Mark's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 20 Jan 2025 04:42:32 -0800 60 Mark's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg When the Moon Hits Your Eye 211004190
It's a whole new moooooon.

One day soon, suddenly and without explanation, the moon as we know it is replaced with an orb of cheese with the exact same mass. Through the length of an entire lunar cycle, from new moon to a spectacular and possibly final solar eclipse, we follow multiple characters -- schoolkids and scientists, billionaires and workers, preachers and politicians -- as they confront the strange new world they live in, and the absurd, impossible moon that now hangs above all their lives.]]> 326 John Scalzi 0765389096 Mark 0 to-read 3.85 2025 When the Moon Hits Your Eye
author: John Scalzi
name: Mark
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Mercy of Gods (The Captive's War #1)]]> 202110188
Caught up in academic intrigue and affairs of the heart, Dafyd Alkhor is pleased just to be an assistant to a brilliant scientist and his celebrated research team. ĚýThen the Carryx ships descend, decimating the human population and taking the best and brightest of Anjiin society away to serve on the Carryx homeworld, and Dafyd is swept along with them. They are dropped in the middle of a struggle they barely understand, set in a competition against the other captive species with extinction as the price of failure.

Only Dafyd and a handful of his companions see past the Darwinian contest to the deeper game that they must play to learning to understand â€� and manipulate â€� the Carryx themselves. With a noble but suicidal human rebellion on one hand and strange and murderous enemies on the other, the team pays a terrible price to become the trusted servants of their new rulers. Dafyd Alkhor is a simple man swept up in events that are beyond his control and more vast than his imagination. ĚýHe will become the champion of humanity and its betrayer, the most hated man in history and the guardian of his people. This is where his story begins.]]> 423 James S.A. Corey 0316525553 Mark 0 4.39 2024 The Mercy of Gods (The Captive's War #1)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Mark
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)]]> 178864
A mind-bending code hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci. A desperate race through the cathedrals and castles of Europe. An astonishing truth concealed for centuries� unveiled at last.

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call. The elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum, a baffling cipher found near the body. As Langdon and a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci–clues visible for all to see and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

The stakes are raised when Langdon uncovers a startling link: the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion—an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others. Langdon suspects they are on the hunt for a breathtaking historical secret, one that has proven through the centuries to be as enlightening as it is dangerous. In a frantic race through Paris, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu find themselves matching wits with a faceless powerbroker who appears to anticipate their every move. Unless they can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle, the Priory's secret—and an explosive ancient truth—will be lost forever.

Instantly catapulted to the top of the bestseller lists around the world, The Da Vinci Code is simultaneously lightning-paced, intelligent, and intricately layered with remarkable research and detail. From secrets embedded in the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, to the symbols of ancient Egypt, to the architecture of landmarks such as the Louvre, Westminster Abbey, Rosslyn Chapel, and more, this fully illustrated collector's edition delivers the complete reading experience of Dan Brown's riveting novel—from the opening pages to the unpredictable and stunning conclusion.
(front flap)]]> 467 Dan Brown 0385513755 Mark 4 4.03 2003 The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)
author: Dan Brown
name: Mark
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/11/09
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Half Wild (The Half Bad Trilogy, #2)]]> 20814989 "You will have a powerful Gift, but it’s how you use it that will show you to be good or bad."

In a modern-day England where two warring factions of witches live amongst humans, seventeen-year-old Nathan is an abomination, the illegitimate son of the world's most powerful and violent witch. Nathan is hunted from all sides: nowhere is safe and no one can be trusted. Now, Nathan has come into his own unique magical Gift, and he's on the run--but the Hunters are close behind, and they will stop at nothing until they have captured Nathan and destroyed his father.]]> 432 Sally Green 0670017132 Mark 4 3.98 2015 Half Wild (The Half Bad Trilogy, #2)
author: Sally Green
name: Mark
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2018/05/04
date added: 2024/10/16
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]]> <![CDATA[How I Proposed to My Wife: An Alien Sex Story]]> 6139476 25 John Scalzi 1596064803 Mark 4 3.84 2011 How I Proposed to My Wife: An Alien Sex Story
author: John Scalzi
name: Mark
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/09/28
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review:

]]> The Ministry of Time 199798179 A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats� from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge�: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as �1847� or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,� “Spotify,� and “the collapse of the British Empire.� But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.

An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house? Kaliane Bradley’s answer is a blazing, unforgettable testament to what we owe each other in a changing world.]]> 339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 Mark 0 3.54 2024 The Ministry of Time
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Mark
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/30
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]]> Blindsight (Firefall, #1) 48484 Two months since the stars fell...

Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that moment of brief, bright surveillance by agents unknown.

Two months of silence while a world holds its breath.

Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune’s orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever’s out there isn’t talking to us. It’s talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.

So who do you send to force introductions on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn’t want to meet?

You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees X-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won’t be needed, and a fainter hope she’ll do any good if she is needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called “vampire,� recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist � an informational topologist with half his mind gone � as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge.

You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they’ve been sent to find.

But you’d give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them…]]> 384 Peter Watts 0765312182 Mark 0 to-read 4.01 2006 Blindsight (Firefall, #1)
author: Peter Watts
name: Mark
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[City on Fire (Metropolitan #2)]]> 503004 563 Walter Jon Williams 0061054429 Mark 4 3.95 City on Fire (Metropolitan #2)
author: Walter Jon Williams
name: Mark
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ethan of Athos (Vorkosigan Saga, #3)]]> 990093 237 Lois McMaster Bujold 067165604X Mark 4 3.78 1986 Ethan of Athos (Vorkosigan Saga, #3)
author: Lois McMaster Bujold
name: Mark
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1986
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/07/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Vor Game (Vorkosigan Saga, #6)]]> 68483 346 Lois McMaster Bujold 0671720147 Mark 4 4.27 1990 The Vor Game (Vorkosigan Saga, #6)
author: Lois McMaster Bujold
name: Mark
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/07/03
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Shards of Honour (Vorkosigan Saga, #1)]]> 61903 253 Lois McMaster Bujold 0743468422 Mark 4 4.14 1986 Shards of Honour (Vorkosigan Saga, #1)
author: Lois McMaster Bujold
name: Mark
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1986
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/07/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Amongst Our Weapons (Rivers of London, #9)]]> 59816290 The ninth novel of the bestselling Rivers of London urban fantasy series returns to the adventures of Peter Grant, detective and apprentice wizard, as he solves magical crimes in the city of London.

There is a world hidden underneath this great city.

The London Silver Vaults–for well over a century, the largest collection of silver for sale in the world. It has more locks than the Bank of England and more cameras than a celebrity punch-up. Not somewhere you can murder someone and vanish without a trace–only that’s what happened.

The disappearing act, the reports of a blinding flash of light and memory loss amongst the witnesses all make this a case for Detective Constable Peter Grant and the Special Assessment Unit.

Alongside their boss DCI Thomas Nightingale, the SAU find themselves embroiled in a mystery that encompasses London’s tangled history, foreign lands and, most terrifying of all, the North!

And Peter must solve this case soon because back home his partner Beverley is expecting twins any day now. But what he doesn’t know is that he’s about to encounter something–and somebody–that nobody ever expects…]]> 304 Ben Aaronovitch 0756411491 Mark 4 4.50 2022 Amongst Our Weapons (Rivers of London, #9)
author: Ben Aaronovitch
name: Mark
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/03
date added: 2024/07/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2)]]> 50668823 In the second installment of this richly imagined fantasy adventure series, a new threat from within the Library could destroy those who depend upon it the most.

The Library of the Unwritten in Hell was saved from total devastation, but hundreds of potential books were destroyed. Former librarian Claire and Brevity the muse feel the loss of those stories, and are trying to adjust to their new roles within the Arcane Wing and Library, respectively. But when the remains of those books begin to leak a strange ink, Claire realizes that the Library has kept secrets from Hell--and from its own librarians.

Claire and Brevity are immediately at odds in their approach to the ink, and the potential power that it represents has not gone unnoticed. When a representative from the Muses Corps arrives at the Library to advise Brevity, the angel Rami and the erstwhile Hero hunt for answers in other realms. The true nature of the ink could fundamentally alter the afterlife for good or ill, but it entirely depends on who is left to hold the pen.]]> 364 A.J. Hackwith 1984806408 Mark 1 ngh 4.02 2020 The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2)
author: A.J. Hackwith
name: Mark
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2020
rating: 1
read at: 2024/07/03
date added: 2024/07/03
shelves: ngh
review:
Didn't finish. Just couldn't get into it.
]]> <![CDATA[If on a Winter's Night a Traveller]]> 52513609 If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino. You like it. But there's a printer's error in your copy. You take it back to the shop and get a replacement. But the replacement seems to be a totally different story. You try to track down the original book you were reading but end up with a different narrative again. This remarkable novel leads you through many different books including a detective adventure, a romance, a satire, an erotic story, a diary and a quest. But the hero of them all is you, the reader.]]> 260 Italo Calvino Mark 1 3.83 1979 If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
author: Italo Calvino
name: Mark
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1979
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2024/06/11
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]]> The Bright Sword 201750794
They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Tables, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.

But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords are laying siege to Camelot, and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.]]> 673 Lev Grossman 0735224048 Mark 0 to-read 3.94 2024 The Bright Sword
author: Lev Grossman
name: Mark
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Firm 38508 496 John Grisham Mark 3 3.64 1991 The Firm
author: John Grisham
name: Mark
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1991
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/04/25
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sharpe's Command (Sharpe, #14)]]> 60606339 New York Times bestselling author Bernard Cornwell returns to the early years of the nineteenth century, capturing the bravery, battles, and bloodshed of Britain's peninsular wars with this epic tale featuring his iconic hero Richard Sharpe.

Outsider.

Hero.

Rogue.

And the one man you want on your side.

The author of sixty novels, Bernard Cornwell has been hailed as "the most prolific and successful historical novelist in the world today" (Wall Street Journal). Sharpe's Assassin marked the return of beloved hero Richard Sharpe and was hailed as a boisterous return of a favorite character (Booklist). In this latest historical novel, Cornwell returns to the early days of the peninsular war, where Sharpe once again finds himself entangled in intrigue, bloody warfare, and thrilling adventure.]]> 320 Bernard Cornwell 0063219298 Mark 0 to-read 3.93 2023 Sharpe's Command (Sharpe, #14)
author: Bernard Cornwell
name: Mark
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sweet Remnants of Summer: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel (14) (Isabel Dalhousie Series)]]> 75656388 240 Alexander McCall Smith 0593468325 Mark 4 3.94 2022 The Sweet Remnants of Summer: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel (14) (Isabel Dalhousie Series)
author: Alexander McCall Smith
name: Mark
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Quiet Side of Passion (Isabel Dalhousie, #12)]]> 43154924
With two small boys to raise, a mountain of articles to edit for the Review of Applied Ethics, and the ever-increasing demands of her niece, Cat, who always seems to need a helping hand at the deli, Isabel barely has any time for herself. Her husband, Jamie, suggests acquiring extra help, and she reluctantly agrees. In no time at all, Isabel and Jamie have a new au pair, and Isabel has an intelligent assistant editor to share her workload. Both women, though, have romantic entanglements that threaten to interfere with their work, and Isabel must decide how best to navigate this tricky domestic situation. Can an employer ever inject herself into her employees' affairs?

