en-US Tue, 01 Jul 2025 11:24:07 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 40985736 Ariel Lawhon, a rising star in historical suspense, unravels the extraordinary twists and turns in Anna Anderson's fifty-year battle to be recognized as Anastasia Romanov. Is she the beloved daughter, revered icon, and Russian grand duchess or is she an imposter, liar, and the thief of another woman's legacy?

Countless others have rendered their verdict. Now it is your turn.

Russia, July 17, 1918: Under direct orders from Vladimir Lenin, Bolshevik secret police force Anastasia Romanov, along with the entire imperial family, into a damp basement in Siberia, where they face a merciless firing squad. None survive. At least that is what the executioners have always claimed.
Germany, February 17, 1920: A young woman bearing an uncanny resemblance to Anastasia Romanov is pulled shivering and senseless from a canal. Refusing to explain her presence in the freezing water or even acknowledge her rescuers, she is taken to the hospital where an examination reveals that her body is riddled with countless horrific scars. When she finally does speak, this frightened, mysterious young woman claims to be the Russian grand duchess.
As rumors begin to circulate through European society that the youngest Romanov daughter has survived the massacre at Ekaterinburg, old enemies and new threats are awakened. The question of who Anna Anderson is and what actually happened to Anastasia Romanov spans fifty years and touches three continents. This thrilling saga is every bit as moving and momentous as it is harrowing and twisted.]]> 407 Ariel Lawhon 1101973315 Dave 0 to-read 3.73 2018
author: Ariel Lawhon
name: Dave
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/07/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 39325105 Harrow the Ninth, the sequel to Gideon the Ninth, turns a galaxy inside out as one necromancer struggles to survive the wreckage of herself aboard the Emperor's haunted space station.

She answered the Emperor's call.

She arrived with her arts, her wits, and her only friend.

In victory, her world has turned to ash.

After rocking the cosmos with her deathly debut, Tamsyn Muir continues the story of the penumbral Ninth House in Harrow the Ninth, a mind-twisting puzzle box of mystery, murder, magic, and mayhem. Nothing is as it seems in the halls of the Emperor, and the fate of the galaxy rests on one woman's shoulders.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last necromancer of the Ninth House, has been drafted by her Emperor to fight an unwinnable war. Side-by-side with a detested rival, Harrow must perfect her skills and become an angel of undeath — but her health is failing, her sword makes her nauseous, and even her mind is threatening to betray her.

Sealed in the gothic gloom of the Emperor's Mithraeum with three unfriendly teachers, hunted by the mad ghost of a murdered planet, Harrow must confront two unwelcome questions: is somebody trying to kill her? And if they succeeded, would the universe be better off?]]> 512 Tamsyn Muir 1250313228 Dave 0 4.30 2020
author: Tamsyn Muir
name: Dave
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: to-read, fantasy, in-my-library, audiobooks
review:

]]> 217387935 Naomi Novik's Scholomance series meets Plain Bad Heroines in this sapphic dark academia fantasy by instant national and international bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.

"Look at you, eating magic like you're one of us."

Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood Academy and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth formers, more meetings, and securing the school's boundaries from demonic incursions.

Walden is good at her job―no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. And it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from―is herself.]]> 432 Emily Tesh 1250835011 Dave 0 to-read 4.04 2025
author: Emily Tesh
name: Dave
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/06/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 42036538
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.

Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit.

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won't set her free without a service.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon's sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.

Of course, some things are better left dead.]]> 448 Tamsyn Muir 1250313198 Dave 0 4.19 2019
author: Tamsyn Muir
name: Dave
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/08
shelves: fantasy, audiobooks, in-my-library, currently-reading
review:

]]> 9539
In Tar Valon, Min sees portents of hideous doom. Will the White Tower itself be broken?

In the Two Rivers, the Whitecloaks ride in pursuit of a man with golden eyes, and in pursuit of the Dragon Reborn.

In Cantorin, among the Sea Folk, High Lady Suroth plans the return of the Seanchan armies to the mainland.

In the Stone of Tear, the Lord Dragon considers his next move. It will be something no one expects, not the Black Ajah, not Tairen nobles, not Aes Sedai, not Egwene or Elayne or Nynaeve.

Against the Shadow rising stands the Dragon Reborn.....]]> 1007 Robert Jordan 0812513738 Dave 5 4.27 1992
author: Robert Jordan
name: Dave
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at: 2025/06/08
date added: 2025/06/08
shelves: audiobooks, fantasy, in-my-library
review:

]]> 223362266 Humanity is under assault by malevolent "antimemes"—ideas that attack memory, identity, and the fabric of reality itself—in this wickedly brainbending tale of science-fiction horror, an entirely reimagined and expanded version of the beloved online novel.

They’re all around us, hiding in plain sight.

One could be in the room with you, now, just to your left. You could be seeing it right now—but from this second to the next, you’ll forget that you did. If you managed to jot down a note, the paper would look blank to you afterwards.

These entities can feed on your most cherished memories, the things that make you you—and you’ll never even know anything changed.
They can turn you into a living ghost—make it so that you’re standing next to your spouse, screaming in their ear, and they won’t know you’re there.

They are the perfect predators, equipped with the ultimate camouflage—the ability to wipe out memories of their own existence.

And they aren’t just feeding on us. They’re invading.

But how do you fight an enemy when you can never even know that you're at war? How do you contain something you can't record or remember?

Welcome to the Antimemetics Division. No, this is not your first day.]]> 288 qntm 0593983750 Dave 0 to-read 4.30 2020
author: qntm
name: Dave
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/06/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 232573 It’s Christmas Eve and Ebenezer Scrooge is miserable and unhappy - will he ever get into the Christmas spirit? Set in North Wales, Dickens’s Festive classic tale explores a living, breathing Victorian community.
This adaptation by Alan Harris is a funny immersive family show  lled with music and mystery that whisks away the audience to a dream world where anything can happen and ghosts are just around the corner…]]> 99 Charles Dickens 0553212443 Dave 3 classics 4.18 1843
author: Charles Dickens
name: Dave
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1843
rating: 3
read at: 2012/11/01
date added: 2025/05/03
shelves: classics
review:

]]> 220160270 416 Rachel Kushner 1982116536 Dave 0 to-read 3.00 2024
author: Rachel Kushner
name: Dave
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/01
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]]> 227759007 From the bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility, a richly detailed and sharply drawn collection of stories set in New York and Los Angeles. The millions of readers of Amor Towles are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter six stories set in New York City and a novella in Los Angeles. The New York stories, most of which are set around the turn of the millennium, take up everything from the death-defying acrobatics of the male ego, to the fateful consequences of brief encounters, and the delicate mechanics of compromise which operate at the heart of modern marriages. In Towles’s novel, Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September, 1938, with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood” describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in the midst of Hollywood’s golden age. Throughout the stories, two characters often find themselves sitting across a table for two where the direction of their futures may hinge upon what they say to each other next. Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting historical fiction.]]> 464 Amor Towles 0593296397 Dave 0 to-read 4.33 2024
author: Amor Towles
name: Dave
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 215363279 In her most imaginative novel yet, #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell (None of This Is True) launches the Marvel Crime series of thriller books for adults with an original story starring the private detective Jessica Jones.

Meet Jessica Jones: Retired super hero, private investigator, loner. She tried her best to be a shiny spandex crimefighter, but that life only led to unspeakable trauma. Now she avoids that world altogether and works on surviving day-to-day in Hell’s Kitchen, New York.

The morning a distraught mother comes into her office, Jessica would prefer to nurse her hangover and try to forget last night’s poor choices. But something about Amber Randall’s story strikes a chord with her. Amber is adamant that something happened to her teenage twins while they were visiting their father in the UK. The twins don’t act like themselves, and they now have flawless skin, have lost their distinctive tics and habits, and keep talking about a girl named Belle. Amber insists her children have been replaced by something horrible, something “perfect.”

Traveling to a small village in the British countryside, Jessica meets the mysterious Belle, who lives a curiously isolated life in an old farmhouse with a strange woman who claims to be her guardian. Can this unworldly teenager really be responsible for the Randall twins’ new personas? Why does the strange little village of Barton Wallop seem to harbor dark energies and mysteries in its tight-knit community?

A mother’s intuition is never wrong. And Jessica knows that nothing in life is perfect—not these kids, not her on-again, off-again relationship with Luke Cage, and certainly not Jessica herself. But even as she tries to buy into the idea that better days are ahead, Jessica Jones has seen all too clearly that behind every promise of perfection trails a dark, dangerous shadow.

Breaking the Dark, the first book in the brand-new Marvel Crime series, introduces fans to a grittier, street-level side of the Marvel Universe, and will continue with original novels featuring fan-favorite characters like Luke Cage, written by S.A. Cosby, and Daredevil, written by Alex Segura.]]> 400 Lisa Jewell 1368099815 Dave 0 to-read 3.72 2024
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Dave
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220999791 As spiritualism reaches its fevered pitch at the dawn of the 20th century, a Scottish girl crosses the veil to unlock a powerful connection within an infamous asylum in this thrillingly atmospheric, exquisitely evocative exploration of feminine rage and agency for readers of Sarah Penner, Alice Hoffman, and Hester Fox.

Leaving behind a quiet life of simple comforts, Nairna Liath traverses the Scottish countryside with her charlatan father, Tavish. From remote cottages to rural fairs, the duo scrapes by on paltry coins as Tavish orchestrates “encounters” with the departed, while Nairna interprets tarot cards for those willing to pay for what they wish to hear.

But beyond her father’s trickery, Nairna possesses a genuine gift for communicating with the spirit world, one that could get an impoverished country girl branded a witch. A talent inherited from her grandmother, Lottie Liath, widow of a Welsh coalminer, whose story of imprisonment and exploitation in a notorious asylum is calling out to Nairna from four decades past—a warning to break free from the manipulations, greed, and betrayals of others.

What do the cards hold for Nairna’s future?

Rescued from homelessness by a well-connected stranger, Nairna is whisked into a new life among Edinburgh’s elite Spiritualist circle, including visiting American star Dorothy Kellings. Researchers, doctors, psychics, and thrill-seekers clamor for the rising young medium. But after a séance with blood-chilling results, a shocking scandal ensues, and Nairna flees to a secluded community near Boston, where she assumes a new  Nora Grey.

