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Books, Other People's Books

Opening 2019 book roundup, with bonus extra 2018

It will probably surprise none of you that I didn’t get too far into 2019 without getting more new books. ๐Ÿ˜€

Ebooks

This is technically a book I bought at Orycon, but I didn’t actually go download it off the publisher site until this month. So I’m counting this as a 2019 acquisition: Soul Born, by Kevin James Breaux. This is a fantasy novel put out by Azure Spider Publications, who had a table at Orycon right near the one I was sharing with fellow NIWA members Madison Keller and Jeffrey Cook. I liked the look of the cover, and had a pleasant chat with the lady at the table. So I bought a download code for the book!

A Princess in Theory

A Princess in Theory

Meanwhile, acquired from Kobo, because both of them were on sale for $1.99 at the time:

A Princess in Theory, by Alyssa Cole. I don’t normally buy contemporary romance. But Alyssa Cole has been on the Smart Bitches podcast a couple of times, and she’s delightful. Plus, a) I liked the previous thing of hers I read, An Extraordinary Union, and b) the cover on this title is beautiful. I really like how it’s dynamic and romantic without having to rely upon either person being scantily clad.

Plus, the color scheme stands out to my eye as well. Cole even talked about that on the podcast, and about how the heroine’s dress and the hero’s tie were both patterns she came up with herself, inspired by traditional African ones.

And since she’s an author of color I am happy to explore more of her work!

And #2: no lie, I will totally be reading this thing and mentally casting Chadwick Boseman as the hero. ๐Ÿ˜‰

A Study in Honor, by Claire O’Dell. This one is SF, and came across my radar last year as a new Sherlock Holmes pastiche. The thing here is, the Sherlock and Watson analogues here are both black, queer women. Which strikes me as rather awesome. I’ll be intrigued to see how the author handles keeping core recognizable “Sherlock” and “Watson” characteristics while diverging so hugely from the original characters, as well as so blatantly different a setting. I.e., a futuristic SF dystopia.

Print Books

This actually was a book I acquired in 2018, but which I never mentioned: Cracking the Coding Interview. I ordered this from Amazon last month because I need it for job hunting purposes. And I’ve started slowly working my way through it. It came highly recommended to me by one of my former Big Fish teammates, and so far, a few exercises in, I’m already finding it valuable.

And, since my household always does a gift exchange when Paul returns from Virginia, this also counts as a 2018 acquisition: the hardback edition of The Fall of Gondolin! Which I’ve already read in ebook form, but which I also wanted in hardback.

This bumps my 2018 total up to 59. And so far for 2019, we’re at 3!

Books, Other People's Books

End of year ebook roundup

I was going to post this sooner, but I got smacked upside the head by an end-of-year cold. So let’s open 2019 by talking about the last few ebooks I grabbed during 2018, shall we?

Acquired from Kobo:

Blood Orbit, by K.R. Richardson. K.R. Richardson is a.k.a. Kat Richardson, and as y’all know, I loves me some Greywalker books. So this, her first outing into SF, was something I’d had my eye on to get for a while. Finally picked it up during Orycon, when I chatted with Kat there.

Head On, by John Scalzi. This is book 2 of his series that began with Lock In, and which I quite enjoyed. Finally snagged this when it went briefly on sale in ebook form.

Solomon’s Seal, by Skyla Dawn Cameron. Saw this one talked up on the Smart Bitches site in a roundup of ebook sales. And it sounds like potential Big Silly Fun, for which I’m willing to plunk down 99 cents. The sample I read on Kobo’s site seemed promising, too!

That puts me at 57 for the year.

Books, Other People's Books

Another quick clearing of the inbox ebook roundup

There’s some new Julia Czerneda in my near future, but until THAT happens, behold! A few more books I’ve picked up lately, all from Kobo:

Within the Sanctuary of Wings, by Marie Brennan. The final book in the Lady Trent series, which I’ve finally been able to pick up as the price came down some more. VERY much looking forward to savoring this.

Chapel of Ease, by Alex Bledsoe. This is I believe the fourth book in his Tufa series, which started with the wonderful The Hum and the Shiver.

To Guard Against the Dark, by the aforementioned Julie E. Czerneda. This is the third book of her Reunification trilogy, and I’m looking forward to savoring this too!

The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky, by N.K. Jemisin. The second and third books of her Broken Earth trilogy. VERY much enjoying this. Plowing through Book 2 right now and should be charging into Book 3 in the next week or so.

This brings me to 54 for the year.

Books, Other People's Books

A holy crap have I really not posted since July?! ebook roundup

So yeah y’all may or may not have noticed I’ve been really behind on getting things posted around here. I’ve got a lot of things I just petered out on completely, and I’ve been trying to explore new ways of dealing with that.

But in the meantime, yes, hi, this blog still exists, so here, have a quick ebook roundup post!

Purchased from Amazon:

Stillhouse Lake and Killman Creek, by Rachel Caine. I have a long history of loving Caine’s work, though these two are a change of pace: they’re thrillers in which the heroine has to deal with discovering her husband is a serial killer. (YIKES!) I will probably have to be in the right headspace to read these, and I don’t know when that’s going to be. But I got them because a) Caine! and b) they were on sale.