Meanwhile, Isabel makes the acquaintance of Patricia, the mother of Charlie's friend Basil. Though Isabel finds Patricia rather pushy, she tries to be civil and supportive, especially given that Patricia is raising her son on her own, without the help of his father, a well-known Edinburgh organist, also named Basil. But when Isabel sees Patricia in the company of an unscrupulous man, she begins to rethink her assumptions. Isabel must once again call on her kindness and keen intelligence to determine the right course of action, at home, at work, and in the schoolyard.]]> 304 Alexander McCall Smith 0804169934 Mark 4 3.69 2018 The Quiet Side of Passion (Isabel Dalhousie, #12)
author: Alexander McCall Smith
name: Mark
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2018
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Geometry of Holding Hands (Isabel Dalhousie #13)]]> 56212879 Isabel finds herself entangled in some tricky familial and financial situations that will require all of her kindness, charm, and philosophical expertise to navigate.

Just when Isabel and Jamie finally seem to have some time to connect and unwind, a wealthy Edinburgh resident reaches out to Isabel with an unusual request--he would like her to become the executor of his large Highland estate. Though Isabel initially demurs, he presses on. He has only a short time to live, and, without any direct heirs, is struggling to determine which of his three cousins would be the best caretaker. Should it go to the bohemian artist, the savvy city property developer, or the quiet, unassuming bachelor?

As if this weren't enough to keep Isabel occupied, she's also spending more time helping her niece Cat at the deli. Cat, perennially unlucky in love, seems to have finally found her match in the leonine Leo. But Isabel is beginning to suspect that Leo might be interested in more than Cat's charms, namely her access to the family trust. Isabel will need to rely upon remarkable reserves of intelligence and compassion in order to give all parties exactly what they want and deserve--no more, and no less.]]> 240 Alexander McCall Smith 0593081234 Mark 4 3.80 2020 The Geometry of Holding Hands (Isabel Dalhousie #13)
author: Alexander McCall Smith
name: Mark
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2020
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Librarian of Crooked Lane (Glass Library, #1)]]> 60054210
Librarian Sylvia Ashe knows nothing about her past, having grown up without a father and a mother who refused to discuss him. When she stumbles upon a diary that suggests she’s descended from magicians, she’s skeptical. After all, magicians are special, and she’s just an ordinary girl who loves books. She seeks the truth from a member of the most prominent family of magicians, but she quickly learns that finding the truth won’t be easy, especially when he turns out to be as artless as her, and more compelling and dangerous than books.

War hero Gabe is gifted with wealth, a loving family, and an incredible amount of luck that saw him survive four harrowing years of a brutal war without injury. But not all injuries are visible. Burying himself in his work as a consultant for Scotland Yard, Gabe is going through the motions as he investigates the theft of a magician-made painting. But his life changes when he unwittingly gets Sylvia dismissed from her job and places her in danger.

After securing her new employment in a library housing the world’s greatest collection of books about magic, Gabe and Sylvia’s lives become intwined as they work together to find both the painting and the truth about Sylvia’s past before powerful people can stop them.

But sometimes the past is better left buried…]]> 284 C.J. Archer 1922554200 Mark 2 3.84 2022 The Librarian of Crooked Lane (Glass Library, #1)
author: C.J. Archer
name: Mark
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Heart of What Was Lost (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, #3.5)]]> 30236949 New York Times-bestselling Tad Williams� ground-breaking epic fantasy saga of Osten Ard begins an exciting new cycle!

The perfect introduction to the epic fantasy world of Osten Ard, The Heart of What Was Lost is Tad Williams� follow-up to his internationally bestselling landmark trilogy. Osten Ard inspired a generation of modern fantasy writers, including George R.R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss, and Christopher Paolini, and defined Tad Williams as one of the most important fantasy writers of our time. 


�

A NOVEL OF OSTEN ARD

At the end of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Ineluki the Storm King, an undead spirit of horrifying, demonic power, came within moments of stopping Time itself and obliterating humankind. He was defeated by a coalition of mortal men and women joined by his own deathless descendants, the Sithi.

In the wake of the Storm King’s fall, Ineluki’s loyal minions, the Norns, dark cousins to the Sithi, choose to flee the lands of men and retreat north to Nakkiga, their ancient citadel within the hollow heart of the mountain called Stormspike. But as the defeated Norns make their way to this last haven, the mortal Rimmersman Duke Isgrimnur leads an army in pursuit, determined to end the Norns� attacks and defeat their ageless Queen Utuk’ku for all time.

Two southern soldiers, Porto and Endri, joined the mortal army to help achieve this ambitious goal—though as they venture farther and farther into the frozen north, braving the fierce resistance and deadly magics of the retreating Norns, they cannot help but wonder what they are doing so very far from home. Meanwhile, the Norns must now confront the prospect of extinction at the hands of Isgrimnur and his mortal army.

Viyeki, a leader of the Norns� military engineers, the Order of Builders, desperately seeks a way to help his people reach their mountain—and then stave off the destruction of their race. For the two armies will finally clash in a battle to be remembered as the Siege of Nakkiga; a battle so strange and deadly, so wracked with dark enchantment, that it threatens to destroy not just one side but quite possibly all.

Trapped inside the mountain as the mortals batter at Nakkiga’s gates, Viyeki the Builder will discover disturbing secrets about his own people, mysteries both present and past, represented by the priceless gem known as The Heart of What Was Lost.]]> 368 Tad Williams 0756412498 Mark 5 4.18 2017 The Heart of What Was Lost (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, #3.5)
author: Tad Williams
name: Mark
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/31
date added: 2024/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Stone of Farewell (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, #2)]]> 8498843
As the very land is blighted by the power of Ineluki's wrath, the tattered remnants of a once-proud human army flee in search of a last sanctuary and rallying point —THE Stone of Farewell, a place shrouded in mystery and ancient sorrow. And the widely scattered surviving members of the League of the Scroll desperately struggle to fulfill missions which will take them from the fallen citadels of humans to the hidden mountain caves of the Qanuc...across storm-tormented waters to discover the truth behind an almost-forgotten legend...through a forest alive with dangers no human could hope to brave...to the secret heartland of the Sithi, where the near-immortals must at last decide whether to ally with the race of men in a final war against those of their own blood....]]> 602 Tad Williams 1101160780 Mark 5 4.23 1990 The Stone of Farewell (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, #2)
author: Tad Williams
name: Mark
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/31
date added: 2024/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[To Green Angel Tower (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn #3)]]> 44141054
As the Storm King’s power grows and the boundaries of time begin to blur, the loyal allies of Prince Josua struggle to rally their forces at the Stone of Farewell. There, too, Simon and the surviving members of the League of the Scroll have gathered for a desperate attempt to unravel mysteries from the forgotten past.

For if the League can reclaim these age-old secrets of magic long-buried beneath the dusts of time, they may be able to reveal to Josua and his army the only means of striking down the unslayable foe....

After the landmark Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, the epic saga of Osten Ard continues with the brand-new novel, The Heart of What Was Lost. Then don’t miss the upcoming trilogy, The Last King of Osten Ard, beginning with The Witchwood Crown!]]> 1098 Tad Williams 1101142227 Mark 5 4.45 1993 To Green Angel Tower (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn #3)
author: Tad Williams
name: Mark
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Dragonbone Chair (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, #1)]]> 91981
Simon, a kitchen boy from the royal castle unknowingly apprenticed to a member of this League, will be sent on a quest that offers the only hope of salvation, a deadly riddle concerning long-lost swords of power. Compelled by fate and perilous magics, he must leave the only home he’s ever known and face enemies more terrifying than Osten Ard has ever seen, even as the land itself begins to die.

After the landmark Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, the epic saga of Osten Ard continues with the brand-new novel, The Heart of What Was Lost. Then don’t miss the upcoming trilogy, The Last King of Osten Ard, beginning with The Witchwood Crown!]]> 672 Tad Williams 0756402697 Mark 5 3.96 1988 The Dragonbone Chair (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, #1)
author: Tad Williams
name: Mark
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/01
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple #1)]]> 6473195 The Murder at the Vicarage is Agatha Christie’s first mystery to feature the beloved investigator Miss Marple—as a dead body in a clergyman’s study proves to the indomitable sleuth that no place, holy or otherwise, is a sanctuary from homicide.

Miss Marple encounters a compelling murder mystery in the sleepy little village of St. Mary Mead, where under the seemingly peaceful exterior of an English country village lurks intrigue, guilt, deception and death.

Colonel Protheroe, local magistrate and overbearing land-owner is the most detested man in the village. Everyone--even in the vicar--wishes he were dead. And very soon he is--shot in the head in the vicar's own study. Faced with a surfeit of suspects, only the inscrutable Miss Marple can unravel the tangled web of clues that will lead to the unmasking of the killer.

]]> 307 Agatha Christie Mark 3 4.09 1930 The Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple #1)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Mark
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1930
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/08
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Antimatter Blues (Mickey7, #2)]]> 61203442 Edward Ashton's Antimatter Blues is the thrilling follow up to Mickey7 in which an expendable heads out to explore new terrain for human habitation.

Summer has come to Niflheim. The lichens are growing, the six-winged bat-things are chirping, and much to his own surprise, Mickey Barnes is still alive—that last part thanks almost entirely to the fact that Commander Marshall believes that the colony’s creeper neighbors are holding an antimatter bomb, and that Mickey is the only one who’s keeping them from using it. Mickey’s just another colonist now. Instead of cleaning out the reactor core, he spends his time these days cleaning out the rabbit hutches. It’s not a bad life.

It’s not going to last.

It may be sunny now, but winter is coming. The antimatter that fuels the colony is running low, and Marshall wants his bomb back. If Mickey agrees to retrieve it, he’ll be giving up the only thing that’s kept his head off of the chopping block. If he refuses, he might doom the entire colony. Meanwhile, the creepers have their own worries, and they’re not going to surrender the bomb without getting something in return. Once again, Mickey finds the fate of two species resting in his hands. If something goes wrong this time, though, he won’t be coming back.]]> 298 Edward Ashton Mark 3 4.24 2023 Antimatter Blues (Mickey7, #2)
author: Edward Ashton
name: Mark
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/17
date added: 2024/02/01
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]]> The Hanging City 63127235 For a young woman who wields the power of fear, humanity’s greatest enemy is her only hope in a new fairy-tale adventure by Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Charlie N. Holmberg.

Seven years on the run from her abusive father, and with no hope of sanctuary among the dwindling pockets of human civilization, Lark is out of options. Her only leverage is a cursed power: she can thrust fear onto others, leaving all threats fleeing in terror. It’s a means of survival as she searches for a place to call home. If the campfire myths of her childhood are true, Lark’s sole chance for refuge could lie in Cagmar, the city of trolls—a brutal species and the sworn enemies of humanity.

Valuing combat prowess, the troll high council is intrigued. Lark could be much more useful than the low-caste humans who merely labor in Cagmar. Her gift makes her invaluable as a monster slayer to fight off the unspeakable creatures that torment the trolls� hanging city, suspended from a bridge over an endless dark canyon.