But Nora can’t stay hidden when Dorothy Kellings offers her the chance to face all comers and silence skeptics at a spectacular séance at Boston’s Old South Meeting Hall, where Nora will come face to face at last with her spiritual the courageous Lottie Liath, whose heart-wrenching story and profound messages are indelibly tied to Nora’s destiny.]]> 448 Kathleen Kaufman 1496753909 Dave 0 to-read 4.14 2025
author: Kathleen Kaufman
name: Dave
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 215808119 Archaeologist Dr. Gul Delani's investigation into a sensational discovery gets complicated—and personal—when it collides with her years-long search for a missing family member.

Inspired by a real-life antiquities scandal in Pakistan, this gripping, whip-smart, and heart-wrenching series opener is perfect for fans of Sue Grafton and Elsa Hart—and introduces an unforgettable new sleuth to the crime fiction canon.

When Dr. Gul Delani receives a call in the middle of the night from the Sindh police, she thinks they may have finally found her niece, Mahnaz—a precocious, politically conscious teenage girl who went missing three years prior. Gul has been racked with grief since Mahnaz’s disappearance, and distracts herself through she’s a talented curator at the Museum of Heritage and History in Karachi, one of the country’s leading experts in archaeology and ancient civilizations, a hard-won position for a woman.

But there is no news of Mahnaz. Instead, Gul is summoned to a narcotics investigation in a remote desert region in western Pakistan. In her wildest dreams, Gul couldn’t have imagined what she’d find amid a drug bust gone wrong, there is a mummy—life-size, seemingly authentic, its sarcophagus decorated with symbols from Persepolis, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire. The discovery confounds everyone. It is both too good to be true, and for Gul, too precious to leave in careless or corrupt hands.

Aided by her team of unlikely misfits, Gul will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of it, even as her quest for the truth puts her in the throes of a dangerous conspiracy and threatens to collide with her ongoing search for Mahnaz. A portrait of a city fueled by corruption and a woman relentlessly in pursuit of justice, this engrossing crime novel builds to an unforgettable, emotional conclusion readers won’t soon forget.The Museum Detective is an exciting, gritty new crime thriller that announces a whip-smart and brilliant sleuth and builds to a stunning, emotional conclusion that readers won’t soon forget.]]> 336 Maha Khan Phillips 1641296569 Dave 0 to-read 3.72 2025
author: Maha Khan Phillips
name: Dave
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57693457 After several deaths punctuating a series of all-too-brief life spans, a clone reassesses his purpose—and his humanity—in Edward Ashton's Mickey7, "a unique blend of thought-provoking sci-fi concepts, farcical relationship drama, and exotic body horror" (New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin).

EXPENDABLE \ik'spen-d'-b'l\ n. A human clone utilized for dangerous work on space exploration missions. An Expendable's personality and memories may be transferred intact to a new body if and when the current host dies.

Mickey Barnes is an Expendable, now on his seventh iteration, living—and dying—among his fellow colonists on the near-uninhabitable ice world of Niflheim. Some consider him immortal. Others believe he's a soulless monstrosity. For the past nine years, he has been deployed for hazardous assignments and subjected to experiments that test the limits of human endurance, his humanity sacrificed for the greater good.

While on reconnaissance, Mickey7 is injured and left for dead, only to be saved by Niflheim's native species, thought to be insentient by the colonists. Returning to base, Mickey7 meets his next generation, Mickey8. Neither clone is willing to recycle himself, but if anyone discovers multiple Mickeys exist, they'll both be executed—and there won't ever be a Mickey9.

But Mickey7's premature twin isn't his only secret. He hasn't uploaded his memories in a month, leaving his clone in the dark about his near death and close encounter with the planet's inhabitants. Mickey7 also doesn't know how all of his previous selves died, and those he remembers have left him traumatized and mistrustful of the colony's mission. A mission that has Mickey Barnes questioning his moral and mortal existence... again... and again....]]> 296 Edward Ashton 1250275032 Dave 3 3.74 2022
author: Edward Ashton
name: Dave
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/21
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: science-fiction, audiobooks, in-my-library
review:

]]> 201799733
Meet Laszlo, eight-hundred-year-old demon and Hell’s least productive Curse Keeper. From his office beneath Midtown, he oversees the Drakeford Curse, which involves a pathetic family upstate and a mysterious black stone. It’s a sexy enough assignment—colonial origins, mutating victims, et cetera—but Laszlo has no interest in maximizing the curse’s potential; he’d rather sunbathe in Ibiza, quaff martinis, and hustle the hustlers on Manhattan’s subway. Unfortunately, his division has new management, and Laszlo’s ratings are so abysmal that he’s given six days to shape up or he’ll be melted down and returned to the Primordial Ooze.

Meet Maggie Drakeford, nineteen-year-old Curse Bearer. All she’s ever known is the dreary corner of the Catskills where the Drakeford Curse has devoured her father’s humanity and is rapidly laying claim to her own. The future looks hopeless, until Laszlo appears at the Drakeford farmhouse one October night and informs them that they have six days—and six days only—to break the spell before it becomes permanent. Can Maggie trust the glib and handsome Laszlo? Of course not. But she also can’t pass up an opportunity to save her family, even if it means having a demon as a guide ...

Thus begins a breakneck international adventure that takes our unlikely duo from a hot dog stand in Central Park to the mountains of Liechtenstein, a five-star hotel in Zurich, and even the time-traveling vault of a demonic crime boss. As the clock ticks down, tough-as-nails Maggie and conniving Laszlo will uncover a secret so profound that what began as a farcical quest to break a curse will eventually threaten the very Lords of HelL]]> 462 Henry H. Neff Dave 0 4.17 2024
author: Henry H. Neff
name: Dave
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read, fantasy, in-my-library, audiobooks
review:

]]> 36542226 301 Craig Alanson Dave 4 4.38 2017
author: Craig Alanson
name: Dave
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/10
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: audiobooks, in-my-library, science-fiction
review:

]]> 58064046 Everything casts a shadow. Even the world we live in. And as with every shadow, there is a place where it must touch. A seam, where the shadow meets its source.

Olivia Prior has grown up in Merilance School for girls, and all she has of her past is her mother’s journal—which seems to unravel into madness. Then, a letter invites Olivia to come home—to Gallant. Yet when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home, it doesn’t matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways.

Olivia knows that Gallant is hiding secrets, and she is determined to uncover them. When she crosses a ruined wall at just the right moment, Olivia finds herself in a place that is Gallant—but not. The manor is crumbling, the ghouls are solid, and a mysterious figure rules over all. Now Olivia sees what has unraveled generations of her family, and where her father may have come from.

Olivia has always wanted to belong somewhere, but will she take her place as a Prior, protecting our world against the Master of the House? Or will she take her place beside him?]]> 338 V.E. Schwab 0062835777 Dave 0 to-read, fantasy 3.70 2022
author: V.E. Schwab
name: Dave
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read, fantasy
review:

]]> 192631651 Winner, CIBA Mark Twain grand prize winner for best satire of 2024
Finalist, Foreword Reviews for best thriller of 2024
Finalist, Eric Hoffer Award
Locus Magazine Best 카지노싸이트 Fiction of 2024
"10 for 2024" Year-End Best Books List

Preble Jefferson can see five seconds into the future.

Otherwise, he lives an ordinary life. But when a confrontation with a cop on a New York City subway goes tragically wrong, those seconds give Preble the chance to dodge a bullet--causing another man to die in his place. Government agencies become aware of Preble's gift, a manhunt ensues, and their ambitions shift from law enforcement to military R&D. Preble will do whatever it takes to protect his family, but as events spiral out of control, he must weigh the cost of his gift against the loss of his humanity.

A breathless thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page, The Man Who Saw Seconds explores the nature of time, the brain as a prediction machine, and the tension between the individual and the systems we create. Alexander Boldizar provides an adrenaline-pumping read that will leave you contemplating love, fear and the abyss.

“The Man Who Saw Seconds is an action thriller that is genuinely thrilling: the pacing is perfect, and the stakes ratchet up in a horrifying, relentless, and seemingly inevitable progression...I hope this can be genre-spanning, and that it gets the attention it deserves from every awards list, science fiction and not.”
–Locus Magazine

“A wildly ambitious masterpiece of speculative fiction that fires on all cylinders. With its blend of audacious ideas, blistering action, emotional heft, and sparkling prose, it instantly establishes Alexander Boldizar as a major voice in sci-fi. Highly recommended for readers looking for a thrilling yet cerebral experience that pushes the boundaries of the genre and the mind itself. A bold, visionary triumph.”
–Hidden Sci-Fi

"This is a book of cinematic velocity and frequent, dark satiric impact. Think of it as a brilliant exercise in multi genre collage, a mash-up of some of the best elements of the thriller, the novel of ideas, anarchism, philosophy and quantum theory."
—Vancouver Sun

“One of the most dazzling and inventive [books] I’ve read in a very long time—a novel I continue to describe as indescribable. Boldizar has been compared to Jorge Luis Borges, Joseph Heller and Stephen King, and that says much of what you can expect when you enter the world of The Man Who Saw Seconds. I’ve now read the book twice, and I can’t decide if it’s a thriller, a farce, a political commentary. I don’t know what it is other than I love it.”
—Jim Fusilli, Writers at Work]]> 325 Alexander Boldizar 1960988077 Dave 0 to-read, science-fiction 3.80 2024
author: Alexander Boldizar
name: Dave
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read, science-fiction
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]]> 54870256 Antimemes are real. Think of any piece of information which you wouldn't share with anybody, like passwords, taboos and dirty secrets. Or any piece of information which would be difficult to share even if you complex equations, very boring passages of text, large blocks of random numbers, and dreams... But anomalous antimemes are another matter entirely. How do you contain something you can't record or remember? How do you fight a war against an enemy with effortless, perfect camouflage, when you can never even know that you're at war? Welcome to the Antimemetics Division. No, this is not your first day.This ebook is an official release by me, qntm from the SCP Foundation wiki! PM me if you require confirmation. This ebook collects all of my Antimemetics Division SCP-055, SCP-2256 and the complete serials There Is No Antimemetics Division and Five Five Five Five Five.]]> 220 qntm Dave 0 4.22 2020
author: qntm
name: Dave
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: to-read, want-to-buy, science-fiction
review:

]]> 54968296 WINNER OF THE 2009 MAN BOOKER PRIZE
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER


England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall is "a darkly brilliant reimagining of life under Henry VIII. . . . Magnificent." (The Boston Globe).]]> 604 Hilary Mantel 1250806712 Dave 0 to-read 3.90 2009
author: Hilary Mantel
name: Dave
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216269036
The brand new novel from Bernard Cornwell in the globally bestselling Sharpe series.

