Wherein I talk about what I’ve read lately, what of it I liked, what books I am looking forward to, and where’s my bloody Kindle?!?
Continue reading What I’ve Read Lately – Aug 2010 – Part 1
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Wherein I talk about what I’ve read lately, what of it I liked, what books I am looking forward to, and where’s my bloody Kindle?!? Been meaning to write about this for a bit (and actually to write here more often in general) but with the NDA basically down, and it less then a month to launch, I have to say that so far FFXIV has been failing to impress. With Season 2 out, STO is finally getting closer to the game it should have been at launch. It has always been a decent game, but when it launched so many things where left feeling only half-finished, or just plain not there at all, that it really failed to impress a lot of people. Been about 10 months since I last posted, so what have I been doing in that time? I just finished reading book five of “The Saga of Seven Suns” titled “Of Fire and Night”. The series is written by Kevin J. Anderson whose previously most famous works were the “Jedi Academy” trilogy in the Star Wars setting. I would like to start this off by saying that this is a series I likely would have read ages ago (the third one came out in paperback in ’04) except for one reason: the cover art stinks. I have been a fan of Tim Powers since I first encountered his writings in the the early 90s and Three Days To Never is the seventh book by Tim Powers that I have read. If you are even passingly fond of manga, or interested in mysteries, this may be the best manga series you will never have a chance to read. The Kindaichi Case Files are a series of mystery stories that have been coming out in Japan since the early 90s and continues to have new chapters and volumes being released today. The main character of the stories is a high schooler named Hajime Kindaichi, the grandson of (fictional) P.I. Kosuke Kindaichi (described by some as being a Japanese Columbo). He is unmotivated, lazy, and a little lecherous (which is probably a pretty good description of most high school guys) but is also brilliant and a master of sleigh of hand tricks. With his childhood friend and girl-next-door neighbor Miyuki Nanase, they find themselves in the middle of a number of cases that usually involve someone being murdered (while they may not start out that way, in the ones I have read so far they end up that way). Reviewing these both togethor as I read them back to bank. Had picked up The Jennifer Morgue over lunch one day from the bookstore right next to where I do my banking (a truly dangerous arrangement I am finding, paycheck gets deposited and then large chunks of it spent right away as I step out of the bank and succumb to the siren’s song of books to read next door) and started reading it on my bus ride home at the end of that day. By next morning on my bus ride into work I had finished it and got off a stop early to visit a bookstore again to pick up a copy of The Atrocity Archives which I started on the way home that day and finished that night. These are those books that I read in 2009 which were my favorite reads in the past year. The books that I enjoyed the most, or that looking back on the past year, were at least the books that I remember best as having enjoyed reading. Apologies in advance for my slaughter of the English language, cold medicine and a head cold are book working brutally against me. |