Books Borrowed from the Library

Fiction/no of renewals

Mysterious Vision - various /10

6


5


0


Non-Fiction/no of renewals


15



14




13


11



9


Microwave Entertaining - M Emmerson/8

7

Art of Illumination - P D'Acona

6


3




Rathmines Stylebook - D Rice

Complete Family Guide to Natural Home Remedies/2
Traditional Knitting /2
Psychic Pathways - S Choquette/5
Challenge to Change - B Colclough/2
Knits for All Seasons - J Moss/2
At a Journal Workshop - I Progoff/2
Rituals for Everyday Living - L St Aubin /2
Yellow Cross - R Weiss/5

Inquisition - M Baigent /1
Zest for Life - D Breslin/1
Encyclopedia of Handspinning - M Ross/1
Everything in it's Place - E Liman/1

Crystals for Life - J Burgess/2
Lighten Up - P Cohen & J Verity/0
Awakening to Change - S Holbeche/0
Life is Huge - S Jeffers/0
Watch your weight - G Moore-Groarke/0
Water Magic - M Muryn/0
Take Time for your life - C Richardson/0
Curves - /2

5 Secrets of Health & Happiness - Angela Hicks/0


Tapes
Liza with a "Z" - Liza Minelli /7
Best of James Bond /5
Parallel Dreams - L McKennitt/0

Read in 2006

This has echoes of the Pied Piper but only to a lesser extent. The children who follow the piper are escaping the destruction of their settlement by bandits. Not really my favourite of hers it's still an interesting read and well worth the time. It's told from a first person point of view by the eldest of the children who doesn't sound all that young, but then again lives on a colony planet as a first wave of settlement so may have more responsibilities settled on his shoulders earlier and if it's written by him later, the more adult attitude may be excused as filtered by this.
Not one of her best but does display a lot of her typical themes, children taking responsibility, questing, etc.

I'm very glad I intercepted one of Justina Robson's books en route to another library becasue this too was a very good read.

In a near future England where clever children are sent to a school to learn faster, Anjuli O'Connell is an exception, among all the exceptionally bright she's different, she has perfect recall, a memory that logs everything (would have made an exceptional librarian!). Her school friends carry over to her working life, partially because she can decode what they're talking about into understandable English.

WHen on of her friends dies while apparently trying to upload himself into the network, her world starts crumbling around her. There are secrets within secrets and the AI's are getting to an independant age.

Not as good as the first book but still readable. The next crystal artifact has to be found and it's up to Chief Warrant Officer Vickey Mabrey, her partner in this job is Griff Hutchinson, who was involved in a campaign to have her dismissed when she was in training. Now she has the superior position. Will she use the situation to get revenge or will she act on her other feelings for him.

A not bad but pretty typical Vampire Romance. So not in the Horror genre, there was no real horror or sense of doom in it mostly because the main character, Nell Harris, has a great sense of humour about the entire thing and really doesn't take anything all that seriously.

When she's asked to look into a kidnapping because of her ability to work charms and defuse them, she finds herself in cahoots with a man who is considered one of the ultimate evil.

Owes a fair bit to the likes of Christine Feehan (who has a blurb on the front) but honestly I found it more readable than hers.

The author would have done well to talk to people recovering from strokes and long-term disability tho, cause apart from some comments by Nell about her disabilty I really didn't get a feeling that it got in the way.

Pretty standard fantasy fare with bards and true names and a root language. The setting of it in a pseudo earth past is a little too much really and the story would have worked as well without that conceit.
Maerad starts off as a slave and is rescued by the Bard Cadvan, one of the great bards of Lirigon. As they journey together they find that her gifts are mighty indeed and she has potential to change the course of the world.

On a quest to save the crystal mask of the Cherokees' Kai Alseoun works with Jake Carter. Jake loved Kai when they were young, but life has embittered Kai.

Interesing and readable. A little bit too much angst occasionally but overall worthwhile.