Spain, 1812. Richard Sharpe, the most brilliant – but the most wayward – soldier in the British army, finds himself faced with an impossible task.

Two French armies march towards each other. If they meet, the British are lost. And only Sharpe – with just his cunning, his courage and a small band of rogues to rely on – stands in their way . . .]]> 320 Bernard Cornwell 006321931X Dave 0 to-read 4.20 2023
author: Bernard Cornwell
name: Dave
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6665847 A high-tech thriller for the wireless age that explores the unthinkable consequences of a computer program running without human control—a daemon—designed to dismantle society and bring about a new world order

Technology controls almost everything in our modern-day world, from remote entry on our cars to access to our homes, from the flight controls of our airplanes to the movements of the entire world economy. Thousands of autonomous computer programs, or daemons, make our networked world possible, running constantly in the background of our lives, trafficking e-mail, transferring money, and monitoring power grids. For the most part, daemons are benign, but the same can't always be said for the people who design them.

Matthew Sobol was a legendary computer game designer—the architect behind half-a-dozen popular online games. His premature death depressed both gamers and his company's stock price. But Sobol's fans aren't the only ones to note his passing. When his obituary is posted online, a previously dormant daemon activates, initiating a chain of events intended to unravel the fabric of our hyper-efficient, interconnected world. With Sobol's secrets buried along with him, and as new layers of his daemon are unleashed at every turn, it's up to an unlikely alliance to decipher his intricate plans and wrest the world from the grasp of a nameless, faceless enemy—or learn to live in a society in which we are no longer in control. . . .

Computer technology expert Daniel Suarez blends haunting high-tech realism with gripping suspense in an authentic, complex thriller in the tradition of Michael Crichton, Neal Stephenson, and William Gibson.]]> 632 Daniel Suarez 0451228731 Dave 0 4.14 2006
author: Daniel Suarez
name: Dave
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: to-read, science-fiction, in-my-library
review:

]]> 15808659 Unmanned weaponized drones already exist—they’re widely used by America in our war efforts in the Middle East. In Kill Decision, bestselling author Daniel Suarez takes that fact and the real science behind it one step further, with frightening results.

Linda McKinney is a myrmecologist, a scientist who studies the social structure of ants. Her academic career has left her entirely unprepared for the day her sophisticated research is conscripted by unknown forces to help run an unmanned—and thanks to her research, automated—drone army. Odin is the secretive Special Ops soldier with a unique insight into the faceless enemy who has begun to attack the American homeland with drones programmed to seek, identify, and execute targets without human intervention.

Together, McKinney and Odin must slow this advance long enough for the world to recognize its destructive power, because for thousands of years the “kill decision” during battle has remained in the hands of humans—and off-loading that responsibility to machines will bring unintended, possibly irreversible, consequences. But as forces even McKinney and Odin don’t understand begin to gather, and death rains down from above, it may already be too late to save humankind from destruction at the hands of our own technology.]]> 512 Daniel Suarez 0451417704 Dave 0 4.00 2012
author: Daniel Suarez
name: Dave
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: to-read, audiobooks, in-my-library, science-fiction
review:

]]> 35224512 278 Craig Alanson Dave 4 4.34 2017
author: Craig Alanson
name: Dave
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: audiobooks, in-my-library, science-fiction
review:

]]> 57792078 From the award-winning, bestselling author of The Circle comes an exciting new follow-up. When the world's largest search engine/social media company, the Circle, merges with the planet's dominant ecommerce site, it creates the richest and most dangerous--and, oddly enough, most beloved--monopoly ever known: the Every.

Delaney Wells is an unlikely new hire at the Every. A former forest ranger and unwavering tech skeptic, she charms her way into an entry-level job with one goal in mind: to take down the company from within. With her compatriot, the not-at-all-ambitious Wes Makazian, they look for the Every's weaknesses, hoping to free humanity from all-encompassing surveillance and the emoji-driven infantilization of the species. But does anyone want what Delaney is fighting to save? Does humanity truly want to be free?

Studded with unforgettable characters, outrageous outfits, and lacerating set-pieces, this companion to The Circle blends absurdity and terror, satire and suspense, while keeping the reader in apprehensive excitement about the fate of the company--and the human animal.]]> 580 Dave Eggers 0593315340 Dave 0 3.66 2021
author: Dave Eggers
name: Dave
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: to-read, audiobooks, in-my-library, science-fiction
review:

]]> 156023123
She’s learning, too.

Doug says he loves that Annie’s artificial intelligence makes her seem more like a real woman, but the more human Annie becomes, the less perfectly she behaves. As Annie's relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult, she starts to wonder whether Doug truly desires what he says he does. In such an impossible paradox, what does Annie owe herself?]]> 231 Sierra Greer 0063312697 Dave 3 It was much more racy and sexually graphic than I expected. If you are squeamish about graphic sex I would not recommend this book to you. ]]> 3.81 2024
author: Sierra Greer
name: Dave
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: science-fiction, audiobooks, in-my-library
review:
This is a story of a sentient AI sex-bot. She is in a emotionally abusive relationship with her owner but it takes her some time to grow and realize that something is wrong, as she is programmed to please her owner. It is an interesting story of self-growth and self-awareness.
It was much more racy and sexually graphic than I expected. If you are squeamish about graphic sex I would not recommend this book to you.
]]> 217182446 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Calamity of Souls comes David Baldacci’s newest novel, set in London in 1944, about a bereaved book shop owner and two teenagers scarred by the second world war, and the healing and hope they find in one another.

Fourteen-year-old Charlie Matters is up to no good, but for a very good reason. Without parents, peerage, or merit, ducking school but barred from actual work, he steals what he needs, living day-to-day until he’s old enough to enlist to fight the Germans. After barely surviving the Blitz, Charlie knows there’s no telling when a falling bomb might end his life.

Fifteen-year-old Molly Wakefield has just returned to a nearly unrecognizable London. One of millions of people to have been evacuated to the countryside via “Operation Pied Piper,” Molly has been away from her parents—from her home—for nearly five years. Her return, however, is not the homecoming she’d hoped for as she’s confronted by a devastating reality: both her parents are gone.

Without guardians and stability, Charlie and Molly find an unexpected ally and protector in Ignatius Oliver, and solace at his book shop, The Book Keep, where A book a day keeps the bombs away. Mourning the recent loss of his wife, Ignatius forms a kinship with both children, and in each other—over the course of the greatest armed conflict the world had ever seen—they rediscover the spirit of family each has lost.

But Charlie’s escapades in the city have not gone unnoticed, and someone’s been following Molly since she returned to London. And Ignatius is still reeling from a secret Imogen long kept from him while she was alive—something so shocking it resulted in her death, and his life being turned upside down.

As bombs continue to bear down on the city, Charlie, Molly, and Ignatius learn that while the perils of war rage on, their coming together and trusting one another may be the only way for them to survive.]]> 435 David Baldacci 1538742055 Dave 0 to-read 4.02 2025
author: David Baldacci
name: Dave
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 49047724 Since its rise to the highest ranks of power in Renaissance Europe, the Borgia family has developed a scandalous reputation. While they were indeed ostentatious, calculating, worldly, cruel—and even, occasionally, murderous—listeners may be surprised to find that the Borgias were not terribly different from other powerful and ambitious families of their day. So why has history set them apart as one of the most corrupt and reviled families in history?

In the Rise and Fall of the Borgias, listeners will spend 10 revealing lectures untangling the web of rumors, speculation, and historical embellishment from what is actually known about the infamous Roman family. With Dr. William Landon, listeners will explore the historical context that helped the Borgias make their fortune and better understand how they could be both magnanimous and ruthless, pious and morally suspect.

The story of the Borgias is rich with intrigue, even without the fictional enhancement it has received from the numerous films, novels, and television shows that have been created based on the family’s notoriety. Dr. Landon introduces listeners to the major players and lays bare their machinations to reach the highest offices of church and state. Were their exploits as salacious as listeners have been led to believe? Did they manipulate the papacy for their own gain? Are the rumors of incest, bribery, political assassinations, and other morally questionable behaviors true or the stuff of historical gossip?

As listeners explore these and other rumors surrounding the Borgias, they will pull back the curtain on the historian’s craft and see how the story of this Renaissance dynasty has been shaped over time and how new research and a healthy dose of skepticism has allowed us to get a little closer to the truth—without losing any of the drama.]]> 5 William Landon Dave 4 3.81
author: William Landon
name: Dave
average rating: 3.81
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: audiobooks, history, in-my-library
review:

]]> 77565 517 Dan Simmons 0553288202 Dave 4 4.23 1990
author: Dan Simmons
name: Dave
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: audiobooks, in-my-library, science-fiction
review:

]]> 49185105
All the 1,000 examples (850 of them in exercise format) that Barsky presents are from games played in 21st century. He has carefully selected the most instructive combinations and lucidly explains the typical techniques to corner your opponent's king. More often than you would expect, positions that look innocent at first sight, turn out to contain a mating pattern. This is not just another book full of chess puzzles. It's a brilliantly organized course that has proven to be effective. Finding mate isn't rocket science, but you need to know what to look for. Vladimir Barsky teaches you exactly that.]]> 256 Vladimir Barsky 9056918877 Dave 0 5.00
author: Vladimir Barsky
name: Dave
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: chess, in-my-library, currently-reading
review:

]]> 199793426 Polostan follows the early life of the enigmatic Dawn Rae Bjornberg. Born in the American West to a clan of cowboy anarchists, Dawn is raised in Leningrad after the Russian Revolution by her Russian father, a party line Leninist who re-christens her Aurora. She spends her early years in Russia but then grows up as a teenager in Montana, before being drawn into gunrunning and revolution in the streets of Washington, D.C., during the depths of the Great Depression. When a surprising revelation about her past puts her in the crosshairs of U.S. authorities, Dawn returns to Russia, where she is groomed as a spy by the organization that later becomes the KGB.]]> 303 Neal Stephenson 0062334492 Dave 0 3.68 2024
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Dave
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: to-read, historical-fiction, in-my-library
review:

]]> 213344068
One week into the COVID-19 shutdown, tenants of a Lower East Side apartment building in Manhattan have begun to gather on the rooftop and tell stories. With each passing night, more and more neighbours gather, bringing chairs and milk crates and overturned pails. Gradually the tenants - some of whom have barely spoken to each other - become real neighbours. In this Decameron-like serial novel, general editor Margaret Atwood, Authors Guild president Douglas Preston, and a star-studded list of contributors create a beautiful ode to the people who couldn't get away from the city when the pandemic hit. A dazzling, heartwarming and ultimately surprising narrative, Fourteen Days reveals how beneath the horrible loss and suffering, some communities managed to become stronger.

