Books! 40-42
Nov. 30th, 2008 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltd42) Sackett's Land by Louis L'Amour. When you pick up a Louis L'Amour audio book, you don't really expect a Yorkshire voice... I didn't read the blurb. Instead of a Western, I got a tale Elizabethan intrigue, pirates and a voyage to the new world. I love Louis. He writes kinda like I do, tossing too-cool-to-leave-out bits of trivia into the story every so often.
41) Men in Uniform ed. M. Rode (out of print). Everything from chef's whites to a dog catcher uniform to an Imperial officer fill these pages. Sexy wicked men, wearing and removing uniforms. Some of the stories are just smut, others come with plots. (cheating as one of these stories is mine)
40) Flipped Fables ed. S.A. Clements. Nine fables get a twist from Torquere authors. Kiernan Kelly's "The Boy Who Cried Werewolf" is the best, in my opinion. GS Wiley's "Court and Country" is a close second. The rest aren't bad either.
39) Quod Tam Sitio. A.M. Riley. The title means "that for which I thirst." This hot little volume gives us a vampiric monk who craves the sacred music and the priest he encounters with equal hunger. This and Cheating Chance are the two best fiction books I've read this year.
38) Crockett's Victory Garden. James Underwood Crockett. (out of print) The definitive month by month book of gardening, put together by the host of PBS's long running show.
37) Billy and the Boingers: Bootleg. Berke Breathed. (out of print) This is not great literature. But sometimes one just needs to hide out in 1988. Of course, some jokes are still applicable, like the revised lyrics to Deathtongue's song "Leper Lover." Leper lover, creature of the dark/drip your disease, leave your mark/ Through the gutter slime and stinky/George Bush is a twinkie.
36) Toybox: Rings ed. M. Rode. A nice collection of stories. An older pirate gets some help. Dr. Fell trains some naughty boys. An ancient Chinese prince time-travels to teach modern philanderer a lesson. Hot, sexy and very nice.
35) Cheating Chance by James Buchanan. One of the best books I've read this year. Brandon and Nicky meet at a Goth convention. Brandon is a closeted cop and Nicky is a slot inspector for the State of Nevada. A tautly plotted suspense novel with some very sexy love scenes, this comes highly reccommended.
34) Bubbas of the Apocalypse ed. Selina Rosen. The anthology that started it all. When the Y25nvirus kills all the yuppies, the bubbas inherit the earth. Mixed quality from workmanlike to screamingly funny.
33) Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Fascinating book on everything from cheating in sumo wrestling to names and how they reflect community. Read this!
32) Monsters ed. Rob Knight. out of print. 21 sexy stories of incubi, vampires, werewolves and other assorted demons. All very good.
31) Another Fine Mess ed. Syd McGinley. 10 hot stories of "It seemed like a good idea at the time." Everything from a young man who walks dogs that are really dragons, to the Thatcher brothers being bailed out of jail to a bartender who takes the wrong man home.
30) Bloody Bones by Laurell K Hamilton. Anita Blake is called to raise some zombies to determine whose land they are on... But nothing ever goes that easily. Three dead teens, a vampire kill and a nursery demon all make this one really good, despite Anita's resolute "I'm going to piss off everyone around me, constantly" attitude.
29) The Path of Iro by Mike Shade. Chulu is led to devote himself to the gods at the temple of Iro. In the temple, there are many ways to worship and each comes with a shard. Immediately taken as a novitiate by the master of the Ivory Shard, Chulu is told the stories of the other masters of the other shards and their novitiates. I wanted to like this. I like good fantasy. This was sex in a fantasy setting. Sometimes the sex got overwhelming and I skimmed. But I had the pattern down by the story of the second shard.
28) International House of Bubbas, Selina Rosen, ed. Pure silliness as Bubbas from around the world cope with the Y25 virus that turns people with too much exposure to computers into zombies. Japan and Scotland, Russia and Antarctica, we're goin' round the world with the Rubber Duck here. Great fun.
27) Soul Music by Terry Pratchett. Mostly about Death's granddaughter, Susan, and Music With Rocks In. Very silly. And definitely on a mission from Glod.
26) Epiphany: Shining Through by Lee Benoit. Short but intense, this piece takes us through a performance at a BDSM club. Very hot, very good.
25) Gil's All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez. Hilarious bit of zombie fighting by Duke, a werewolf, and Earl a vampire. Highly recommended, but saying more would spoil the fun.
