Stacking The Shelves and Mailbox Monday

Stacking The Shelves is a new weekly meme being hosted by Tynga over at Tynga's Reviews. Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you've added to your shelves - physical and virtual, borrowed and bought. Mailbox Monday, meanwhile, is a similar meme being hosted by Mrs. Q. at Mrs. Q. Book Addict this month (check out the Mailbox Monday blog to see who's hosting next month).

The week got off to a good start with my copy of Ripper, the latest Event Group Thriller from David L. Golemon.

On the Ebook front, this week saw a slew of review titles - Reich by Donald Allen Kirch, The Human Condition (Song of the Ancestors Book 2) by John Grover, All the King's Hoodlums by Kenton Crowther, and Shudder by Harry F. Kane.

Best of all, the week ended on a great note with my signed copies of the King Rolen's Kin trilogy by Rowena Cory Daniells, including The King's Bastard, The Uncrowned King, and The Usurper . . . and an awesome bookmark.

How about you . . . what did add to the shelves this week?

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TGIF - Feature & Follow Friday

Feature & Follow Friday is a blog hop that is designed to provide some much-appreciated exposure to the bloggers participating, and to expand their following. Hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read, each of whom feature a chosen blog for the week, it's an interesting way to get to know one another.

Question of the Week: What drove you to start book blogging in the first place?



I'll be perfectly honest - I got into blogging because I wanted access to free books before they hit the store shelves. I've always been an avid reader, loyal to my favourite authors, so the idea of being able to get a sneak-peek, to read something before anybody else, really excited me. Now that I've been blogging for a year, what I enjoy most is interacting with authors, and getting to know them off the page . . . but I still get excited when I see those ARCs on my doorstep. :)



Parajunkee also hosts a Social Hop for Facebook and Twitter, which I regularly take part in. So, if you're one of those people who aren't on Blogger, or who just don't like Google Friend Connect, it's a great way to keep in touch and follow one another.

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TGIF is another blog hop designed to provide much-appreciated exposure to the bloggers participating, and to expand their following. Hosted by GReads, it's an interesting way to recap the week, pose a question, and find some exposure with a different audience.



Question of the Week: Quotes That Make You Swoon - What are some of the most swoon-worthy quotes you've experienced in a book?



I'm not sure what qualifies as swoon-worthy (I'm really not one to read anything that involves swooning), so I'm just going to go with 2 quotes from my latest read struck me as quirky:




"Discovered less than four hundred years ago by the famous Tallian adventurer “Literal” Edmund Bejeevers, the Dog Crap Archipelago lay like a giant turd across the passage between Borgho City and the Faraway isles. Early explorers found nothing there to recommend the place to anybody, and indeed, early maps show a simple ovoid outline with the words “Don’t Bother” written inside."




"The wall that surrounds Scorby City is over twenty feet thick, although nobody has tried to invade in over three hundred years. It isn’t worth the effort. Any potential invader would be so quickly and effectively wrapped in red tape that signing the necessary permission forms just to rape and pillage – and those forms actually exist – would take up most of a season."

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eBook Review: Vengeance of the Wolf by Solitaire Parke

What do you get when you cross the mystery of Criminal Minds with the politics of 24, and then cross that with the terror of Nightmare on Elm Street? Well, you get a story that's a bit uneven, and one which has trouble walking the fine line that is willing suspension of disbelief, but you also get one heck of an interesting read.



Vengeance Of The Wolf is the story of a political assassin who works through his target`s dreams. The story actually starts out with a bang-bang-bang immersion into those dreams, setting up a fantastic mystery of "how" when we discover that the deaths we witnessed don`t correspond to the physical evidence of the bodies. The very concept of being able to break every bone in the human body . . . from the inside . . . through a dream is creepy enough to compel any reader forward.



Enter Detective John Yardley and Agent Frank Williams, the two men charged with stopping the reign of terror before it reaches its ultimate target - the President of the United States. I hate to give away a plot twist, but since this one comes rather early, and since the book ultimately turns upon it, I have to saw I was shocked when they failed in their efforts. I couldn't see how anybody could stop the dreams so quickly, much less how the authorities could figure out the pattern with so little to go on, and was fully prepared for some cheesy bit of deus-ex-machina, followed by a mundane hunt-the-killer story.



Yes, I was shocked to see them fail, but also immensely satisfied to discover the book wasn't heading in the direction I feared.



Dorian is an interesting character, an almost likeable killer with whom you can`t help but sympathise. It takes a while before his motivation is fully revealed, but it worked for me, and really sold me on his cause. Celeste was definitely a surprise, and her role in the story was far from what I expected, based on our early, tantalizing glimpses. Yardley and Williams are a bit more stock in their make-up, and a bit harder to warm up to, but they definitely have the potential to carry a story (should there be another literary chance waiting).