Lark will do anything to make Cagmar her home, but her new role comes with a caveat: use her power against a troll, and she’ll be killed. Her loyalty is quickly put to the test when she draws the hatred of a powerful troll who loathes humankind. Still, she finds unexpected friendship in the city and, even more surprisingly, love. But if everything else doesn’t undo her, being caught in the arms of a troll surely will. Now in the fight of her life, Lark has a lot to learn—about her past, about trust and hope when all seems lost, and above all, about the extraordinary power of fear itself.]]> 344 Charlie N. Holmberg 1662508719 Mark 1 3.96 2023 The Hanging City
author: Charlie N. Holmberg
name: Mark
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2023
rating: 1
read at: 2023/12/02
date added: 2024/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Scorpio (Frontlines: Evolution, #1)]]> 125162502 On a distant Earth colony, an orphaned survivor of an alien invasion discovers that the greatest world-ending dangers aren’t behind her.

It’s been eight years since an alien invasion drove a small surviving group of settlers to seek refuge in an underground shelter. Cut off from the rest of humanity, the ragtag band has maintained a narrowly functioning colony due to communal effort and salvage runs. Alex Archer has her own duties as a dog handler. While this off-world colony may be harsh, Ash, Alex’s black shepherd raised to sense threats, makes living in it a little nicer.

But the tenuous hide-and-seek with the monstrous species known as the Lankies is about to come to an end for Alex and her close-knit crew of soldiers, techs, and friends. When a salvage operation goes catastrophically wrong, the Lankies home in on the humans.

With hopes of a rescue long faded, all Alex has left is will—and the fear that there’s so much more to lose.]]> 283 Marko Kloos 1542035503 Mark 4 4.12 2024 Scorpio (Frontlines: Evolution, #1)
author: Marko Kloos
name: Mark
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/07
date added: 2024/02/01
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Foxglove Summer (Rivers of London, #5)]]> 21418015 ]]> 333 Ben Aaronovitch 069815195X Mark 4 4.36 2014 Foxglove Summer (Rivers of London, #5)
author: Ben Aaronovitch
name: Mark
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/05
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries, #7)]]> 65211701 Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.

Everyone's favorite lethal SecUnit is back.

Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.

But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast.

Yeah, this plan is... not going to work.]]> 245 Martha Wells 1250826977 Mark 5 4.19 2023 System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries, #7)
author: Martha Wells
name: Mark
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/02
date added: 2024/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Moon Over Soho (Rivers of London US Book 2)]]> 63899246 Body and Soul. The song. That's what London constable and sorcerer's apprentice Peter Grant first notices when he examines the corpse of Cyrus Wilkins, part-time jazz drummer and full-time accountant, who dropped dead of a heart attack while playing a gig at Soho's 606 Club. The notes of the old jazz standard are rising from the body - a sure sign that something about the man's death was not at all natural but instead supernatural.

Body and soul - they're also what Peter will risk as he investigates a pattern of similar deaths in and around Soho. With the help of his superior officer, Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, the last registered wizard in England, and the assistance of beautiful jazz aficionado Simone Fitzwilliam, Peter will uncover a deadly magical menace - one that leads right to his own doorstep and to the squandered promise of a young jazz musician: a talented trumpet player named Richard "Lord" Grant - otherwise known as Peter's dear old dad.]]> 396 Ben Aaronovitch 1625676069 Mark 4 4.34 2011 Moon Over Soho (Rivers of London US Book 2)
author: Ben Aaronovitch
name: Mark
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/15
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Whispers Underground (Rivers of London #3)]]> 63920193
We found one.

And that was that, I thought come Monday. First case of the day: Person Unknown has been stabbed to death on the tracks at Baker Street Underground. Magic may have been involved. Sure enough, the weapon turns out to be saturated in the tell-tale traces left by magic.

But Person Unknown turns out to be the son of a US senator, so before you can say "international incident", FBI agent Kimberley Reynolds and her firmly held religious beliefs are on my case.

And down in the dark, in the Tube tunnels of London, along with the buried rivers and remnants of Victorian sewer systems, I'm hearing some really strange things...]]> 429 Ben Aaronovitch 1625676077 Mark 4 4.41 2012 Whispers Underground (Rivers of London #3)
author: Ben Aaronovitch
name: Mark
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/31
date added: 2024/02/01
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]]> Broken Homes (Peter Grant #4) 18621945
Truth be told, there's a lot I still don't know. My superior Nightingale, previously the last of England's wizardly governmental force, is trying to teach me proper schooling for a magician's apprentice. But even he doesn't have all the answers. Mostly I'm just a constable sworn to enforce the Queen’s Peace, with the occasional help from some unusual friends and a well-placed fire blast. With the new year, I have three main objectives, a) pass the detective exam so I can officially become a DC, b) work out what the hell my relationship with Lesley Mai, an old friend from the force and now fellow apprentice, is supposed to be, and most importantly, c) get through the year without destroying a major landmark.

Two out of three isn’t bad, right?

A mutilated body in Crawley means another murderer is on the loose. The prime suspect is one Robert Weil, who may either be a common serial killer or an associate of the twisted magician known as the Faceless Man -- a man whose previous encounters I've barely survived. I've also got a case about a town planner going under a tube train and another about a stolen grimoire.

But then I get word of something very odd happening in Elephant and Castle, on a housing estate designed by a nutter, built by charlatans, and inhabited by the truly desperate. If there's a connection to the Crawley case, I'll be entering some tricky waters of juristiction with the local river spirits. We have a prickly history, to say the least.

Just the typical day for a magician constable.]]> 320 Ben Aaronovitch 069814371X Mark 4 4.30 2013 Broken Homes (Peter Grant #4)
author: Ben Aaronovitch
name: Mark
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/05
date added: 2024/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hanging Tree (Rivers of London, #6)]]> 26065332 The Sixth book in the the Rivers of London series featuring the young law officer Peter Grant—who must deal with both crime and magic.

Where the Marble Arch stands today in London was once the Tyburn gallows - or The Hanging Tree. The walk toward those gallows, along Oxford Street and past the Mayfair mansions, has a bloody and haunted history as the last trip of the condemned. Some things never change. Blood and ghosts have returned to those mansions of the super-rich. Peter Grant’s put on the job, as England’s last wizard and the Metropolitan Police’s reluctant investigator of all things supernatural…]]> 298 Ben Aaronovitch 0698151976 Mark 4 4.34 2016 The Hanging Tree (Rivers of London, #6)
author: Ben Aaronovitch
name: Mark
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/14
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Lies Sleeping (Rivers of London, #7)]]> 39665350 The seventh book of the bestselling Rivers of London series returns to the adventures of Peter Grant, detective and apprentice wizard, as he solves magical crimes in the city of London.The Faceless Man, wanted for multiple counts of murder, fraud, and crimes against humanity, has been unmasked and is on the run. Peter Grant, Detective Constable and apprentice wizard, now plays a key role in an unprecedented joint operation to bring him to justice.But even as the unwieldy might of the Metropolitan Police bears down on its foe, Peter uncovers clues that the Faceless Man, far from being finished, is executing the final stages of a long term plan. A plan that has its roots in London's two thousand bloody years of history, and could literally bring the city to its knees.To save his beloved city Peter's going to need help from his former best friend and colleague--Lesley May--who brutally betrayed him and everything he thought she believed in. And, far worse, he might even have to come to terms with the malevolent supernatural killer and agent of chaos known as Mr Punch....]]> 304 Ben Aaronovitch 0756415144 Mark 4 4.37 2018 Lies Sleeping (Rivers of London, #7)
author: Ben Aaronovitch
name: Mark
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/24
date added: 2024/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[False Value (Rivers of London #8)]]> 45142142 Now in hardcover, the eighth book of the bestselling Rivers of London urban fantasy series returns to the adventures of Peter Grant, detective and apprentice wizard, as he solves magical crimes in the city of London.

Peter Grant is facing fatherhood, and an uncertain future, with equal amounts of panic and enthusiasm. Rather than sit around, he takes a job with émigré Silicon Valley tech genius Terrence Skinner's brand new London start up—the Serious Cybernetics Company.

Drawn into the orbit of Old Street's famous 'silicon roundabout', Peter must learn how to blend in with people who are both civilians and geekier than he is. Compared to his last job, Peter thinks it should be a doddle. But magic is not finished with Mama Grant's favourite son.

Because Terrence Skinner has a secret hidden in the bowels of the SCC. A technology that stretches back to Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, and forward to the future of artificial intelligence. A secret that is just as magical as it technological—and just as dangerous.]]> 303 Ben Aaronovitch 0756411483 Mark 4 4.29 2020 False Value (Rivers of London #8)
author: Ben Aaronovitch
name: Mark
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/03
date added: 2024/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Running Grave (Cormoran Strike, #7)]]> 139426587 In the seventh installment in the Strike series, Cormoran and Robin must rescue a man ensnared in the trap of a dangerous cult.

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is contacted by a worried father whose son, Will, has gone to join a religious cult in the depths of the Norfolk countryside.

The Universal Humanitarian Church is, on the surface, a peaceable organization that campaigns for a better world. Yet Strike discovers that beneath the surface there are deeply sinister undertones, and unexplained deaths.

In order to try to rescue Will, Strike's business partner, Robin Ellacott, decides to infiltrate the cult, and she travels to Norfolk to live incognito among its members. But in doing so, she is unprepared for the dangers that await her there or for the toll it will take on her. . .

Utterly pulse-pounding, The Running Grave moves Strike's and Robin's story forward in this epic, unforgettable seventh installment of the series.]]> 960 Robert Galbraith 0316572136 Mark 5 4.64 2023 The Running Grave (Cormoran Strike, #7)
author: Robert Galbraith
name: Mark
average rating: 4.64
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/27
date added: 2024/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Book That Wouldn’t Burn (The Library Trilogy, #1)]]> 202101993
A girl has spent hers in a tiny settlement out on the Dust where nightmares stalk and no one goes.

The world has never even noticed them. That's about to change.

Their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another. A journey on which knowledge erodes certainty, and on which, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, blood will be spilled and cities burned.]]> 576 Mark Lawrence 0593437926 Mark 0 to-read 3.92 2023 The Book That Wouldn’t Burn (The Library Trilogy, #1)
author: Mark Lawrence
name: Mark
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> Mickey7 (Mickey7, #1) 60006489 Now experience where the hit movie from Academy Award-winning director Bong Joon-ho, starring Robert Pattinson, started in Mickey7 (the inspiration for the film Mickey 17).

Dying isn’t any fun…but at least it’s a living.

Mickey7 is an Expendable: a disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonize the ice world Niflheim. Whenever there’s a mission that’s too dangerous—even suicidal—the crew turns to Mickey. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. After six deaths, Mickey7 understands the terms of his deal…and why it was the only colonial position unfilled when he took it.

On a fairly routine scouting mission, Mickey7 goes missing and is presumed dead. By the time he returns to the colony base, surprisingly helped back by native life, Mickey7’s fate has been sealed. There’s a new clone, Mickey8, reporting for Expendable duties. The idea of duplicate Expendables is universally loathed, and if caught, they will likely be thrown into the recycler for protein.

