October Books

Thunderbird Falls by C.E. Murphy A
Loved this! 2nd in the Urban shaman series- Although, I got annoyed with our heroine. How on earth did she miss what was going on??? I knew before we’d gotten anywhere…

The Wild Wood by Charles de Lint B
Beth recommended I read this, and I did. Didn’t like it as much as she did… Much as I love de Lint’s ideas he’s way more interested in his fancy language & wit than being understood by the reader.

Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code by Eoin Colfer A
Still excellent! These are so fun, and since I’m not a fan of faerie books it’s great to find some that are so silly, but still good adventures.

A Dream of Stone & Shadow by Marjorie M. Liu C
A major disappointment. Beth recommended this one, too, and I actually liked the idea… It should have been a good story! There’s a detective agency, Dirk & Steele, that only hires paranormally gifted agents, and our main character is a young female precognitive named Agatha (Aggie). But man, this just wasn’t as good as it should have been. Gargoyles, precgonitives, a mystery,

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien A
Such a good story… This won the Newberry in ’71, and definitely is worth the read.
If you saw the cartoon made in the late 80’s, I sympathize. It pains me to say that they did a HORRIBLE job turning this light-hearted adventure into a mystical/ridiculous story. All the bad things in the movie (weird mystical magic, the red jewel, the infighting between the rats) weren’t in the original story and all the wonderful things (the intelligent rats & the lab, the mother and her children, the silly crow) were in this delightful YA adventure.

The Supernaturalist by Eoin Colfer A
Good YA… A dark tech look at the future.

Artemis Fowl: the Opal Deception by Eoin Colfer A
Artemis has had all his memories of fairies wiped out, and there’s a desperate need for him to remember… Opal is back and more evil than ever! Plus, all his contact with the fairies had made him have a change of heart, but the mindwipe returned him back to his nefarious ways.

Eragon by Christopher Paolini A
I enjoyed this dragon/magic adventure a lot. Reminiscent of Tolkien & C.S. Lewis.
A fun, fast-paced adventure. I’ve looked at it several times and never found the whole series when I was actually looking for it. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed them. I went ahead and checked out the first one even though they didn’t have the rest in. I guess I’ll have to go back to the library. Poor me. Sigh.

Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol A
Very quick read. Most of the solutions are easy for an adult, but it’s still fun to see if you can figure them out… There’s about 20 Encyclopedia Brown books. Each book contains about 10 chapters made up of about 4 or 5 pages containing a mystery. Each mystery has one or more clues that help you, the reader, figure out the solution to the mystery- then you can compare your solution with the author’s at the back of the book.

No Rest for the Witches (a book of 4 short stories)
‘The Majicka’ by MaryJanice Davidson A
I loved the first story… I thought it was hysterical. A witch, a poltergeist, a 6 ft tall fairy, a vampire, and a werewolf- What do they all have in common? They live together. And in the process of the story they add a zombie/dryad and a ‘Buffy the Vampire slayer’ type trainer to their company.
There were three other stories in this anthology, and the tragic truth is I don’t remember any of the others… I’ve got vague memories- one involved voodoo- I know they were all about witches, but frankly, they weren’t that good. One of the stories was downright lousy, in fact. It was so bad I didn’t even finish it- I skipped to the last chapter to find out what happened…

The Circle Trilogy (Morrigan’s Cross, Dance of the Gods, Valley of Silence) by Nora Roberts B
Enjoyed ‘em. I’m glad I read them all, mostly for the last one. (I always feel a need to defend myself when I say I’ve read a romance. Definitely got to get over that one… But, boy, do they have a bad rep.) What I like about Roberts is her characters. I know, you’re all saying, ‘yeah, yeah, and what I like about Playboy is the articles, right.’ But I’m serious. Roberts creates characters you like, care about and root for… In this story we’ve got evil vampires vs. gods, with 6 (the circle) people called upon to be the heros of the fight against evil. Of course, with Roberts as author we already know it’s really a romance, but having the supernatural/magical stuff thrown in makes it more fun.