1. Scepter's Return by Dan Chernenko (pseudonym for Harry Turtledove) Fantasy .
# 3 in the Scepter of Mercy series (Bastard King, Chernagor Pirates, Scepter's Return). I am enjoying this action packed war story, although the moncat thing is kind of silly.
DONE.
This was a very well written trilogy by one of my favorite authors.
If I had to write a compare and contract book report on Harry Turtledove I would compare and contrast Scepter's Return to A Different Flesh. The author has a fondness for monkeys. (For more monkey books, try Summer of the Monkeys).
2. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison - YA humor/romance. How is that for a title? I accidently read/listened to this series out of order. I already heard the book on CD of another in the series. DONE.
Silly and fun. Fortunately it came with a glossary in the back, since it is chocked full of contemporary British slang. Is there really such a thing as a Scottish wild cat?
3. Hidden Talents by David Lubar. YA fantasy. DONE. Highly entertaining book. Thumbs up. I would recommend this to a boy age 10-15 or to an adult male or female reader. I will probably read the sequel, True Talents, but not right away since I already have about 20 books on reserve. This book, about a group of boys at a reform school, belongs on the shelf with Freak the Mighty, Lord of the Flies, and other boy "buddy" books.
The author's mother is a librarian, which might explain the scene where Martin goes to the school library to do research on psychic powers. Lubar explains how Martin uses the catalog, the "see also" subject references in the catalog, and reference books. Like many students, Martin tries to avoid asking the librarian any questions.page 91 of ISBN 978-0-765-35766-3
"As much as I hate to admit it, I was starting to have fun in the library. If I told the guys that I was enjoying myself, I'd be kidded without mercy. They'd probably start calling me Bookman or Wordboy, or something like that".
4. Eye Contact by Cammie McGovern - suspense/mystery. DONE. In some ways similar to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, but less innovative.
5. Dorothy of Oz by Roger S. Baum - children's fantasy. DONE. I had not read any of Roger Baum's until now (at least, I don't remember having read them). The writing and the illustrations were top notch. I would highly recommend this book to fantasy readers. It even has a moral - even though Dorothy does not have magic, she has something more important - kindness, consideration, and compassion. Not magic, but her love, saves the day.
6. Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum - humor. DONE. I think I need some comic relief. DONE. If you work at a library you will enjoy at least a few of these jokes. This comic strip is not for everyone, but librarians get it. Joel Hodgeson of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 fame once said something like this: "not everyone will get the jokes, but the right people will get the jokes".
7. Household Gods by Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove - fantasy. I wonder how well Turtledove will work with a co-writer? DONE.
This was another book that makes people greatful to be alive today, rather than in the past with their diseases, injustice, etc. I could have told the main character to boil the water before drinking it - DUH!
8. Loud Emily by Alexis O'Neill - children's historical fiction/humor. Emily is as loud as a fog horn, which is usually not a good thing...DONE.
Thumbs up, but not recommended for a bedtime story as the reader must be loud. (Another book I do not recommend for bedtime, but is wacky fun, is Bats Around the Clock, a tribute to American Bandstand, which instructs the reader to do different dance moves).
9. Games of Command by Linnea Sinclair. DONE.
I was not hooked on this book. It had too many made-up names, made-up technologies, made-up planets, etc. and it appears to be a sequel to some other book that I did not read. Either that, or it relied on moving backwards and forwards in time repeatedly. There should be some kind of connection with the reader, but I could not connect to this book. I did not finish it. I did skip to the sex scenes, which were supposed to be good since the author won a Rita for some other book, but the sex scenes were not any more interesting than the rest of this book. It was advertised as a science fiction/romance. It was not successful as either.
10. Dragons of the Cuyahoga by S. Andrew Swann. DONE.
Recommended for those women who draw dragons, work at the Natural History Museum, and live in Cleveland. I think you know who you are.
Also recommended for anyone with a connection to Cleveland. (Clevelanders should also read Crooked River Burning). This book is told as more of a police/crime/mystery novel than a fantasy novel, so more than one type of audience should enjoy it. By the way, the Coast Guard is also mentioned in this novel.
Some library and Cleveland quotes from Dragons of the Cuyahoga, page numbers from the paperback version ISBN 0-7564-0009-0.
p. 57: So, after I had again determined that the last caller was from an unknown number, and made sure that it was still before eight, I called up one of my research sources.
"Cleveland Public Library, archives. How can I help you?"
"Eric, it's Kline."
"Kline? I can barely hear you. Where are you?"