I also nabbed them from Amazon specifically because this particular series is in fact _only_ available on Amazon. For favorite authors, I will in fact purchase from Amazon if that’s the only way I can get their work.

And back in the land where I usually purchase my ebooks, i.e., Kobo:

A Conspiracy in Belgravia, by Sherry Thomas. This is book 2 of her Lady Sherlock series, which I grabbed again because it was on sale, and also because this series has gotten talked up a lot on the Smart Bitches podcast. Thomas is a delightful interviewee, and that as well as just being fond of Sherlock Holmes pastiches drove me to go ahead and pick up book 1 earlier. Now I’ve got book 2 as well.

(And for those of you unfamiliar with this particular series, it’s still Victorian England, but ‘Sherlock Holmes’ is a cover identity of a young lady of the gentry, Charlotte Holmes. I’m reading book 1 right now as of this writing, and so far, I’m pretty intrigued by her backstory. But I’m anxious to get to the part where she’s actively solving crimes.)

Wonderful, by Jill Barnett. Historical romance. This had been hanging out for some time on my wishlist, until I recently discovered that the author had new editions of the trilogy. And also that book 1 was free. I like free! So I finally nabbed this one.

The Fall of Gondolin, by J.R.R. and Christopher Tolkien. And absolutely NONE of you should be surprised I nabbed this. This is going to possibly be the last volume of the truly great stories out of The Silmarillion edited by J.R.R. Tolkien’s son Christopher, if nothing else just due to Christopher Tolkien’s advanced years. But I’m very much looking forward to diving into this. I always felt that the fall of Gondolin was a story given short shrift in The Silmarillion!

(It should also surprise none of you I will also be picking this up in print. The print edition is currently hanging out on my Amazon wishlist. We’ll see if it shows up around Yuletide this year.)

Pre-orders which have shown up now but which I counted already:

The Fated Sky, by Mary Robinette Kowal. Now that I’ve read The Calculating Stars, I’m VERY much looking forward to diving into this.

The Girl in the Green Silk Gown, by Seanan McGuire. Another book 2 I’m looking forward to, after an excellent book 1.

This brings me up to 49 for the year.

Other People's Books

Mid-July ebook roundup

Nabbed from Kobo in the last couple weeks or so:

The City & The City, by China Mieville. Had previously owned in print, re-bought in ebook, nabbed it because the ebook was on sale.

The Girl in the Green Silk Gown, by Seanan McGuire. This is another preorder! And I nabbed it because it’s a sequel to her earlier Rose Marshall release, Sparrow Hill Road. I quite liked that first Rose Marshall, and I’m looking forward to this new one. It’ll be coming out very soon after this post!

And my preorder for The Calculating Stars showed up, which I am ALSO very much looking forward to reading. ๐Ÿ˜€

44 for the year.

Other People's Books

End of June 2018 ebook roundup

Because I forgot to note that I nabbed it as Tor.com’s May freebie, here’s that for the ebook roundup:

The Quantum Thief, by Hannu Rajaniemi. SF.

Also, two of my pre-orders mentioned in the last roundup post came in, yay! Looking forward to reading Witchmark and Trail of Lightning!

But meanwhile, I also nabbed all three of Tanya Huff’s Peacekeeper trilogy from Kobo, now that Book 3 has dropped. This is of course military SF and I grabbed ’em on general “Because Tanya Huff needs more of my money” principles, and because I’ve liked the Torin Kerr books that came before these. These books are An Ancient Peace, A Peace Divided, and The Privilege of Peace.

42 for the year (I’ve already counted Trail of Lightning and Witchmark).

Other People's Books

Mid June 2018 ebook roundup

This month’s free ebook from Tor.com’s ebook club was V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic, so I nabbed that one. Because hey, free!

Nabbed from Kobo, because they were on sale:

Provenance, by Ann Leckie. I’ve been enjoying the Ancillary novels quite a bit (I’ve read the first two, still need to read the third), so I wanted this one as well.

Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente. Because if you tell me a book is essentially “Eurovision IN SPACE”, then why yes you HAVE MY ATTENTION. ;D

And pre-ordered from Kobo, because all of these are relevant to my interests:

The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky, by Mary Robinette Kowal. Pair of novels set in the same universe as her excellent short story “The Lady Astronaut of Mars”. VERY much looking forward to these.

Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse. Urban fantasy. Nabbing this one because a) it’s urban fantasy utilizing Navaho mythos, and b) written by an actual Native American author. Also VERY much looking forward to this one. ๐Ÿ˜€

Witchmark, by C.L. Polk. Fantasy. All the buzz about this one talks about this one as very reminiscent of Howl’s Moving Castle in terms of the culture it’s set in. But it’s also got a queer romance in it, and all in all, from what I’ve seen in reading excerpts and descriptions, there’s a high likelihood of this being charming. I particularly like the heavy emphasis on bicycles being important to this book’s culture!

38 for the year.