24) Raintree: Haunted by Linda Winstead Jones. Interesting paranormal romance about a copy with electrical control powers and his new partner tracking down a killer that's been sent after him and his cousin. Second in a series.I want to read the others.
23) The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. A rollicking romp drawn from the Childe Ballads. Written in "ye olden style" by a Victorian, it's slow going until you get into the swing of the words. Then it is hilarious and exciting. Robin is a merry prankster, until service with King Richard darkens him. No happy ending, for the Death of Robin Hood is taken directly from the ballad of the same name.
22) Taste Test: Summer Solstice. A Torquere anthology with three short stories in it. Kit Zheng gives us a Roy LeRoy tall tale. GS Wiley has a lovely period piece about a lame florist and an American flier. And Syd McGinley's Dr. Fell is having his own MidSummer's Night Dream, with the worst Bottom ever. A must read. Excellent little stories.
21) Lost and Found 2: Exotic Pets by Syd McGinley. The second of the Dr. Fell Chasers. This time the doc is hosting a kinky summer camp while the local doms set up a charitable foundation and make him director. Excellent, as always. Read these stories in order, if possible.
20) Toybox: Nipple Clamps. A kinky little toybox, with Vic Winter taking us on an impromptu shopping spree, Mychael Black showing us new ways of handling office discipline, and Syd McGinley's Dr. Fell doing plumbing work and enjoying himself...
19) Anno Dracula by Kim Newman. I hesitate to call it steampunk, but it is certainly a grim, gritty ugly version of Victorian London. Being a vampire is fashionable ever since Queen Victoria married Vlad Tepes, even as Silver Knife aka Jack the Ripper preys on vampire whores. The mingling of Ripper lore, great fictional and historical characters of the era (Sherlock Holmes and Bram Stoker are imprisoned in a concentration camp, a murgatroyd (overly fashionable vamp) named Lioncourt files suit for a coat ruined in some riots) and the whole mis-en-scene is brillian.
18) The Films of Errol Flynn by Tony Thomas, Rudy Behlmer and Clifford McCarty. Foreword by Greer Garson. An overview of the filmography, with lots of pictures, and more biographical material. Very good.
17) Toybox: Piercing. A decent toybox. Two readable stories and one that required more knowledge or visualization skills than I possess.
16) Lost and Found 1: Pet Rescue by Syd McGinley. Dr. Fell is back in a longish short story in which he rescues a sub from an abusive dom. Sketchy and stream-of-consciousness in places, and written in first person present-tense, this story still managed to grip me clear through.
15) My Wicked, Wicked Ways by Errol Flynn. I wish I could say this was an enjoyable read. Flynn is clever and witty, and his ghostwriter was extremely readable. But he is not a good man and his autobiography leaves no doubt of it. Plantation overseer, slaver, sailor, vagabond, absolute rakehell who stood trial for murder at the age of twenty, and twice in later years for statutory rape. The period endemic racism (which does not extend to his taste in women), the misogyny and the general ADHD tone of the narrative made it unpleasant while still captivating. My take-away thought: Any day my job does not involve castrating sheep with my teeth is a good day.
14) Toybox: Sounds, ed. M. Rode. Another three story smut collection, this time combining my carnival story with Kiernan Kelly's self-help guru and Mychael Black's vampires. Sexy and very different.
13) Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz. Ordinarily, I don't like Dean Koontz, but I decided to give him a try. His style is very annoying. Odd Thomas is a 20 year old fry cook who sees dead people. He is in a race to stop a calamity from happening on August 15. our story opens on the 14. Rambling and nerve-wracking, but very entertaining. (audio)
12) Move Under Ground by Nick Mamatas. Jack Kerouac vs.Cthulhu. This was a weird book that would have made a lot more sense if I'd read On the Road. Jack, and his pals Neal Cassaday and William Burroughs make a bleak pilgrimage across a United States where the Old Ones hold sway.
11) Dance upon the Air by Nora Roberts. An odd little pagan thriller/romance. The first in a trilogy. I want to read the next two. (Audio)
10) The Third Twin by Ken Follett. Dr. Ferrami does twin studies, specifically, criminality in identicals. She finds one of her subjects caught in her best friend's rape trial, and stumbles on a secret cloning experiment. Typical Follett, with his usual strong female character. Less wordy than some. (audio)
9) The Daybreakers: The Sacketts by Louis L'Amour. Thoroughly entertaining western. Orrin and Tyrel Sackett go west, drive cattle, make friends with Spanish Dons, round up wild cattle, become marshals and other fun stuff. (audio)
8) Navajo Echoes by Cassie Miles. A nicely plotted thriller, and a sweet romance. That's all I ask for in a Harlequin.
