Free Books

[mrissa]

Okay, more free books, on the usual terms: preference goes to people in the immediate area and/or people I will likely see at an upcoming con, in this case World Fantasy in November. Beyond that, it's first-come, first-served.

Jodi Compton, Sympathy Between Humans. Mystery set in Minneapolis. Cop detective who does crazy things like growing as a person over the course of the book. Good stuff -- I just don't tend to reread any but my favorite mysteries.

Keith R. A. DeCandido, Dragon Precinct. Fantasy cop novel. Entertaining. Has several anti-MarySue elements.

Lee Harris, Murder in Alphabet City. Another cop-detective murder mystery, this one set in New York, so I can't tell you how accurate it is in its setting. Again, it was a fine read, but I don't reread most mysteries.

A. Lee Martinez, Gil's All Fright Diner. Comedy horror. Zombies, vampires, werewolves, the whole nine yards.

C.J. Ryan, Dexta. SF, far-future, distant-planet. Tripped my MarySue alarms like mad, but if you're less bothered by that, you may enjoy it.

Tad Williams, Otherland: City of Golden Shadows. VR novel. Apparently "the author reminded me of my best friend from kindergarten when I saw him at a con" is not a great recipe for picking my favorite books. This wasn't a bad book, just not my kind of thing, really.

Comments

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

The Otherland books are probably my least favorite examples of William's work (although I haven't read any of his more recent stuff). There was a sequence in book 3 where the world the characters are traversing was really cool, but that coolness was undercut by the whole cliched "trapped in a VR world" frame that surrounded it.

In case it's not already obvious, this is not a request for City of Golden Shadows. About the only use I see for that series is comparing it to the .hack// transmedia empire, which starts from a very similar premise.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I tried reading them because I started one of his BFFs and didn't like the beginning much at all. Is there one of them you think is better to start on than others, or is he not a favorite and this is just really really not a favorite?

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

He's not really a favorite, although I tend to wobble on how well I liked the Dragonbone Chair series. He's got some neat ideas, but his pacing is *slooow*, and the big reveal in Otherland was actively stupid.

I'm told that his recent work has gotten better, but I have yet to check that out for myself. I suppose I ought to exercise my MIT Science Fiction Society privileges more, once I've got some uncommitted reading time.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"Uncommitted reading time." I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing...um...because of you. Yah.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

I know. It's a fundamentally ludicrous phrase, and even more so in context (http://www.livejournal.com/users/alecaustin/33495.html).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I had taken context into consideration, yes. *snrk*