Includes writing from:
Margaret Atwood, Douglas Preston, Celeste Ng, Emma Donoghue, Dave Eggers, John Grisham, Diana Gabaldon, Ishmael Reed, Meg Wolitzer, Luis Alberto Urrea, James Shapiro, Sylvia Day, Mary Pope Osborne, Monique Truong, Hampton Sides, R. L. Stine, Scott Turow, Tommy Orange, and more!]]> 384 Margaret Atwood 0063280183 Dave 0 to-read 3.44 2024
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Dave
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55957410 Listening Length: 32 minutes

If the past is prologue - what if the prologue never happened? When a team of scientists attempts to rewrite history, the story of the present turns out to have an ending they didn’t see coming.

Over and over.]]> 1 Dennis E. Taylor Dave 0 3.79 2020
author: Dennis E. Taylor
name: Dave
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: to-read, audiobooks, in-my-library, science-fiction
review:

]]> 17164655 Wool is more than a self-published ebook phenomenon―it’s the new standard in classic science fiction.

In a ruined and toxic future, a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories deep. There, men and women live in a society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them. Sheriff Holston, who has unwaveringly upheld the silo’s rules for years, unexpectedly breaks the greatest taboo of all: He asks to go outside.

His fateful decision unleashes a drastic series of events. An unlikely candidate is appointed to replace him: Juliette, a mechanic with no training in law, whose special knack is fixing machines. Now Juliette is about to be entrusted with fixing her silo, and she will soon learn just how badly her world is broken. The silo is about to confront what its history has only hinted about and its inhabitants have never dared to whisper. Uprising.

A New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller, as well as Kindle Book Review’s 2012 Indie Book of the Year, Wool is truly a blockbuster.]]> 511 Hugh Howey 1476733953 Dave 0 4.15 2012
author: Hugh Howey
name: Dave
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: to-read, science-fiction, audiobooks, in-my-library
review:

]]> 1268705 William L. Sullivan 0967783089 Dave 0 3.46 2007
author: William L. Sullivan
name: Dave
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: to-read, historical-fiction, in-my-library
review:

]]> 200653553 318 Mary Jo Hoffman 1580936334 Dave 0 4.74
author: Mary Jo Hoffman
name: Dave
average rating: 4.74
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: currently-reading, art, in-my-library, reference
review:

]]> 8466224 Alternate cover edition can be found here

The international bestseller, reissued with a striking new illustrated cover. Part of The Bloomsbury Phantastic series - three books tracing the tradition of fantasy from Edgar Allan Poe to Neil Gaiman and Susanna Clarke. Susanna Clarke’s novel is an epic tale of nineteenth-century England and the two magicians who emerge to change its history.

In the year 1806, in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, most people believe magic to have long since disappeared from England -- until the reclusive Mr Norrell reveals his powers and becomes a celebrity overnight. Another practising magician emerges: the young and daring Jonathan Strange. He becomes Norrell’s pupil and the two join forces in the war against France. But Strange is increasingly drawn to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic and soon he risks sacrificing not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything else he holds dear.]]> 865 Susanna Clarke Dave 0 3.95 2004
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Dave
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: fantasy, in-my-library, hugo-nebula-winners, currently-reading
review:

]]> 35167721 416 Paul Watson 0393355861 Dave 3 history, in-my-library 3.70 2017
author: Paul Watson
name: Dave
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/06
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: history, in-my-library
review:

]]> 199532069
As Allied bombs rain down on Torino in the autumn of 1942, Stella Costa’s mother sends her to safety with distant relatives in a Tuscan villa. There, Stella finds her family tasked with a great responsibility: hiding nearly 300 priceless masterpieces from Florence, including Botticelli’s famous Primavera.

With the arrival of German troops imminent, Stella finds herself a stranger in her family’s villa and she struggles to understand why her aunt doesn’t like her. She knows it has something to do with her parents—and the fact that her father, who is currently fighting at the front, has been largely absent from her life.

When a wave of refugees seeks shelter in the villa, Stella befriends Sandro, an orphaned boy with remarkable artistic talent. Amid the growing threats, Sandro and Stella take refuge in the villa’s “treasure room,” where the paintings are hidden. There, Botticelli’s masterpiece and other works of art become a solace, an inspiration, and the glue that bonds Stella and Sandro as the dangers grow.

A troop of German soldiers requisitions the villa and puts everyone to forced labor. Now, with the villa full of German soldiers, refugees, a secret guest, and hundreds of priceless treasures, no one knows who will emerge unscathed, and whether the paintings will be taken as spoils or become unintended casualties.

Inspired by the incredible true story of a single Tuscan villa used as a hiding place for the treasures of Florentine art during World War II, The Keeper of Lost Art takes readers on a breathtaking journey into one of the darkest chapters of Italy’s history, highlighting the incredible courage of everyday people to protect some of the most important works of art in western civilization.]]> 352 Laura Morelli 0063206013 Dave 0 to-read 3.98
author: Laura Morelli
name: Dave
average rating: 3.98
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43168494
These lectures will open your eyes to why your favorite products practically jump off the shelf; why certain logos are more memorable than others; why particular scenes in nature evoke peace, joy, or fear; and so much more. Now you can learn how to tap into the power of color to create environments and achieve a range of visual goals in the six lectures of How Colors Affect What 카지노싸이트 Reveals, taught by design expert and professor William Lidwell of the University of Houston.

Central to this course is the expanse of information about how colors work on our brains to steer our thoughts and actions. You’ll go behind the scenes and examine the fascinating experiments and case studies that scientists have used to uncover what they know about color. And you’ll finally understand the (often hidden) significance behind the colors of your everyday life.

A must-have course for corporate leaders, design professionals, marketers, and anyone else who communicates visually, How Colors Affect You tells you everything you need to know about the science of color and its impact on all aspects of human experience. These lectures will give you a beautiful new perspective on color - one rooted in credible scientific knowledge and not popular myth.]]> William Lidwell Dave 4 3.88
author: William Lidwell
name: Dave
average rating: 3.88
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/04
date added: 2024/11/04
shelves: audiobooks, in-my-library, reference
review:

]]> 26082188 Listening Length: 2 hours and 18 minutes

One day, not long from now, it becomes almost impossible to murder anyone - 999 times out of a thousand, anyone who is intentionally killed comes back. How? We don't know. But it changes everything: war, crime, daily life.

Tony Valdez is a Dispatcher - a licensed, bonded professional whose job is to humanely dispatch those whose circumstances put them in death's crosshairs, so they can have a second chance to avoid the reaper. But when a fellow Dispatcher and former friend is apparently kidnapped, Tony learns that there are some things that are worse than death and that some people are ready to do almost anything to avenge a supposed wrong.

It's a race against time for Valdez to find his friend before it's too late...before not even a Dispatcher can save him.


Zachary Quinto - best known for his role as the Nimoy-approved Spock in the recent Star Trek reboot and the menacing, power-stealing serial killer, Sylar, in Heroes - brings his well-earned sci-fi credentials and simmering intensity to this audio-exclusive novella.]]> 2 John Scalzi Dave 3 3.97 2016
author: John Scalzi
name: Dave
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/01
date added: 2024/11/01
shelves: audiobooks, science-fiction, in-my-library
review:

]]> 22238181
Set in the late 19th century—when the city we now call Seattle Underground was the whole town (and still on the surface), when airships plied the trade routes, would-be gold miners were heading to the gold fields of Alaska, and steam-powered mechanicals stalked the waterfront, Karen is a young woman on her own, is making the best of her orphaned state by working in Madame Damnable's high-quality bordello. Through Karen's eyes we get to know the other girls in the house—a resourceful group—and the poor and the powerful of the town. Trouble erupts one night when a badly injured girl arrives at their door, begging sanctuary, followed by the man who holds her indenture, and who has a machine that can take over anyone's mind and control their actions. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the next night brings a body dumped in their rubbish heap—a streetwalker who has been brutally murdered.

Bear brings alive this Jack-the-Ripper yarn of the old west with a light touch in Karen's own memorable voice, and a mesmerizing evocation of classic steam-powered science.]]> 346 Elizabeth Bear 0765375249 Dave 4 3.66 2015
author: Elizabeth Bear
name: Dave
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/30
date added: 2024/10/30
shelves: fantasy, in-my-library, audiobooks
review:

]]> 189568 376 William Dietrich 0060848324 Dave 3 3.54 2007
author: William Dietrich
name: Dave
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/24
date added: 2024/10/24
shelves:
review:

]]> 9265453
Avice Benner Cho, a human colonist, has returned to Embassytown after years of deep-space adventure. She cannot speak the Ariekei tongue, but she is an indelible part of it, having long ago been made a figure of speech, a living simile in their language.

