First I have to apologize I've not been around much this last week or so. It's been crazy preparing for the holiday. I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their holiday. It's going to be slow here this week at the blog too. To much running to do with the holiday. But I do plan on coming back strong for the new year. 2013. Wow, that feels strange to type. And I will get back to commenting to all your comments here as well, just a little slowly.
Now, it appears we have lived through the 'End of the World' episode. Well, most of us. We've got several here in the hospital. They fought a strong fight in the battle against zombies, ghosts, and deflecting the destructive booms coming our way, and still are fighting. Okay, so they weren't in any battles, but we are wishing them all well and a good fight with their ailments.
I do have one, well two, posts I'm working on for this week. My New Years Resolutions, Bookish Style. I've got the update from last year and the new ones for this year. So you will see those go live this week sometime.
I did get a few things up this week.
Current Read:
Nothing at the moment, to crazy running.
Finished Last Week:
Iron Maiden by Resa Nelson
Reviews to Come:
Endgame by Ann Aguirre
Curran POV Vol 1 by Gordon Andrews
Curran POV Vol 2 by Gordon Andrews
Gunmetal Magic by Ilona Andrews
Magic Gifts by Ilona Andrews
The Crown Tower by Michael J. Sullivan
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr and E.B. White - maybe? Do you want to hear about it?
Grave Peril by Jim Butcher
Iron Maiden by Resa Nelson
Book Reviews Posted:
A Clockwork Christmas by JK Coi, PG Forte, Stacy Gail, Jenny Schwartz
Podcast Reviews Posted:
Sorry, nothing last week. But I have 1 to come.
Movie Review Posted:
No movie review, sorry, been running out of time.
Books and Covers Shared:
Sorry again, nothing.
Special Posts:
Freebies and Deals, on Nook too (36)
My Guest post with 1 pick for others for holidays.
I did not do a Flash Fiction Friday. This Holiday season is going to drive me nuts, I can feel it. Doing these might help with that. But I'm afraid I'm running out of time quickly. I'm hoping to get back to the groove in 2013.
My WANT List...It looks like I've only added 1. Told ya it was a slow week here.
Received Last Week:
Free:
I couldn't pass up these free finds. Oh my poor Nook... I will say I've asked for a memory card for my Nook from the big guy. ;)
Goodreads Synopsis:
Everyone knows the world is going to end on December 21st, 2012. The Mayans knew it – their calendar proved it. So what better way to go out than by reading this short story collection about The End? ...apart from telling your friends about it in 2013, of course.
This compilation brings together short stories by award-winning science fiction and fantasy authors Hugh Howey, Michael J. Sullivan and Tristis Ward, with fresh, new voices selected by their peers at SFFWorld.com - all brought to you in this first-of-its-kind anthology.
Each story explores a different end of the world. What is the limit of a computer virus? Can we save the world by stopping time itself, or will we just wither away in the relentless winds of the apocalypse?
Grab your copy now before the end of the world, and find out.
********
Contributors include: Michael Aaron, Liam Baldwin, R. F. Dickson, Wilson Geiger, Norman Gray, Hugh Howey, Stephen “B5” Jones, G. L. Lathian, Igor Ljubuncic, Pete McLean, Michael J. Sullivan, and Tristis Ward
Goodreads Synopsis:
London, 1889. Victoria is Queen. Charles Darwin’s son is Prime Minister. And steam is the power that runs the world. At 17, Claire Trevelyan, daughter of Viscount St. Ives, was expected to do nothing more than pour an elegant cup of tea, sew a fine seam, and catch a rich husband. Unfortunately, Claire’s talents lie not in the ballroom, but in the chemistry lab, where things have a regrettable habit of blowing up. When her father gambles the estate on the combustion engine and loses, Claire finds herself down and out on the mean streets of London. But being a young woman of resources and intellect, she turns fortune on its head. It’s not long before a new leader rises in the underworld, known only as the Lady of Devices . . . When she meets Andrew Malvern, a member of the Royal Society of Engineers, she realizes her talents may encompass more than the invention of explosive devices. They may help her realize her dreams and his . . . if they can both stay alive long enough to see that sometimes the closest friendships can trigger the greatest betrayals . . .
Goodreads Synopsis:
All she wanted was a vacation - but Dumnos offered a new life.
When Lilith Evergreen receives an antique ring as a gift, she dreams of a castle by the sea, a magnificent tree at cliff's edge, and a mysterious woman who bids Lilith to come to Dumnos, a land of mist and rain.
Cade Bausiney is the future Earl of Dumnos, but at present he just wants to bolster tourism to help the local economy. When Cade and Lilith meet, they're overwhelmed by desire for each other - so intense it must be magically induced.
Long ago a witch's spell ended in disaster that left two souls to haunt Dumnos to this day. Lilith and Cade must find a way to make things right - or be forever possessed by the spirits who've waited a millennium to consummate their love.
Goodreads Synopsis:
It's the dawn of the 22nd century, and the world has fallen apart. Decades of war and resource depletion have toppled governments. The ecosystem has collapsed. A new dust bowl sweeps the American West. The United States has become a nation of migrants -starving masses of nomads who seek out a living in desert wastelands and encampments outside government seed-distribution warehouses.
In this new world, there is a new power. Satori is more than just a corporation, she is an intelligent, living city that grew out of the ruins of Denver. Satori bioengineers both the climate-resistant seed that feeds a hungry nation, and her own post-human genetic Designers, Advocates, and Laborers. What remains of the United States government now exists solely to distribute Satori seed; a defeated American military doles out bar-coded, single-use Satori seed to the nation's starving citizens.