It's been done before. Group of women who are genetically engineered to be better than most, secret project with dead mothers, one escapes with her child and goes into hiding. Girl grows up, finds she's different, is found by others of her group.
It's not a bad example of this genre, quite readable, and at first the policeman is quite hostile to Faith and he behaves in a way that makes him very believable. I'm not sure the sudden conversion from dislike to love is as believable but is part of the Romance novel convention.
The killer is also interesting and quite well fleshed out. A little more fleshing out and this book would work as a pretty mainstream thriller. In fact it's better, in my eyes, than many of the thrillers going around.

The Story of Kelric and his trying to survive being sold as a slave/provider to Aristos and his failing health. On some levels it's an interesting read but on others it's a bit so-so. Not a book to introduce yourself to the series but an interesting look at the psychology of the Aristos and some of the other things going on in Catherine Asaro's world. There's a bit too much angst to make it good and some of the escapes were a bit silly. Some of the places seem to have existed purely for CA to describe them and have him escape from them, despite his continuing and failing health.

At first this seems pretty cliched, youngish woman being chosen by a goddess to do a certain job, changes tack because of a push by the said goddess and I was thinking ho-hum, here we go another quest novel. Amusing but pretty predictable.
I was wrong, this book does suffer from first book syndrome but after the first about 150 pages it actually started to really engage me. I had and still have a few quibbles about some things in it but still a lot of what went on was actually interesting and made me want to hunt up book 2.

A sometimes interesting, sometimes laboured story of coffee trading in Amsterdam as coffee started to become popular and one man who tries to make a profit amidst intrigue. When there are a lot of people against you, who do you trust?
Honestly it passed the time but didn't impress me greatly.

Con ap Ifan left to find his fortune years ago, now he's back to visit Enid of Glyneira and his heart is conflicted between a future with her or a future in the Norman world, however there's something about her firstborn son she's not telling.
Pretty predictable but readable.

In a future earth where disaster has ruined our civilisation sander smith is in search of more information about smithcrafting. when he meets with fanyl who is searching for some answers about her family they join to search. norton takes an interesting look at our modern infatuation with machines and portrays very well the confusion of people not exposed to this kind of information. interesting and well written.

cassidy st john,an aspiring writer,loses her job and finds a job modeling for the artist colin sullivan. while modeing for him she finds herself attracted to him. a pretty predictable read.

Caroline Malone is a heart surgeon who suffers a hand injury that threatens her career. She's sent to heal in a remote texan mountain community where she finds Diego Montalvo who is healing from his own wounds and trying to help take over the role of his grandmother as local healer, as well as using the skills he learned as a special forces medic.
Fun, light read.

In a complicated family where Rebecca Ryan's brother Jonnie was kidnapped and found dead; panic strikes when her nephew Todd goes missing and the bodies of some witnesses start mounting. Her nephew's fear is affecting her. Her childhood sweetheart, now a doctor in the local hospital, Clay, is trying to help as well.

Lila Black has had an interesting history with Elves. Magic, elemental energy, demons and technology exist side-by-side in this alternative version of our world. A little Shadowrunish, or maybe TORG, there was a Quantum Bom and the spaces between the different dimensions were pulled together, or ripped apart.
Lila Black was put back by technology after the Elves damaged her, she hasn't quite got used to the implications of her new body and it's limitations. The AI that co-exists with her is also not a completely known quantity. When she's assigned to guard an Elf magician she's dragged into the games Elves play and their politics.
I'm looking forward to checking out more of this series to see what happens next.

A fun read. Chasidah (Chaz) Bergren is on a prison planet having been wrongly accused and court-martialed. Killing a prison warden in self-defence, the man who she loves and thinks is dead turns up, Gabriel Sullivan. He has secrets and she has to wonder does he love her or love what she can do to help him. Through romance and intrigue they find out about each other and where they are going.