Mickey7 must keep his double a secret from the rest of the colony. Meanwhile, life on Niflheim is getting worse. The atmosphere is unsuitable for humans, food is in short supply, and terraforming is going poorly. The native species are growing curious about their new neighbors, and that curiosity has Commander Marshall very afraid. Ultimately, the survival of both lifeforms will come down to Mickey7.

That is, if he can just keep from dying for good.]]> 288 Edward Ashton Mark 0 4.05 2022 Mickey7 (Mickey7, #1)
author: Edward Ashton
name: Mark
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/12/02
date added: 2023/12/02
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]]> The Stroke of Winter 59976867
As the house’s restoration commences, a shuttered art studio is revealed. Inside are paintings Tess’s late grandfather, beloved and celebrated artist Sebastian Bell, hid away for generations. But these appear to be the works of a twisted mind, almost unrecognizable as paintings she and others familiar with his art would expect. The sinister canvases raise disturbing questions for Tess, sparking nightmares and igniting in her an obsession to unearth the truth around their origins.

What evil has been locked away for so many years? The ominous brushstrokes, scratching at the door, and moving shadows begin to pull Tess further and further into the darkness.]]> 300 Wendy Webb 154203759X Mark 0 3.99 2022 The Stroke of Winter
author: Wendy Webb
name: Mark
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/02
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]]> The Lost Cause 65213928
For young Americans a generation from now, climate change isn't controversial, it's just an overwhelming fact of life. But so are the great efforts to contain and mitigate it. Entire cities are being moved inland from the rising seas. Vast clean-energy projects are springing up everywhere. Disaster relief, the mitigation of floods and superstorms, has become a skill for which tens of millions of people are trained every year. The effort is global. It employs everyone who wants to work. Even when national politics oscillates back to right-wing leaders, the momentum is too great; these vast programmes cannot be stopped in their tracks.

But there are still those Americans who cling to their red trucker caps, their grievances, their anger, their nostalgia for the golden age of assault rifles. Their 'alternative' news sources reassure them their resentment is right and pure and 'climate change' is a con.

They're your grandfather, your uncle, your great-aunt. They're not going anywhere. And they're armed to the teeth.]]> 368 Cory Doctorow 125086593X Mark 0 to-read 3.44 2023 The Lost Cause
author: Cory Doctorow
name: Mark
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/31
shelves: to-read
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]]> Starter Villain 62326571 Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place.

Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.

But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.

It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyper-intelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.

In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 264 John Scalzi 0765389231 Mark 0 4.30 2023 Starter Villain
author: John Scalzi
name: Mark
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2023/10/19
date added: 2023/10/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Foundation Trilogy (Foundation, #1-3)]]> 46654 Foundation begins a new chapter in the story of man's future. As the Old Empire crumbles into barbarism throughout the million worlds of the galaxy, Hari Seldon and his band of psychologists must create a new entity, the Foundation-dedicated to art, science, and technology-as the beginning of a new empire.

Foundation and Empire describes the mighty struggle for power amid the chaos of the stars in which man stands at the threshold of a new enlightened life which could easily be destroyed by the old forces of barbarism.

Second Foundation follows the Seldon Plan after the First Empire's defeat and describes its greatest threat-a dangerous mutant strain gone wild, which produces a mind capable of bending men's wills, directing their thoughts, reshaping their desires, and destroying the universe.

This adaptation for BBC Radio 4 was first broadcast in 1973 with a cast which included Lee Montague, Maurice Denham, John Justin, Angela Plesence, Wolfe Morris, Julian Glover and Prunella Scales.]]> 679 Isaac Asimov 0380508567 Mark 5 4.42 1953 The Foundation Trilogy (Foundation, #1-3)
author: Isaac Asimov
name: Mark
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1953
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/08/06
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1-5)]]> 13
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised Guide. Together they stick out their thumbs to the stars and begin a wild journey through time and space.

"The Restaurant at the End of the Universe"

Facing annihilation at the hands of warmongers is a curious time to crave tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his comrades as they hurtle across the galaxy in a desperate search for a place to eat.

"Life, the Universe and Everything"

The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky- so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals can avert Armageddon: mild-mannered Arthur Dent and his stalwart crew.

"So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"

Back on Earth, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription conspires to thrust him back to reality. So to speak.

"Mostly Harmless"

Just when Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, all hell breaks loose. Can he save the Earth from total obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter from herself?

Also includes the short story "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe".]]> 815 Douglas Adams 0345453743 Mark 4 4.38 1996 The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1-5)
author: Douglas Adams
name: Mark
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/08/06
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]]> The Measure 56898742 Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice.

It seems like any other day. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out.

But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate: the answer to the exact number of years you will live.

From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise?

As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking Do they wish to know how long they'll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge?

The Measure charts the dawn of this new world through an unforgettable cast of characters whose decisions and fates interweave with one best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, pen pals finding refuge in the unknown, a couple who thought they didn't have to rush, a doctor who cannot save himself, and a politician whose box becomes the powder keg that ultimately changes everything.

Enchanting and deeply uplifting, The Measure is a sweeping, ambitious, and invigorating story about family, friendship, hope, and destiny that encourages us to live life to the fullest.]]> 348 Nikki Erlick 0063204223 Mark 0 4.05 2022 The Measure
author: Nikki Erlick
name: Mark
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/08/04
date added: 2023/08/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)]]> 42036538
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.

Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit.

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won't set her free without a service.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon's sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.

Of course, some things are better left dead.]]> 448 Tamsyn Muir 1250313198 Mark 4 4.19 2019 Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)
author: Tamsyn Muir
name: Mark
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/01
date added: 2023/08/01
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]]> Stormy Weather (Skink #3) 13061
"Hysterically funny...Hiaasen at his satirical best." - USA Today

Two honeymooners wake up early, make love twice, and brace themselves for a spectacle they won't be watching from the sidelines. A seductive con artiste stumbles into a scam that promises more cool cash than the lottery. A shotgun-toting mobile home salesman is about to close a deal with disaster. A law school dropout will be chasing one Gaboon viper, a troop of storm-shocked monkeys, and a newfound love life, while tourists by the thousands bail from the Florida Keys. We're now entering the hurricane zone, where hell and hilarity rule. And in the hands of the masterful, merciless Carl Hiaasen, we're going to have some weather.]]> 388 Carl Hiaasen 0446677167 Mark 3 3.95 1995 Stormy Weather (Skink #3)
author: Carl Hiaasen
name: Mark
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1995
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves:
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]]> An Alien Light 122992629 In this epic science fiction tale by an award-winning author, two warring tribes are the subjects of a strange alien experiment.

Epic in scope, peopled by characters from every strata of profoundly different societies, An Alien Light is an unflinching look at the strengths and weaknesses of the genetic, evolutionary, and historical inheritance that all of us share.

Arys, a glassblower and outcast.

Jehane, a skilled female warrior.

Dahar, with a deeply inquisitive mind.

Grax, an alien with profound doubts.

These four and hundreds of others are thrown together in an experiment to determine the fate of humanity, both on Earth and in her galactic colonies. For the Ged, the stakes are nothing less than the outcome of a war. For the humans, ignorant of the larger situation, the rewards for participating are incredible riches. But no one except the alien Ged understands the criteria for being chosen.

When that knowledge comes, there is no agreement about if, how, or when to use it. Some will betray others. Some will sacrifice. Some will die. And some must succeed, no matter the price.

Praise for An Alien Light

“This heady mix of fantasy and sf explores humanity’s infinite capacity for change. Highly recommended.� �Library Journal]]> 456 Nancy Kress 1680573411 Mark 0 4.33 1987 An Alien Light
author: Nancy Kress
name: Mark
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/22
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]]> House of Gold 74832207 From visionary author C. T. Rwizi comes the epic journey of four people on a distant planet who face the ultimate test of loyalty, friendship, and duty in the rising tide of war.

A corporate aristocracy descended from Africa rules a colony on a distant planet.

Life here is easy—for the rarified and privileged few. The aristocrats enjoy a powerful cybernetic technology that extends their life spans and ensures their prosperity. Those who serve them suffer under a heavy hand.

But within this ruthless society are agents of hope and change. In a secret underwater laboratory, a separatist cult has created a threat to the aristocracy. The Primes are highly intelligent, manipulative products of genetic engineering, designed to lead a rebellion. Enabling their mission are the Proxies, the Primes� bodyguards and lifelong companions bound to their service.

When the cult’s hideout is attacked, Proxies Nandipa and Hondo rush to the rescue. As they emerge with their Primes onto the surface, however, everything they’d been led to believe about their world is shattered.

Nandipa and Hondo will risk it all to honor their oath of absolute loyalty. But when the very people they’re tasked to protect turn on each other, the Proxies must decide between those they were built to serve and the freedom to carve out their own destinies. And the fate of their planet may rest in their choice.]]> 391 C.T. Rwizi 1542037131 Mark 0 4.26 2023 House of Gold
author: C.T. Rwizi
name: Mark
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2023/07/22
date added: 2023/07/22
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]]> <![CDATA[The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)]]> 150247395
Called in to investigate this mystery is Ana Dolabra, an investigator whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol. Din is an engraver, magically altered to possess a perfect memory. His job is to observe and report, and act as his superior’s eyes and ears--quite literally, in this case, as among Ana’s quirks are her insistence on wearing a blindfold at all times, and her refusal to step outside the walls of her home.

Din is most perplexed by Ana’s ravenous appetite for information and her mind’s frenzied leaps—not to mention her cheerful disregard for propriety and the apparent joy she takes in scandalizing her young counterpart. Yet as the case unfolds and Ana makes one startling deduction after the next, he finds it hard to deny that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the safety of the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

Featuring an unforgettable Holmes-and-Watson style pairing, a gloriously labyrinthine plot, and a haunting and wholly original fantasy world, The Tainted Cup brilliantly reinvents the classic mystery tale.]]> 410 Robert Jackson Bennett 1984820702 Mark 0 to-read 4.28 2024 The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: Mark
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Red Team Blues (Martin Hench #1)]]> 60784891 New York Times bestseller Cory Doctorow's Red Team Blues is a grabby next-Tuesday thriller about cryptocurrency shenanigans that will awaken you to how the world really works.

Martin Hench is 67 years old, single, and successful in a career stretching back to the beginnings of Silicon Valley. He lives and roams California in a very comfortable fully-furnished touring bus, The Unsalted Hash, that he bought years ago from a fading rock star. He knows his way around good food and fine drink. He likes intelligent women, and they like him back often enough.

Martin is a—contain your excitement—self-employed forensic accountant, a veteran of the long guerilla war between people who want to hide money, and people who want to find it. He knows computer hardware and software alike, including the ins and outs of high-end databases and the kinds of spreadsheets that are designed to conceal rather than reveal. He’s as comfortable with social media as people a quarter his age, and he’s a world-level expert on the kind of international money-laundering and shell-company chicanery used by Fortune 500 companies, mid-divorce billionaires, and international drug gangs alike. He also knows the Valley like the back of his hand, all the secret histories of charismatic company founders and Sand Hill Road VCs. Because he was there at all the beginnings. He’s not famous, except to the people who matter. He’s made some pretty powerful people happy in his time, and he’s been paid pretty well. It’s been a good life.

