Ok, I've actually forgotten a bunch of the books that I've read since last we met. So I'll try to recreate at least my thoughts on the few I can remember (I need to write things down sooner).
"Under Heaven" by Guy Gavriel Kay is a rich, deep, quiet meditation on family, war, civilization, and political intrigue. All set in the times of the Tang dynasty in China. It begins with a man who is spending his year of mourning (for his father who was a great general) burying the bones of the dead along the silent shores of a high mountain lake, fighting off the ghosts of the warriors who died in battle. You don't quite know where the story is going until suddenly you are in the middle of epic changes. Guy knows how to tell a story and uses historic details to deepen the tale. Read everything he writes and you won't be disappointed. This is his newest edition and it is spellbinding.
"The Last Light of the Sun" by Guy Gavriel Kay is similar in that it deals in family and myth, but this time it is in the time of Vikings and the early northern European lands. A story of magic and empire building.
"The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi is set in a plausible future land of world-wide floods, genetic crop manipulations, Japanese bio-engineered "windup girls" and an economy where calories are king. I don't think it is quite as good as it thinks it is, repeating words and thoughts a bit too much for my taste, but it signals a writer to watch. If you like near-future fiction, crazed Bangkok streets, and mammoths as engines, you'll enjoy it.
"Black Hills" by Dan Simmons, is a history chasing, heart-breaking, must read. He takes the moment of General Custer's death as a starting point and doesn't end until the world is transformed by a President named Franklin D. Roosevelt. Seen by a Native American child who grows old with the ghost of Custer (among others) looking out of his eyes.
"Horns" by Joe Hill. It’s a playful story about a guy who loses his girlfriend (maybe kills her) and wakes up to discover that he’s got horns coming out of his head and seems to be a bit more devilish than usual. People also can’t seem to notice or remember he has them and everyone tells him their worst thoughts. A journey of discovery ensues. A diversion.
"One Amazing Thing" by Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni is set in the basement office of a building that has just suffered an earthquake. The players were all there to sort out their travel paperwork and come from many different walks of life. As the water rises and hope fails, they each tell a story of one amazing thing that happened in their life. This was a short, simple book. Nicely done.
"The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet" by David Mitchell. I've read other books by David Mitchell and enjoyed them so I thought I'd give this a try. I think it may be his best work. It is set on an island off of Japan during the period where the Dutch were the only foreigners allowed even close to the country. Jacob is a young book keeper charged with documenting corruption at the trading post. But that is just an entry into the closed world and strange kingdom of Japan. The book covers lifetime of intrigues, possible child sacrifices, immortal samurais, and loves lost.
"The Girl Who..." For a long time I resisted this series because it seemed to be everywhere and a bit over-hyped. A friend passed her copy of the first book (Dragon Tattoo) on to me recently and I just finished it. It’s worth the read. The hype is mostly right. This is just plain murder mystery family dynasty journalistic detective work fun.
I just finished the other two in the series and they are equally good (though you get the impression that women have a particularly bad time of things in Sweden than I would have imagined). The ending is bang up good fun. Read all three. Now, of course, I'm in trouble (because the books were all published posthumously and aside from outlines for more they’re all he wrote). So uh, now what?
"The Kingdom Beyond the Waves" by Stephen Hunt is just plain good Victorian-punk alternate world, evil empire, partly underwater, partly far up in the sky, fun. This is the second book in the series (the first being "The Court of the Air.") A nice diversion.
