Oh boy, did I miss Peter Grant while I was taking my super fun journey through the last four heartwrenchers. It felt like I was waiting FOREVER for Whispers Under Ground to become available at the library. Peter Grant is a delight. He is the perfect not-very-straight straight man for all the madness in this fantastic world of Ben Aaronovitch’s creation. I keep reminding myself as I read these books that for all of Grant’s self-deprecation and insistence that he’s a terrible cop with bad […]
I won’t die. Of that I am all but certain.
Without war there are no heroes./What harm would that be?/Oh, Lavinia, what a woman’s question that is.
Humanity and Purpose
Peter doesn’t know how old he is. He only remembers waking in the dim light of the basement of the palace of Peter the Great. Peter and his sister Elena do not recall how they came to be in this place, at this time. They are avtomat, human-looking beings animated by a mysterious clockwork device. The device not only keeps them alive, but provides them with a specific purpose for living. Peter and Elena soon learn that danger haunts their existence. Avtomat have lived side-by-side […]
But I miss those hills with the windy pines
This was the June pick for Sword and Laser book club and I only picked it up because of that. I had some strong reservations about the book when I first looked at it a year or so ago and decided not to read it because of that. However, book clubs don’t always pick books that you want to read and I thought I’d give it a try. Unfortunately, the book did not alleviate those reservations. I don’t know, maybe I’m just super grumpy because […]
Leia Organa, Huttslayer
What’s happening to me, personally, doesn’t matter. If it’s not the ideal time, well, it’s the only time we’ve got.” As I was listening to a section about a third of the way into Bloodline I was struck by the deeply screwed up dynamic of the Skywalker family. Some friends and I joke that Anakin and Luke Skywalker are the biggest drama queens in the galaxy. Listening to Leia recount being tortured for hours by the man she now knows was her father, it doesn’t feel like […]
“If you had the time to lose, an open mind and time to choose.”
I avoided this book for years because I was told it was a romance novel and I have a prejudice against romance novels. Perhaps it was the seemingly endless supply of Harlequin books my mother seemed to devour. The closest I ever got was a minor obsession with V.C. Andrews which take a decidedly darker turn than the average “bodice ripper.” While I’m still not a fan of a straightforward romance novel, I have included books that fall under the “romance” umbrella into my […]