Overall, it's a book that is more creepy than chilling, and one which moved a bit slow for my tastes (once the initial dream immersions were complete). I'm a bit on the fence as to the explanation of "how" Dorian enacted the murders, but it does work, even if it wasn`t necessarily the answer I was looking for.



A good, solid read, with an intriguing concept, and a nice flair for the macabre.

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Waiting On Wednesday: Only Superhuman by Christopher Bennett

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.



This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:



Only Superhuman by Christopher Bennet



2107 AD: A generation ago, Earth and the cislunar colonies banned genetic and cybernetic modifications. But out in the Asteroid Belt, anything goes. Dozens of flourishing space habitats are spawning exotic new societies and strange new varieties of humans. It’s a volatile situation that threatens the peace and stability of the entire solar system.



Emerald Blair is a Troubleshooter. Inspired by the classic superhero comics of the twentieth century, she’s joined with other mods to try to police the unruly Asteroid Belt. But her loyalties are tested when she finds herself torn between rival factions of superhumans with very different agendas. Emerald wants to put her special abilities to good use, but what do you do when you can’t tell the heroes from the villains?



Only Superhuman is a rollicking hard-SF adventure set in a complex and fascinating future. (Oct 16, 2012)



So, let's see - we have "rollicking hard-SF adventure" and a "complex and fascinating future" coupled with a heroine "inspired by the classic superhero comics of the twentieth century." Count me in!

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GUEST POST & GIVEAWAY by Rowena Cory Daniells

Why I love the WWW (Or How the web set me free)

by Rowena Cory Daniells





I grew up on the Gold Coast in the 60s and 70s.



Me with my cat. In the background you can see the shed. We kept chickens and grew vegetables, went swimming every weekend.

Back then the Gold Coast was fibro shacks, surf, sun and sand. All very idyllic but lacking in any sense of permanence. Back then the Gold Coast was famous for metre maids.

These were girls (not women) who wore golden bikinis and dropped coins in your metre if it ran out, so that people didn’t get tickets. (As a child I didn’t want to grow up to be a metre maid, I wanted to be an astronaut).



The closest we came to history was this wreck on Stradbroke Island.

But of course, I’d never seen it. I’d heard the grown ups mention it in passing and no one seemed to know much about it. Back then, there was no way to find out anything. I suppose I could have gone to the library and asked, but I only remember going into the library once when I was about eleven, and I didn’t know you could ask librarians to find things. I didn’t know that there were people interested in history, trying to piece the past together. See here. (The Galleon they are talking about is not the wreck in the photo above. More on the galleon here).



Back then we had one bookshelf in our home and it contained a couple of books and some magazines. I read everything I could find. The only way I could see the world was through TV which was black and white and our local TV stations must have bought a couple of seasons of Gilligan’s Island, Bewitched and Hogan’s Heroes and just kept playing them over and over until I knew the dialogue off by heart and was close to gnawing off my leg in frustration.



To put it simply I was desperately hungry for anything that gave me a glimpse of the wider world.



In my early twenties I moved to Melbourne and opened a second-hand book and record shop. It was heaven. I could read all day long and talk to people about books. As soon as I found an interesting book I would devour it, and I’d keep it just in case I ever needed to refer to it again. Books were like treasures. The more I had, the richer I felt. Beautiful books on art. Books on science. Fantasy and SF books...
In fact, it got to the point recently when I had to go through my shelves and cull my books. They were starting to block the windows.

Resorting to great ruthlessness, I sorted them into keep and give to the local second-hand bookstore piles. The second-hand bookstore gave me $500 credit. I’ve used it all up, plus every time I go to a convention I come back with a couple of hundred dollars worth of books.

Confession - It’s been over twelve months since I cleaned out my book shelves but they are stacked two rows deep again.



All of which brings me to why I love the internet. I can find out anything, at the click of a mouse. I know. It’s amazing...



Recently, I was writing a fantasy set in a dangerous tropical paradise and I needed to know how far the horizon was if you were sitting in a rowboat, then how far it was if you were up on the lookout of a sailing ship. It’s out there. The information is out there, all you have to do is look.



My ‘bookmark’ file on my web browser now looks like my bookshelves. There are hundreds of folders and subfolders with all sorts of amazing facts about the world. I love it that I can read the science blogs, and New Scientist. This is the kid who memorised the planets of the solar system when she found a book about it, just in case she never found the book again.



I love it that people put up pictures of cats with funny captions.

It is such a relief from the official news, which is all doom and gloom. The world can’t be such a bad place, when people love their pets.