"On my cell phone, quick question - how's your Shakespeare?"
"My Shakespeare? What are you working on?"
"Can you ID a quote for me?"
"Speak up, what?"
"'I am determined to become a villain. Plots I have laid' What's that from?"
"Can you repeat that?"
"'I am determined to become a villain!'" I yelled into the phone. "'Plots I have - '"I was just making a blind turn on a road following the edge of the Chagrin River, I looked up and suddenly there was a rider in front of me...
"Hellow? Kline?"
I sighed, shook my head, and said a curt "Yeah." into the phone.
"What happended? I thought you were cut off - "
"Never mind that." I kept staring into the woods. "Do you know the quote?"
"Uh-huh. I found it for you. The full think's, 'I am determined to prove a villain/ And hate the idle peasures of those days. Plots I have laid, inductions dangerous/ By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams/ To set my brother Clarence and the King/ In deadly hate against one another - '"
"You don't have to read the whole thing. Just tell me what it's from."
"It's from the opening soliloquy of Richard III."
I pondered a moment. "That's the humpbacked king who kills his nephews in the Tower of London, right?"
"You got it."
Macbeth, then Richard III? There was obviously something my anonymous caller was trying to tell me. Something about powerful men, and betrayal. But who, and what...?
Mind games.
Some joker who believed that this was some form of subtlety. I shouldn't be wasting my time on it. What I needed to do was get tomorrow's dragon story into the paper. And, tomorrow, I was probably going to get to talk to a dragon in the flesh.
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Library Mistress: I am not sure why he called the archives on this, but I am glad that the librarian was able to help him.
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page 121. That speculation took me down to University Circle, to the brand new wing of the Natural History Museum[that part is alternative fiction]...
Cleveland has always had a fair number of museums. However, even before the Portal a noticeable fission had begun. For three quarters of the twentieth century, we had places of genuine, scientific, historical, and artistic value. The old Natural History Museum had genuine paleontologists doing original work in the field. The Cleveland Museum of Art had a nationally recognized collection and the best collection of Medieval and Renaissance armor and weaponry on the continent. The Western Reserve historical society was a place of genuine scholarship.
Then we went and built the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Now don't get me wrong, I'm as interested in Janis Joplin's psychedelic Porsche as anyone else. But there's a reason they built it on the lakefront and not in University Circle. It has about as much to do with scholarship and education as P. T. Barnum's original American Museum. Then there was the Great Lakes Science Museum, which I don't think has ever employed a genuine scientist.
By the time the Portal opened, we already had two sets of museums in this town. The old style places run by stuffy PhDs and paid for by grants and donations, and the new style run by marketing MBAs and paid for by tourism.
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LibraryMistress:
Then the author has the main character go to the Natural History Museum and talk to a "real scientist".
I agree that the Art Museum has great armor, and the Egypt exhibit and the Degas are excellent as well. I have enjoyed the exhibits and planetarium of the Natural History Museum many times, as well as the Great Lakes Science Center. I have not been to the Rock Hall, so I can not comment on that.
He didn't mention the giant "FREE" stamp. That is kind of odd, but neat.
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Page 150. I was watching Bone Daddy's auto-eulogy at one of the PCs in the Cleveland Public Library. You weren't supposed to load outside software on these things, but when no one was looking, I'd slipped Bone Daddy's CD into the base unit, and called it to life...The remains of my notebook [computer] had made it into a dumpster behind a restaurant I passed on the way to the library...[he is still in the library]...I flipped open my cell phne - which has survived the night intact - and hit the third autodial button.
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LibraryMistress: Naughty, boy! Breaking the rules. But, I suppose, since your life was at stake that it was okay. At least you weren't viewing porn or downloading viruses to the computers.
I hope that you used your "quiet, indoors voice" when talking on the cell phone in the library.
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page 158.
They escorted me up the concrete walkway, past empty flower beds where the mulch was in bloom.
page 210.
O'Malley on the other hand, radiated unease like the heat from a compost heap.
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LibraryMistress: I think that is lovely imagery, like the Tree of Heaven in a Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/aial1.htm
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Pages leading up to and including 257 are set in a library in a private residence in Hunting Valley, a rich suburb of Cleveland. Apparently this is the perfect place for a Matlock-Murder-She-Wrote-revealing-of-the-who-dunnit scene.
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Willoughby Hills, and some other suburbs are taken back by towering forests when the elves arrive, restoring the land to pre-Colonial woodland status and Squire's Castle is a mystical place. (Which we already knew).