The last imperial dragon is being barely cared for by Master Lan, most of the duties fall to his slave girl - Ping - a name we don't find out till later as he doesn't bother using her name and she doesn't know it either it's on a necklace she wears. She rescues the dragon from certain death and they go on an adventure to the ocean where the dragon needs to go to for healing.
They fight through necromancers and the dragon hunter who has claimed that Ping is an evil sorceress!
An interesting story that has a great character in the Dragon with Ping as an interesting secondary character, missing some depth but that's probably because it is intended as a children's book.

Apt that I'm listening to a welsh piece of music while writing this cause it has a lot of influence from welsh legend. The second book in this series this does develop the characters and bring them through some tribulations which developes them and leaves a lot of openings for the next book.
Both Gwenlliant and Tryffin find themselves in the otherworld, seperately, both in search of different things but finding that their paths have some parallels. It's interesting to see them develop as characters and I do want to see what happens next.

Harmless predictable medical romance between two doctors.

Travelling through space to another world humans find themselves in a world abandoned by another people. These people have left legacies of energy and gods that now have to be dealt with by the humans. Elron the Clanless and Gathea the wise woman find themselves exploring this realm and find out more about themselves in the process.

A history of the Witchworld and a very interesting and compelling read. I did really want more!

So Jo is dead and she needs to learn what being a Djinn means. David is keeping her alive and she's trying to work out what's attacking the worlds. Meanwhile some of her enemies are trying to take over the world again, this time she has more and less power than she did at the beginning. An interesting story with plenty of twists and turns but definitely the middle of a series.

Second book in the series and Maelen is trapped in the body of what looks like a pet and Krip is trying to work out the effects of his new body. Meanwhile they land on a planet that has inhabitants who want to continue what they started centuries ago. It was a very good example of Andre Norton's work and I really got involved with the characters and their lives.

Fun sequel to A.K.A. Goddess. This time involves Egypt, the Isis Cup and some parental kidnapping. It was fun to see the relationship between Maggie and Lex develop and how they had to learn to trust each other to survive.

I know that I read a chapter or two of this one before but the book was an interesting one. More of a romance with a thriller thrown in than a completely thriller novel it was a good read, quick too.

David Ransom is a Lawyer with a bit of a problem with incompetent Doctors. When Kate Chesne storms into his office to demand that he listen to her side of the story he starts to question her guilt. As the bodies mount they start to wonder when she will be next. In order to save her life they have to work together and find out the who and why of the murders.

This one is concentrated in the otherworld of Faerie. Ruth finds her way into faerie through a gate in the basement of the library she's working in. This book works as a bridging novel to the rest of the series and you can see where the setups are for conflict and where there are going to be issues that will have to be worked out before the characters achieve their goal. I liked Nic tho!

A story about two children and their young nanny/au pair who is swept into another world where some of the inhabitants used to be human. By eating the available food in this place the people transform to become more mythical beasts, like fauns etc. Although the Au Pair, Kilda, is tempted she fights the temptation to find her way out of this.
It's wonderfully evocative of older mythical stories and although it has an overlay of science fiction, which adds to the confusion of the characters the core story is a very interesting quest story. The love story is also logical and makes sense in the context without feeling tacked on and silly.

Stephanie is back, being chased by a woman who claims to be Ranger's wife. As the body count mounts it looks like it could be Ranger doing the killing, or someone suspiciously like Ranger. Meanwhile they need a new bounty hunter in the office. Some seriously laugh out loud moments with her grandmother as usual. Also the love triange between Stephanie, Ranger and Morelli gets more and more complicated. Stephanie is still having problems choosing between the two of them.

A bit less pain and a little more plot. Phedre follows the plotters to La Serenisima to try and stop them from doing more damage to the land of Terre d'Ange, along the way finding allies and friends. Interesting but I find it somehow lacking. Maybe it's just that pain isn't my path

an interesting children's book about a group of talented children who fight evil elsewhere in order to save several worlds including their own.

Selena Jones sees her husband in the arms of another woman when he should be on assignment in another country she decides that a foreign post is the way to escape some of her feelings. She then finds herself in the middle of a hostage crisis, chaos and confusion with her trying to convince the powers that be that she is serious. The only person who will help or listen is her husband, but she doesn't know if she can trust him.
Readable but nothing spectacular.

