Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic 50 Book Challenge 2012/What I've Read in 2012

Whew, you guys have been busy. I just finish my first book of the year. Granted, it's 6 stories in one, so it did take a bit longer. The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams is definitely a very quirky sci-fi series. Every time I put it down, my thought processes were a bit off (more than usual ) but I loved it. I've read a few before, especially the main book, but now I get a few more jokes. This Ultimate anthology contained The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe and Everything, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, Mostly Harmless, and the short Young Zaphod Plays It Safe.

Yes, isn't it wonderful? I've been thoroughly enjoying reading everything so far.

As for me:

I Am Number Four - Pittacus Lore

I found my way into the movie of this one a few weeks back during some bored, early morning channel browsing. Pure hokum, but I enjoyed it enough to check out the novel. Turned out the movie stuck very close to the book, so there were no major surprises, but enjoyable all the same.

The Bitterwood Trilogy - James Maxey:

I Bitterwood
II DragonForge
III DragonSeed

A marvellously entertaining fantasy trilogy. Just loved it. To say it's a kind of Planet of the Apes with Dragons instead of apes would be to simplify it too much, but it had some parallels. In a far distant future, human civilisation on Earth has faded to just a handful of medieval villages and a few tech artifacts. The world is ruled instead by a race of dragons. As war erupts between them and their human pets/servants, a small band of dragons and humans are brought together....

I particularly loved how the alliances kept shifting, some of the good guys became villains and all of the twists, turns and surprising revelations as the history of how the world turned from human to dragon emerged.

Great characters, some nice wit - I

Brilliant stuff.

LabRat

5. The Visible Darkness - Jonathon King

6. The Lake of Dead Languages - Carol Goodman
I didn't like this book as well as 'Arcadia Falls'. This book had a lot of Latin, oh which I know nothing about. It went back and forth between the present and the past.

I started this challenge last year with such good intentions...and then dropped the ball!

This year, I will keep going until the end of the year...this I vow!!

1. "Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony" by Eoin Colfer

#4 "Silver Girl" by Elin Hilderband

Engaging story about two women renewing an old friendship after they'd both been through a lot.

8) Skeleton Coast by Clive Cussler with Jack Du Brul. Good action story.

So good to find a fellow Verne fan, Iolanthe! *high-fives*

I continue my Verne re-reads with:

R3. Un capitaine de quinze ans (Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen) - Jules Verne [Greek]

This is one of my favourites - although, of course, a re-read isn't as suspensful as the first read. But I do think it's one of his finest works in terms of suspense - the heroes find themselves into more difficult and dangerous situations than usual. Very engaging and thrilling.

Karen, I've been meaning to read the Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy, but I looked it up and I got confused because I couldn't figure out if it was one book or what :p This 6-in-1 book looks like a good deal, I might have to look into it next time I'm on a book-buying spree.

Swan Song - Robert R. McCammon

It's been many years since I read this one, but mentioning it earlier put me in the mood. For my money, still the best PA novel I've yet read. Wonderful characters, a truly chilling villain and an epic battle between good and evil.

LabRat

9) Furious Gulf by Gregory Benford. Not a favorite. Uses a lot of fancy formatting that makes it difficult to read. Destroys the flow of the story.

What a great goal! Used to read so many more books than fifty, but last year was so busy, I hardly read anything. So, trying to get back to the enjoyable hobby, hope no one minds if I'm a bit late!

1) Midshipman's Hope - by David Feintuch
I've read this book a dozen times before, but it's always just as good as the first. Set in the future Navy when trips through the stars take several years, a lowly midshipman is catapulted to the captaincy through tragedy and has to face a host of troubles.

2) Challenger's Hope - by David Feintuch
As good as the first one! Now officially a Captain, Seafort once more gets a ship, but the betrayal of an admiral leaves him stranded on a mutinous ship with no way home.

3) Prisoner's Hope - by David Feintuch
Sick and wounded, Seafort is now on Hope Nation, but an attack destroys the armada and leaves him senior Naval officer, which means he has to protect the colony from invasion. Really well-done, perhaps too much so because when he's sick, I feel sick!

4) Fisherman's Hope - by David Feintuch
Maybe my favorite--the Navy doesn't know what to do with their youngest war hero, so they put him in charge of the Academy. However, Seafort, tormented by the decisions he's made in the past, has no idea what to do with the hundreds of cadets.

Just After Sunset - Stephen King

As I've previously noted, I was a huge fan of King's early works. So it was almost physically painful for me to try and work my way through this recent collection of short stories. For the most part boring, they bore no relation to the wonderful short stories of the past, such as Shawshank, Apt Pupil and those contained within the pages of Skeletion Crew, Ten Past Midnight and even those written for Creepshow. Those were magical and it was hard to imagine they'd been written by the same author who wrote these.

The Night Stalker - James Swain
The Night Monster - James Swain

Still with the bad taste in my mouth of JAS, I warmed to Swain's hero, Jack Carpenter - a one man missing persons' unit, specialising in missing kids - and his quirky dog, Buster within the first few pages of the first novel. With the addition of a nice cast of bit players, particularly The Seven Dwarfs - a chorus of rowdy drunks with hearts of gold whose home is the bar underneath Jack's apartment - these were very entertaining.

And I'm delighted to note that they're part of a series. I've added the rest to my wish list.

LabRat

David Feintuch had a great series of books.

2. "Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox" by Eoin Colfer

Just one more in the series...

Those are great books. My kids and I love them.

Joan

I feel the same way about Stephen King. I was really excited about his earlier works. Sometimes I wonder if that's because I was in high school at the time and my first introduction to these types of stories. But over time, it still seems like the later books aren't nearly as good as his earlier work.

Joan

10) Starstrike: Task Force Mars by Kevin Dockery and Douglas Niles. An action driven science fiction story. Fairly good story but poor character development. That improves in the latter part of the book. It turns out to be one of a series. I wish they would mark books on the cover so you would know if it is one of a series. I haven't decided if I am going to read the rest of the series.

11) The Athena Project by Brad Thor. Slow thriller. Not one of his best.

Sucker Bet – James Swain
Midnight Rambler – James Swain

I was delighted to find these two on my Kindle when I wasn’t expecting to. I found the first one a little harder to get into because it was part of the author’s Tony Valentine series. Set in a world of gambling, casinos and card cheats. Not a world that particularly interests me. But the characters got me through.

I was much more interested in the second – another in the Jack Carpenter series and much more to my taste.


The King of Lies – John Hart

This was tough going for a while. The hero was so unrelentingly miserable, full of self-loathing and self-pity that I have never so strongly felt like shaking someone hard and being so utterly frustrated that I couldn't. I spent most of the first third of the book with a sore jaw from clenching my teeth tight as I read. But I’m glad I persevered, because this turned out to be a very good thriller in the end.

7. Betrayal of Trust - J.A. Jance
8. Dog Tags - David Rosenfelt
9. One Dog Night - David Rosenfelt

I have now finished catching up my series with current regular books. Now back to the Kindle. YAH!

The fourth Star Trek movie "The Voyage Home" was definitely better than the book. (That's the one with the whales.) The movie made it seem that the alien was trying to find the whales and didn't realize that the storms were killing the rest of Earth's inhabitants. In the book, the alien knows that the whales are gone, blames everyone else and decides to destroy the Earth.