Now he’s been roped into a job that’s more dangerous than anything he’s ever agreed to before—and it will take every ounce of his skill to get out alive.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 234 Cory Doctorow 1250865867 Mark 0 4.17 2023 Red Team Blues (Martin Hench #1)
author: Cory Doctorow
name: Mark
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2023/06/21
date added: 2023/06/21
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy, #1)]]> 40004709
After Vasilisa's mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa's new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa's stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.

As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse's most frightening tales.

The Bear and the Nightingale is a magical debut novel from a gifted and gorgeous voice. It spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular talent.]]> 370 Katherine Arden Mark 0 4.19 2017 The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy, #1)
author: Katherine Arden
name: Mark
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2023/06/21
date added: 2023/06/21
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Ordinary Monsters (The Talents Trilogy, #1)]]> 58725025
What follows is a story of wonder and betrayal, from the gaslit streets of London, and the wooden theaters of Meiji-era Tokyo, to an eerie estate outside Edinburgh where other children with gifts--like Komako, a witch-child and twister of dust, and Ribs, a girl who cloaks herself in invisibility--are forced to combat the forces that threaten their safety. There, the world of the dead and the world of the living threaten to collide. With this new found family, Komako, Marlowe, Charlie, Ribs, and the rest of the Talents discover the truth about their abilities. And as secrets within the Institute unfurl, a new question arises: What truly defines a monster?

Riveting in its scope, exquisitely written, Ordinary Monsters presents a catastrophic vision of the Victorian world--and of the gifted, broken children who must save it.]]> 672 J.M. Miro 1250833663 Mark 0 3.75 2022 Ordinary Monsters (The Talents Trilogy, #1)
author: J.M. Miro
name: Mark
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/21
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review:

]]> Babel 59729042 A novel that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire.

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel.

Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide�

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]> 560 R.F. Kuang Mark 0 4.14 2022 Babel
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Mark
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/05/28
date added: 2023/05/28
shelves:
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]]> Sea of Tranquility 58446227 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads

"One of [Mandel's] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet." --The New York Times

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.]]> 259 Emily St. John Mandel 0593321448 Mark 3
I read all the words. I understood the entire story. But I just didn't feel very much. It was an intellectual time-travel story (definitely clever) but the twist at the end made me say "so what", the big question didn't get answered (other than "does it really matter?") and I didn't really connect with any of the characters. I feel like I've just eaten a meal that tasted fine but left me vaguely unsatisfied.

Emily St. John Mandel is a masterful writer, though, so I'm going to go read her other books to see if this helps me understand Sea of Tranquility better.]]> 4.04 2022 Sea of Tranquility
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Mark
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/05/06
shelves:
review:
OK, this was my first of Ms. Mandel's novels and I maybe should have started with the first in this series.

I read all the words. I understood the entire story. But I just didn't feel very much. It was an intellectual time-travel story (definitely clever) but the twist at the end made me say "so what", the big question didn't get answered (other than "does it really matter?") and I didn't really connect with any of the characters. I feel like I've just eaten a meal that tasted fine but left me vaguely unsatisfied.

Emily St. John Mandel is a masterful writer, though, so I'm going to go read her other books to see if this helps me understand Sea of Tranquility better.
]]> <![CDATA[Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow]]> 58916147 A newer cover edition can be found here.

In this exhilarating novel by the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry two friends--often in love, but never lovers--come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.]]> 418 Gabrielle Zevin Mark 5 4.26 2022 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Mark
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/03
date added: 2023/05/06
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review:
A rich and wonderful story wrapped in the culture of computer gaming. Three protagonists so well-drawn that you miss them when the story has finished. And, for those of us who grew up with computer games, Ms. Zevin imagines several games that don't exist, but ought to. Very well done and worth your time.
]]> <![CDATA[Death's End (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #3)]]> 25735618
� The War of the Worlds for the 21st century� packed with a sense of wonder.� � Wall Street Journal

The New York Times bestselling conclusion to a tour de force near-future adventure trilogy from China's bestselling and beloved science fiction writer.

With The Three-Body Problem , English-speaking readers got their first chance to read China's most beloved science fiction author, Cixin Liu. The Three-Body Problem was released to great acclaim including coverage in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and reading list picks by Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg . It was also won the Hugo and Nebula Awards, making it the first translated novel to win a major SF award.

Now this epic trilogy concludes with Death's End . Half a century after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge. With human science advancing daily and the Trisolarans adopting Earth culture, it seems that the two civilizations will soon be able to co-exist peacefully as equals without the terrible threat of mutually assured annihilation. But the peace has also made humanity complacent.

Cheng Xin, an aerospace engineer from the early twenty-first century, awakens from hibernation in this new age. She brings with her knowledge of a long-forgotten program dating from the beginning of the Trisolar Crisis, and her very presence may upset the delicate balance between two worlds. Will humanity reach for the stars or die in its cradle?

The Remembrance of Earth's Past series:
The Three-Body Problem
The Dark Forest
Death's End

Other books:
Ball Lightning
Supernova Era
To Hold Up The Sky (forthcoming)

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 605 Liu Cixin Mark 3 4.51 2010 Death's End (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #3)
author: Liu Cixin
name: Mark
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/06
date added: 2023/05/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2)]]> 23168817 512 Liu Cixin Mark 4 4.39 2008 The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2)
author: Liu Cixin
name: Mark
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/18
date added: 2023/05/06
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hope to Die (Matthew Scudder, #15)]]> 76760
There's something drawing Matthew Scudder to this case that the cops have quickly and eagerly closed: a nagging suspicion that a third man is involved, a cold, diabolical puppet master who manipulates his two accomplices, then cuts their strings when he's done with them. No one but Scudder even suspects he exists. And his worst fear is that the guy is just getting started ...]]> 364 Lawrence Block 006103097X Mark 0 3.85 2001 Hope to Die (Matthew Scudder, #15)
author: Lawrence Block
name: Mark
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Even the Wicked (Matthew Scudder #13)]]> 162925 340 Lawrence Block 0752834509 Mark 0 3.96 1996 Even the Wicked (Matthew Scudder #13)
author: Lawrence Block
name: Mark
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian (Bernie Rhodenbarr, #5)]]> 39505
Someone has framed Bernie Rhodenbarr better than they do it at the Whitney. And if he wants to get out of this corner he's been masterfully painted into, he'll have to get to the bottom of a rather artful -- if multiply murderous -- scam.]]> 311 Lawrence Block 0060731435 Mark 4 3.87 1983 The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian (Bernie Rhodenbarr, #5)
author: Lawrence Block
name: Mark
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1983
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/01
date added: 2023/04/11
shelves:
review:
A little complicated, but Lawrence Block never disappoints.
]]> <![CDATA[The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)]]> 20518872 472 Liu Cixin Mark 4 4.08 2006 The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)
author: Liu Cixin
name: Mark
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/01
date added: 2023/04/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?]]> 36402034 258 Philip K. Dick Mark 3 4.16 1968 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
author: Philip K. Dick
name: Mark
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1968
rating: 3
read at: 2023/03/23
date added: 2023/04/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie #8)]]> 10335338
In this latest installment of the beloved Isabel Dalhousie series, our inquisitive heroine helps a new friend discover the identity of her father.

Isabel and her fiance know who they are and where they come from. But not everybody is so fortunate. Jane Cooper, a visiting Australian philosopher on sabbatical in Edinburgh, has more questions than answers. Adopted at birth, Jane is trying to find her biological father, but all she knows about him is that he was a student in Edinburgh years ago. When she asks for Isabel's help in this seemingly impossible search . . . well, of course Isabel obliges.

But Isabel also manages to find time for her own concerns: her young son, Charlie, already walking and talking; her housekeeper, Grace, whose spiritualist has lately been doubling as a financial advisor; her niece Cat's latest relationship; and the pressing question of when and how Isabel and Jamie should finally get married.

Should the forgotten affairs of youth be left in the past, or can the memories help us understand the present? In her inimitable way, Isabel leads us to a new understanding of the meaning of family.]]> 261 Alexander McCall Smith 0307379183 Mark 4 3.84 2011 The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie #8)
author: Alexander McCall Smith
name: Mark
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2013/01/20
date added: 2023/04/09
shelves:
review:
Not much to say here because you're either a fan of this series or you’re not by now. Isabel thinks about things WAY too much and that's what makes her so charming. I find these books extremely restful -- thoughtful breaks between more action-oriented fare.
]]> People of the Book 4027239 People of the Book is a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity by an acclaimed and beloved author. This ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in fifteenth-century Spain. When it falls to Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, to conserve this priceless work, the series of tiny artifacts she discovers in its ancient binding--an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair--only begin to unlock its deep mysteries and unexpectedly plunges Hanna into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics.]]> 372 Geraldine Brooks Mark 0 to-read 3.98 2008 People of the Book
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Mark
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Book That Wouldn’t Burn (The Library Trilogy, #1)]]> 61612864
A girl has spent hers in a tiny settlement out on the Dust where nightmares stalk and no one goes.

The world has never even noticed them. That's about to change.

Their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another. A journey on which knowledge erodes certainty, and on which, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, blood will be spilled and cities burned.]]> 559 Mark Lawrence 0593437918 Mark 0 to-read 3.94 2023 The Book That Wouldn’t Burn (The Library Trilogy, #1)
author: Mark Lawrence
name: Mark
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Witch King (The Rising World, #1)]]> 61885085 "You idiot. I'm the demon."
Kai's having a long day in Martha Wells' Witch King...

After being murdered, his consciousness dormant and unaware of the passing of time while confined in an elaborate water trap, Kai wakes to find a lesser mage attempting to harness Kai’s magic to his own advantage. That was never going to go well.

But why was Kai imprisoned in the first place? What has changed in the world since his assassination? And why does the Rising World Coalition appear to be growing in influence?

Kai will need to pull his allies close and draw on all his pain magic if he is to answer even the least of these questions.

He’s not going to like the answers.]]> 415 Martha Wells 1250826799 Mark 0 to-read 3.60 2023 Witch King (The Rising World, #1)
author: Martha Wells
name: Mark
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Burglars Can't Be Choosers (Bernie Rhodenbarr, #1)]]> 402739
He's not perfect, however; he occasionally makes mistakes. Like accepting a paid assignment from a total stranger to retrieve a particular item from a rich man's apartment. Like still being there when the cops arrive. Like having a freshly slain corpse lying in the next room, and no proof that Bernie isn't the killer.

Now he's really got his hands full, having to locate the true perpetrator while somehow eluding the police -- a dirty job indeed, but if Bernie doesn't do it, who will?]]> 293 Lawrence Block 0060582553 Mark 4 3.82 1977 Burglars Can't Be Choosers (Bernie Rhodenbarr, #1)
author: Lawrence Block
name: Mark
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1977
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/10
date added: 2023/03/16
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]]> <![CDATA[The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling (Bernie Rhodenbarr, #3)]]> 8723074
Now a collector is offering Bernie an opportunity to combine his twin passions by stealing a very rare and very bad book-length poem from a rich man's library.

