New on the Library Shelves 17 08 14

AKA Showcase Sunday

A new segment here, participating in the Showcase Sunday meme over at Books, Biscuits & Tea.

No major books received or bought this week, but am excited about getting stuck into Conn Iggulden's two series'. I read the first of his War of the Roses novels at the beginning of the year and enjoyed it a lot. His take on Caesar (combined with his relationship with the man who would go on to kill him) should be fun!

 

 

For review:
A Vision of Fire by Gillian Anderson and Jeff Rovin (sf)
Lincoln and the Power of the Press by Harold Holzer (non-fic)
The Cutting Room ed. Ellen Datlow (horror)
Conquest by John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard (sf)
The Real Food Revolution by Tim Ryan (non-fic)

Bought:
The Khan Series Omnibus by Conn Iggulden (historical adventure)
The Emperor Series Omnibus by Conn Iggulden (historical adventure)
The Ultra Thin Man by Patrick Swenson (sf)
The Supernatural Enhancements by Edgar Cantero (fantasy)

So, what's new on your shelves this week?

Bout of Books 11

Thought I would try my hand at a reading challenge and lo and behold, Bout of Books comes along!

What is Bout of Books? Here is the description as provided by the official website:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, August 18th and runs through Sunday, August 24th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 11 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team.

My goals:

• Finish six books: A minimum considering the extra reading I hope to get in. But we'll see...
• Meet new friends on the blogosphere: My main goal from this - find new friends!

Looking forward to lots of reading, blogging and commenting over the next week!

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air by Darragh McKeon

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Goodreads

In a small village deep in the Soviet Union, the inhabitants wake one morning to find the sky has been changed to the deepest crimson. Animals are dripping blood. And ten miles away, the government races to cover up the extent of a disaster that will shake an empire and destroy lives... From Moscow to Pripyat, the events of that years of 1986 will shake up the existence of a handful of people: a nine-year old boy forced to play silent piano in a run-down apartment block, his aunt who must hide her dissident past in the monotonous work of a car factory, her ex-husband whose life as a surgeon will be transformed when he is sent to deal with the aftermath of an unimaginable accident, and a young teenage boy whose family will be torn apart by what has happened at the Chernobyl Power Plant...

Like anyone born in the 1980s, the Chernobyl disaster has been a constant in my life, something that is talked about, taught in school and whose effects are still not completely understood. Despite that presence, I have to admit to not knowing much about what happened in the aftermath and the role it played in the fall of the Soviet Union. So I was intrigued to read this novel set in just before, during and after the disaster, following the first rumbles in the fall of an empire through the eyes of a few characters. All That Is Solid Melts Into Air is a fantastic novel, heart wrenching and hopeful at the same time, whose characters lives shift and change over a short period, their entire existences overwhelmed by the tragedy. McKeon does a fantastic job of describing this post-Fall Soviet Union, from the constant fear and paranoia to the glimpses of hope amidst the darkness. A lot of this hope in the novel is provided through the character of Yevgeni. His story remains at the heart of the novel, though for a lot of it he is almost more of a secondary character, but it is his journey that starts the book and caps it off in an epilogue that takes us into the characters’ future (and our past) to show just what came from the events that took place in 1986. Always bittersweet, never going for the easy answer, this book manages to evoke a different place and time not so distant from our own, through McKeon’s wonderful prose. One of the best books I have read all year, without a doubt.

I gave All That Is Solid Melts Into Air 5 stars.

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Tom Rachman

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Goodreads

Tooly Zylberberg, an American with one of the most unlikely names in fiction, owns a tiny bookshop in a tiny Welsh village, where she can avoid humans and hide among books. Still mystified by the events of her youth, which saw her spirited away from Asia to Europe to the US by a group of strange misfits, she tries to avoid thinking about her past. But when a former boyfriend from New York contacts her about Humphrey, the old Russian man who once took her under her wing, Tooly finds herself forced to return to a world she has left behind, a world still full of mysteries. For somewhere in the wild existence she once shared with Humphrey, the chaotic and temptuous Sarah and the charismatic, mysterious Venn, lies the truth about herself…
 
Held together by one of the most interesting narrative structures I have ever seen – the book cycles constantly through three separate time periods – The Rise and Fall of Great Powers is Tom Rachman’s sophmore effort, his first book since 2010’s The Imperfectionists. It is a great read, full of interesting, quirky characters, whom we follow through three different incarnations. Held together by the central figure of Tooly, we see each of these people in the 1980s, the 1990s and the 2000s, with each time period clearly defined and described, without ever falling into period cliches. A clera love of books and reading is present throughout – most of the characters are readers, and Tooly especially carries her love of the written world throughout her adventures (she is described as someone who won’t finish a book because she doesn’t want the people she meets in books to end with “a blank space at the bottom of the final page”). A mind-twisting mystery is teased throughout the novel, bringing all of the storylines full circle by the end of it, and setting up some great revelations in the final pages. I loved The Rise and Fall of Great Powers almost as much as The Imperfectionists, and hope we get a new Tom Rachman novel before too long!
 
I gave The Rise and Fall of Great Powers 4 stars.

Mr Mercedes by Stephen King

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Goodreads

Of all the cases that haunt Bill Hodges after he retires as a cop, none haunt him more than the lone driver who plowed into a crowd of job seekers in a stolen Mercedes. Known as Mr Mercedes, the perpetrator was never found. So when Hodges gets a letter from someone identifying themselves as the escaped killer, he enlists the help of an unlikely group of allies in order to track him down before he causes another tragedy. What starts as an obsession, though, soon turns into a race against time as Mr Mercedes prepares to strike again, this time with an attack that will kill or maim thousands...
 