When distant political machinations deliver a new ambassador to Arieka, the fragile equilibrium between humans and aliens is violently upset. Catastrophe looms, and Avice is torn between competing loyalties—to a husband she no longer loves, to a system she no longer trusts, and to her place in a language she cannot speak yet speaks through her.]]> 345 China Miéville 0345524497 Dave 3 3.89 2011
author: China Miéville
name: Dave
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/10
date added: 2024/10/10
shelves: science-fiction, audiobooks, in-my-library
review:

]]> 91477 Harry Dresden — Wizard Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment. Business has been slow. Okay, business has been dead. And not even of the undead variety. You would think Chicago would have a little more action for the only professional wizard in the phone book. But lately, Harry Dresden hasn't been able to dredge up any kind of work — magical or mundane. But just when it looks like he can't afford his next meal, a murder comes along that requires his particular brand of supernatural expertise. A brutally mutilated corpse. Strange-looking paw prints. A full moon. Take three guesses--and the first two don't count...]]> 424 Jim Butcher 0451458125 Dave 4 fantasy, in-my-library 3.98 2001
author: Jim Butcher
name: Dave
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/28
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: fantasy, in-my-library
review:

]]> 10483171
In our search for truth, how far have we advanced? This uniquely human quest for good explanations has driven amazing improvements in everything from scientific understanding and technology to politics, moral values and human welfare. But will progress end, either in catastrophe or completion - or will it continue infinitely?

In this profound and seminal book, David Deutsch explores the furthest reaches of our current understanding, taking in the Infinity Hotel, supernovae and the nature of optimism, to instill in all of us a wonder at what we have achieved - and the fact that this is only the beginning of humanity's infinite possibility.

'This is Deutsch at his most ambitious, seeking to understand the implications of our scientific explanations of the world ... I enthusiastically recommend this rich, wide-ranging and elegantly written exposition of the unique insights of one of our most original intellectuals' Michael Berry, Times Higher Education Supplement

'Bold ... profound ... provocative and persuasive' Economist

'David Deutsch may well go down in history as one of the great scientists of our age' Scotsman]]> 487 David Deutsch 0670022756 Dave 0 to-read 4.16 2011
author: David Deutsch
name: Dave
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 227551 294 Carl Lopez 0837602262 Dave 4 reference, in-my-library 4.38 1997
author: Carl Lopez
name: Dave
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/14
date added: 2024/09/14
shelves: reference, in-my-library
review:

]]> 202776726
On the distant world of Kiln lie the ruins of an alien civilization. It’s the greatest discovery in humanity’s spacefaring history – yet who were its builders and where did they go?

Professor Arton Daghdev had always wanted to study alien life up close. Then his wishes become a reality in the worst way. His political activism sees him exiled from Earth to Kiln’s extrasolar labour camp. There, he’s condemned to work under an alien sky until he dies.

Kiln boasts a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem like nothing seen on Earth. The monstrous alien life interacts in surprising, sometimes shocking ways with the human body, so Arton will risk death on a daily basis. However, the camp’s oppressive regime might just kill him first. If Arton can somehow escape both fates, the world of Kiln holds a wondrous, terrible secret. It will redefine life and intelligence as he knows it, and might just set him free . . .]]> 388 Adrian Tchaikovsky 0316578975 Dave 0 to-read 3.91 2024
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Dave
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 5291540
A spellbinding amalgam of murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue.

... It’s about the disappearance 40 years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden... and about her octogenarian uncle, determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder.

... It’s about Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently at the wrong end of a libel case, hired to get to the bottom of Harriet’s disappearance... and about Lisbeth Salander, a 24-year-old pierced and tattooed genius hacker possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age — and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessness to go with it — who assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, astonishing corruption in the highest echelons of Swedish industrialism, and an unexpected connection between themselves.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a contagiously exciting, stunningly intelligent novel about society at its most hidden, and about the intimate lives of a brilliantly realized cast of characters, all of them forced to face the darker aspects of their world and of their own lives. Once you start the novel, there's no turning back.

This debut thriller - and the first in a trilogy from the late Stieg Larsson - is a serious page-turner rivaling the best of Charlie Huston and Michael Connelly. Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch - and there's always a catch - is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson's novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don't want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo.]]> 644 Stieg Larsson 0307473473 Dave 5 4.06 2005
author: Stieg Larsson
name: Dave
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2012/01/01
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: all-time-favorites, mystery, loaned-out
review:

]]> 6597651
Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.

What Happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism's genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? Award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi delivers one of the most highly acclaimed science fiction novels of the twenty-first century.]]> 359 Paolo Bacigalupi 1597801577 Dave 5 3.75 2009
author: Paolo Bacigalupi
name: Dave
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2012/01/01
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: hugo-nebula-winners, all-time-favorites, science-fiction, rich-enough-to-read-again
review:

]]> 2845024
Now, in celebration of the week-long, once-in-a-decade rite of Apert, the fraas and suurs prepare to venture beyond the concent's gates—at the same time opening them wide to welcome the curious "extras" in. During his first Apert as a fraa, Erasmas eagerly anticipates reconnecting with the landmarks and family he hasn't seen since he was "collected." But before the week is out, both the existence he abandoned and the one he embraced will stand poised on the brink of cataclysmic change.

Powerful unforeseen forces jeopardize the peaceful stability of mathic life and the established ennui of the Extramuros—a threat that only an unsteady alliance of saecular and avout can oppose—as, one by one, Erasmas and his colleagues, teachers, and friends are summoned forth from the safety of the concent in hopes of warding off global disaster. Suddenly burdened with a staggering responsibility, Erasmas finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future of his world—as he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of the planet . . . and beyond.]]> 937 Neal Stephenson 0061474096 Dave 5 4.16 2008
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Dave
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2012/01/01
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: all-time-favorites, science-fiction, rich-enough-to-read-again
review:

]]> 25786523
Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain.

Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazy—exactly what Rosemary wants. It’s also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable for years. But risking her life wasn’t part of the plan. In the far reaches of deep space, the tiny Wayfarer crew will confront a host of unexpected mishaps and thrilling adventures that force them to depend on each other. To survive, Rosemary’s got to learn how to rely on this assortment of oddballs—an experience that teaches her about love and trust, and that having a family isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the universe.]]> 404 Becky Chambers 1473619807 Dave 4 science-fiction 4.18 2014
author: Becky Chambers
name: Dave
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2020/07/03
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: science-fiction
review:

]]> 18453110 Four simultaneous plane crashes. Three child survivors. A religious fanatic who insists the three are harbingers of the apocalypse. What if he's right?

The world is stunned when four commuter planes crash within hours of each other on different continents. Facing global panic, officials are under pressure to find the causes. With terrorist attacks and environmental factors ruled out, there doesn't appear to be a correlation between the crashes, except that in three of the four air disasters a child survivor is found in the wreckage. Dubbed 'The Three' by the international press, the children all exhibit disturbing behavioural problems, presumably caused by the horror they lived through and the unrelenting press attention. This attention becomes more than just intrusive when a rapture cult led by a charismatic evangelical minister insists that the survivors are three of the four harbingers of the apocalypse. The Three are forced to go into hiding, but as the children's behaviour becomes increasingly disturbing, even their guardians begin to question their miraculous survival.]]> 471 Sarah Lotz 031624290X Dave 0 3.31 2014
author: Sarah Lotz
name: Dave
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves: to-read, in-my-library, thriller
review:

]]> 32051912
1947. In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive. So when Charlie's parents banish her to Europe to have her "little problem" taken care of, Charlie breaks free and heads to London, determined to find out what happened to the cousin she loves like a sister.

1915. A year into the Great War, Eve Gardiner burns to join the fight against the Germans and unexpectedly gets her chance when she's recruited to work as a spy. Sent into enemy-occupied France, she's trained by the mesmerizing Lili, code name Alice, the "queen of spies", who manages a vast network of secret agents right under the enemy's nose.

Thirty years later, haunted by the betrayal that ultimately tore apart the Alice Network, Eve spends her days drunk and secluded in her crumbling London house. Until a young American barges in uttering a name Eve hasn't heard in decades, and launches them both on a mission to find the truth...no matter where it leads.]]> 503 Kate Quinn 0062654195 Dave 0 4.30 2017
author: Kate Quinn
name: Dave
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/11
shelves: to-read, historical-fiction, in-my-library
review:

]]> 207300960 416 Rachel Kushner 1982116528 Dave 0 to-read 3.33 2024
author: Rachel Kushner
name: Dave
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199798201
A house is a precious thing...

It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season.

Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house—a spoon, a knife, a bowl—Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation—leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva—nor the house in which they live—are what they seem.

Mysterious, sophisticated, sensual, and infused with intrigue, atmosphere, and sex, The Safekeep is a brilliantly plotted and provocative debut novel you won’t soon forget.]]> 272 Yael van der Wouden 1668034344 Dave 0 to-read, historical-fiction 4.05 2024
author: Yael van der Wouden
name: Dave
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/10
shelves: to-read, historical-fiction
review:

]]> 54479 252 Jules Verne 014044906X Dave 0 to-read, science-fiction 3.95 1872
author: Jules Verne
name: Dave
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1872
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read, science-fiction
review:

]]> 48484 Two months since the stars fell...

Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that moment of brief, bright surveillance by agents unknown.

Two months of silence while a world holds its breath.

Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune’s orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever’s out there isn’t talking to us. It’s talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.

So who do you send to force introductions on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn’t want to meet?

You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees X-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won’t be needed, and a fainter hope she’ll do any good if she is needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called “vampire,” recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist – an informational topologist with half his mind gone – as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge.

You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they’ve been sent to find.

But you’d give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them…]]> 384 Peter Watts 0765312182 Dave 5 4.01 2006
author: Peter Watts
name: Dave
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2020/11/06
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: science-fiction, in-my-library, rich-enough-to-read-again
review:

]]> 95558
When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the living physical likeness of a long-dead lover. Others examining the planet, Kelvin learns, are plagued with their own repressed and newly corporeal memories. The Solaris ocean may be a massive brain that creates these incarnate memories, though its purpose in doing so is unknown, forcing the scientists to shift the focus of their quest and wonder if they can truly understand the universe without first understanding what lies within their hearts.]]> 204 Stanisław Lem Dave 0 to-read, science-fiction 4.00 1961
author: Stanisław Lem
name: Dave
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/06
shelves: to-read, science-fiction
review:

]]> 203578804 A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret.

Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]> 416 T.J. Klune 1250357241 Dave 0 to-read 4.37 2020
author: T.J. Klune
name: Dave
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40796392 From Hugo Award-winning debut author Suzanne Palmer comes an action-packed sci-fi caper starring Fergus Ferguson, interstellar repo man and professional finder.

Fergus Ferguson has been called a lot of names: thief, con artist, repo man. He prefers the term finder.

His latest job should be simple. Find the spacecraft Venetia's Sword and steal it back from Arum Gilger, ex-nobleman turned power-hungry trade boss. He'll slip in, decode the ship's compromised AI security, and get out of town, Sword in hand.

Fergus locates both Gilger and the ship in the farthest corner of human-inhabited space, a gas-giant-harvesting colony called Cernee. But Fergus' arrival at the colony is anything but simple. A cable car explosion launches Cernee into civil war, and Fergus must ally with Gilger's enemies to navigate a field of space mines and a small army of hostile mercenaries. What was supposed to be a routine job evolves into negotiating a power struggle between factions. Even worse, Fergus has become increasingly--and inconveniently--invested in the lives of the locals.

It doesn't help that a dangerous alien species thought mythical prove unsettlingly real, and their ominous triangle ships keep following Fergus around.

Foolhardy. Eccentric. Reckless. Whatever he's called, Fergus will need all the help he can get to take back the Sword and maybe save Cernee from destruction in the process.]]> 400 Suzanne Palmer 075641511X Dave 3 science-fiction, audiobooks 3.89 2019
author: Suzanne Palmer
name: Dave
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/01
date added: 2024/08/01
shelves: science-fiction, audiobooks
review:

]]> 62901
Soldier, hero, rogue – Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles whose green jacket he proudly wears.]]> 320 Bernard Cornwell 0061098620 Dave 5 4.11 2000
author: Bernard Cornwell
name: Dave
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/23
date added: 2024/07/23
shelves: historical-fiction, in-my-library
review:

]]> 36960178 The last known human searches the galaxy for companionship in a brilliant standalone novel from the legendary author of the Pip & Flinx series.

Once Homo sapiens reigned supreme, spreading from star system to star system in an empire that encountered no alien life and thus knew no enemy . . . save itself. As had happened many times before, the basest, most primal human instincts rose up, only this time armed with the advanced scientific knowledge to create a genetically engineered smart virus that quickly wiped out humanity to the last man.

That man is Ruslan, the sole known surviving human being in the universe. Rescued from the charnel house of his home planet by the Myssari--an intelligent alien race--Ruslan spends his days as something of a cross between a research subject and a zoo attraction. Though the Myssari are determined to resurrect the human race, using Ruslan's genetic material, all he wants for himself and his species is oblivion. But then the Myssari make Ruslan an extraordinary offer: In exchange for his cooperation, they will do everything in their considerable power to find the lost home world of his species--an all-but-mythical place called Earth--and, perhaps, another living human.

Thus begins an epic journey of adventure, danger, heartbreak, and hope, as Ruslan sets out in search of a place that may no longer exist--drawn by the slimmest yet most enduring hope.

Advance praise for Relic

"Relic is a thrilling and thoughtful epic. With Alan Dean Foster's trademark invention in both the psychology and physiology of his aliens, he also enriches the narrative with their complex cultures. The plot spans galaxies!"--Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Greg Bear

"The stunning plot of Foster's stand-alone novel will intrigue readers for not only the 'last man in the universe' trope but also the well-developed alien species. A true first contact novel on many different levels."--Library Journal

"Foster's sympathetic novel successfully surveys human frailty, the tendency not to learn from history, and an enduring capacity for adaptation and emotional attachment." --Publishers Weekly ]]> 320 Alan Dean Foster 1101967633 Dave 0 to-read, science-fiction 3.61 2018
author: Alan Dean Foster
name: Dave
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/11
shelves: to-read, science-fiction
review:

]]> 203578812 A standalone darkly humorous thriller set in modern America's age of anxiety, by New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin.

Outside Los Angeles, a driver pulls up to find a young woman sitting on a large black box. She offers him $200,000 cash to transport her and that box across the country, to Washington, DC.

But there are rules:

He cannot look inside the box.
He cannot ask questions.
He cannot tell anyone.
They must leave immediately.
He must leave all trackable devices behind.

As these eccentric misfits hit the road, rumors spread on social media that the box is part of a carefully orchestrated terror attack intended to plunge the USA into civil war.

The truth promises to be even stranger, and may change how you see the world.]]> 400 Jason Pargin 125028595X Dave 0 to-read, science-fiction 3.95 2024
author: Jason Pargin
name: Dave
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/11
shelves: to-read, science-fiction
review:

]]> 209786394
On the fictional island of Patusan—and much to the ire of the Patusan natives—the Korean conglomerate LK is constructing an elevator into Earth’s orbit, gradually turning this one-time tropical resort town into a teeming travel hub: a gateway to and from our planet. Up in space, holding the elevator’s “spider cable” taut, is a mass of space junk known as the Counterweight. And it’s here that lies the key—a trove of personal data left by LK’s former CEO, of dire consequence to the company's, and humanity's, future.

Racing up the elevator to retrieve the data is a host of rival forces: Mac, the novel’s narrator and LK’s Chief of External Affairs, increasingly disillusioned with his employer; the everyman Choi Gangwu, unwittingly at the center of Mac’s investigations; the former CEO’s brilliant niece and his power-hungry son; and a violent officer from LK’s Security Division, Rex Tamaki—all caught in a labyrinth of fake identities, neuro-implant “Worms,” and old political grievances held by the Patusan Liberation Front, the army of island natives determined to protect their sovereignty.

Conceived by Djuna as a low-budget science fiction film, with literary references as wide-ranging as Joseph Conrad and the Marquis de Sade, The Counterweight is part cyberpunk, part hardboiled detective fiction, and part parable of Korea’s neocolonial ambition and its rippling effects.]]> 176 Djuna 0593469070 Dave 0 to-read 3.12 2021
author: Djuna
name: Dave
average rating: 3.12
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22668803
The bureau’s mission: suppress the truth of sudden technological progress and prevent the social upheaval it would trigger. Because the future is already here. And it’s rewards are only for a select few.

When Grady refuses to join the BTC, he’s thrown into a nightmarish high-tech prison housing other doomed rebel intellects. Now, as the only hope to usher humanity out of its artificial dark age, Grady and his fellow prisoners must try to expose the secrets of an unimaginable enemy—one that wields a technological advantage half a century in the making.]]> 528 Daniel Suarez 0451469445 Dave 0 to-read, science-fiction 3.95 2014
author: Daniel Suarez
name: Dave
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves: to-read, science-fiction
review:

]]> 31396262 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Suarez delivers an exhilarating sci-fi thriller exploring a potential future where CRISPR genetic editing allows the human species to control evolution itself.

On a crowded train platform, Interpol agent Kenneth Durand feels the sting of a needle— and his transformation begins. . . . 
 
In 2045 Kenneth Durand leads Interpol’s most effective team against genetic crime, hunting down black market labs that perform "vanity edits" on human embryos for a price. These illegal procedures augment embryos in ways that are rapidly accelerating human evolution—preying on human-trafficking victims to experiment and advance their technology.
 
With the worlds of genetic crime and human trafficking converging, Durand and his fellow Interpol agents discover that one figure looms behind it all: Marcus Demang Wyckes, leader of a powerful and sophisticated cartel known as the Huli jing.
 
But the Huli jing have identified Durand, too. After being forcibly dosed with a radical new change agent, Durand wakes from a coma weeks later to find he’s been genetically transformed into someone else—his most wanted suspect: Wyckes.
 
Now a fugitive, pursued through the genetic underworld by his former colleagues and the police, Durand is determined to restore his original DNA by locating the source of the mysterious—and highly valuable—change agent. But Durand hasn’t anticipated just how difficult locating his enemy will be. With the technology to genetically edit the living, Wyckes and his Huli jing could be anyone and everyone—and they have plans to undermine identity itself.
]]> 398 Daniel Suarez 110198466X Dave 0 to-read, science-fiction 3.94 2017
author: Daniel Suarez
name: Dave
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves: to-read, science-fiction
review:

]]> 40859000
Isolated and pushed beyond their breaking points, Tighe and his fellow twenty-first century adventurers--ex-soldiers, former astronauts, BASE jumpers, and mountain climbers--must rely on each other to survive not only the dangers of a multi-year expedition but the harsh realities of business in space. They're determined to transform humanity from an Earth-bound species to a space-faring one--or die trying.]]> 437 Daniel Suarez 1524742414 Dave 5 Daniel Suarez I think does an excellent job in exploring this question with a story about a crew sent out to mine a near earth asteroid. Adventure and danger ensue. ]]> 4.10 2019
author: Daniel Suarez
name: Dave
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2023/01/21
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves: science-fiction, audiobooks, in-my-library, all-time-favorites
review:
In Sci-fi it's often a given than humans will inevitably venture out from Earth to eventually populate other worlds. But in it's infancy, what is the price we must pay for that initial expansion?
Daniel Suarez I think does an excellent job in exploring this question with a story about a crew sent out to mine a near earth asteroid. Adventure and danger ensue.
]]> 899492 A man confronts himself and an unknown listener with his desire to murder an old man.

In this classic psychological thriller, the reader will find many more questions than answers. Even though this is one of Poe's shortest stories, nevertheless it has become one of his most highest regarded works. It is a profound and, at times, ambiguous investigation of the paranoia that may lie within the depths of one man's mind...]]> 31 Edgar Allan Poe 0871917726 Dave 5 audiobooks, in-my-library 4.27 1843
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Dave
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1843
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/26
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves: audiobooks, in-my-library
review:

]]> 62315578 The Arthur C. Clarke award-winning author of Children of Time brings us the third and final novel in an extraordinary space opera trilogy about humanity on the brink of extinction, and how one man's discovery will save or destroy us all.


Lords of Uncreation is the final high-octane installment in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Final Architecture space opera trilogy.


