James S.A. Corey

Guess who’s back! Back again!

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Why yes, I do have some Eminem stuck in my head. Why do you ask?

So, yet again, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. Life gets in the way. At any rate, I’m making a pre-New Years resolution to start up the ol’ book blog again because while I have lagged on the posting, I have definitely not lagged in the reading. Thank goodness I have an ereader, or I’d be drowning in books.

Instead of reviewing a book this time, I thought I’d chat about some of my favorite authors and maybe toss out a favorite book from their bibliography. We’ll go alphabetically because I don’t have an all time favorite author. These are my favorite, favorites. I have read a lot more than just the below. And keep in mind that some of these people may be problematic right now, but when I first read them, they were not. And I still love what they wrote, even if I don’t like the person they turned out to be. If we couldn’t separate art from artist, then no one could enjoy a Picasso or a Diego Rivera, a Hemingway or any number of musicians’ works.

Old library or bookstore. This is what my house would be without an ereader.

Douglas Adams – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I mean, it speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

Ilona Andrews – I legit don’t think I could pick between any of her books, I enjoy them all so much but if I had to choose one series…Probably the Innkeeper series. It’s a mix of magic and sci-fi, found family and mystery. It has it all.

Jim Butcher – The Dresden Files. All of them, but in particular, I’d probably choose Changes. And oof did that one just kill me at the end the first time I read it. By the way, his son has started writing too! Check out Dead Man’s Hand by James Butcher.

Gail Carriger – Anything. Legit anything of hers. I have read all her books. I subscribe to her newsletter. I got to meet her in person once! She’s lovely and her writing is amazing. The book that started it all for me is Soulless. It’s steampunk and got me addicted to steampunk. It also makes me realize that I like steampunk (and other stories) that are a little lighter, a little more fun than some other steampunk works (Whitechapel Gods comes to mind).

Agatha Christie – The godmother of mystery. I love Death on the Nile or the Mysterious Affair at Styles.

James S.A. Corey – The Expanse! What an absolutely amazing sci-fi series! I love it so much. It made me thirsty for more sci-fi, but I haven’t quite found anything I love as much as this series.

Blake Crouch – Wayward Pines trilogy. Man, that series definitely kept me guessing, which can be hard to do. Not to toot my own horn, but I’m actually pretty good at figuring out the end game in books, shows and movies (I figured out the Sixth Sense about halfway through), so I love something that can keep me guessing. I would love a fourth or a spin off, Mr. Crouch!

Clive Cussler – The leader in maritime adventure novels! Dirk Pitt, Numa Files, Oregon Files – I like them all. My favs are Raise the Titanic and Inca Gold.

Charlotte English – Weird & Wayward. Victorian Addams family anyone?

Jennifer Estep – The Elemental Assassin series is amazing. Not sure I could pick just one of them. I also like her Mythos Academy books and Galactic Bonds series.

Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett – Good Omens. Nuff said.

Simon R. Green – Deathstalker, Dealthstalker Coda, Nightside, Hawk & Fisher, Secret Histories, Shadow’s Fall. I haven’t gotten into his very latest series, but I plan to. Again, hard to pick just one, so maybe Just Another Judgment Day from the Nightside series?

Charlaine Harris – Sookie Stackhouse series. I think I might have to go with Dead to the World, where vampire sheriff Erik loses his memories and Sookie has to figure it out.

Kim Harrison – The Hollows series. Still on-going, even though I thought it had ended. Not up to date on the last couple of books, but I like that Rachel and Trent have gotten their shit together. That was the longest will they/won’t they ever.

Jordan L Hawk – Widdershins series. This is Victorian and kind of Lovecraftian and also the main characters are homosexual at a time where that was punishable by law (or worse).

Faith Hunter – Jane Yellowrock. Can’t go wrong with the first novel, Skinwalker.

Richard Kadrey – Sandman Slim series. I think my fav might be teh first book Sandman Slim.

Annette Marie – Guild Codex, Demonized, Warped and Unveiled. They’re all interconnected, they’re all fun. I just reread all of Demonized and Warped recently. Soooooo good.

Seanan McGuire – The October Daye series. Easily my favorite of the bunch is One Salt Sea. Also check out her Indexing series.

Jessie Mihalik – Starlight’s Shadow, Consortium Rebellion and Books & Broadswords series.

Devon Monk – Ordinary Magic series.

Anne Rice – A toss up between The Mummy or Ramses the Damned and Queen of the Damned.

John Scalzi – Easily Kaiju Preservation Society, though redshirts was amazing for this old Star Trek fan.

Rob Thurman – Cal Leandros and Trixa series. I’m sad that she quite writing before finishing them.

Next month, I’m hoping to review Gail Carriger’s next book, The Dratsie Dilemma.

The Expanse

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Leviathan_WakesMan, I’d love to get back to blogging about books more often, but with an 18 month old, it’s hard to find the time and the energy. That being said, I just ploughed through the 7 (currently) novels of the Expanse Series by James S.A. Corey. I honestly think I got through all 7 books in about 2 weeks, 3 at the outside

If you’ve read my blog before, you know that sci-fi books aren’t my usual choices for reading. They’re totally my jam when it comes to movies and TV though (Live long and prosper, y’all). So when SyFy canceled the Expanse (and seriously! Why does SyFy keep canceling good shows?!), I decided that I’d start the books in case someone didn’t pick it up (Yay for streaming services becoming more popular!).

The first couple of books, Leviathan Wakes and Caliban’s War, pretty much follow the plot of the show. If you watched it, you pretty much know what’s going on. These books follow James Holden and the meager crew of the Rocinante, a salvaged Martian war vessel, as they try to figure out who destroyed their water hauler and why.

These books are all interconnected, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend you skip them, even if you’ve watched the show. There’s probably some information there that will come back up in a later book. You also go a little further into the characters. Holden is a little less self-righteous in the books and more a guy who is just trying to make sure his crew survives.

The gist of this series is that some ancient civilization threw a biomechanical (best way I can describe this thing) piece of matter toward our solar system billions and billions of years ago. We’re talking all life on earth was single celled at the time.

They were likely aiming at earth, being the only planet in this system in the so-called “Goldilocks Zone”. They didn’t account for Jupiter, apparently, and this biomechanical matter (called the protomolecule in the books) got snatched by the gas giant’s gravity and locked into orbit (The matter was hitching a ride on a piece of rock that eventually became the moon Phoebe).

Naturally, humans found it and your prototypical “evil scientist” type decided to test it out on humans to try and make the ultimate soldier. Natch. It’s always the “ultimate soldier” or some such thing. It’s only James Holden and his sort of bumbling incompetent luck that keeps these wackos from actually completing their work. Though the Roci and her crew aren’t entirely successful. The entire population of Eros is lost to the this protomolecule.

The brief overview of the series is: the protomolecule is found out, they stop it temporarily, the protomolecule creates a interdimensional travel ring just passed Uranus, humans start dispersing into the galaxy, Belters (the classification of humans that grew up entirely in the low gravity of ships and/or the asteroid belts stations) initiate a war on Earth and Mars, a group of rogue Martians disappears through the ring and then come back to conquer the solar system. Again, natch because they always try to conquer the solar system.

I’m eagerly awaiting the 8th book in the series, Tiamat’s Wrath, which is due out at the end of this year. Supposedly there’s another book coming out next year too. I can’t wait. If you liked the show and if you like sci-fi books, you should definitely check out James S.A. Corey’s The Expanse series. And watch the show! Rating: A+