two months after i bought it, i finally started reading Storming Heaven today. finally finished my re-read of the other VGD books.
I just finished reading the 4th Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood book, and I thought alight, fun read. It wasn't the deepest thing I've ever read, but I enjoyed it. I rated it a 4/5 on Shelfari. EDIT: I set aside Eragon, in favor of the first Ultimate Spider-Man trade collection. I actually bought this back when either the first Raimi Spider-Man movie came out, but never actually got around to reading it.
I'm almost done with the second "chapter" and so far it's been really good. I wasn't expecting Norman Osborne to play such a big role in his origin here.
Indeed, considering that Spoiler: don't read this - this is a *MAJOR* spoiler they die by each other's hand in the end of the USM series . captcalhoun is right, JD - you *are* in for a treat. Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man ( Spoiler: a little tibbit on USM The Parker years at least ), especially the record-breaking run of Bendis and Bagley, is one of the greatest Super-Hero / Coming of Age comicbook saga ever IMO.
Mere minutes away from picking up an e-book of and revisiting Gene DeWeese's The Peacekepers, one of the earliest TNG novels and among the first set of Star Trek novels I bought and read, many years ago at a convention in Berlin (thanks to this thread by Patrick O'Brien for the inspiration). I have fond memories of it having heavy elements of Rendezvous with Rama-style alien artifact/environment exploration, which is a type of story I tend to enjoy. I wonder if it'll hold up still! Other than that I'm still reading Precipice, which means I'm overdue for opening a retro review thread for Open Secrets.
Finished Worlds of DS9: Ferenginar last night. Probably the best written of the novellas. Certainly the most enjoyable so far. I started in on WoDS9: Dominion, only getting about 10 pages in. I found the Preamble chapter to be a slog, in places it felt over-written. I hope it shakes that. After WoDS9 I'm hoping to - finally - get to Starfleet Academy: The Assassination Game. After that back to the last 3 A Time To... novels.
I've read quite a few books over the last couple of weeks. After finishing up the excellent Prime Directive by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, I read the second Avatar book by S.D. Perry. I didn't find it as brilliant as the first novel, and it was too short to really get me into it. From there I moved on to Gateways: One Small Step by Susan Wright. Rewatching "That Which Survives" before I started was certainly a great boon as the novel follows on directly on from the end of the episode. A great story with the "Kalandans", but I felt that Wright missed a trick by showing us the "Kalandans" point-of-view and revealing that they weren't "Kalandans" from the off. Finishing that one, I've returned to the DS9 Relaunch with Section 31: Abyss, and I'm reading Starfleet Academy: Aftershock on the side.
Feeling burnt out after a lot of nonfiction reading, I went looking for a Trek paperback toay and found one that looked interesting, Peter David's Q-in-Law. #18 in the TNG books, it sees Picard having to deal with Q and Lwaxana Troi at the same time. The plot is trivial, but the entire book is a laugh riot.
I only read a couple of chapters of The Peacekeepers (mentioned above) before surrendering to sleep (guess I was more tired than I thought), but so far it's been fun. Having read up on it before this re-read I went in knowing that the novel was written prior to TNG even airing, and so made a particular effort to notice inconsistencies with what we later learn about the crew and the technology. And there are some inconsistencies to be sure, but they're actually rather fun, it's like you're watching someone speculate and extrapolate based on just Farpoint - and actually getting it right most of the time and almost right at other times (like "transporter circles" rather than "transporter pads"), making for a funny sort of alternate dimension vibe. However characters are drawn quite well and accurately. Other than this aspect, I once again find myself liking what I liked about it during my first read all those years ago - it's a very methodical sort of story about the Enterprise encountering a strange vessel/complex in space and going about finding out what its purpose is and how it works. Classic scifi, the kind you don't see all that often anymore in current day TrekLit (this isn't meant to be a lamentation since I like the space opera-y stuff a lot as well, but some straight exploration is nice from time to time).
^ Q-in-Law is arguably the funniest of all the Trek books ever. If you ever get a chance to snag the audio book, do so. It's abridged, but it's narrated by Majel Barrett and John de Lancie, which adds a whole new dimension to the hilarity. "Worf! Greetings! Still climbing up the evolutionary ladder? Oh, you'll all have to forgive Worf. He's just discovered opposable thumbs, and he's feeling overly confident."
Qin law is a great book.I read it recently very fun read,I just finished reading the Battle of Betazed. And just started reading Raise the dawn by David George.Great first chapter that contnues where the last book eneded areal page turner of anaovel.
I just finished Anthony Bourdain's new Vertigo OGN, Get Jiro!. It was a fantastic read. I think my next book will be Grant Morrison's Joe the Barbarian. Deluxe edition
Paris, Joe the Barbarian is a great read. I read it in issues and adored it, and even double dipped on the HC because the presentation was so nice. Keep your eyes posted for some Trek-related Easter Eggs in the art! I'll have to check out Bourdain's book. It's getting good reviews all over town! I finished Worlds of DS9: Dominion this morning. I ended up liking it, but didn't quite groove to the "Let's Explain that Scene from Cordially Invited" chapters. I got the point, and some of it might have been the unseen intention of that scene, but it just didn't jibe for me. I also wish Kira had been more of a presence. She only really has a few spoken lines in the novella, and makes token appearances in a few others. I would thought highlighting Kira after Unity would have been a given for the WoDS9 books. While I enjoyed the Odo storyline, I wish it had done a little bit more. DRGIII does an excellent job of explaining the link and the nature of changelings that aren't Lass or Odo, but after a while reading about swirls and vorticies of orange gets a little tiresome. The Taran'atar story was good, though a certain twist didn't really strike me as necessary - or at least, it shouldn't have gotten as much time as it did. Having finished this overall arc of the DS9-R, I'd have to say that while I thought, taken individually, they are each great and charming, taken together, they don't really feel cohesive, especially knowing the plot that they're building up in Bajor and Dominion doesn't exactly come to fruition. My non-scientific rating would say that I liked Ferenginar the most, followed by Cardassia, Bajor, Dominion, followed by Trill and in last place, Andor. Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy Andor, but that it was the least compelling for me, and it was perhaps too long or needed a B-Plot. As well, I saw in the back of WoDS9 3 and I've heard it repeated here that the stories are intentionally told out of order. However, I can't really say I see a reason to do this nor do the stories rely on that type narrative. While it's perfectly fine to do so, it just doesn't seem selfevident that any story had to be told before any of the others. Perhaps I'm missing something? Currently, I'm about 50 pages into Starfleet Academy: The Assassination Game. I'm really enjoying it. Kirk's personality isn't quite what I'd want, but then again it is Movie Kirk, but the author has Bones' voice and personality down pat. I've also gotten a huge kick out of the little nods and winks to the "Prime" Universe and to Enterprise, which are fairly substantial this early in the work. However, they don't overtake the book either. You either get the reference and share in the author's reference, or you take it as new information.
Just posted my review of Alan Gratz's Starfleet Academy: The Assassination Game. Currently reading Diane Duane's Spock's World as well as Inception and Philosophy: Because It's Never Just a Dream.
Having just acquired the first few books of the Typhon Pact series, I have started David Mack's "Zero Sum Game". Loved the initial meeting with Jack, Lauren, and Patrick. I could see the three of them perfectly.