Interesting book that's all about parallel lives in this generation and a few generations earlier during the Huguenot opression in France.
An American woman, Ella Turner, moves with her husband to France and tries to find her feet there. Her ancestors were Tourniers and they come from somewhere pretty close to where they're living now. This searching for her roots cause her to ask questions about her relationship with her husband and whether or not he's the person she should be with.
At the same time it tells the story of Isabell du Moulin, known as La Rousse because of her hair. Trying the best to live her life but trapped in a marriage that is breaking her spirit.

This one left me with a feeling of incompletness. Maybe it would have been better if she had employed the same technique as in her later novels where she writes totally in the past. The connection to the painting was a bit more tenuous than in the others but still it's an interesting read. I just didn't find myself caring much for the characters or what happened in their lives, it was all quite abstract, I didn't get involved. It's interesting but in ways just not interesting enough for me.

Offlas Kiel is looking for forerunner artifacts. On Clio he has a hope of finding some, it's a closed planet. Set up as a Psychocrat experiment it's an almost medieval world. When Offlas' niece, Roane gets pulled into the local politics, she has to choose between family and friends. She also has to choose between leaving the world as it is or helping it change.

An interesting read but not one of her best.

Doing these two as one because they came bound as Truly Madly Manhattan, which is possibly the easier way to find these two.

Contains the two books Local Hero and Dual Image

The First of the two, Local Hero, has a comic book writer as the hero. A fun engaging book. Mitch Dempsey lives downstairs from the single mom Hester Wallace whose son, Radley, is one of Mitch's biggest fans. She's a little marriage and relationship shy from having Radley's Father walk out on their marriage. 4/5

The second is weaker but also fun. An actress who is a force of nature meets a director who has been badly burnt by a previous relationship and has written a film about it. Fun and interesting. 3/5

Having heard people talk about the series I decided to start at book one. An interesting mystery all about a murder being investigated again when the person convicted of the offence gets out of jail. I would be curious about the rest of the series but wouldn't be running to try to find them. You do find out at the beginning of the book that she's killed someone but you don't find out who until nearly the end of the book. Which does keep you guessing. Not all the evildoers get the conventional end, which is as it should be, however none of the ends are unbelievable.

Kinsey is an interesting character and I'm sure if I had met her when this series was in it's infancy, in the late 80s, I would probably have been very impressed with this matter of fact female dectective who doesn't take any prisoners. However at this stage I'm used to that kind of female decective.

The binding on this edition is quite poor.

Told from the point of view of a career soldier this is an interesting look at a possible future. The diatrabes against certain social phenonema is interesting but to me kinda boring, although it does allow you to get into the society depicted. It's not a society I'd like to live in but horses for courses.
It's a society where military gets kudos and the vote once they retire but as the Bug war is eating people and the training washes out a lot of people it's getting harder to get trained people out there.
I don't regret reading it but it's not a book I'd have any great enthuaism about re-reading.

An interesting collection of fairly dark fantasy stories all illustrated by different artists. In some instances the artwork was better than the stories but they're not bad as a whole.

Captain Kallista Varyl is engaged in a siege and it looks like the enemy is going to win when she calls on the One for aid and her call is answered. However along with aid comes power, power she can barely contain, there's also companions for her who help her and hold the power like wells. In this country people can join in marriages that contain between 2 and eight people. All of these people are joined to her in marriage. Not only does she have to deal with the magical relationships but also the interpersonal relationships.

Weak in parts but also interesting in others. This actually deals with people who have compulsions and powers that are very strong and unavoidable. It also has enough secondary plots and backbiting to keep me very interested.

