2013 Reads: February

7. The Summer Tree – Guy Gavriel Kay,
8. The Wandering Fire – Guy Gavriel Kay, &
9. The Darkest Road – Guy Gavriel Kay
These three books make up The Fionavar Tapestry, a fantasy series about 5 university students who get pulled into a parallel universe. There is a lot of Celtic lore here, with their Gods & half-gods and even the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot storyline done in a really interesting way. It’s an epic of fighting the ultimate evil bad guy who will destroy the universe if we don’t destroy him! It’s great.

10. The Last Question – Isaac Asimov
I don’t know if this really counts, because it’s 26 pages long, but I figure the next one is long enough that it kind of evens out. Plus, it’s such an essential Asimov story. I think I’ve actually read it before, but it’s been long enough that I had managed to forget the ending. And the ending is the whole point of this one. Seriously, it’s short, if you have half an hour and want to read something it might as well be this.

11. Warbreaker – Brandon Sanderson
This is a monster of a book – I think it’s just under 600 pages? But after how much I LOVED the Mistborn trilogy last December, I figured it was a safe bet that I wouldn’t feel bogged down in that much writing. Thankfully, I was right about that. I finished this book in about 2 days (one of which was a snow day, for full disclosure!) and enjoyed it a lot. But it didn’t live up to my Mistborn expectations; the magic system was just as different, but not as cool. It felt a little more juvenile/novelty than did the alchemical system of Mistborn. Still, his female characters are fantastic, which is worth a lot from fantasy authors.

12. The Folk of the Fringe – Orson Scott Card
This is a collection of short stories, which are not my favorite type of reading, and they’re all about Mormons, which is not a culture I feel any pull to delve into at all. That being said, this was an easy read, and the stories were all interconnected just enough that I didn’t feel like I had to start over with every one, which helped. It just wasn’t really what I expect to read when I pick up something by Orson Scott Card.

I actually didn’t read anything between January 6 and February 10, according to Goodreads, but I’m still getting my 6 per month read, so it’s good to know I can take a break and still stay pretty caught up. I also finally got a library card this month, so 4 of these I read physical copies of. It’s the first time I’ve read something not on my kindle in two years, and it was kind of nice. But we’re going to Portland for a week this month, which means I definitely want to get back to the Kindle for that; there’s no way I’m carrying around that many books while traveling ever again.

I’m thinking about The Magicians by Lev Grossman, and/or The Belgariad series by David Eddings next.