cytherea

miang reminded me inadvertently that I have been remiss in updating about Read Books. I... think I remember all of them.

#44: Huntress by Malinda Lo
#45: Ash by Malinda Lo
#46: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
#47: Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi
#48-52: The Elemental Masters series by Mercedes Lackey, incl: The Serpent's Shadow, The Gates of Sleep, Phoenix and Ashes, The Wizard of London, Reserved for the Cat
#53: Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi
#54: What To Expect When You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff.

Reviews are going to be spotty.

Huntress -- Very cute, YA novel with a lesbian protagonist in a fantasy-ish realm. Takes some traditional Faerie mythos and combines with some traditional Chinese mythos for a very unique and interesting result. I liked this one a lot. A

Ash -- Another cute YA novel with a lesbian protagonist set in the same realm. This one's a remake of Cinderella. Enjoyable, but very "first novel"-feeling in some ways. B+

Boneshaker -- YA steampunk set in alternate-universe Seattle. Lots of fun. Also, zombies! B+

Agent to the Stars -- Sci-Fi. An alien race, Hollywood, shenanigans. It's Scalzi; of course I enjoyed it. A-

The Elemental Masters -- Lackey loves retelling fairytales. An interesting and consistent world, with elemental magic, but no real point to bothering about continuity -- everything's a stand-alone. Competently retold, interesting, very typical Lackey. If you like Lackey, you'll like these. If you don't, you won't. B+

Fuzzy Nation -- Alternate-universe fanfic of H. Beam Piper's "Little Fuzzy". Very entertaining, not terribly deep. A

WTEWYE -- One of those basic textbooks you read when you're researching pregnancy. Decent format, with week-by-week info on development, but seems to be needlessly worrying. It's more like, "Here's the list of everything you'd better not fuck up when you're pregnant, and everything that can go wrong even if you DON'T fuck up" ... And, for the record, having read WTEWYE has no bearing on the current status of Things; I read "Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Newborn" about a year ago, before we even started trying. It's much less stressful than this book. C

Next on the reading list? The Hugo nominees. Wheeeee