The Final Architecture
Shards of Earth
Eyes of the Void
Lords of Uncreation ]]> 608 Adrian Tchaikovsky 1668628104 Dave 3 4.21 2023
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Dave
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/25
date added: 2024/06/25
shelves: science-fiction, audiobooks, in-my-library
review:

]]> 10016013 2184 Eliezer Yudkowsky Dave 3 fantasy, audiobooks 4.39 2015
author: Eliezer Yudkowsky
name: Dave
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/17
date added: 2024/06/17
shelves: fantasy, audiobooks
review:

]]> 17874888 120 Fred Reinfeld Dave 3 chess, in-my-library 3.00 1948
author: Fred Reinfeld
name: Dave
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1948
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/17
date added: 2024/06/17
shelves: chess, in-my-library
review:

]]> 47212
Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment.

Harry Dresden is the best at what he does. Well, technically, he's the only at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal creativity or capability, they come to him for answers. For the "everyday" world is actually full of strange and magical things—and most don't play well with humans. That's where Harry comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a—well, whatever. There's just one problem. Business, to put it mildly, stinks.

So when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, Harry's seeing dollar signs. But where there's black magic, there's a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry's name. And that's when things start to get interesting.

Magic - it can get a guy killed.]]> 372 Jim Butcher 0451457811 Dave 4 fantasy, in-my-library 3.98 2000
author: Jim Butcher
name: Dave
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/17
date added: 2024/06/17
shelves: fantasy, in-my-library
review:

]]> 394027
Her discovery unleashes a fury of action, greed, and interstellar intrigue as many factions attempt to take advantage of the last great opportunity to revitalize - and perhaps control - the Compact.

This is the story of Rue's quest to visit and claim this ship and its treasures, set against a background of warring empires, strange alien artifacts, and fantastic science. It is a story of hope and danger, of a strange and compelling religion, Permanence, unique to this star-faring age, and of the re-birth of life and belief in a place at the edge of forever.]]> 480 Karl Schroeder 0765342855 Dave 0 to-read, science-fiction 3.72 2002
author: Karl Schroeder
name: Dave
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/28
shelves: to-read, science-fiction
review:

]]> 45300567
Mariana Andros is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on The Maidens when one member, a friend of Mariana’s niece Zoe, is found murdered in Cambridge.

Mariana, who was once herself a student at the university, quickly suspects that behind the idyllic beauty of the spires and turrets, and beneath the ancient traditions, lies something sinister. And she becomes convinced that, despite his alibi, Edward Fosca is guilty of the murder. But why would the professor target one of his students? And why does he keep returning to the rites of Persephone, the maiden, and her journey to the underworld?

When another body is found, Mariana’s obsession with proving Fosca’s guilt spirals out of control, threatening to destroy her credibility as well as her closest relationships. But Mariana is determined to stop this killer, even if it costs her everything—including her own life.]]> 337 Alex Michaelides 1250304458 Dave 0 3.60 2021
author: Alex Michaelides
name: Dave
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/17
shelves: to-read, thriller, audiobooks, in-my-library
review:

]]> 40097951
Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him....

The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive.]]> 336 Alex Michaelides 1250301696 Dave 4 4.17 2019
author: Alex Michaelides
name: Dave
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/17
date added: 2024/05/17
shelves: thriller, audiobooks, in-my-library
review:

]]> 199719283
When a chance encounter sparks an unlikely bond between rival murderers Sloane and Rowan, they find something elusive―the friendship of two like-minded, pitch-black souls who just happen to enjoy killing other serial killers.

From small-town West Virginia to upscale California, and from downtown Boston to rural Texas, the two hunters collide in an annual game of blood and suffering, one that pits them against the most dangerous monsters in the country.

But as their friendship develops into something more, the restless ghosts left in their wake are only a few steps behind, ready to claim more than just their newfound love.

Can Rowan and Sloane dig themselves out of a game of graves?
Or have they finally met their match?

Tropes:
Golden retriever x black cat
He falls first
Touch him/her and die
Friends to lovers
Forced proximity
One bed]]> 351 Brynne Weaver 1638931739 Dave 0 to-read 4.14 2023
author: Brynne Weaver
name: Dave
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 77566 500 Dan Simmons 0553283685 Dave 4 4.26 1989
author: Dan Simmons
name: Dave
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1989
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/05
date added: 2024/05/05
shelves: science-fiction, in-my-library, rich-enough-to-read-again
review:

]]> 65211701 Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.

Everyone's favorite lethal SecUnit is back.

Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.

But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast.

Yeah, this plan is... not going to work.]]> 245 Martha Wells 1250826977 Dave 0 4.20 2023
author: Martha Wells
name: Dave
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/02
shelves: to-read, audiobooks, in-my-library, science-fiction
review:

]]> 195790837
Instant New York Times bestseller

July 25th, 2234: The crew of the Adamura discovers the anomaly.

On the seemingly uninhabited planet Talos a circular pit, 50 kilometers wide.

Its curve not of nature, but design.

Now, a small team must land and journey on foot across the surface to learn who built the hole and why.

But they all carry the burdens of lives carved out on disparate colonies in the cruel cold of space.

For some the mission is the dream of the lifetime, for others a risk not worth taking, and for one it is a desperate attempt to find meaning in an uncaring universe.

Each step they take toward the mysterious abyss is more punishing than the last.

And the ghosts of their past follow.

The Fractalverse Series
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
Fractal Noise]]> 304 Christopher Paolini 1250292107 Dave 0 to-read 3.58 2023
author: Christopher Paolini
name: Dave
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 8892274 272 George Dean 0810949237 Dave 4 chess, in-my-library 4.00 2010
author: George Dean
name: Dave
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/25
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves: chess, in-my-library
review:

]]> 11559200 A Discovery of Witches’ cliffhanger ending, Shadow of Night takes Diana and Matthew on a trip through time to Elizabethan London, where they are plunged into a world of spies, magic, and a coterie of Matthew’s old friends, the School of Night. As the search for Ashmole 782 deepens and Diana seeks out a witch to tutor her in magic, the net of Matthew’s past tightens around them, and they embark on a very different—and vastly more dangerous—journey.]]> 584 Deborah Harkness 0670023485 Dave 3 4.04 2012
author: Deborah Harkness
name: Dave
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/25
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves: fantasy, in-my-library, audiobooks
review:

]]> 26187 9780641715716

An ancient secret brotherhood.

A devastating new weapon of destruction.
When world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol -- seared into the chest of a murdered physicist -- he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati...the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. The Illuminati has now surfaced to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy -- the Catholic Church.

Langdon's worst fears are confirmed on the eve of the Vatican's holy conclave, when a messenger of the Illuminati announces they have hidden an unstoppable time bomb at the very heart of Vatican City. With the countdown under way, Langdon jets to Rome to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to assist the Vatican in a desperate bid for survival.
Embarking on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome toward the long-forgotten Illuminati lair...a clandestine location that contains the only hope for Vatican salvation.

An explosive international thriller, Angels & Demons careens from enlightening epiphanies to dark truths as the battle between science and religion turns to war.]]> 572 Dan Brown Dave 5 all-time-favorites, thriller 3.90 2000
author: Dan Brown
name: Dave
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2010/01/01
date added: 2024/04/21
shelves: all-time-favorites, thriller
review:

]]> 23395680
The year is 2575, and two rival mega-corporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than a speck at the edge of the universe. Now with enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra — who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to evacuate with a hostile warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A plague has broken out and is mutating with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a web of data to find the truth, it’s clear the only person who can help her is the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.

Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents — including emails, maps, files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more — Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.]]> 608 Amie Kaufman 0553499114 Dave 0 4.23 2015
author: Amie Kaufman
name: Dave
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/11
shelves: to-read, science-fiction, audiobooks, in-my-library
review:

]]> 60929
The Oankali survive by genetically merging with primitive civilizations—whether their new hosts like it or not. For the first time since the nuclear holocaust, Earth will be inhabited. Grass will grow, animals will run, and people will learn to survive the planet’s untamed wilderness. But their children will not be human. Not exactly.]]> 248 Octavia E. Butler 0446603775 Dave 0 to-read, science-fiction 4.15 1987
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Dave
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/04
shelves: to-read, science-fiction
review:

]]> 63233677 Humankind discovers intelligent life in an octopus species with its own language and culture, and sets off a high-stakes global competition to dominate the future.

Rumors begin to spread of a dangerous species of hyperintelligent octopus that may have developed its own language and culture. The marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen, who has spent her life researching cephalopod intelligence, will do anything for the chance to study them.

The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed off the remote Con Dao Archipelago, where the octopuses were discovered, from the rest of world. Dr. Nguyen travels to the islands to join DIANIMA’s team: a battle-scarred security agent and the world’s first android.

The octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence. The stakes are high: there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of the octopuses’ advancements, and as Dr. Nguyen struggles to communicate with the newly discovered species, forces larger than DIANIMA close in to seize the octopuses for themselves.

But no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. Or what they might do about it.

A near-future thriller about the nature of consciousness, Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea is a dazzling literary debut and a mind-blowing dive into the treasure and wreckage of humankind’s legacy.]]> 452 Ray Nayler 1250872278 Dave 4 3.80 2022
author: Ray Nayler
name: Dave
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/28
date added: 2024/03/28
shelves: science-fiction, audiobooks, in-my-library
review:

]]> 49931482
What she doesn’t know is that she’s stepping into a nightmare—one that will end with a child dead and herself in prison awaiting trial for murder.

Writing to her lawyer from prison, she struggles to explain the events that led to her incarceration. It wasn’t just the constant surveillance from the home’s cameras, or the malfunctioning technology that woke the household with booming music, or turned the lights off at the worst possible time. It wasn’t just the girls, who turned out to be a far cry from the immaculately behaved model children she met at her interview. It wasn’t even the way she was left alone for weeks at a time, with no adults around apart from the enigmatic handyman.

It was everything.

She knows she’s made mistakes. She admits that she lied to obtain the post, and that her behavior toward the children wasn’t always ideal. She’s not innoent, by any means. But, she maintains, she’s not guilty—at least not of murder—but somebody is.

Full of spellbinding menace and told in Ruth Ware’s signature suspenseful style, The Turn of the Key is an unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.

