Though we know it's only a question of time, my mother's condition has remained stable for nearly two months. The doctors gave her two or three months to live, which means that the best case scenario had her dying the second week of June. But she's still alive and we visit her every chance we get. Sadly, I'm not reading a whole lot these days and have no choice but to resort to posting these mini reviews once again.
Thank you for your understanding. =)
This is a fun romp of a book featuring lesbian necromancers in outer space. It's a murder mystery fantasy/scifi gonzo that is quite entertaining. But like most summer blockbuster movies, it's high on fun stuff and hilarious quotes and low on substance. I'm not sure how Gideon the Ninth garnered so many rave reviews. It's unlike anything you've ever read before and an enjoyable read, but all in all it's not a work that stays with you afterward.
Should you read it? Hell yeah! Just go into it with the right expectations.
- Scorpion by Christian Cantrell (Canada, USA, Europe): 8/10
I brought this techno thriller/murder mystery on vacation and made short work of it! Can't really say much without spoiling the entire story, but let me tell you that this is the perfect speculative fiction vacation read! It's a page-turner, so it won't last long. Better bring more reading material with you. =)
Here's the blurb:
Quinn Mitchell is a nine-to-five spy—an intelligence analyst for the CIA during the day, and a suburban wife and mother on evenings and weekends. After her young daughter is killed in a tragic accident, sending her life into a tailspin, Quinn hopes to find a new start in her latest assignment: investigating a series of bizarre international assassinations whose victims have been found with numeric codes tattooed, burned, or carved into their flesh. As Quinn follows the killer’s trail across the globe, always one body behind, she begins uncovering disturbing connections between the murders—and herself.
Every lead she tracks down in pursuit of the assassin brings Quinn one step closer to the Epoch Index, a mysterious encrypted message discovered in the archives of the Large Hadron Collider. Its origins are unknown and decrypting it is beyond even the CIA. Yet nothing else can possibly link together a slew of unsolvable murders, an enigmatic and sophisticated serial killer who always seems to be three steps ahead, a quirky young physics prodigy whose knowledge extends well beyond her years, and, underlying everything, the inescapable tragedy of Quinn’s own past. Discovering the meaning of the Epoch Index leads Quinn to a shocking twist that shatters everything she thought she knew about the past, the future, and the delicate balance of right and wrong that she must now fight to preserve.
You can read and extract from the book here.
- The Shining by Stephen King (Canada, USA, Europe): 9/10
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I also read this one during my hiking trip and it was an absolute delight to revisit this classic. For a novel written nearly 45 years ago, it has aged particularly well. Definitely worth a read, or a reread.
- Doctor Sleep by Stephen King (Canada, USA, Europe): 8.5/10
The Shining got me so excited that I decided to jump into its sequel immediately. It took a while for this one to get going. Not that reading about Dan Torrance's drunk past and difficult present life was boring, but the story only truly kicks in when Abra makes an appearance. From then on, the novel takes off and Doctor Sleep becomes a veritable page-turner. Well worth the read, especially back-to-back with its predecessor.
1 commentaires:
Best wished Pat!
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