An interesting set of stories, not necessarily the best Mercedes Lackey story but not bad, a good Tanith Lee story and the C E Murphy made me want to read more of her books.
Mercedes Lackey's story Moontide had only a very small amount of magic in it. A story of a sea-hold where the daughter of the ruling family returns after education to see what happened while she was gone and what the future holds for her and the keep.
Tanith Lee's The Heart of the Moon tells the story of a woman who has to overcome betrayal by her boyfriend with her best friend. Add to that her best friend's curse and she really needs to find peace and maybe romance (look, it's a romance compilation, predicting romance isn't a spoiler)
Banshee Cries by C E Murphy is however the best of the lot. A bridging story between Urban Shaman and Thunderbird Falls, this story had me start to curse once I finished reading it. I so wanted those books in my hands immediately. If they're half as good as the novella they'll be great! I enjoyed this story about a patrolwoman who finds that what she knows about her mother isn't necessarily the truth. That she has to hunt evil using the powers that she has and that despite this being in a fantasy/paranormal romance that there isn't really all that much romance there. Lovers of EARLY Anita Blake might like to wander this way.

Brian Duffy, an Irish soldier of fortune, finds that Venice isn't that healthy for him and when he's offered the job of bouncer for a tavern in Vienna that brews it's own, along with a healthy wage, he jumps at the chance.

Unfortunately for Brian, what he thought would be a retirement turns out to be a war between, not only the physical armies, but also the forces of good and evil and he has a pivotal role in this fight.

Interesting look at the war in Vienna between Austria and Turkey with reincarnated heroes and the people of the time trying to be themselves and resist the overshadowing by the archetypes. Although more mythic than fantastic (that border is kinda fuzzy in my head) I found Ash (by Mary Gentle) better book of this type.

The characters felt very real and were well fleshed out people with motives and problems and their lives got complicated by action or inaction.

This is the second Tim Powers I've approached with an intention to read, this is the first one I've finished, it wasn't bad I just left it with no enthuaism to hunt up more of his books, now if I happen on them I'll read them, but I won't actively hunt them up.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Luna, some comments

Luna is an interesting idea, a romance publishing firm notice that there's some romantic fantasy going around and it's selling so they bring out their own line. They also get some pretty big names in the fantasy world to include some of their books in the range, Mercedes Lackey and Tanith Lee, to mention just two that come to mind. They also afford some other authors an opportunity to try this field out.

And some of the books are actually quite good. I've read a few and I'm almost tempted to subscribe to get them as they're published, getting them here is a little the other side of complicated for my comfort (a little complicated from here but eh, why not occasionally splash out on little things) but some of them really need more work. They need critical editors who know a bit about Fantasy and will hit the authors for abusing fantasy, particularly fantasy cliches.

Still I will keep giving some of the authors a chance to impress me. Quite a lot of it is actually urban fantasy, which I really do like, but often authors get one strike and then they're out.

Michele Hauf is getting a second chance with Seraphim, mostly because it involves one of my favourite characters, Joan of Arc.

Gossamyr has been brought up by her Faery father, half-mortal and half-faery she's caught between the worlds and when The Red Lady is draining all Faery who wander into the mortal world someone has to try to stop her. Gossamyr is chosen. This is based in pseudo-medieval France where the characters have Medieval attitudes when it's plot-important.

She finds Ulrich who comes with her to help her, he strayed into a faery circle 10 years ago but to him it's only been a few hours. He's searching for his daughter (Rhiana - oh look sequel!) and is trying to come to terms with the world being different than he left it.

The very worst thing I can say about this book is that I didn't care. I had absolutely no emotional involvement in the book and really didn't care what happened to anyone. It possibly could have done with some editing and some more work.

It's not totally a bad book, it's just not a good book and I nearly abandoned it a few times because I didn't really care what happened next. I'm sure the author is capable of more and better.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

In a world where the gods battled and five gods established themselves as the one true gods what happens when in another country there are another batch of gods who are claiming superiority?

The main character is Auraya and she's learning to deal with her place in the world as an immortal servant of the gods. What she has to do in the world and how she is going to help the world. The one think no-one really knows is the motivations of the Gods, and whether the gods they're fighting for are the good guys.

Not a bad read but not the best thing I've read. I'm not sure that it really was as good as she could write.