7) Birthright by Nora Roberts. Not bad. Kind of a romance, kind of a mystery, very well-plotted and tense. Lots of head-hopping. Callie gets called to a dig in western Marylanfd, and starts discovering stuff about her own past as well as the village she's digging up. (audio)
6) Viking Funeral by Stephen J. Cannell. Anyone who watched TV in the 80's remembers Cannell. He still has the ability to write a tightly plotted thriller. When a deep undercover unit goes rogue, it's up to disgraced cop, Shane Scully to stop the Vikings. (audio)
5) "Dress to Impress" by Jodi Payne. From Torquere. Erik likes to play games, and Matt gets sucked in. Very sexy, and very nicely done.
4) Taste Test: Blue Collar from Torquere Press. I'm cheating here. One of the four stories was mine, but the other three were new. We have a trucker and his mechanic lover, a drummer who is rescued late at night by a tow-truck driver and a bike mechanic who falls for the owner of a classic. And my own about Privateer Lines' pressgang tactics for new drivers. All very readable, hot and entertaining.
3) The Fever Tree and Other Stories of Suspense by Ruth Rendell. Oh wow. Murder and other horrors in small town Britain. These are like arsenic-laced bonbons, needing to be savored one at a time, each a small jewel in storytelling. The title story is reminiscent of Bradbury's "The Veldt."
2) The Dr. Fell Series by Syd McGinley: Pet sitting, Samhian & Sol Invictus, from Torquere. Wonderful, wonderful. John Fell is grieving for his lover, bashed to death, when he sort of falls into the role of Top for a group of his friends, who send their boys to him when the boys are troublesome. Written in first person present tense, the style may be off-putting, but they are well-worth persevering.
1) Strange Candy by Laurell K Hamilton. Not bad. Not as dreadful as I feared, but she feels, somehow secondhand and threadbare on several of the stories. My first LKH.
41) Men in Uniform ed. M. Rode (out of print). Everything from chef's whites to a dog catcher uniform to an Imperial officer fill these pages. Sexy wicked men, wearing and removing uniforms. Some of the stories are just smut, others come with plots. (cheating as one of these stories is mine)
40) Flipped Fables ed. S.A. Clements. Nine fables get a twist from Torquere authors. Kiernan Kelly's "The Boy Who Cried Werewolf" is the best, in my opinion. GS Wiley's "Court and Country" is a close second. The rest aren't bad either.
39) Quod Tam Sitio. A.M. Riley. The title means "that for which I thirst." This hot little volume gives us a vampiric monk who craves the sacred music and the priest he encounters with equal hunger. This and Cheating Chance are the two best fiction books I've read this year.
38) Crockett's Victory Garden. James Underwood Crockett. (out of print) The definitive month by month book of gardening, put together by the host of PBS's long running show.
37) Billy and the Boingers: Bootleg. Berke Breathed. (out of print) This is not great literature. But sometimes one just needs to hide out in 1988. Of course, some jokes are still applicable, like the revised lyrics to Deathtongue's song "Leper Lover." Leper lover, creature of the dark/drip your disease, leave your mark/ Through the gutter slime and stinky/George Bush is a twinkie.
36) Toybox: Rings ed. M. Rode. A nice collection of stories. An older pirate gets some help. Dr. Fell trains some naughty boys. An ancient Chinese prince time-travels to teach modern philanderer a lesson. Hot, sexy and very nice.
35) Cheating Chance by James Buchanan. One of the best books I've read this year. Brandon and Nicky meet at a Goth convention. Brandon is a closeted cop and Nicky is a slot inspector for the State of Nevada. A tautly plotted suspense novel with some very sexy love scenes, this comes highly reccommended.
34) Bubbas of the Apocalypse ed. Selina Rosen. The anthology that started it all. When the Y25nvirus kills all the yuppies, the bubbas inherit the earth. Mixed quality from workmanlike to screamingly funny.
33) Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Fascinating book on everything from cheating in sumo wrestling to names and how they reflect community. Read this!