I love it that I can find links like this - the Paris apartment that was locked up before World War two and only opened again recently. (There’s a romantic story attached to this apartment).



I love the wonderful but sad, like Hashima Island, where 5,000 people used to live on one square mile. But when the coal ran out the island was deserted (more photos here). And this is a link to a video made by a man who goes back to the island to look around.

The internet brings me closer to people all around the world. It’s not a perfect world. For instance, there’s this series of photos of people with degrees who spent years studying and find themselves sweeping streets or serving tables.



I love twitter because I follow artists, writers and political activists who are always putting up interesting links. I’m still hungry for information about the world and its people.



Sometimes I wonder if it’s a writer thing. Writers find people and the world endlessly fascinating because we are always observing, trying to make sense of life.
This is why I love the WWW because it has set me free. The more I learn, the more I want to know.

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GIVEAWAY

Rowena has a copy of either her gritty, noir-paranormal crime thriller The Price of Fame, or the first book of either of her fantasy trilogies, King Rolen’s Kin or The Outcast Chronicles to give away.



This competition is open to anyone anywhere in the world. 



Just answer Rowena's question in the comments below: "What do you love about the web? Surprise me!"

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eBook Review: Getting Better by Tyr Kieran

Shaun has been institutionalized, condemned to Agronaville Mental Health Center by his traumatic past. As the story opens he is hiding in his room, awkwardly barricaded against the orderlies and patients by nothing more than the strength of his bed frame. He claims to be Getting Better, and even if he seems a bit paranoid, who wouldn't be under those circumstances?



For the most part, the young man comes across as a sympathetic character, abused and betrayed by the system that was supposed to heal him. When he's summoned to his first group therapy session, something doesn't quite seem right, but attendance is not voluntary. As we listen to the other patients explain why they were committed, we begin to understand a bit more about why Shaun is there. His violent hallucinations regarding the patients are as shocking as they are vivid, but what really makes the story so unsettling is the way in which we come to understand his justifications.



Of course, we do get to understand a bit of why Shaun is there as well, just before he heads back to his room for lunch.



There are two twists upon which the story hangs, one of which I suspected, but the other completely blind-sided me (kudos to Tyr Kieran for that!). They both come just before the end, and to say they alter our perspective of the story is an understatement. They're not cheap, and you don't feel cheated by them, which is why they work so well. Instead, they send a chill down your spine, making you doubt yourself almost as much as you doubt Shaun.



Short, but effective, this is a great read.

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eBook Review: The Succubus Gift by B.R. Kingsolver

Before I get into my review, I should be up front about something . . . okay, two things. Number one, I don't generally read a lot of urban fantasy. Not sure why, but I guess I prefer a more complete escape or disconnect from reality. Second, I don't generally read too many books that cross over onto the paranormal romance shelves. It's not that I have anything against romance, just that I'd rather it not be the dominant focus of the story.



So, with all of that in mind, it's a bit of a surprise that I agreed to give B.R. Kingsolver's The Succubus Gift a read, and even more surprising that I quite enjoyed it.



This is a book that wastes no time in getting down to business. We barely even know the main character's name yet, and suddenly we're smack-dab in the middle of an unexpected family reunion made awkward by supernatural secrets and secret society politics. It's a little bewildering, but it certainly serves to keep you off-balance, unsure as to what's coming next. Fortunately, Brenna is a strong, colourful, likeable character who serves to keep the reader grounded. Even though she's been a telepath all her life, the revelations of a wider supernatural world (and her place in it) are as new to her as it is to us.



There were two elements of the book that initially kept me reading, and ultimately kept me entertained. The first is the mythology behind the book, which incorporates an ancient Goddess, gifts of telepathy and telekinesis, and an actual succubus. I liked the way Kingsolver played with out expectations of the various elements, twisting them to create a mythological background all her own. It's quite varied and strong, and really holds the novel together.



The second element, the one that kept me entertained, is the strength of her characters. Strong, vibrant, and colourful, they all seem larger than life, the kind of people you really wish could exist off the page. More than that, though, they are characters that grow and evolve. In some cases, that growth simply comes from us learning more about them. In the case of Brenna, however, she really does develop over the course of the story, maturing from this nervous, insecure young woman into someone far more confident, powerful, and capable.



If I were to have one complaint, it would be that the pacing is somewhat uneven. That frantic, headlong rush into the story gives way to several drawn out scenes that seem a little too carefully crafted to create drama, as opposed to moving the story along. It's not a huge issue, and nothing that impacted my enjoyment of the read, just an observation looking back. For the most part, the storytelling is solid and both the action and the romantic sequences work well.



All-in-all, a pleasant surprise.

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