colada”
Lately I’ve been treating the free books I’ve accumulated from the BookBub mailing list sort of like streaming Netflix movies — that is, as disposable. After a chapter or two, if they haven’t grabbed me, I’m deleting them and moving on. Actually, that’s not really what I do with Netflix movies; I’ll pretty much watch any movie through to the end, even August Rush, which I infamously panned a few years back, earning me the ire of all six people who thought it was a good film. Although we did recently press “Eject” on Across the Universe after one too many mangled Beatles songs. Fiona Apple covering “Across the Universe” for the Pleasantville soundtrack, this was not.
Watch this instead of the movie “Across the Universe”.
It’s two hours shorter and has better music.
But I digress.
Anyway, I just started reading a new free book, a crime/mystery/comic thriller called Subpoena Colada, by Mark Dawson, which sort of sounds like a title that Carl Hiaasen or Elmore Leonard might have come up with. Hmm, am I setting my expectations too high again? Uh oh.
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Teaser Tuesday 10/29/2013: “Desolate: The Complete Trilogy”
So this week I’m reading a book called Desolate: The Complete Trilogy, by Robert Brumm, in which Earth is terrorized by the double whammy of a highly contagious hemorrhagic flu-like illness and giant carnivorous bad-tempered crawdads. Or something like that. Every time the space-lobsters show up I think of the Prawns from “District 9”.
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Teaser Tuesday 10/1/2013: “The Shadow of Black Wings”
This week I’m still reading The Shadow of Black Wings by James Calbraith, from the BookBub mailing list. I’m going to bend the rules a little bit this time in that this teaser quote from the book is not from the page I’m actually on, but it was simply too good not to use. Here goes:
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Teaser Tuesday: “The Shadow of Black Wings”
This week I’m reading The Shadow of Black Wings by James Calbraith, another book I got free from the BookBub mailing list. This one is sort of an alternate Victorian history/steampunk/fantasy mashup. Oh, and there are dragons. (T’Sian would, I think, eat them for lunch, but still, anything’s better with dragons right?) And now, on to the two-sentence quote!
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Teaser Tuesday 9/10/2013: “Deadland”
This week’s free book is Deadland: Untold Stories of Alice in Deadland, by Mainak Dhar, in which, apparently, Alice follows an undead rabbit (or something like that) down a hole and becomes a zombie-slaying machine. If this reminds you of American McGee’s “Alice”, you’re not alone.
Viscosity 