Bookkeeping

[stillsostrange]

1. Daughter of Hounds - Caitlin R. Kiernan
2. Golden Witchbreed - Mary Gentle (reread)
3. Tales from the Woeful Platypus - Caitlin R. Kiernan
4. The Dry Salvages - Caitlin R. Kiernan (reread)
5. Blindsight - Peter Watts
6. Dust - matociquala (in draft)
7. Blood and Chocolate - Annette Curtis Klause
8. The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden - Catherynne Valente
9. The Silver Kiss - Annette Curtis Klause
10. Magic Bites - Ilona Andrews
11. Magic Lessons - Justine Larbalestier
12. Troll - Johanna Sinisalo
13. The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett
14. When Gravity Fails - George Alec Effinger
15. Softspoken - Lucius Shepard
16. Precious Dragon - Liz Williams
17. All the Windwracked Stars - matociquala (in draft)
18. Harry Potter and the Deathly Doorstop Hallows - J.K. Rowling
19. Moon Called - Patricia Briggs
20. The Mirador - Sarah Monette
21. the harpy book - jmeadows (in draft)
22. Undertow - Elizabeth Bear
23. Galilee - Clive Barker
24. A Companion to Wolves - Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
25. Red Seas Under Red Skies - Scott Lynch
26. Uninvited - Justine Musk
27. Blood Magic - Matthew Cook
28. Terminal - Andrew Vachss
29. Beowulf (novelization) - Caitlin R. Kiernan
30. Refining Fire - matociquala and coffeeem (in draft)
31. The Music of Razors - Cameron Rogers
32. Trial of Flowers - Jay Lake
33. The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
34. The Bone Key - Sarah Monette
35. Ilario: the Lion's Eye - Mary Gentle
36. Amberlight - Sylvia Kelso
37. Planetary vol.1 - Warren Ellis


38. The Rest Falls Away - Colleen Gleason

This is a romance novel, shelved in the romance section and everything, but since it's the first in a series it doesn't have the obligatory HEA, which is a plus for me. It's unabashedly Buffy in 19th-century London, and it's cute and prettily written and not dumb. My only real complaint is with the vampires, which are boring. For the love of god, people. When you're writing about monsters or the undead or whatever, don't make them dull! Roll around in the creepy! Also, they dust like Buffy vamps, clothes and all, which looks cool in post-production, but is making things way too easy on your slayers narratively speaking.

But the book is fun, and I may well pick up the next one.

39. Heart-Shaped Box - Joe Hill.

Oh. Oh, this is a lovely lovely book, which just happens to live in my squids. This is what a horror novel should be. Creepy and awful and bruisingly sad, but all the while beautiful and veined with enough hope to keep you going. This book aches under my sternum.

And I think that's it for the year. One of these years I'll make it to fifty.

And in the land of things less good, I seem to have post-vacation crud. Boo.

Comments

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I thought The Rest Falls Away was a lot of fun -- fluffy and just with the right amount of spunk. I did get into a "discussion" with a romance reader who hated the ending because the "hero" [spoiler embargo]. Of course, I'd say that he wasn't the "hero" but that's what genre conventions and expectations do for you.

And was the ghost in HSB creepy? The scribbled out eyes and him sitting in that chair when the MC walks by.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

But by genre conventions, he couldn't have been the hero--he wasn't the biggest asshole. :P (I may have mentioned my hatred for "alpha males" once or twice.) I did appreciate that while Max was a prick with a Tortured Past, he at least wasn't a creepy date-rapist.

And was the ghost in HSB creepy?

Gah, yes.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I liked Max and his snarky prick self (the character type is a weakness of mine), but Sebastien forever and ever sealed his fate in my eyes as a skanky date rapist who needed to be run over by a carriage.