The heist goes off without a hitch. The delivery of the ill-gotten volume, however, is a different story. Drugged by the client's female go-between, Bernie wakes up in her apartment to find the book gone, the lady dead, a smoking gun in his hand, and the cops at the door. And suddenly he's got to extricate himself from a rather sticky real-life murder mystery and find a killer -- before he's booked for Murder One.]]> 304 Lawrence Block 006182819X Mark 4 4.10 1979 The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling (Bernie Rhodenbarr, #3)
author: Lawrence Block
name: Mark
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1979
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/10
date added: 2023/03/16
shelves:
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]]> The Burglar in the Closet 23989494 218 Lawrence Block Mark 4 4.19 1978 The Burglar in the Closet
author: Lawrence Block
name: Mark
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1978
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/10
date added: 2023/03/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The War Within (The Great God's War #2)]]> 40879126 Stephen R. Donaldson, the New York Times bestselling author of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, returns to the world of his Great God’s War fantasy epic as two kingdoms� united by force—prepare to be challenged by a merciless enemy�

It has been twenty years since Prince Bifalt of Belleger discovered the Last Repository and the sorcerous knowledge hidden there. At the behest of the repository's magisters, and in return for the restoration of sorcery to both kingdoms, the realms of Belleger and Amika ceased generations of war. Their alliance was sealed with the marriage of Bifalt to Estie, the crown princess of Amika. But the peace--and their marriage--has been uneasy.

Now the terrible war that King Bifalt and Queen Estie feared is coming. An ancient enemy has discovered the location of the Last Repository, and a mighty horde of dark forces is massing to attack the library and take the magical knowledge it guards. That horde will slaughter every man, woman, and child in its path, destroying both Belleger and Amika along the way.

With their alliance undermined by lingering hostility and conspiracies threatening, it will take all of the monarchs' strength and will to inspire their kingdoms to become one to defend their land, or all is lost....]]> 576 Stephen R. Donaldson 0399586172 Mark 4 4.21 2019 The War Within (The Great God's War #2)
author: Stephen R. Donaldson
name: Mark
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/14
date added: 2023/03/16
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]]> Never Let Me Go 55132921 From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of the Booker Prize–winning novel The Remains of the Day comes a devastating novel of innocence, knowledge, and loss.
Ěý
As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were. Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special—and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together. Suspenseful, moving, beautifully atmospheric, Never Let Me Go is modern classic.]]> 272 Kazuo Ishiguro Mark 4 3.88 2005 Never Let Me Go
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Mark
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/11
date added: 2023/03/16
shelves:
review:
Brilliantly written and masterfully told. A must-read for anybody who likes to think about the story they're experiencing. But definitely not a feel-good story of the week. You can see hints here of where we might all end up one day.
]]> <![CDATA[The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club, #2)]]> 57465170
Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help. His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, and a very real threat to his life.

As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the diamonds too? Well, wouldn't that be a bonus?

But this time they are up against an enemy who wouldn't bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can The Thursday Murder Club find the killer (and the diamonds) before the killer finds them?]]> 368 Richard Osman Mark 5 4.53 2021 The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club, #2)
author: Richard Osman
name: Mark
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/23
date added: 2023/03/16
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)]]> 59852739
Then a new foe pays Elizabeth a visit. Her mission? Kill or be killed. Suddenly the cold case has become red hot.

While Elizabeth wrestles with her conscience (and a gun), Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim chase down the clues with help from old friends and new. But can the gang solve the mystery and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?

From an upmarket spa to a prison cell complete with espresso machine to a luxury penthouse high in the sky, this third adventure of the Thursday Murder Club is full of the cleverness, intrigue, and irresistible charm that readers have come to expect from Richard Osman's bestselling series.]]> 342 Richard Osman 059329940X Mark 5 4.53 2022 The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)
author: Richard Osman
name: Mark
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/02
date added: 2023/03/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Centers of Gravity (Frontlines, #8)]]> 58669149 Stranded light-years from home, Major Andrew Grayson and his crew are on a desperate mission to discover the Lankies� secrets. They can’t let what they’ve found die with them.

Nine hundred light-years from home, Major Andrew Grayson and the crew of NACS Washington are marooned in a sunless system with limited water, reactor fuel, and food. The last hope for survival is to go where nothing human has gone before.

After embarking on a scouting mission to the only moon with surface signs of life, Andrew and his special tactics team make two startling discoveries. One is a dream: a form of protein and plant life that could save the starving humans in the rogue system. The second is a nightmare: this harvested rock is infested with Lankies. Far from the seemingly mindless aggressors Andrew has battled for years, these show a terrifying awareness, and they have surprising secrets of their own hidden away in the darkness.

When the Lankies sense an uninvited presence in their world, Andrew’s operation becomes an expedition to hell. The odds against his small crew are stacked high. Of all the mysteries of space, how to escape with their lives is the greatest unknown of all.]]> 329 Marko Kloos 1542032806 Mark 5 Marko Kloos has more to share with us in the future.

If you haven't read this series, it's excellent. Gripping from the first book.]]> 4.57 2022 Centers of Gravity (Frontlines, #8)
author: Marko Kloos
name: Mark
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/17
date added: 2023/03/16
shelves:
review:
Actually kind of sorry to see this series end, or at least seem to end. While Andrew's adventures seem like they're understandably over, it feels like there's more to the story here. Hopefully Marko Kloos has more to share with us in the future.

If you haven't read this series, it's excellent. Gripping from the first book.
]]> <![CDATA[The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza (Bernie Rhodenbarr, #4)]]> 76755 320 Lawrence Block 0451194888 Mark 4 3.86 1980 The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza (Bernie Rhodenbarr, #4)
author: Lawrence Block
name: Mark
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1980
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/14
date added: 2023/03/16
shelves:
review:

]]> Upgrade 59838811 You are the next step in human evolution.

At first, Logan Ramsay isn’t sure if anything’s different. He just feels a little . . . sharper. Better able to concentrate. Better at multitasking. Reading a bit faster, memorizing better, needing less sleep.

But before long, he can’t deny it: Something’s happening to his brain. To his body. He’s starting to see the world, and those around him—even those he loves most—in whole new ways.

The truth is, Logan’s genome has been hacked. And there’s a reason he’s been targeted for this upgrade. A reason that goes back decades to the darkest part of his past, and a horrific family legacy.

Worse still, what’s happening to him is just the first step in a much larger plan, one that will inflict the same changes on humanity at large—at a terrifying cost.

Because of his new abilities, Logan’s the one person in the world capable of stopping what’s been set in motion. But to have a chance at winning this war, he’ll have to become something other than himself. Maybe even something other than human.

And even as he’s fighting, he can’t help wondering: what if humanity’s only hope for a future really does lie in engineering our own evolution?

Intimate in scale yet epic in scope, Upgrade is an intricately plotted, lightning-fast tale that charts one man’s thrilling transformation, even as it asks us to ponder the limits of our humanity—and our boundless potential.]]> 352 Blake Crouch 0593157532 Mark 0 to-read 3.77 2022 Upgrade
author: Blake Crouch
name: Mark
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Killing God (The Great God's War)]]> 60012648
They are coming.

The kingdoms of Belleger and Amika had been fighting for generations. But then they learned of a terrible threat moving through them to destroy the Last Repository, an immense hidden library. To face this greater enemy, King Bifalt of Belleger and Queen Estie of Amika allied their lands and prepared for war.

They are at the door.

Now the time of preparation is over. Black ships and sorcery test the cannon that defend the Bay of Lights. Treachery and betrayal threaten the kingdoms. The priests of the Great God Rile sow dissent. And Estie rides for the Last Repository, desperate to enlist the help of their Magisters—and to understand the nature of her own magical gift.

They are here.

Bifalt hates sorcery as much as he loves Estie, and the discovery that she could become a Magister shatters him. But he must rally and fight. Belleger and Amika are all that stand between the Great God’s forces and his ultimate the destruction of the Last Repository and its treasure of knowledge.]]> 704 Stephen R. Donaldson 0399586199 Mark 5 Stephen R. Donaldson is a treasure. I think I'd pay to read the man's grocery list. It probably involves some tortured, self-loathing broccoli challenged by an unstoppable army of arrogant, microwave dinners.

All that said, the Killing God trilogy reaches an immensely satisfying conclusion in The Killing God. Unlike Donaldson's other books, this series is a war novel, plain and simple. Overwhelmingly powerful adversary against underpowered defenders with insufficient time to prepare. Like Donaldson's other books, we have our self-loathing protagonist who finds redemption in the end. And we have a little romance as well, which was a nice touch.

I felt like this entire series could have been a parable for something larger. The enemy (the Killing God) is really a god of ignorance and mental enslavement who wants to destroy all remaining citadels of knowledge and learning. A series for our times, perhaps.]]> 4.08 2022 The Killing God (The Great God's War)
author: Stephen R. Donaldson
name: Mark
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/16
date added: 2023/03/16
shelves:
review:
Anything by Stephen R. Donaldson is a treasure. I think I'd pay to read the man's grocery list. It probably involves some tortured, self-loathing broccoli challenged by an unstoppable army of arrogant, microwave dinners.

All that said, the Killing God trilogy reaches an immensely satisfying conclusion in The Killing God. Unlike Donaldson's other books, this series is a war novel, plain and simple. Overwhelmingly powerful adversary against underpowered defenders with insufficient time to prepare. Like Donaldson's other books, we have our self-loathing protagonist who finds redemption in the end. And we have a little romance as well, which was a nice touch.

I felt like this entire series could have been a parable for something larger. The enemy (the Killing God) is really a god of ignorance and mental enslavement who wants to destroy all remaining citadels of knowledge and learning. A series for our times, perhaps.
]]> <![CDATA[The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)]]> 46000520
But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?

Alternate cover edition can be found here .]]> 382 Richard Osman Mark 5 3.87 2020 The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)
author: Richard Osman
name: Mark
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/01
date added: 2023/03/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, #11)]]> 6416196 Jim Butcher’s breakthrough #1 New York Times bestseller starring Chicago’s only professional wizard, Harry Dresden.

When it comes to the magical ruling body known as the White Council, Harry is thought of as either a black sheep or a sacrificial lamb. And none hold him in more disdain than Morgan, a veteran Warden with a grudge against anyone who bends the rules. But now, Morgan is in trouble. He’s been accused of cold-blooded murder—a crime with only one, final punishment.

He’s on the run, wanting his name cleared, and he needs someone with a knack for backing the underdog. So it’s up to Harry to uncover a traitor within the Council, keep Morgan under wraps, and avoid coming under scrutiny himself. And a single mistake may cost someone his head.

Someone like Harry...]]> 545 Jim Butcher 1101032421 Mark 4 4.53 2009 Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, #11)
author: Jim Butcher
name: Mark
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/20
date added: 2023/01/24
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Seventh Decimate (The Great God's War #1)]]> 33865836 The acclaimed author of the Thomas Covenant Chronicles launches a powerful new trilogy about a prince's desperate quest for a sorcerous library to save his people.

Fire. Wind. Pestilence. Earthquake. Drought. Lightning. These are the six Decimates, wielded by sorcerers for both good and evil.