32) Monsters ed. Rob Knight. out of print. 21 sexy stories of incubi, vampires, werewolves and other assorted demons. All very good.
31) Another Fine Mess ed. Syd McGinley. 10 hot stories of "It seemed like a good idea at the time." Everything from a young man who walks dogs that are really dragons, to the Thatcher brothers being bailed out of jail to a bartender who takes the wrong man home.
30) Bloody Bones by Laurell K Hamilton. Anita Blake is called to raise some zombies to determine whose land they are on... But nothing ever goes that easily. Three dead teens, a vampire kill and a nursery demon all make this one really good, despite Anita's resolute "I'm going to piss off everyone around me, constantly" attitude.
29) The Path of Iro by Mike Shade. Chulu is led to devote himself to the gods at the temple of Iro. In the temple, there are many ways to worship and each comes with a shard. Immediately taken as a novitiate by the master of the Ivory Shard, Chulu is told the stories of the other masters of the other shards and their novitiates. I wanted to like this. I like good fantasy. This was sex in a fantasy setting. Sometimes the sex got overwhelming and I skimmed. But I had the pattern down by the story of the second shard.
28) International House of Bubbas, Selina Rosen, ed. Pure silliness as Bubbas from around the world cope with the Y25 virus that turns people with too much exposure to computers into zombies. Japan and Scotland, Russia and Antarctica, we're goin' round the world with the Rubber Duck here. Great fun.
27) Soul Music by Terry Pratchett. Mostly about Death's granddaughter, Susan, and Music With Rocks In. Very silly. And definitely on a mission from Glod.
26) Epiphany: Shining Through by Lee Benoit. Short but intense, this piece takes us through a performance at a BDSM club. Very hot, very good.
25) Gil's All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez. Hilarious bit of zombie fighting by Duke, a werewolf, and Earl a vampire. Highly recommended, but saying more would spoil the fun.
24) Raintree: Haunted by Linda Winstead Jones. Interesting paranormal romance about a copy with electrical control powers and his new partner tracking down a killer that's been sent after him and his cousin. Second in a series.I want to read the others.
23) The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. A rollicking romp drawn from the Childe Ballads. Written in "ye olden style" by a Victorian, it's slow going until you get into the swing of the words. Then it is hilarious and exciting. Robin is a merry prankster, until service with King Richard darkens him. No happy ending, for the Death of Robin Hood is taken directly from the ballad of the same name.
22) Taste Test: Summer Solstice. A Torquere anthology with three short stories in it. Kit Zheng gives us a Roy LeRoy tall tale. GS Wiley has a lovely period piece about a lame florist and an American flier. And Syd McGinley's Dr. Fell is having his own MidSummer's Night Dream, with the worst Bottom ever. A must read. Excellent little stories.
21) Lost and Found 2: Exotic Pets by Syd McGinley. The second of the Dr. Fell Chasers. This time the doc is hosting a kinky summer camp while the local doms set up a charitable foundation and make him director. Excellent, as always. Read these stories in order, if possible.
20) Toybox: Nipple Clamps. A kinky little toybox, with Vic Winter taking us on an impromptu shopping spree, Mychael Black showing us new ways of handling office discipline, and Syd McGinley's Dr. Fell doing plumbing work and enjoying himself...
19) Anno Dracula by Kim Newman. I hesitate to call it steampunk, but it is certainly a grim, gritty ugly version of Victorian London. Being a vampire is fashionable ever since Queen Victoria married Vlad Tepes, even as Silver Knife aka Jack the Ripper preys on vampire whores. The mingling of Ripper lore, great fictional and historical characters of the era (Sherlock Holmes and Bram Stoker are imprisoned in a concentration camp, a murgatroyd (overly fashionable vamp) named Lioncourt files suit for a coat ruined in some riots) and the whole mis-en-scene is brillian.
18) The Films of Errol Flynn by Tony Thomas, Rudy Behlmer and Clifford McCarty. Foreword by Greer Garson. An overview of the filmography, with lots of pictures, and more biographical material. Very good.
17) Toybox: Piercing. A decent toybox. Two readable stories and one that required more knowledge or visualization skills than I possess.
16) Lost and Found 1: Pet Rescue by Syd McGinley. Dr. Fell is back in a longish short story in which he rescues a sub from an abusive dom. Sketchy and stream-of-consciousness in places, and written in first person present-tense, this story still managed to grip me clear through.
