TPauSilver's 75 in 2011

So, I don't read enough. Which is mad because I read all the time but most of the time I'm reading fanfiction of dubious quality and ignoring the piles of books I want to read! So, this year I'm going to read books. 75 of them, or so I hope. I've tried doing this challenge before and got distracted but not this year, this year I will focus! Definetley...probably. I'll give it a damn good try anyway.

So, here we are, 75 books in 2011.

Read so far:
1. Boneshaker by Cherie Priest (4 star, comment 29)
2. Elf love: an anthology by Josie Brown (3 stars, comment 31)
3. Lord of light by Roger Zelazny (4.5 stars, comment 37)
4. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (3.5 stars, comment 43)
5. Steampunk prime by Mike Ashley (2.5 stars, comment 44)
6. Airborn by Kenneth Oppel (4.5 stars, comment 46)
7. The pirates! In an adventure with whaling by Gideon Defoe (2.5 stars)
8. Teaching as a subversive activity by Neil Postman (4 stars)
9. The toothfairy by Graham Joyce (3.5 stars)
10. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto (4 stars)
11. Born to be gay: a history of homosexuality by William Naphy (3.5 stars)
12. The Good fairies of New York by Martin Millar (3 stars)
13. Un Lun Dun by China Mieville (4.5 stars)
14. The FARC: The Longest Insurgency by Garry Leech (4.5 stars)
15. The secret of platform 13 by Eva Ibbotson (3.5 stars)
16. Dealing with dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (5 stars)
17. Kissing the witch by Emma Donoghue (3 stars)
18. Reading like a writer by Francine Prose (4 stars)
19. Kafka on the shore by Haruki Murakami (4 stars)
20. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (5 star)
21. Harry Potter and the goblet of fire by J.K. Rowling (3 stars)
22. Woman on the edge of time by Marge Piercy (4 stars)
23. Stories to get you through the night (2.5 stars)
24. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling (4.5 stars)
25. Talk to the snail by Stephen Clarke (1.5 stars)
26. The secret life of bees by Sue Monk Kidd (2 stars)
27. The god of small things by Arundhati Roy
28. Cold comfort farm by Stella Gibbons
29. Twelve Kingdoms - Paperback Edition Volume 1: Sea of Shadow by Ono Fuyumi
30. Palestinian Women: Narrative histories and gendered memory by Fatma Kassem
31. The Hunger games by Suzanne Collins
32. The Vagrants by Yiyun Li
33. The fifth child by Doris Lessing

Hi, Emma! You and I have some similar interests; I'm definitely starring your thread :) Good luck with the challenge, but most of all, have fun with it!
~Kirsten

hope you get 75. I wonder is we can count fan fiction we may need a ruling i'll have to ask.

BBGirl, I'm no voice of authority, but the "rule" is that your reading count is all your own - some people choose a number of pages that they add together to count as one "book" when reading children's, short stories, comics, etc, or a number of words if they're reading online; others count each one as one and call it good. You get to make up your own method :)

Welcome!

Thanks people XD Whatever the 'ruling' is I won't be counting my fanfiction as the point is kind of to get me reading published fiction. I have far too much of it and don't read enough, though if I was including fanfiction I'd probably reach my goal easily XD

Haha, I get hooked on fanfiction sometimes too! Suddenly whole evenings have been devoured, but I haven't even LOOKED at an actual published book... Good luck with your very noble goal!

Welcome to the group, Emma!

Thank elliepotten XD I do that all the time. I read fanfiction via livejournal and it's just so easy!

Ok, so, I'm doing a readathon starting...now. First I'm going to try and finish Boneshaker by Cherie Preist. I'm on page 228/414 right now so let's see what we can do!

Boneshaker is a good one i hope you enjoy it

Slightly late first update!

Reading Boneshaker by Cherie Preist
Books finished: 0
Pages read: 42 (currently on page 271)
Reading time: 47 minutes
Posting time: 7 minutes

Total books read: 0
Total pages read: 42
Total time read: 47 minutes
Total time posting: 7 minutes

1. Where are you reading from today?
I'm reading from Stoke-on-Trent, England.

2. Three facts about me:
1. I'm a trainee teacher, high school science, and I love it.
2. I make cloth dolls for fun, though I hate turning fingers more then you can believe.
3. The rest of my time not accounted for was spent discussing airships as tropes in speampunk with my best friend.

3. How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?
If I can finish Boneshaker and Elf love you can call me happy, though I have plenty of other things to move on to.

4. Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on threads)?
Again, mostly just want to finish the two books I'm on. And it's been a while since I sat down and had a good read so I'm going to enjoy it.

