Yesterday I finished a draft of a review of Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder, so hopefully I will get that up soon. Currently, I am working on a review of Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews, one of my favorite books read this year so far. I started reading Naamah’s Kiss by Jacqueline Carey since it is a very long book and I figured that I’d be caught up on reviews by the time I finished it without any problem. However, I’m already halfway through it and still have 3 reviews left to write. It’s a lot less dense than Kushiel’s Dart was, making it a faster read than I’d anticipated. Plus it is just plain wonderful and I love it. This is shaping up to be a year filled with lots of great books!
This week I got 2 books, one review copy and one bought because I cannot resist those 40% off Borders coupons. Also, I realized I forgot to mention my first e-book purchase from a few weeks ago so I’ll include that in this week’s list.
Cold Magic by Kate Elliott
The first book in The Spiritwalker trilogy will be released on September 9, 2010. I’ve been wanting to read something by Kate Elliott for a while and this book in particular looks very good so I’m excited about it. It’s supposed to be steampunk and Kate Elliott says on her website that she refers to it as her “Afro-Celtic post-Roman icepunk Regency fantasy with Bonus! airship, Phoenician spies, and the intelligent descendants of troodons.” I’m definitely planning on reading it sometime closer to its release date.
From one of the genre’s finest writers comes a bold new epic fantasy in which science and magic are locked in a deadly struggle.
It is the dawn of a new age… The Industrial Revolution has begun, factories are springing up across the country, and new technologies are transforming in the cities. But the old ways do not die easy.
Cat and Bee are part of this revolution. Young women at college, learning of the science that will shape their future and ignorant of the magics that rule their families. But all of that will change when the Cold Mages come for Cat. New dangers lurk around every corner and hidden threats menace her every move. If blood can’t be trusted, who can you trust?
On the Edge by Ilona Andrews
Reading the Kate Daniels series has made me an Ilona Andrews fan so it was easy for me to decide what book to get when I got a 40% off Borders coupon this week. This is the first book in the Edge series and I figured I should read it so I can read the second book, Bayou Moon, when it comes out in September. I’ve heard that unlike the Kate Daniels books this one is closer to paranormal romance than urban fantasy so I’m not entirely convinced I’ll like it as much as those books, but it does sound interesting. And did I mention it’s Ilona Andrews?
The Broken is a place where people shop at Wal-Mart and magic is nothing more than a fairy tale.
The Weird is a realm where blueblood aristocrats rule and the strength of your magic can change your destiny.
Rose Drayton lives on the Edge, the place between both worlds. A perilous existence indeed, made even more so by a flood of magic-hungry creatures bent on absolute destruction.
Warchild by Karin Lowachee
This book was actually purchased toward the end of May, but I completely forgot to include it since it was my first time buying a digital book instead of a paper one. I’m not convinced e-books are for me since I’ve found that when I read excerpts I tend to skim and don’t enjoy it as much, but maybe that’s partially because I’ve only read portions of a book on the iPad instead of settling in to read a whole book. This is a book I’ve wanted to read for a while, but it is difficult to find and it’s around $20 for the mass market paperback on Amazon so buying the digital version was significantly cheaper. Plus I read the sample on iBooks and thought it seemed very absorbing so I figured it would be a decent book to start with for my first e-book reading experience. Now to forge a big enough hole in the paper book pile to start it…
The merchant ship Mukudori encompasses the whole of eight-year-old Jos’s world, until a notorious pirate destroys the ship, slaughters the adults, and enslaves the children. Thus begins a desperate odyssey of terror and escape that takes Jos beyond known space to the homeworld of the strits, Earth’s alien enemies. To survive, the boy must become a living weapon and a master spy. But no training will protect Jos in a war where every hope might be a deadly lie, and every friendship might hide a lethal betrayal. And all the while he will face the most grueling trial of his life – becoming his own man.