Announced as Stephen King’s first entry in the ‘hard-boiled’ genre, Mr Mercedes is a cracking story, full of some of the most unexpected and original heroes he has ever created, going up against a truly twisted villain with some major mommy issues. While the echoes of Norman Bates are obvious, King manages to freshen the archetype, partly through a truly sickening opening scene that left me breathless. After a classic Stephen King slow start, the book picks up following the cremation scene and from then on it is almost impossible to put down – I for one stayed up way too late to finish it, especially considering some of the gut punch events building to the gripping finale! There are a few elements that might turn you off. If you’re looking for a non-King Stephen King book here, you’ll be disappointed: his inimitable style of writing is ever present, which you will either love or hate depending on your personal taste. As with most of his work, it is a book of its time: there are lots of references throughout to reality TV, terrorism and the Internet. And one character who is pivotable to the resolution of the plot only appears half way through. For me, though, this is a great King novel, written with all the skill the master can bring to the page. Apparently it is the first in a trilogy – I will be queuing up to get the sequel.
 
I gave Mr Mercedes 5 stars.

Dragonsblood by Todd McCaffrey

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Goodreads

When a fatal illness begins affecting dragons just before the latest cycle of Thread begins to fall, the young dragonrider Lorana must try to find a way to stop the disease before it decimates their ranks. When her efforts fail to bring about the necessary healing, she and her friends turn to the lyrics of an ancient song that may point to an answer five hundred years in their past, in the early years after the arrival of mankind on Pern. In those long-ago days, Wind Blossom, daughter of the woman who bred the fire-lizards ino dragons, struggles to live up to her mother’s shadow while the technology so central to their lives fails around them. These two women, separated by hundred of years, must find a way of communicating across the gulf separating them, in a race to save the entire dragon race…
 
In the first Pern book written exclusively by Anne McCaffrey’s son Todd, we are treated to an adventure across the ages that takes place partly in the era of the Third Fall first introduced in the McCaffreys first jointly written novel, Dragon’s Kin, and partly back in the earliest days of the Pern timeline, fifty years after the arrival of mankind on the planet. Todd McCaffrey does a great job of juggling these twin timelines, telling contained stories in both that interweave and combine in clever ways as the storylines progress. It was really nice to return back to the early days of Pern, seeing some of the characters introduced in Dragonsdawn again, and continuing the fall of the old world of technology and its influence on how society develops in its absence. At the same time, McCaffrey creates an intriguing cast of new characters (some of whom return from Dragon’s Kin in secondary roles) and a tense situation – as Fall approaches, the dragons have begun to die off. Dealing with a disease forces the new characters to struggle to find a way to heal them, using what little skills they have. The only hope seems to be a message from the past, one that is revealed slowly through the course of the book and which has a very clever resolution at the end. Todd McCaffrey does a nice job of playing with the time travelling elements and rules introduced in the earlier books, the consequences of which are central to a lot of the characters (one extremely unpleasant character in particular has a redemption thanks to these effects). The characters are classic McCaffrey – if you’re looking for complex grimdark characterisation, this is probably not the series for you. But as part of a long-running, much loved series, Dragonsblood is a fine addition and an exciting novel in its own right. I would definitely say that the Pern series is in good hands with McCaffrey’s second son at the helm.
 
I gave Dragonsblood 4 stars.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I'm Not Sure I Want To Read

From the Broke and Bookish

This week's theme: Top Ten Books I'm Not Sure I Want To Read. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view) I couldn't come up with ten. So this list will be made up of eight books I'm not sure I want to read, followed by two I wasn't sure of but am glad I did!

Eight Books I'm Not Sure I Want to Read

Bad Luck Girl by Sarah Zettel – Although I enjoyed the first book a lot, the second one was a bit of a let down that I had to force myself to finish. While I’m still looking forward to seeing how the trilogy wraps itself up… Not a hundred percent sure.

Thief’s Magic by Trudi Canavan – I thoroughly enjoyed her first series and have heard good things about the follow up (notably from my Dad). But I have heard mixed messages about this one.

Augustus by Adrian Goldsworthy – The subject matter is a definite must-read, but the last two books I read by Goldsworthy were quite dry, so worried this one may be a bit of a slog. May end up being the kind of book I dip in and out of over a few weeks instead of reading it all through in one.

The Causal Angel by Hannu Rajaniemi – I thoroughly enjoyed the first two books, but they are nowhere near being “easy” reads. The reviews I have read say that this one is even less easy on the reader than the first two, so…

The Kills by Richard House – Mainly worried about this one because of the sheer size of the thing. I mean I read big books but this one… Still, I have heard good things about it so far!

Italian Venice by R J B Bosworth – I love Venice and was quite excited about this one, but the subject matter – dealing more with modern Venice than the city of the Doges, may not be what I’m hoping.

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie – Leckie’s first book was so hugely hyped all across the blogging world, but I was not as huge a fan as all that. I enjoyed it, but not as much as others have. So although I have added the second one to my TBR, not in a huge hurry to get to it.

The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis – This one is on the list mainly because of Tregillis’ last book, Something More Than Night, which I was not hugely in love with. So this is a toss up: it will either be as good as his Milkweed series, or more like Something More… in which case it might not be great. 

Eight Books I Wasn't Sure I Wanted to Read (But Am Glad I Did!)

Unwrapped Sky by Rjurik Davidson – I had read some extremely mixed reviews about this one before I read it, but am glad I didn’t pay attention to them. I loved this book and it is probably the debut of the year so far for me.

The Happier Dead by Ivo Stourton – I wasn’t convinced by the cover or blurb of this one, but the book itself was a fantastic near future SF thriller. 

So, what books are you not sure about in your TBR list? 

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