Last month I did a post about the 10 movies & 10 books I'd seen and read this summer, but only listed the movies. So finally now I'll list the 10 books (even though now its actually 11). I got distracted by my move to a new apartment which is why it taken this long to finish my list.
Here are the books:
1) Beyond The Wind............................... by Rob N. Hood
2) The Order Of The Poison Oak............. by Brent Hartinger
3) Light Before Day................................ by Christopher Rice
4) A Density Of Souls............................. by Christopher Rice
5) The Snow Garden.............................. by Christopher Rice
6) Major Conflict................................... by Jeffrey McGowan
7) Chindi............................................... by Jack McDevitt
8) Omega.............................................. by Jack McDevitt
9) Engines Of The Gods......................... by Jack McDevitt
10) Neverwhere...................................... by Neil Gaiman
11) American Gods.................................. by Neil Gaiman
The first 3 books I actually got by mistake because I forgot to cancel the Selection Of the Month from InsightOut book club but decided to keep them. Numbers 1 & 2 are targeted more toward teen readers, but I enjoyed them as well. I did find some of the events that took place in "Beyond The Wind" a little hard to believe, but then again--it is fictional!
Both books are stories about gay teenagers and I would recommend either one, particularly for their intended audience.
In fact, the first 6 books on the list contain gay characters and are by gay authors, number 6-"Major Conflict" is a true account of Jeffrey McGowan's life and experiences in the army as a gay man. I bought this book from Jeffrey himself when he held a talk at the State Museum here in Albany in June. He spoke about the book and answered questions from the audience.
The 3 books by Christopher Rice are all very good. If you don't know, Christopher is the son of Anne Rice (the author of 'The Vampire Chronicles' & many others). Chris' stories don't have any vampires, but they are extremely well-written and will hold your interest throughout the enire book. I found his books hard to classify--they're a combination of mystery, thriller, & horror with plenty of suspense thrown in. (Oh, and a bit of hot gay sex)
Highly reccommended!
The rest of the books, # 7-11, are science-fiction and fantasy.
The three by Jack McDevitt tell of a future time when the Human race has begun to explore and expand throughout the galaxy in a search for other intelligent life. "Engines Of The Gods" was written before "Chindi" & "Omega"; I read it after those two, however. The books have some themes and characters that occur in all three, but they're not really direct sequels--you can read any one book by itself. But I enjoy reading series of books that take place in the same "universe" so I read them one after another.
The last two books by Neil Gaiman are more in the fantasy area. Neil Gaiman also has done graphic novels and there is a comic book mini-series (9 issues) currently being released based on "Neverwhere". "Neverwhere" is a story of an alternate world that exists under the streets of London that normally is never seen by ordinary people.
"American Gods" is the story of a man named Shadow who gets out of prison and meets someone called "Mr. Wednesday" which leads him into a strange world he never knew existed. Personally, I liked "Neverwhere" more but both books are excellent if you enjoy stories about alternate or 'hidden realities'.
All the titles have links to Amazon.com if you would like to learn more about any of these books. The authors' names link to their own websites or to related sites...some of the author links go to different sites, if an author has multiple titles.
As you may have noticed, I tend to read books by the same author when I find a writer I like. I also enjoy reading sequels or series if the story catches my interest enough to want to stay in that particular "world" for a while. My 'real world' is pretty boring, so I tend to immerse myself in 'alternate worlds' to escape from it whenever possible. Science fiction is my favorite category to read as an escape, but I also read a lot of real science books too. In particular, I read quite a bit about quantum physics (hence the title of this blog) because it is a strange and fascinating field of science that sometiomes almost seems like science fiction. Weird things occur at the sub-atomic level that seem to contradict everyday events. But perhaps I'll go more into that at a later time.
Anyway, that's my summer reading list...I've read more this past couple of months than I have for quite awhile. Usually there are too many other distractions but I spent a lot of time outdoors this summer enjoying the hot weather and escaping into some 'alternate worlds'. I've gone on a bit long here and its getting late so I have to go enter another alternate world called 'sleep'.
>>>Unless I'm just dreaming I'm writng this...<<<
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