But a seventh Decimate exists--the most devastating one of all...

For centuries, the realms of Belleger and Amika have been at war, with sorcerers from both sides brandishing the Decimates to rain blood and pain upon their enemy. But somehow, in some way, the Amikans have discovered and invoked a seventh Decimate, one that strips all lesser sorcery of its power. And now the Bellegerins stand defenseless.

Prince Bifalt, eldest son of the Bellegerin King, would like to see the world wiped free of sorcerers. But it is he who is charged with finding the repository of all of their knowledge, to find the book of the seventh Decimate--and reverse the fate of his land.

All hope rests with Bifalt. But the legendary library, which may or may not exist, lies beyond an unforgiving desert and treacherous mountains--and beyond the borders of his own experience. Wracked by hunger and fatigue, sacrificing loyal men along the way, Bifalt will discover that there is a game being played by those far more powerful than he could ever imagine. And that he is nothing but a pawn...]]> 307 Stephen R. Donaldson Mark 3
Stylistically, this feels more like a parable than his other novels. Yes, there's world building, but it's narrower, less lush, and more focused on the protagonist. And, with many of Donaldson's stories, the protagonist is flawed with anger and bad judgment.]]> 3.10 2017 Seventh Decimate (The Great God's War #1)
author: Stephen R. Donaldson
name: Mark
average rating: 3.10
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2023/01/02
date added: 2023/01/02
shelves:
review:
Belliger and Amika have been warring for decades, aided by magic. Neither side can defeat the other. But the magic has suddenly turned off and the Prince of Belliger undertakes a journey to find and seize the magic that will save his people.

Stylistically, this feels more like a parable than his other novels. Yes, there's world building, but it's narrower, less lush, and more focused on the protagonist. And, with many of Donaldson's stories, the protagonist is flawed with anger and bad judgment.
]]> <![CDATA[The Atlas Paradox (The Atlas, #2)]]> 57912066 Five are now members of the Society.
Two paths lie before them.

All must pick a side.

Alliances will be tested, hearts will be broken, and The Society of Alexandrians will be revealed for what it is: a secret society with raw, world-changing power, headed by a man whose plans to change life as we know it are already under way.]]> 560 Olivie Blake 1250855128 Mark 4 3.51 2022 The Atlas Paradox (The Atlas, #2)
author: Olivie Blake
name: Mark
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/30
date added: 2023/01/02
shelves:
review:

]]> The Atlas Six (The Atlas #1) 59807955
Enter the latest round of six: Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona, unwilling halves of an unfathomable whole, who exert uncanny control over every element of physicality. Reina Mori, a naturalist, who can intuit the language of life itself. Parisa Kamali, a telepath who can traverse the depths of the subconscious, navigating worlds inside the human mind. Callum Nova, an empath easily mistaken for a manipulative illusionist, who can influence the intimate workings of a person’s inner self. Finally, there is Tristan Caine, who can see through illusions to a new structure of reality—an ability so rare that neither he nor his peers can fully grasp its implications.

When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they will have one year to qualify for initiation, during which time they will be permitted preliminary access to the Society’s archives and judged based on their contributions to various subjects of impossibility: time and space, luck and thought, life and death. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. The six potential initiates will fight to survive the next year of their lives, and if they can prove themselves to be the best among their rivals, most of them will.

Most of them.]]> 375 Olivie Blake 1250854547 Mark 4 3.48 2020 The Atlas Six (The Atlas #1)
author: Olivie Blake
name: Mark
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/20
date added: 2023/01/02
shelves:
review:
Magic library. Six powerful students enter every ten years; Five are inducted. Very cerebral, character-driven story. Strongly recommended.
]]> Primitives 60293362
Thirty years after The Great Fatigue infected the globe—and the treatment regressed most of the human race to a primitive state—Seth Keller makes a gruesome discovery in his adoptive father’s makeshift lab. This revelation forces him to leave the safety of his desert home and the only other person left in the world…at least, as far as he knows.

Three thousand miles away in the jungles of Costa Rica, Sarah Peoples has made her own discovery—just as horrific, and just as life-changing. It will take her far from the fledgling colony of New Haven, yet never out of reach of its ruthless authoritarian leader.

On separate journeys a world apart, Seth and Sarah find themselves swept up in a deadly race to save humankind. Their fates will come crashing together in an epic struggle between good and evil, where the differences aren’t always clear. Among the grim realities of civilization’s demise, they discover that the remaining survivors may pose an even greater threat than the abominations they were taught to fear.

Fighting for their lives, they’re confronted with a haunting question.

Does humanity deserve to survive?

Primitives, the first book of this saga, is a tale of bravery and self-discovery found in the ruins of a dying world, where the darkest sides of human nature are revealed.]]> 424 Erich Krauss 1628601337 Mark 0 to-read 3.80 2022 Primitives
author: Erich Krauss
name: Mark
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Sleepwalk 57771216 A high speed and darkly comic road trip through a near future America with a big hearted mercenary, from beloved and acclaimed novelist Dan Chaon

ł§±ô±đ±đ±č·É˛ą±ô°ě’s hero, Will Bear, is a man with so many aliases that he simply thinks of himself as the Barely Blur. At fifty years old, he’s been living off the grid for over half his life. He’s never had a real job, never paid taxes, never been in a committed relationship. A good-natured henchman with a complicated and lonely past and an LSD microdosing problem, he spends his time hopscotching across state lines in his beloved camper van, running sometimes shady, often dangerous errands for a powerful and ruthless operation he’s never troubled himself to learn too much about. He has lots of connections, but no true ties. His longest relationships are with an old rescue dog with posttraumatic stress, and a childhood friend as deeply entrenched in the underworld as he is, who, lately, he’s less and less sure he can trust.

Out of the blue, one of his many burner phones heralds a call from a twenty-year-old woman claiming to be his biological daughter, Cammie. She says she’s the product of one of his long-ago sperm donations; he’s half certain she’s AI. She needs his help. She’s entrenched in a widespread and nefarious plot involving Will’s employers, and continuing to have any contact with her increasingly fuzzes the line between the people Will is working for and the people he’s running from.

With his signature blend of haunting emotional realism and fast-paced intrigue, Chaon populates his fractured America with characters who ring all too true. Gazing both back to the past and forward to an inevitable enough seeming future, Sleepwalk examines where we’ve been and where we’re going, and the curses and joys of being human that will never change, no matter how far we travel to dodge them, or how cleverly we hide.]]> 320 Dan Chaon 1250175216 Mark 0 to-read 3.61 2022 Sleepwalk
author: Dan Chaon
name: Mark
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Genesis of Misery 59808142 An immersive, electrifying space-fantasy from Neon Yang, author of The Black Tides of Heaven, full of high-tech space battles and political machinations, starring a queer and diverse array of pilots, princesses, and prophetic heirs.

This is the story of Misery Nomaki (she/they) � a nobody from a nowhere mining planet who possesses the rare stone-working powers of a saint. Unfortunately, these saint-like abilities also manifest in those succumbing to voidmadness, like that which killed Misery’s mother. Knowing they aren’t a saint but praying they aren’t voidmad, Misery keeps quiet about their power for years, while dreaming and scheming up ways off their Forge-forsaken planet.

But when the voice of an angel, or a very convincing delusion, leads Misery to the center of the Empire, they find themself trapped between two powerful and dangerous factions, each hoping to use Misery to win a terrible war.

Still waiting to be convinced of their own divinity and secretly training with a crew of outlaws and outcasts, Misery grows close to a rebel royal, Lady Alodia Lightning, who may know something of saints and prophecy herself. The voice that guides Misery grows bolder by the day, and it seems the madness is catching…]]> 419 Neon Yang 1250788978 Mark 0 to-read 3.38 2022 The Genesis of Misery
author: Neon Yang
name: Mark
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Atomic Anna 58684535 Three generations of women work together and travel through time to prevent the Chernobyl disaster and right the wrongs of their past.

Three brilliant women.
Two life-changing mistakes.
One chance to reset the future.

In 1986, renowned nuclear scientist, Anna Berkova, is sleeping in her bed in the Soviet Union when Chernobyl’s reactor melts down. It’s the exact moment she tears through time—and it’s an accident. When she opens her eyes, she’s landed in 1992 only to discover Molly, her estranged daughter, shot in the chest. Molly, with her dying breath, begs Anna to go back in time and stop the disaster, to save Molly’s daughter Raisa, and put their family’s future on a better path.

In â€�60s Philadelphia, Molly is coming of age as an adopted refusenik. Her family is full of secrets and a past they won’t share. She finds solace in comic books, drawing her own series,ĚýAtomic Anna, and she’s determined to make it as an artist. When she meets the volatile, charismatic Viktor, their romance sets her life on a very different course.

In the â€�80s, Raisa, is a lonely teen and math prodigy, until a quiet, handsome boy moves in across the street and an odd old woman shows up claiming to be her biological grandmother. As Raisa finds new issues ofĚýAtomic Anna in unexpected places, she notices each comic challenges her to solve equations leading to one impossible conclusion: time travel. And she finally understands what she has to do.

As these remarkable women work together to prevent the greatest nuclear disaster of the 20th century, they grapple with the power their discoveries hold. Just because you can change the past, does it mean you should?]]> 433 Rachel Barenbaum 1538734869 Mark 0 to-read 3.76 2022 Atomic Anna
author: Rachel Barenbaum
name: Mark
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Lost in Time 60522318
Save the future.

One morning, Dr. Sam Anderson wakes up to find that the woman he loves has been murdered.

For Sam, the horror is only beginning. He and his daughter are accused of the crime. The evidence is ironclad. They will be convicted. And so, to ensure his daughter goes free, Sam does what he must: he confesses. But in the future, murderers aren't sent to prison. Thanks to a machine Sam helped invent, the world's worst criminals are now sent to the past � approximately 200 million years into the past, to the dawn of the time of the dinosaurs � where they must live out their lives alone, in exile from the human race. Sam accepts his fate. But his daughter doesn't. Adeline Anderson has already lost her mother to a deadly, unfair disease. She can't bear to lose her father as well. So she sets out on a quest to prove him innocent. And to get him back. People around her insist that both are impossible tasks. But Adeline doesn't give up. She only works harder. She soon learns that impossible tasks are her specialty. And that she is made of tougher stuff than she ever imagined. As she peels back the layers of the mystery that tore her father from this world, Adeline finds more questions than answers. Everyone around her is hiding a secret. But which ones are connected to the murder that exiled her father?]]> 455 A.G. Riddle 1804541753 Mark 0 to-read 4.20 2022 Lost in Time
author: A.G. Riddle
name: Mark
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Self-Portrait with Nothing 59807970 If a picture paints a thousand worlds...

Abandoned as an infant on the local veterinarian’s front porch, Pepper Rafferty was raised by two loving mothers, and now at thirty-six is married to the stable, supportive Ike. She’s never told anyone that at fifteen she discovered the identity of her biological mother.

That’s because her birth mother is Ula Frost, a reclusive painter famous for the outrageous claims that her portraits summon their subjects� doppelgangers from parallel universes.

