Book Review: Aurora

I haven't had much luck over the years with young adult science fiction in general so the obvious solution to this is to try more adult sci-fi titles. I still haven't read that many, I keep meaning to fix it but my to-read list is to long that it'll take a while for that to take effect, but with my new goal of staying more caught up with current titles I'm hoping that sci-fi won't be such a rare occurrence here!

Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson

Book Review: Mechanica

Time to end the week on a, hmm, weak note? Well that's not normally how I try to do things but that's how it is sometimes!

Mechanica by Betsy Cornwell

Book Review: The Game of Love and Death

Well, I'm honestly not sure why this book was on my to-read list. Clearly I put it on since I heard good recommendations about it but honestly Helen, this is obviously going be a romance and those aren't your thing! I tried to trust my past self and hope that whatever they had read about the book was amazing but, there were a few problems here.

The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough 

Book Review: Inherit the Stars

As I was writing this review I learned there is an older series that starts with the same title and nope, this is not a review of the Giant Series by James P Hogan. Totally different premise, still science fiction, but a young adult book instead of an adult novel. So, with that clarification out of the way, onto what felt like a rather short book!

Inherit the Stars by Tessa Elwood

Book Review: Shadow Scale

Eeek, between the last week and family visiting I seem to have fallen behind again. BUT I'm getting this post out before tomorrow's is supposed to be up so there's still hope! So sit tight, I'll be getting back on track shortly, and in the meantime you should really read about these dragons.

Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman

Book Review: Manners & Mutiny

Lord this blogging schedule is so off now, but I really want to power through and talk about some books that I read recently that I adored without falling farther and farther behind. So let me get back on track with a steampunk novel (is it just me or does it seem like steampunk has faded with as a fad? Genuine questions!) that I sadly did not adore.

Manners & Mutiny by Gail Carriger

Book Review: Our Lady of the Ice

Well this review is far later than I wanted it to be, both in terms of this blog's supposed update schedule and in general, I think when I read this book it was still cold outside! But hopefully this is a book that I'll be recommending to people for years to come, no matter the season.

Our Lady of the Ice by Cassandra Rose Clarke

Book Review: Girl Waits With Gun

Well, I wasn't sure I would get this review up on time but I did it, I'm calling that my victory for the week and will get back to working on my spring round-up post I suppose.

Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart

Book Review: Walk on Earth a Stranger

Ack, darn work for getting in the way of my review writing, how dare you make me tired after 8 hour workdays and make it hard to focus! So a quickie for a book I don't have much to say about anyway, that seems fair

Walk on Earth a Stranger by Rae Carson

Book Review: Sorcerer to the Crown

It seems that right now I only want to write reviews for things that are set to be posted in a few weeks, ho-hum. I mean, it's not that I didn't like this book, on the contrary I enjoyed it from the very first snippets I tried on Tor, although I had to be careful that I didn't read this book and A Darker Shade of Magic back to back since I wasn't sure how similar their settings would be. They are quite different it turns out, DSoM feels like a more generic fantasy even though it revolves specifically around the city of London. However, SttC revolves around England itself, a real England where you can't describe it with just one color. 

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Chou

Book Review: The Grace of Kings

I think I made a mistake, back in November I realized "oh no, it's near the end of the year and I haven't more than a couple of 2015 books!" and then requested entirely too many from the library. Seriously, it's now March and I still have about five left in my to-read stack. Some of the books, like this/last week's title, were rather long but really, it was just too many books at once.

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu

Book Review: The Scorpion Rules

Yep, missed another post Wednesday, my evening schedule was a little different this week so I ended up trying to write too much one evening and it didn't work. Also, honestly the reason I used to churn out so many posts was because I'd stay up as late as it took, I'm really trying to get better about my sleep schedule so I'm doing that less. My thoughts on Vinland Saga should go up by a sane time Saturday though!

So, Erin Bow. I adored Plain Kate and had quite a few problems with Sorrow's Knot (and ultimately didn't like it because of those problems). After SK I thought "well, maybe that first time was a fluke, me liking it anyway, since I didn't even see the prose I adored in PK in SK" and when I saw it was more or less set in a dystopia that really didn't make me excited for the book. But it got good buzz so it ended up on my to-read list after all and here we are, I finished it which is always a good sign!