5. If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time?
My first time so no advice from me.

Another update then off to bed for me. I'll be back first thing in the morning, so here's my progress up to now.

Reading Boneshaker by Cherie Preist
Books finished: 0
Pages read: 36
Reading time: 37 minutes
Posting time: 3 minutes

Total books read: 0
Total pages read: 78
Total time read: 84 minutes
Total time posting: 10 minutes

Glad to see you jumping in to the Readathon with both feet, Emma! I hope you enjoy the experience.

Thanks you XD I'm mostly just enjoying an excuse to read...and a nerdy part of my likes generating statistics so having an idea of my reading speed is awsome.

#14: I'm mostly just enjoying an excuse to read

Don't we all?

Holding of on the halfway meme for a little longer. Been participating for about 4 hours now. Finished Boneshaker, enjoyed it. Will post reviews after this 24 hours is up. I've picked Elf love: an anthology up. Got it from early reviews and didn't finish as much as I wanted because, blunty, thought it isn't it looks leke elf porn which means I can't read it around my family, on the bus or in school (can't have the kiddies thinking I'm reading porn between lessons) so it's taking me a while.

Edit to add: Got to go food shopping now so I don't starve. Will hopefully be back in less then a few hours to carry on and get Elf love: an anthology finished.

Reading Elf love: an anthology by Josie Brown
Books finished: 1
Pages read: 91
Reading time: 77 minutes
Posting time: 4 minutes

Total books read: 1
Total pages read: 200
Total time read: 207 minutes
Total time posting: 19 minutes

Welcome to the group and good luck with the readathon. I have had Boneshaker on my wishlist for ages so I'm looking forward to your thoughts when you finish.

>17 souloftherose: I've finished it now, will post a review later. I want to focus on reading for the rest of the readathon then will come back to review XD

Time for check in. I'm running at about 5 hours of being here with you lot at the moment. I'm going to do the half time meme in this post, I think I'm about half way through...

Reading Elf love: an anthology by Josie Brown
Books finished: 0
Pages read: 82
Reading time: 64 minutes
Posting time: 6 minutes

Total books read: 1
Total pages read: 282
Total time read: 271 minutes
Total time posting: 25 minutes

Half-Time Meme

1. What are you reading right now?
Elf love: an anthology

2. How many books have you read so far?
I was about half way through Boneshaker and half way through Elf love: an anthology when I started so technicaly about half of both, as I'm nearly done with Elf Love.

3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-Thon?
I've not decided what I'm moving on to next yet, but I am looking forward to going upstairs and getting to pick which book I'm going to be reading next!

4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day (or the hours you're spending with us)?
Nope. It's a saturday, I have no proir commitments. The only thing I did was clear my blogs early last night so I can not be distracted by them until the 24 hours is up. My biggest distraction is blogs so not having to check them for 24 hours is great.

5. Have you had many interruptions?
How did you deal with those?
Not really. I slept but I knew I would. I spent some time talking about airships last night but, well, sometimes in life you just have to have conversations about airships.

6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-Thon, so far?
How productive I'm actualy being and how much I'm regretting that I don't have more of the 24 hour period to devote to it.

7. Are you getting tired at this point?
I slept so I can't say I am.

8. Do you have any tips for other readers, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered?
Not really. I cheated and slept, I think that helps a lot XD

I've now been with you for 6 hours. There's all sorts of productive stuff going on around me and I'm...curled up on the couch under a blanket reading. Life is good.

Anyway, I just finished Elf love: an anthology by Josie Brown. Overall it was good, though some stories were stronger than others. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I was going to though so, yay!

Moving on to Lord of light by roger Roger Zelazny
Books finished: 1
Pages read: 53
Reading time: 37 minutes
Posting time: 4 minutes

Total books read: 2
Total pages read: 335
Total time read: 308 minutes
Total time posting: 29 minutes

7 hours down -

I have been reading: Lord of light by Roger Zelazny
Books finished: 0
Pages read: 34
Reading time: 46 minutes
Posting time: 3 minutes

Total books read: 2
Total pages read: 369
Total time read: 354 minutes
Total time posting: 32 minutes

You're doing amazingly well for 7 hours! *waves read-a-thon flag enthusiastically*
I'll be finishing work in about ten minutes, then cleaning up 'n' cashing up ready to head home, so I should be able to join in PROPERLY in another hour or so... *waves flag so enthusiastically it hurts*

Thanks. I'm definetley starting to flag now though. Might require a break soon, if only to go and find all the sugar I bought earlier to see if that can keep me focused a little longer.

