What they hey, will procrastinate/update...
Last Read SF/F:
Updraft (Book 1 of The Bone Universe series, Fran Wilde, F): In a skypiercing city of living bone towers, where the ground is a distant rumor hidden by perpetual clouds, a teen girl and her best friend are on the verge of earning their wings, and with them the apprenticeships that will make them full-fledged members of society... but Kirit has a run-in with the feared Singers who enforce the towers strict Laws that endangers her future. Coerced into joining their ranks, she discovers wonders and secrets she never imagined - and dangers that could bring the towers tumbling down...
An imaginative concept well executed with decent, imperfect characters. Kirit is never guaranteed her wins, and often the prices she pays are steeper than she initially realizes. It moves fairly well, though the buildup to the climax feels a bit rushed and jumbled. Overall, quiet enjoyable.
The Stars Now Unclaimed (Book 1 of The Universe After series, Drew Williams, SF): A century ago, the pulse washed across the galaxy, striking worlds with random force. Its lingering radiation targets advanced technology, with some planets marginally affected while others have been knocked back to the Stone Age. But the radiation also has been producing strangely gifted children of all species, with powers like telekinesis. Jane, an agent for the Justified and the Repentant sect, seeks these children out to gather them at the stronghold Sanctum, believing them to be a potential bulwark against the pulse's return. Others know of the children, too, such as the Pax, an army of fascist zealots bent on galactic domination; broken and brainwashed like all their members, such children would be formidable weapons. When Jane went to pick up the telekinetic girl Esa from an unremarkable backwater planet, the Pax were there, too... but their behavior is unusually aggressive even for the Pax. The power dynamics in the galaxy are about to shift, and the Justified may see their tenuous toehold destroyed.
The cover promises a smart, sassy, action-packed space opera, and Williams delivers. At times, the pace is almost too hectic - the timeline is a little cramped, with everything happening almost right on top of each other - and the action and violence is almost numbingly extreme in some instances. Still, the characters are decent and the crew has decent working chemistry, even if some elements feel a bit telegraphed. Overall, and enjoyable, larger-than-life space adventure.
Currently Reading SF/F:
Feed (Book 1 of the Newsflesh trilogy, Mira Grant, SF/horror): A generation ago, two scientific breakthroughs - a cure for the common cold and a panacea against cancer - collided to spawn the worst pandemic in history: reanimated dead, driven by viral imperative to bite and feast on the living. Actual zombies, in other words. Overnight, the world turned upside down, but now it's just the new normal. Twentysomethings Shaun, Georgia, and Buffy are part of the blogging revolution that rose when traditional news sources failed. When they're picked to cover the presidential campaign of a promising candidate, their future is looking bright... but the campaign trail is about to turn deadly, when it becomes clear that someone is dead set on the man never surviving to reach the election, let alone the White House.
I got the trilogy on discount on my Nook, and so far I'm enjoying it (as I'd expected: "Mira Grant" is a pseudonym for Seanan McGuire, who has yet to disappoint me.) Some of it reads almost eerily prescient: large gatherings are a thing of the past, sensation and clicks count at least as much as actual objective truth, a general loss of faith by the public in traditional institutions in the face of fumbled crises, how the religious right pounces to turn it all into a power play under the guise of "divine punishment for straying from the path," etc.