When one of Satori's Designers goes rogue, Agent Sienna Doss-Ex-Army Ranger turned glorified bodyguard-is tasked by the government to bring her
in: The government wants to use the Designer to break Satori's stranglehold on seed production and reassert themselves as the center of power.
Sianna Doss's search for the Designer intersects with Brood and his younger brother Pollo - orphans scrapping by on the fringes of the wastelands. Pollo is abducted, because he is believed to suffer from Tet, a newly emergent disease, the victims of which are harvested by Satori.
As events spin out of control, Brood and Sienna Doss find themselves at the heart of Satori, where an explosive climax promises to reshape the future of the world.
Goodreads Synopsis:
"Nobody leaves Osiris. Osiris is a lost city. She has lost the world and world has lost her . . . Rising high above the frigid waters, the ocean city of Osiris has been cut off from the land since the Great Storm fifty years ago. Most believe that Osiris is the last city on Earth, while others cling to the idea that life still survives somewhere beyond the merciless seas. But for all its inhabitants, Citizens and refugees alike, Osiris is the entire world-and it is a world divided.
Adelaide is the black-sheep granddaughter of the city's Architect. A jaded socialite and family miscreant, she wants little to do with her powerful relatives-until her troubled twin brother disappears mysteriously. Convinced that he is still alive, she will stop at nothing to find him, even if it means uncovering long-buried secrets.
Vikram, a third-generation storm refugee quarantined with thousands of others in the city's impoverished western sector, sees his own people dying of cold and starvation while the elite of Osiris ignore their plight. Determined to change things, he hopes to use Adelaide to bring about much-needed reforms-but who is using who?
As another brutal winter brings Osiris closer to riot and revolution, two very different people, each with their own agendas, will attempt to bridge the gap dividing the city, only to find a future far more complicated than either of them ever imagined.
Osiris is the beginning of an ambitious new science fiction trilogy exploring a near-future world radically transformed by rising seas and melting poles.
Goodreads Synopsis:
Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of Armageddon — these are our guides through the Wastelands...
From the Book of Revelation to The Road Warrior; from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving eschatological tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. In doing so, these visionary authors have addressed one of the most challenging and enduring themes of imaginative fiction: the nature of life in the aftermath of total societal collapse.
Gathering together the best post-apocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today’s most renowned authors of speculative fiction — including George R.R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King — Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon. Whether the end of the world comes through nuclear war, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm, these are tales of survivors, in some cases struggling to rebuild the society that was, in others, merely surviving, scrounging for food in depopulated ruins and defending themselves against monsters, mutants, and marauders.
Complete with introductions and an indispensable appendix of recommendations for further reading, Wastelands delves into this bleak landscape, uncovering the raw human emotion and heart-pounding thrills at the genre’s core.
Contains the following stories:
Introduction by John Joseph Adams
The End of the Whole Mess by Stephen King
Salvage by Orson Scott Card
The People of Sand and Slag by Paolo Bacigalupi
Bread and Bombs by M. Rickert
How We Got In Town and Out Again by Jonathan Lethem
Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels by George R. R. Martin
Waiting for the Zephyr by Tobias S. Buckell
Never Despair by Jack McDevitt
When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth by Cory Doctorow
The Last of the O-Forms by James Van Pelt
Still Life With Apocalypse by Richard Kadrey
Artie’s Angels by Catherine Wells
Judgment Passed by Jerry Oltion
Mute by Gene Wolfe
Inertia by Nancy Kress
And the Deep Blue Sea by Elizabeth Bear
Speech Sounds by Octavia E. Butler
Killers by Carol Emshwiller
Ginny Sweethips’ Flying Circus by Neal Barrett, Jr.
The End of the World as We Know It by Dale Bailey
A Song Before Sunset by David Grigg
Episode Seven... by John Langan
Appendix: For Further Reading
Goodreads Synopsis:
A vacation in Greece sounds like the perfect way for Kate Winters to spend her first sabbatical away from the Underworld...until she gets caught up in an immortal feud going back millennia. Castor and Pollux have been on the run from Zeus and Hades' wrath for centuries, hiding from the gods who hunt them. The last person they trust is Kate, the new Queen of the Underworld. Nevertheless, she is determined to help their cause. But when it comes to dealing with immortals, Kate still has a lot to learn....
Goodreads Synopsis:
Ava Delaney calls herself a hybrid - a living, breathing human who happens to have vampire poison running through her veins. The only thing greater than her thirst for human blood is her capacity for guilt. She does her best to avoid the human world, for everyone's sake.
When Ava accidentally enslaves a human while saving him from a vampire, she realises she has to look for help setting him free. Despite her misgivings, she expands her world but finds herself dragged into a possible vampire civil war. With the help of some new friends with ambiguous loyalties, she tries to find a way to keep her human, and herself, alive.
Goodreads Synopsis:
This year's offering is THE SNITCH WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS and it runs around 8,200 words. This story takes place in 1999, a few years before the events that happen in the first published Lawson novel THE FIXER.
So, that seems to be all I have at this time. Hope you have an amazing Holiday (if it's passed already, hope it was a great one, and a very Happy and Safe New Year.
Do you think your week will be filled with books and reading? Hope it's a relaxing one for you.
Wishing you all the best in words and pages.
No need for apologies...it's the holidays! Times are busy busy busy. Totally there with you. Here's to a quiet and fulfilling holiday... *hugs* ^_^ (ooh and thanks for the heads up on THE GODDESS HUNT! LOVE that series...)
ReplyDeleteThe holidays are a busy time, so take some time to relax and enjoy your family! I've been debating whether or not to make any resolutions this year, since I usually fail to keep them. ha!
ReplyDeleteHappy holidays, my friend!
Merry Christmas to you :D
ReplyDeleteLots of freebies for you
Osiris looks like a promising read... happy reading!!
ReplyDelete