What I Read in 2015: Second Quarter

 Or: Will the Wind Ever Stop?

I lost track of the months here, so I'm not going to bother since there aren't too many books here.

Outpost by Ann Aguirre

This was a bit of a filler book, enough that it makes me hesitant to read the final one. The first book, Enclave, spends a lot of time making the main character badass, a lot of traveling and realization of new places and things. Outpost spends the entire time nerfing the main character's badassery (dresses and trying to fit in and hugs and kisses and panicking) as well as keeping her in a single area. The main squeeze character also spends his time emoing and staying away from her, this "OMG what if he doesn't like me anymore? Oh wait it was just a misunderstanding" business actually happens twice, and I think it only exists to force the love triangle on the readers which, again, doesn't work because her choice is clearly stated throughout books one and two. It is obvious to her, to him, even to guy #2. It wasn't a bad book exactly, but I did find the story dragging a little and with a touch of disappointment that it wasn't up to the same quality as the first book. Overall I'll have to read book three before I decide of Outpost was really worth reading or if I should have just stopped at book one. I still highly recommend book one, however, as it stands alone very well.

The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare

This one is going to get "For fans of Harry Potter!" thrown around, and I actually have to agree. Imagine if, instead of Harry not knowing anything about magic, he was instead told how horrible magic was and how evil wizards were, and then was thrown into Hogwarts where he believes he's being held prisoner.

That's the premise of The Iron Trial.

I've never read anything by Holly Black and I've wanted to, but having Cassandra Clare as a coauthor made me hesitant because I am not a fan of her Immortal Instruments one bit (her LotR fanfiction that she tries to pretend doesn't exist is, however, hilarious)

It was a really good book and had a twist ending that I didn't see coming, but felt a little under my maturity level, which doesn't happen too often. I'm not exactly picky with my YA fantasy books. Still, I really enjoyed it and will be waiting for the sequel to drop in price before picking it up.

Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer

Martin Banks is just a normal guy who has made an abnormal discovery: he can manipulate reality, thanks to reality being nothing more than a computer program. With every use of this ability, though, Martin finds his little “tweaks” have not escaped notice. Rather than face prosecution, he decides instead to travel back in time to the Middle Ages and pose as a wizard.

What could possibly go wrong?

An American hacker in King Arthur’s court, Martin must now train to become a full-fledged master of his powers, discover the truth behind the ancient wizard Merlin…and not, y’know, die or anything.

Scott Meyer is better known for his webcomic Basic Instructions, which I have run into off and on over the years, but never found it interesting enough to follow. This was only something I knew about after reading the book.

It's part Jumper part general wizard schooling, and part nerd. I really enjoyed it. You get exactly what you are expecting and the only reason I haven't gotten the sequel is that I feel swamped in enough books as it is, but I will definitely be considering it.

The Good, The Bad, and the Furry by Tom  Cox

This one is part cat book part autobiography about the guy who runs the Twitter account @MYSADCAT I don't read a lot of nonfiction (this is maybe one out of four or five in my lifetime) but it is very interesting. It's not all cats all the time, which makes it good. Despite being the modern era it does have a sense of country living in the 70's. It also has plenty of well described characters and scenes. I am currently looking forward to his next book.

Penryn & the End of Days Trilogy by Susan Ee

I read the first two books at the end of 2013, and could have sworn I wrote a review of them.

Stupid brain!

Angelfall was a book that I wish I had written. An angel apocalypse. It blew me away that this series was indie published and hasn't been picked up by a big-name company. It is only one of two series that I originally bought as ebooks and enjoyed them so much that I purchased regular copies of (the other being Under the Never Sky) Here's the description of the first one from Amazon:

It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back. Anything, including making a deal with Raffe, an injured enemy angel. Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they journey toward the angels’ stronghold in San Francisco, where Penryn will risk everything to rescue her sister and Raffe will put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

The last book, End of Days, finally came out. I only managed to get a page or two in before I realized I needed to go back and read the first two, I'm glad I did because each book begins right where the previous ones leave off with no timeout for exposition. It's one of those trilogies you need to read back to back in one sitting when all of them have been released.

How would I describe book three however? Merely okay, maybe a bit disappointing, but what I wasn't expecting was goofy.

There's some weirdness, I think about 20% of it was devoted to time travel filler. Penryn and Raffe travel back in time to another dimension using a person as a portal by sticking them with a sword. It wrenched me out of the story a little. Penryn also has the same exact problem that the main character in Outpost has, that of being a lovesick teen worrying whether the guy likes her or not after all.

The ending fell completely flat on its face and too early to have wrapped up nicely. I get the feeling the author got tired of writing it. Still, there have been worse endings, and the first book I enjoyed enough to be okay with the ending of the third, so it balances out. I would still recommend it to people.



I'm sure I've forgotten some, but most of my free time has been dedicated to getting Dusted published in paperback, working on The Crystal Witch, religious studies, and an entire month of free time raising some orphaned kittens (which will likely feature in another post sometime). That, and as the weather warms up, I'm going to be busy with other things.

Other...very productive things...