8 hours gone. It's kind of crazy but I've been reading for more or less three hours straight now and am starting to flag. Lord of light is awsome, but is requiring quite a lot of brain power. I wish I'd gone for one of the young adult novels on my shelf instead. I think I'll try another hour then take a break and maybe make some dinner, then come back for the end. We'll see how it goes.

I have been reading: Lord of light by Roger Zelazny
Books finished: 0
Pages read: 34
Reading time: 45 minutes
Posting time: 6 minutes

Total books read: 2
Total pages read: 403
Total time read: 399 minutes
Total time posting: 38 minutes

I've had an hour of reading and an hour of feeding myself so we'll call it ten hours with you all and one more to go!

I have been reading: Lord of light by Roger Zelazny
Books finished: 0
Pages read: 39
Reading time: 45 minutes
Posting time: 3 minutes

Total books read: 2
Total pages read: 480
Total time read: 494 minutes
Total time posting: 45 minutes

And done! YAY!

All together I've been reading along with you all for 11 hours! Woohoo.

My last hour stats:
I have been reading: Lord of light by Roger Zelazny
Books finished: 0
Pages read: 48
Reading time: 60 minutes
Posting time: 10 minutes

And, in the end:
Total books read: 3
Total books finished: 2
Total pages read: 528
Total time read: 554 minutes
Total time posting: 55 minutes

The End-of-Event Meme

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?
I lagged most about 5/6PM (It's 9PM here now), just before dinner. It was hard getting my brain to work enough to read then.

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a reader engaged next time?
Erm, not sure? I'm not sure what I'd recomend for myself next time, never mind anyone else.

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the next read-a-thon?
Nope, it was fine as it was XD

4. How many books did you read?
3

5. What were the names of the books you read?
Boneshaker, Elf love: an anthology and Lord of light

6. Which book did you enjoy most?
Um...probably Lord of Light. It's hard to judge. I had a slump in the middle with boneshaker whereas it was only the first chapter of Lord of light that confused me then I got into it and it was awsome. Elf love: an anthology was also good, but the variable nature of the stories and it being a short story collection meant it didn't work as well for this.

7. Which did you enjoy least?
Again, Elf love: an anthology. Not becasue it wasn't good but becasue it wasn't suited to the continuous reading.

8. How likely are you to participate in another read-a-thon?
I'd say very likeyl XD

And done! YAY!

All together I've been reading along with you all for 11 hours! Woohoo.

My last hour stats:
I have been reading: Lord of light by Roger Zelazny
Books finished: 0
Pages read: 48
Reading time: 60 minutes
Posting time: 10 minutes

And, in the end:
Total books read: 3
Total books finished: 2
Total pages read: 528
Total time read: 554 minutes (9 hours and 14 minutes)
Total time posting: 55 minutes

The End-of-Event Meme

1. Which hour was most daunting for you?
I lagged most about 5/6PM (It's 9PM here now), just before dinner. It was hard getting my brain to work enough to read then.

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a reader engaged next time?
Erm, not sure? I'm not sure what I'd recomend for myself next time, never mind anyone else.

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the next read-a-thon?
Nope, it was fine as it was XD

4. How many books did you read?
3

5. What were the names of the books you read?
Boneshaker, Elf love: an anthology and Lord of light

6. Which book did you enjoy most?
Um...probably Lord of Light. It's hard to judge. I had a slump in the middle with boneshaker whereas it was only the first chapter of Lord of light that confused me then I got into it and it was awsome. Elf love: an anthology was also good, but the variable nature of the stories and it being a short story collection meant it didn't work as well for this.

7. Which did you enjoy least?
Again, Elf love: an anthology. Not becasue it wasn't good but becasue it wasn't suited to the continuous reading.

8. How likely are you to participate in another read-a-thon?
I'd say very likeyl XD

Congratulations on surviving your first Readathon!

Thanks! :)

Right, now I've recovered let's get some reviews up!

Boneshaker by Cherie Preist

4 stars

At first glance it seems that what this book was an idea in someone's brain what they did was sit down and come up with as many chiches as they could then cram them in sideways. We have an evil genius, a downtroden but plucky duo for the protaganists, a death-gas, zombies, airships, and pirates in the airships. Not to mention a post-apocalyptic city where people choose to live though there are perfectly valid other options.

But, out of this hodge-podge of ideas, we get a good book. Ok, it has it's downsides. The zombies are badly explained and, frankly, unnecessary (in that they were the magical zombie type, but supposably made by a gas so they should still exist within the realms of biological possibility and not be able to sprint around the place when down to only bones) but the walled-up city was a nice idea, as was the underground, though I would have liked more idea why the people were still there though it was obviously horribly dangerous.