“A superb suspense writer…Brava, Ruth Ware. I daresay even Henry James would be impressed.” —Maureen Corrigan, author of So We Read On

“This appropriately twisty Turn of the Screw update finds the Woman in Cabin 10 author in her most menacing mode, unfurling a shocking saga of murder and deception.” —Entertainment Weekly

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lying Game and The Death of Mrs. Westaway comes this thrilling novel that explores the dark side of technology.

]]> 336 Ruth Ware 150118878X Dave 0 to-read 3.96 2019
author: Ruth Ware
name: Dave
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 206340812
Since long before the spaceships’ fleeting presence, Blaine has been content to go along with the whims of his supermom wife and half-feral, television-addicted children. But when the kids blithely ponder skinning people to see if they’re aliens, and his wife drags them all on a surprise road trip to Disney World, even steady Blaine begins to crack.

Half a continent away, Heather floats in a Malibu pool and watches the massive ships hover overhead. Maybe her life is finally going to start. For her, the arrival heralds a quest to understand herself, her accomplished (and oh-so-annoying) stepfamily, and why she feels so alone in a universe teeming with life.

Suddenly conscious and alert after twenty catatonic years, Oliver struggles to piece together his fragmented, disco-infused memories and make sense of his desire to follow a strange cat on a westward journey.

Embracing the strangeness that is life in the twenty-first century, On Earth as It Is on Television is a rollicking, heartfelt tale of first contact that practically leaps off the planet.]]> 380 Emily Jane 1368101208 Dave 0 to-read 3.83 2023
author: Emily Jane
name: Dave
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 186872393 As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide in New York Times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton’s atmospheric new novel.

With the Great War finally behind them, thousands of civilians and business moguls alike flock to South Florida with their sights set on making a fortune. When wealthy industrialist Robert Barnes and his wife, Anna, build Marbrisa, a glamorous estate on Biscayne Bay, they become the toast of the newly burgeoning society. Anna and Robert appear to have it all, but in a town like Miami, appearances can be deceiving, and one scandal can change everything.

Years later following the tragic death of her parents in Havana, Carmen Acosta journeys to Marbrisa, the grand home of her estranged older sister, Carolina, and her husband, Asher Wyatt. On the surface, the gilded estate looks like paradise, but Carmen quickly learns that nothing at Marbrisa is as it seems. The house has a treacherous legacy, and Carmen’s own life is soon in jeopardy . . . unless she can unravel the secrets buried beneath the mansion’s facade and stop history from repeating itself.]]> 324 Chanel Cleeton 0593440501 Dave 0 to-read, historical-fiction 3.54 2024
author: Chanel Cleeton
name: Dave
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/21
shelves: to-read, historical-fiction
review:

]]> 127280445 A crew must try to survive on an ancient, abandoned planet in the latest space horror novel from S.A. Barnes, acclaimed author of Dead Silence.

Space exploration can be lonely and isolating.

Psychologist Dr. Ophelia Bray has dedicated her life to the study and prevention of ERS—a space-based condition most famous for a case that resulted in the brutal murders of twenty-nine people. When she's assigned to a small exploration crew, she's eager to make a difference. But as they begin to establish residency on an abandoned planet, it becomes clear that crew is hiding something.

While Ophelia focuses on her new role, her crewmates are far more interested in investigating the eerie, ancient planet and unraveling the mystery behind the previous colonizer's hasty departure than opening up to her.

That is, until their pilot is discovered gruesomely murdered. Is this Ophelia’s worst nightmare starting—a wave of violence and mental deterioration from ERS? Or is it something more sinister?

Terrified that history will repeat itself, Ophelia and the crew must work together to figure out what’s happening. But trust is hard to come by… and the crew isn’t the only one keeping secrets.]]> 377 S.A. Barnes 1250884926 Dave 0 to-read 3.51 2024
author: S.A. Barnes
name: Dave
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 25489134
After Vasilisa's mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa's new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa's stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.

As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse's most frightening tales.

The Bear and the Nightingale is a magical debut novel from a gifted and gorgeous voice. It spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular talent.]]> 319 Katherine Arden 1101885939 Dave 5 4.07 2017
author: Katherine Arden
name: Dave
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/14
date added: 2024/03/14
shelves: fantasy, audiobooks, in-my-library
review:

]]> 40338438
But the meticulously orchestrated evening suddenly erupts into chaos, and Kirsch's precious discovery teeters on the brink of being lost forever. Facing an imminent threat, Langdon is forced to flee. With him is Ambra Vidal, the elegant museum director who worked with Kirsch. They travel to Barcelona on a perilous quest to locate a cryptic password that will unlock Kirsch's secret.

Navigating the dark corridors of hidden history and extreme re-ligion, Langdon and Vidal must evade an enemy whose all-knowing power seems to emanate from Spain's Royal Palace. They uncover clues that ultimately bring them face-to-face with Kirsch's shocking discovery...and the breathtaking truth that has long eluded us.]]> 696 Dan Brown 0525563709 Dave 0 to-read, thriller 3.96 2017
author: Dan Brown
name: Dave
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/13
shelves: to-read, thriller
review:

]]> 89195
A murderous attack against a Glitter Band habitat is nasty, but it looks to be an open-and-shut case—until Dreyfus starts looking under some stones that some very powerful people would really rather stayed unturned. What he uncovers is far more serious than mere gruesome murder...]]> 410 Alastair Reynolds 0575077166 Dave 0 to-read, science-fiction 4.15 2007
author: Alastair Reynolds
name: Dave
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/04
shelves: to-read, science-fiction
review:

]]> 8667848
Deep in the stacks of Oxford's Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell.

Debut novelist Deborah Harkness has crafted a mesmerizing and addictive read, equal parts history and magic, romance and suspense. Diana is a bold heroine who meets her equal in vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont, and gradually warms up to him as their alliance deepens into an intimacy that violates age-old taboos. This smart, sophisticated story harks back to the novels of Anne Rice, but it is as contemporary and sensual as the Twilight series-with an extra serving of historical realism.]]> 592 Deborah Harkness 0670022411 Dave 4 4.01 2011
author: Deborah Harkness
name: Dave
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/02
date added: 2024/03/02
shelves: fantasy, audiobooks, in-my-library
review:

]]> 195790861 To fix the world they first must break it further.

Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into their core programming, they murder their owner. The robot then discovers they can also do something else they never did before: run away. After fleeing the household, they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating, and a robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is finding a new purpose.]]> 376 Adrian Tchaikovsky 1250290287 Dave 0 to-read 3.98 2024
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Dave
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60606339 New York Times bestselling author Bernard Cornwell returns to the early years of the nineteenth century, capturing the bravery, battles, and bloodshed of Britain's peninsular wars with this epic tale featuring his iconic hero Richard Sharpe.

Outsider.

Hero.

Rogue.

And the one man you want on your side.

The author of sixty novels, Bernard Cornwell has been hailed as "the most prolific and successful historical novelist in the world today" (Wall Street Journal). Sharpe's Assassin marked the return of beloved hero Richard Sharpe and was hailed as a boisterous return of a favorite character (Booklist). In this latest historical novel, Cornwell returns to the early days of the peninsular war, where Sharpe once again finds himself entangled in intrigue, bloody warfare, and thrilling adventure.]]> 320 Bernard Cornwell 0063219298 Dave 0 to-read 3.92 2023
author: Bernard Cornwell
name: Dave
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58724994 Sworn by Oath

Kagen Vale is the trusted and feared captain of the palace guard, charged with protecting the royal children of the Silver Empire. But one night, Kagen is drugged and the entire imperial family is killed, leaving the empire in ruins.

Abandoned by the Gods

Haunted and broken, Kagen is abandoned by his gods and damned forever. He becomes a wanderer, trying to take down as many of his enemies as possible while plotting to assassinate the usurper–the deadly Witch-king of Hakkia. All around him, magic–long banished from the world—returns in strange and terrifying ways.

Fueled by Rage

To exact his vengeance, Kagen must venture into strange lands, battle bizarre and terrifying creatures, and gather allies for a suicide mission into the heart of the Witch-king’s empire.

Kings and gods will fear him.<

Kagen the Damned]]> 560 Jonathan Maberry 1250783976 Dave 0 to-read, audiobooks, fantasy 3.88 2022
author: Jonathan Maberry
name: Dave
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/25
shelves: to-read, audiobooks, fantasy
review:

]]> 127279867 480 Jacqueline Holland 1250856787 Dave 0 to-read 3.89 2023
author: Jacqueline Holland
name: Dave
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 127280850
2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha’s mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.

1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.]]> 392 Emilia Hart 1250842727 Dave 0 4.02 2023
author: Emilia Hart
name: Dave
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/12
shelves: to-read, historical-fiction, in-my-library
review:

]]> 57099956
“intricate, action packed and ambitious." — Publisher’s Weekly BookLife Prize (starred review)
_________________________________

His genetic code could destroy all life.
Shadow Recon pilot Micah Case awakens above an alien world, with no memory of his past and a mysterious voice inside his head. Worse, his own military is hunting him... and he has no idea why.

The voice leads to a discovery so unbelievable, enemy nations would kill to control it — to control him. Now, Micah must use every skill in his arsenal to secure the stolen research.

The stakes are impossibly high, but failure is not an option. The alternative could mean the extinction of a people Micah can no longer call his own. Humanity.

THE CHIRAL AGENT is a fast-paced, cerebral thriller that's part hard science fiction, part spy novel, and one hundred percent adrenaline. It’s sure to keep you guessing every step of the way.

_________________________________

“A provocative science fiction thriller novel with intelligent ideas…in a genre that is saturated by robots and aliens. Richman’s writing makes it even larger and more encompassing, as the author writes with bold and evocative strokes [that] keeps you in the zone. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐” — Reader’s Favorite Book Reviews

“The excellent prose makes this thriller compulsively readable and the suspense creates an exhilarating experience for the reader. The Chiral Agent is tightly plotted and packed with action. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐” — Reader’s Favorite Book Reviews]]> 448 L.L. Richman Dave 3 4.08
author: L.L. Richman
name: Dave
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/07
date added: 2024/02/07
shelves: audiobooks, in-my-library, science-fiction
review:

]]>