Books in December

Lots of books read in December. Alas I still didn't meet my goal of 100 books read in the year, and actually read less than 2009. In 2011 I'll have to be sure to read more graphic novels to pad my numbers.

Lots of books by Backspacers this month. Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler has a great concept: an anorexic girl becomes the Horseman Famine. The details of being anorexic really brought this story to life, and although it was often sad there are some fun moments as well (like Kurt Cobain as Death; very cool). This feels like a standalone, but I'd love to see a whole Horseman of the Apocalypse series.

Twelfth Grade Kills by Heather Brewer finishes off the chronicles of Vladimir Todd. It's a good ending with lots of surprises, but it feels like there's more story here. Maybe Vlad will go to college.

Please Ignore Vera Dietz by AS King really got me at a gut level. Dealing with the death of a close friend on top of already dealing with high school and family issues - Vera Dietz was very really for me. Plus the writing is just top notch; this is another book on my Kindle with pages and pages of highlighted quotes. (This was all around a tough month to winnow down the quote list).

Stealing the Marbles by EJ Knapp is a great heist story with great score: the main character is aiming to steal the Elgin marbles from the British Museum so he can give them back to the Greeks. I love me a heist story, and this one had a lot of fun twists and details. This would make an awesome George Clooney movie (but an even awesomer Cary Grant one, if such a thing were possible).

Tongues of Serpents is the latest Temeraire novel from Naomi Novik, this time set in Australia. She really brought the geography to life; man, I'd love to go to Australia some day. The naval battle with the sea monsters - straightup awesome.

Two short story collections from M. Rickert: Map of Dreams has a lot of her stories that I'd originally read in FSF. They're just as engrossing the second time through. The only weak entry is actually the first piece, the title story. For me it took too long to get where I always figured it was going. But all of the stories in Holiday were darkly wonderful, and the structure of a year's cycle of a story for each holiday gave it a nice rhythm. Of course any book that ends with "The Christmas Witch" is doing something right. I don't think I've ever read a young child POV so convincingly written.

Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold is the latest Miles Vorkosigan novel and doesn't disappoint. Some old characters are back, but the new ones hold their own.

A Star Shall Fall by Marie Brennan is hands-down my favorite of that series so far. It might just be the time it's set in, but when science starts to come into its own, things get very interesting for magical creatures. I really love how Haley's comet is used, and the missing days from when the calendars were corrected. Very cool.

And now some of my favorite quotes, in no particular order:

She sipped, realizing that at least when food was involved, she was able to feel. Maybe the emotion was bitter and hateful, but it was better than the vacuum she otherwise seemed to dwell in. Food was real. Everything else paled. - Hunger

I turn to the pond and eye a bright pink fish the size of my forearm shimmering his way from shadow to shadow, and I toss in the penny and make a wish. I wish for world peace, because it’s about as likely to occur as anything else I can wish for. - Please Ignore Vera Dietz

Mulling this over, Vlad wiped her lip gloss from his lips with the back of his hand. Vampires, after all, didn’t sparkle. - Twelfth Grade Kills

Hell hath no fury like a woman whose boyfriend is tied to a chair and being tortured in a dingy garage. - Stealing the Marbles

Privately, Temeraire was forced to admit that Laurence was unreasonably deadly on the subject of superstition, even though it did not make any sense, as he was equally firm on the subject of the Holy Spirit; Temeraire did not see how one could deny other spirits, when you had allowed one. - Tongues of Serpents

Some say she had a glow about her, which, it is also reasoned, is no difficulty for the devil to conjure such a thing if the CIA can make the whole world believe that Russia is no longer a threat, then certainly it is no problem for them to make a girl glow. - "Angel Face" in A Map of Dreams

“She and that Escobaran medtech she married plan to pop their second kid from the uterine replicator any day now.”
“Not cloned, eh?”
“No, it was all done the old-fashioned way, an egg and a sperm in a test tube.” - Cryoburn

The sisters themselves looked like a pair of poetic country housewives, rendered in three-foot miniature. At least until Gertrude Goodemeade advanced on him with the demeanor of an overwhelmingly friendly army sergeant. - A Star Shall Fall