15) My Wicked, Wicked Ways by Errol Flynn. I wish I could say this was an enjoyable read. Flynn is clever and witty, and his ghostwriter was extremely readable. But he is not a good man and his autobiography leaves no doubt of it. Plantation overseer, slaver, sailor, vagabond, absolute rakehell who stood trial for murder at the age of twenty, and twice in later years for statutory rape. The period endemic racism (which does not extend to his taste in women), the misogyny and the general ADHD tone of the narrative made it unpleasant while still captivating. My take-away thought: Any day my job does not involve castrating sheep with my teeth is a good day.
14) Toybox: Sounds, ed. M. Rode. Another three story smut collection, this time combining my carnival story with Kiernan Kelly's self-help guru and Mychael Black's vampires. Sexy and very different.
13) Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz. Ordinarily, I don't like Dean Koontz, but I decided to give him a try. His style is very annoying. Odd Thomas is a 20 year old fry cook who sees dead people. He is in a race to stop a calamity from happening on August 15. our story opens on the 14. Rambling and nerve-wracking, but very entertaining. (audio)
12) Move Under Ground by Nick Mamatas. Jack Kerouac vs.Cthulhu. This was a weird book that would have made a lot more sense if I'd read On the Road. Jack, and his pals Neal Cassaday and William Burroughs make a bleak pilgrimage across a United States where the Old Ones hold sway.
11) Dance upon the Air by Nora Roberts. An odd little pagan thriller/romance. The first in a trilogy. I want to read the next two. (Audio)
10) The Third Twin by Ken Follett. Dr. Ferrami does twin studies, specifically, criminality in identicals. She finds one of her subjects caught in her best friend's rape trial, and stumbles on a secret cloning experiment. Typical Follett, with his usual strong female character. Less wordy than some. (audio)
9) The Daybreakers: The Sacketts by Louis L'Amour. Thoroughly entertaining western. Orrin and Tyrel Sackett go west, drive cattle, make friends with Spanish Dons, round up wild cattle, become marshals and other fun stuff. (audio)
8) Navajo Echoes by Cassie Miles. A nicely plotted thriller, and a sweet romance. That's all I ask for in a Harlequin.
7) Birthright by Nora Roberts. Not bad. Kind of a romance, kind of a mystery, very well-plotted and tense. Lots of head-hopping. Callie gets called to a dig in western Marylanfd, and starts discovering stuff about her own past as well as the village she's digging up. (audio)
6) Viking Funeral by Stephen J. Cannell. Anyone who watched TV in the 80's remembers Cannell. He still has the ability to write a tightly plotted thriller. When a deep undercover unit goes rogue, it's up to disgraced cop, Shane Scully to stop the Vikings. (audio)
5) "Dress to Impress" by Jodi Payne. From Torquere. Erik likes to play games, and Matt gets sucked in. Very sexy, and very nicely done.
4) Taste Test: Blue Collar from Torquere Press. I'm cheating here. One of the four stories was mine, but the other three were new. We have a trucker and his mechanic lover, a drummer who is rescued late at night by a tow-truck driver and a bike mechanic who falls for the owner of a classic. And my own about Privateer Lines' pressgang tactics for new drivers. All very readable, hot and entertaining.
3) The Fever Tree and Other Stories of Suspense by Ruth Rendell. Oh wow. Murder and other horrors in small town Britain. These are like arsenic-laced bonbons, needing to be savored one at a time, each a small jewel in storytelling. The title story is reminiscent of Bradbury's "The Veldt."
2) The Dr. Fell Series by Syd McGinley: Pet sitting, Samhian & Sol Invictus, from Torquere. Wonderful, wonderful. John Fell is grieving for his lover, bashed to death, when he sort of falls into the role of Top for a group of his friends, who send their boys to him when the boys are troublesome. Written in first person present tense, the style may be off-putting, but they are well-worth persevering.
1) Strange Candy by Laurell K Hamilton. Not bad. Not as dreadful as I feared, but she feels, somehow secondhand and threadbare on several of the stories. My first LKH.
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-30 08:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-30 08:27 pm (UTC)I'm struggling more this year because I'm home more. When I was on the road, I'd pack a bunch of books. That way when I had to wait three hours at a shipper for them to MAKE an ottoman, I could get a fair chunk through a book.
Having the e-book reader does make it easier to get some reading done.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-30 09:27 pm (UTC)