A.D.: After DeathThe graphic novel A.D.: After Death by Scott Snyder and Jeff Lemire is an ambitious beast. Combining prose and graphics, this is a wonderful graphic novel which explores death, its cure, and what it all means for a man named Jonah, who was there to witness it all.
Exit WestExit West by Mohsin Hamid is a short book involving a new love, brewing war, and magical doors. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize this year, this is a book that begs to be read.
The story is about two people, Nadia and Saeed, as they meet and fall in love in the days just before civil war breaks out in an unnamed country. Nadia and Saeed are thrown together, not just for love but for survival in an ever changing, increasingly dangerous world. Then the rumors of the doors start – doors that open to other places. Sometimes it’s a bedroom, a bathroom, an office building, but the important part was that it was not Here, somewhere not torn apart by war. Their goal? To go through one of these doors.
Notes from the Internet ApocalypseThe novel Notes from the Internet Apocalypse by Wayne Gladstone is something I have had my eye on since its release. After three years I’ve finally read through the book.
Mask of ShadowsWhen I first saw the description for Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller, I was immediately intrigued. The book was compared to the works of Leigh Bardugo (whom I love) and Sarah J. Maas (whose work I bafflingly have never read). It features a gender fluid main character, a thief bent on revenge who is auditioning to become one of the queen’s assassins, a group known as the Left Hand. The character sounded very interesting, hints of an interesting backstory, and plenty intrigue and action. Needless to say, I was sold!
The Castoffs Vol 1: Mage Against the MachineI received a copy of The Castoffs Vol. 1: Mage Against the Machine by MK Reed and Brian Smith from the publisher quite unexpectedly. This is a fun, engaging graphic novel with great characters who grow immensely throughout the story.
Trigun OmnibusOne of the first anime I ever watched was Trigun. Soon after I bought a few volumes of Trigun Maximum, which have been sitting on my shelf for close to ten years. Of course, Trigun Maximum is not the start of the series, something I hadn’t realized at the time. Finally, finally, I’ve read the actual beginning of the series: Trigun Omnibus by Yasuhiro Nightow. It took long enough, I know. And I am very happy I finally got around to reading this.
The Massacre of MankindTuesday, August 22, saw the release of The Massacre of Mankind by Stephen Baxter. This is a sequel to H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds. The premise is rather straightforward. The orbits of Mars and Earth are drawing them closer to one another, closer than usual, at least. The Martians attack the Earth once more, plunging us into war once more.
Hello, all. Kate here.
Last week saw the end of the Tome Topple Challenge, a book reading challenge begun by @thoughtsontomes. The challenge itself was designed to get readers together to tackle some of the enormous books on our to-be-read lists. You know the ones – that book by your favorite author that weighs more than your cat, the book with the gorgeous cover that could second as a weapon in the case of a break-in, the one you dropped that one time and actually broke your toe. Those. The tomes.
My list of Tomes was:
The Waking Fire by Anthony Ryan (592 pages)
The Forgetting Moon by Brian Lee Durfee (777 pages)
Trigun Omnibus by Yasuhiro Nightow (696 pages)
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor (532 pages)
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland (752 pages)
Each ‘tome’ read was supposed to be 500 pages or longer. My goal, admittedly, was a bit of a stretch. I had five books on my list in an attempt to complete some stretch goals. I thought I’d get through at least half of the books on my Tome Topple tbr. Despite the books being large, some overly so, there was fourteen days to complete reading them. I could do that. I’d read Illuminae in one sitting, and that book was huge. I had complete and utter confidence that I could get through a good number of the books I’d picked for the challenge.
So, of course, I came nowhere close to completing all of them.
It’s called a challenge for a reason, something I seemed to have forgotten in all the excitement. The only book I managed to get all the way through was Trigun Omnibus by Yasuhiro Nightow. Even a manga takes quite a bit of time to get through when it’s 696 pages long. As for the rest, I started most of them. I’ve begun both The Waking Fire by Anthony Ryan and am more than halfway through Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor. Both are very good, and I really want to finish them.
So why did I do just this badly in completing my Tome Topple goals?
I’ll be honest with you. It’s an oncoming reading slump I only just figured out how to combat. I’ve been trying to read an early copy The Massacre of Mankind by Stephen Baxter which comes out today, August 22nd, and is only four pages shy of meeting the Tome Topple requirements. While I was very excited to start reading this sequel to war of the worlds I quickly found myself disenchanted, something which I’ll go into at length in an upcoming review. Needless to say, after trying to slog through that for the last several weeks I’ve not really had the ambition to read much of anything at all.
I can’t blame my lack of reading on that book entirely; that isn’t fair. Still, it certainly didn’t help.
Next time I think I will set some smaller goals. A few less books on the to-read list and an attempt at completing only one or two of the challenge goals is probably a smarter idea.
Did anyone else participate in the Tome Topple Challenge? Did you meet your reading goals? Let us know in the comments!
Space Battle Lunchtime Vol 1: Lights Camera SnacktionHere’s a little known fact. I watch a probably unhealthy amount of cooking shows. Not the ones where they actually show you how to make a dish. Nope. I know I can’t cook without the supervision of my mother, even nearing thirty. (Sorry Mom). I watch all the cooking competition shows. Because, well, everyone has a not quite so guilty pleasure, right? Space Battle Lunchtime, Vol 1: Lights, Camera, Snacktion! by Natalie Riess is everything I never knew I needed in a graphic novel. It’s fun, it’s cute, it’s in outer space, and it’s a cooking showdown.
Killing is My BusinessIt may not be immediately obvious from the SFF theme of this blog, but I love a good mystery story. The Ray Electromatic Mysteries by Adam Christopher scratches both itches. Killing is my Business is the second book in this series. It is set in a 1960s noir Los Angeles, features a robot assassin nee private detective, and is more fun than it has any right to be.
What can I say? Robots are cool, damn it, and there should be more stories with them. Or maybe it’s my twelve year old self talking. Either way, I love this concept. I love this series. And more people should be talking about it.
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