Researching the rumors, Pepper couldn’t help but wonder:
Was there a parallel universe in which she was more confident, more accomplished, better able to accept love?
A universe in which Ula decided she was worth keeping?
A universe in which Ula’s rejection didn’t still hurt too much to share?

Sometimes living our best life means embracing the imperfect one we already have…]]> 295 Aimee Pokwatka 1250820847 Mark 0 to-read 3.47 2022 Self-Portrait with Nothing
author: Aimee Pokwatka
name: Mark
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Leech 59807968 In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron’s doctor has died. The doctor’s replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies.

For hundreds of years the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors, replacing every human practitioner of medicine. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed.

In the frozen north, the Institute's body will discover a competitor for its rung at the top of the evolutionary ladder. A parasite is spreading through the baron's castle, already a dark pit of secrets, lies, violence, and fear. The two will make war on the battlefield of the body. Whichever wins, humanity will lose again.]]> 323 Hiron Ennes 125081118X Mark 0 to-read 3.57 2022 Leech
author: Hiron Ennes
name: Mark
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ocean's Echo (Winter's Orbit, #2)]]> 59808117
"I inhaled this one like I needed it to live." � New York Times Book Review

Rich socialite, inveterate flirt, and walking disaster Tennalhin Halkana can read minds. Tennal, like all neuromodified “readers,� is a security threat on his own. But when controlled, readers are a rare asset. Not only can they read minds, but they can navigate chaotic space, the maelstroms surrounding the gateway to the wider universe.

Conscripted into the military under dubious circumstances, Tennal is placed into the care of Lieutenant Surit Yeni, a duty-bound soldier, principled leader, and the son of a notorious traitor general. Whereas Tennal can read minds, Surit can influence them. Like all other neuromodified “architects,� he can impose his will onto others, and he’s under orders to control Tennal by merging their minds.

Surit accepted a suspicious promotion-track request out of desperation, but he refuses to go through with his illegal orders to sync and control an unconsenting Tennal. So they They fake a sync bond and plan Tennal's escape.

Their best chance arrives with a salvage-retrieval mission into chaotic space―to the very neuromodifcation lab that Surit's traitor mother destroyed twenty years ago. And among the rubble is a treasure both terrible and unimaginably powerful, one that upends a decades-old power struggle, and begins a war.

Tennal and Surit can no longer abandon their unit or their world. The only way to avoid life under full military control is to complete the very sync they've been faking.

Can two unwilling weapons of war bring about peace?]]> 464 Everina Maxwell 1250758866 Mark 0 to-read 4.11 2022 Ocean's Echo (Winter's Orbit, #2)
author: Everina Maxwell
name: Mark
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Station Eternity (The Midsolar Murders, #1)]]> 60035241 Amateur detective Mallory Viridian’s talent for solving murders ruined her life on Earth and drove her to live on an alien space station, but her problems still follow her in this witty, self-aware novel that puts a speculative spin on murder mysteries, from the Hugo-nominated author of Six Wakes.

From idyllic small towns to claustrophobic urban landscapes, Mallory Viridian is constantly embroiled in murder cases that only she has the insight to solve. But outside of a classic mystery novel, being surrounded by death doesn’t make you a charming amateur detective, it makes you a suspect and a social pariah. So when Mallory gets the opportunity to take refuge on a sentient space station, she thinks she has the solution. Surely the murders will stop if her only company is alien beings. At first her new existence is peacefully quiet...and markedly devoid of homicide.

But when the station agrees to allow additional human guests, Mallory knows the break from her peculiar reality is over. After the first Earth shuttle arrives, and aliens and humans alike begin to die, the station is thrown into peril. Stuck smack-dab in the middle of an extraterrestrial whodunit, and wondering how in the world this keeps happening to her anyway, Mallory has to solve the crime—and fast—or the list of victims could grow to include everyone on board…]]> 457 Mur Lafferty 0593098110 Mark 0 to-read 3.62 2022 Station Eternity (The Midsolar Murders, #1)
author: Mur Lafferty
name: Mark
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hunt the Stars (Starlight's Shadow, #1)]]> 56754734
With so much money on the line, Torran and his crew insist on joining the hunt. Tavi reluctantly agrees because while the handsome, stoic leader pushes all of her buttons—for both anger and desire—she’s endured worse, and the massive bonus payment he’s promised for a completed job is reason enough to shut up and deal.

But when they uncover a deeper plot that threatens the delicate peace between humans and Valoffs, Tavi suspects that Torran has been using her as the impetus for a new war. With the fate of her crew balanced on a knife’s edge, Tavi must decide where her loyalties lie—with the quiet Valoff who’s been lying to her, or with the human leaders who left her squad to die on the battlefield. And this time, she’s put her heart on the line.

The critically acclaimed author of Polaris Rising takes readers on an exciting journey with the start of her brand-new series about a female bounty hunter and the man who is her sworn enemy.]]> 419 Jessie Mihalik 0063051036 Mark 0 to-read 3.97 2022 Hunt the Stars (Starlight's Shadow, #1)
author: Jessie Mihalik
name: Mark
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Dead Silence 57693184 Titanic meets The Shining in S.A. Barnes� Dead Silence, a SF horror novel in which a woman and her crew board a decades-lost luxury cruiser and find the wreckage of a nightmare that hasn't yet ended.

A GHOST SHIP.
A SALVAGE CREW.
UNSPEAKABLE HORRORS.

Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed—made obsolete—when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate.

What they find at the other end of the signal is a shock: the Aurora, a famous luxury space-liner that vanished on its maiden tour of the solar system more than twenty years ago. A salvage claim like this could set Claire and her crew up for life. But a quick trip through the Aurora reveals something isn’t right.

Whispers in the dark. Flickers of movement. Words scrawled in blood. Claire must fight to hold onto her sanity and find out what really happened on the Aurora, before she and her crew meet the same ghastly fate.]]> 343 S.A. Barnes 1250819997 Mark 0 to-read 3.76 2022 Dead Silence
author: S.A. Barnes
name: Mark
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> How High We Go in the Dark 57850265
Among those adjusting to this new normal are an aspiring comedian, employed by a theme park designed for terminally ill children, who falls in love with a mother trying desperately to keep her son alive; a scientist who, having failed to save his own son from the plague, gets a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects-a pig-develops human speech; a man who, after recovering from his own coma, plans a block party for his neighbours who have also woken up to find that they alone have survived their families; and a widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter who must set off on cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.

From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead, How High We Go in the Dark follows a cast of intricately linked characters spanning hundreds of years as humanity endeavours to restore the delicate balance of the world. This is a story of unshakable hope that crosses literary lines to give us a world rebuilding itself through an endless capacity for love, resilience and reinvention. Wonderful and disquieting, dreamlike and all too possible.]]> 293 Sequoia Nagamatsu 0063072645 Mark 0 to-read 3.81 2022 How High We Go in the Dark
author: Sequoia Nagamatsu
name: Mark
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Nona the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #3)]]> 58662507
The zombies are coming back.

And all Nona wants is a birthday party.

In many ways, Nona is like other people. She lives with her family, has a job at her local school, and loves walks on the beach and meeting new dogs. But Nona's not like other people. Six months ago she woke up in a stranger's body, and she's afraid she might have to give it back.

The whole city is falling to pieces. A monstrous blue sphere hangs on the horizon, ready to tear the planet apart. Blood of Eden forces have surrounded the last Cohort facility and wait for the Emperor Undying to come calling. Their leaders want Nona to be the weapon that will save them from the Nine Houses. Nona would prefer to live an ordinary life with the people she loves, with Pyrrha and Camilla and Palamedes, but she also knows that nothing lasts forever.

And each night, Nona dreams of a woman with a skull-painted face...]]> 480 Tamsyn Muir 1250854113 Mark 0 to-read 4.36 2022 Nona the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #3)
author: Tamsyn Muir
name: Mark
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Daughter of Doctor Moreau 54829360 A lavish historical drama reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Mexico.

Carlota Moreau: a young woman, growing up in a distant and luxuriant estate, safe from the conflict and strife of the Yucatán peninsula. The only daughter of either a genius, or a madman.

Montgomery Laughton: a melancholic overseer with a tragic past and a propensity for alcohol. An outcast who assists Dr. Moreau with his scientific experiments, which are financed by the Lizaldes, owners of magnificent haciendas and plentiful coffers.

The hybrids: the fruits of the Doctor’s labor, destined to blindly obey their creator and remain in the shadows. A motley group of part human, part animal monstrosities.

All of them living in a perfectly balanced and static world, which is jolted by the abrupt arrival of Eduardo Lizalde, the charming and careless son of Doctor Moreau’s patron, who will unwittingly begin a dangerous chain reaction.

For Moreau keeps secrets, Carlota has questions, and in the sweltering heat of the jungle, passions may ignite.

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau is both a dazzling historical novel and a daring science fiction journey.]]> 306 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0593355334 Mark 0 to-read 3.56 2022 The Daughter of Doctor Moreau
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Mark
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Kaiju Preservation Society]]> 57807199 The Kaiju Preservation Society is John Scalzi's first standalone adventure since the conclusion of his New York Times bestselling Interdependency trilogy.

When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls "an animal rights organization." Tom's team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on.

What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at at least. In an alternate dimension, massive dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm and human-free world. They're the universe's largest and most dangerous panda and they're in trouble.

It's not just the Kaiju Preservation Society that's found its way to the alternate world. Others have, too--and their carelessness could cause millions back on our Earth to die.]]> 268 John Scalzi Mark 4 4.19 2022 The Kaiju Preservation Society
author: John Scalzi
name: Mark
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/11
date added: 2022/12/11
shelves:
review:
Always enjoy Scalzi. This one is a lightweight, standalone story that’s more fun than weighty. He calls it a “pop song� in the closing notes. Scalzi is a genius with dialogue and this had several laugh-out-loud moments. Definitely recommended for Scalzi fans and those looking for a quick, entertaining read.
]]> <![CDATA[Orders of Battle (Frontlines, #7)]]> 53528390
It’s been four years since Earth threw its full military prowess against the Lanky incursion. Humanity has been yanked back from the abyss of extinction. The solar system is at peace. For now.

The future for Major Andrew Grayson of the Commonwealth Defense Corps and his wife, Halley? Flying desk duty on the front. No more nightmares of monstrous things. No more traumas to the mind and body. But when an offer comes down from above, Andrew has to make a choice: continue pushing papers into retirement, or jump right back into the fight? What’s a podhead to do?

The remaining Lankies may have retreated in fear, but the threat isn’t over. They need to be wiped out for good before they strike again. That’ll take a new offensive deployment. Aboard an Avenger warship, Andrew and the special tactics team under his command embark on the ultimate search-and-destroy mission. This time, it’ll be on Lanky turf.

No big heroics. No unnecessary risks. Just a swift hit-and-run raid in the hostile Capella system. Blow the alien seed ships into oblivion and get the hell back to Earth. At least, that’s the objective. But when does anything in war go according to plan?]]> 269 Marko Kloos 1542015111 Mark 4 4.36 2020 Orders of Battle (Frontlines, #7)
author: Marko Kloos
name: Mark
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/03/08
date added: 2022/12/06
shelves:
review:

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