Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
Blood Engines by T.A. Pratt
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
First I must say that I have been reading some new and awesome SF from Daily Science Fiction. I was looking around for places online to discover exciting new stuff, and poof there it was. After reading T.A. Pratt's recent short story Shark's Teeth, I had to read more about Marla Mason. I downloaded a free first look at Blood Engines to my Kindle, and decided to buy the book. I have to say that supernatural detective stories with shit-kicking female protagonists are way up there on my list of potential awesome. Marla Mason explodes out of that. Sure this is probably old news to you, since the book is from 2007. It's still a great find for me!
The Lions of Al-Rassan was beautiful. It was a mid-east setting which I adored. The characters had real depth and goals, the setting was gorgeous, the turns of phrase delicious. It was everything I hope and expect from Guy Gavriel Kay.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has been a bit of a fight. There are some really slow bits about the world of Swedish finance that I couldn't care a whit about. There is an expansive family
at the centre of the mystery, whom we only meet a few members of. But there is a kickass main character who is a hacker and private investigator. And a decent newspaper man down on his luck. And an old mystery of a missing girl. After putting it down and picking it up, I finally got excited about halfway into the story when things started happening. There was much discussion about depiction of rape in the movie (haven't seen the film yet), and thankfully it wasn't too detailed in the book. I still have more of the book to read, so I won't comment yet on the relevance of having those scenes in there. Still not sure what it has to do with the main plot. Though the book uncovers some serious hatred of women at the root of crimes. I'll see soon enough how it all ties together.
Pawn of Prophecy is an oldie but a goodie by David Eddings. It's the first in that whole series with Polgara and that universe. Yay sword and sorcery. Eddings has an amazing voice and great comedic lines. I love a book that makes me giggle out loud. This one is your fairly typical fantasy farmboy bumbling about and being in the right place at all the wrong time.
From Daily SF I loved The Piper by Mai L Lee, and a cool story about a man who has a problem with the mystical being that powers his garage opener. Damn I wish I could remember the name of that one.