The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow

Book Review: A Darker Shade of Magic

Man, colds are terrible. So are unpredictable weather patterns, neck aches, and everything else that gives me headaches. Since Wednesday's review was already going to be a shorter one I'm going to wrap it into my round-up on later today (along with last week's posts, it's going to be a long post) and instead just keep moving forward and getting some of these posts out on time (or close) for once.

I'm glad that I enjoyed all of the books I read between Thanksgiving and Christmas since it means I can still remember a lot of aspects of the stories and give them the reviews their deserve! At this point I'm still just getting started with all of the 2015 releases so hilariously enough for this book I just found out today that the sequel is already out! Doesn't change my feelings on the book thankfully (I thought I had heard/suspected from reading the book that this wouldn't be a standalone) and hopefully I'll get around to reading A Gathering of Shadows sooner rather than later.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

Book Review: Uprooted

Ugh, between yet another cold and just a general feeling of "I have ideas but not the energy to write out these ideas" I seem to be off schedule again. Since I posted so little this past week, no catch-up post and in next week's catch-up post I'll talk about the comic review I skipped, Beautiful Darkness.

I'm familiar with Naomi Novik's name and writing due to her "master and commander with dragons fanfic"/Napoleonic-Wars-With-Dragons series and while I am a bit nervous that she took time off from it to write a completely different novel (as I would for any author) I do understand since that series is slated to be about nine novels and she's written at least six of them. So, it's not surprising that she chose to write about something other than dragons but this story is even more fantastical with it's creatures which I found interesting from a meta standpoint ("okay is she more interested in writing historical fiction or fantasy? Well this gives me at least part of the answer!"). Weirdly enough Amazon includes "Temeraire" in the title but I have no earthly idea how these stories could be connected, if magic is added into the Napoleonic Wars I think everyone is doomed, so I can only assume this was done to try and entice more readers and will reassure others that you can make this your first Naomi Novik book and enjoy it just fine.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Book Review: Shadowshaper

I grabbed this book from a display at my library and it was only later that I discovered that it was actually on my to-read list anyway. I like coincidences like that, especially now that it's close to the end of the year so I'm trying to get through as many 2015 books as I can. Although, I must confess that I'm not quite sure why this book made it onto my list in the first place.

Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older

Book Review: Log Horizon volume 1

As I alluded to in my Tokyo Demons 2 review, I was reading a real light novel recently! I really enjoyed the Log Horizon series while they were airing so, since I've already poked into the side material some, it was natural that I'd pick up the light novels and see how everything played out originally.

Log Horizon by Mamare Touno, illustrated by Kazuhiro Hara, translated by Taylor Engel

Book Review: Prudence

Well this is later than I wanted, both for this week and in general. I think I read this book back in April or so, my library got the book surprisingly fast, and I'm not sure why I forgot about it since I have plenty to say about it....

Prudence by Gail Carriger

Book Review: The Shadow Cabinet

There was actually a novella that came out in-between this and The Madness Underneath called The Boy in the Smoke and looking at this post I think I did actually read three of the four stories but I have no idea where. If you can also find those stories I do recommend reading them at some point since Stephen remains an important character in the series but I don't think it's vital that you have to read them before you track down The Shadow Cabinet.

The Shadow Cabinet by Maureen Johnson

Book Review: Helen of Sparta

This was the third and final title I got for free from Amazon during my prime membership trial and I was drawn to it because of the title like a lot of people were like the editor at Amazon (wait they have editors working with these books?). She wrote along the lines of "everyone knows her as Helen of Troy so why Sparta?" but actually, every story says that Helen came from Sparta, she's only associated with Troy because of her abduction. A story that makes that distinction from the start sounded interesting so why not check it out?

Helen of Sparta by Amalia Carosella

  

Book Review: The Dead Key

This was the second of the free books I got from Amazon as part of my Prime trial membership, if anyone else here is thinking of doing the prime membership I highly recommend doing it so it falls over two calendar months (especially a 15th-15th if you can) so that you at least have the option of getting more than one book from this deal.

The Dead Key by D. M. Pulley