The thing that really made this novel, though, is Briar Wilkes. We get two protagonists, Briar and her son. The son, Zeke, runs of to find his father and get a typical coming-of-age story with ludicrous plot twists and insight (I can't get over how he KNEW the guy claiming to be his dad wasn't, though he had no way of knowing. He did test it and that clued him in but I don't get how he knew before that). But his mother, who is a normal woman trying to get by in a world that hates her, goes after him. And Briar is awsome. She'd the most well developed character in the book by far. She'd interesting and compelling and shows real human fears that she bolsters behind the determination to find her son. She forms real connection and learns to operate in what is, esentially, hell, and she does it all realisticly. I loved how they didn't shoe-horn in a romantic plot for her as people tend to, but let her get on with doing her own thing and keeping her own priorities.

So, a little rambly but, yes, I did enjoy this book, and a lot of the reason was the very believeable, very well drawn out protagonist.

Nice review, Emma!

Elf love: an anthology by Josie Brown

Three stars

I have to admit to something before we start, I applied for this book for a laugh. When I got it, I faceplamed. It looks a lot, from the cover and from the title and from the blurb, like this is one of those thinly disguised pornographic anthologies that normally call themselves "best love stories" or such.

It isn't porn.

I was pretty relieved when I realised this, then again when I realised it had some good stories in and I was going to enjoy it! I have to say that the second half of the book was not as good as the first half but stil, overall, it had some interesting stories and I enjoyed it.

One of the things I have to admit about this book is the way it incorperates gay and lesbian fiction like it's not a big deal. I love that. I hate that gay and lesbian fiction gets it's own little box, like it needs to be kept away from the straight fiction lest it corrupts it. Right, let's go through each story, that seems most sensible, since I did get this book free to review it.

Not an elf yet
This is funny and pretty inteligent, a girl writing about her boyfriend who's decided he'd an elf.

Tidings of comfort and joy
This was one of my favourite stories in the book and set a lot of my early impression of it as possitive. A guy finds work in an all-year christmas shop and tries to work out why his co-worker is so into dressing and asking like an elf. It's touching and interesting and well written, I enjoyed it very much.

Reclaiming the King
Another good story, which I enjoyed. The cast of characters are interesting and believable and the entire premis amused me a lot. Funny and interesting.

Color of the sky
And we hit the first bump in the road. I think it was about online gaming but...ok, I didn't get it. I hated the language and the way it was made deliberatley difficult to read. I'm not an intellectual lightweight but if you go out of your way to confuse and disorientation me you piss me of. What's the point of telling a story if nobody can even work out the plot? Not my thing at all.

The phone booth
Then we come back with another good one. This story sets up the kind of cliche, teen supernatural romance plot then foils it by having the teen in question act like a teenager. Very well thought out and funny.

Goodnight, my lady
A kind of noir detective novel only shorter and with elves. This was, along with Tidings of comfort and joy, the high side of the collection for me. I did enjoy this short story a lot. It reads well, the story is revealed just enough to keep you interested, the protagonist is just what one would expect, it was great.

{s}elf love
Didn't like this one. Elf learns to masturbate. Fairy dust is involved. I get the joke but I don't think it's funny and, yeah, the story just didn't work for me overall.

A long friday
I'm more on the fence about this one. I can see where it's coming from but it's not for me. An elf is beaten up by corrupt cops for a crime he didn't commit.

One of the Huldu
A more traditional fairy-tale style elf story, but...it's not incredibly well written, the point of it gets lost sometimes and I was left kind of wondering what the point even was. Not a bad story, just not good either.

Whelp
And we have a good one again. Not as good as my top two, just for the cliche factor, but I loved the characters. Our protagonist is a wolf/elf hybrid trying to find someone to mate with him but the only one like him is his sister (though one wonders why we can't go one way or the other, it's obviously possible for elves and werewolves to mate because, hello). I mostly remember the mermaid and the impotent vampire, who were hillarious and adorable. The plot was a little patchy but the characters were lovely.

Of roots and rings
A comic, and the middle of the book. Well drawn and I did like the story, there are a lot of good things going for this comic. I enoyed it very much.

Xenium
This story should have been cut in half. The prose is horrible sometimes, and I can see why it's included, the last line makes the piece and made me actually see why what, until that point, had been typical "Oh, the sexy whores like their fate" stuff, but it could have been at least cut in half and still kept that thing I liked at the end without pissing me off so much to get me there. But clever.

The turn of the spoon
Strange, and kind of funny but not. It takes the idea of shoemakers elves and kind of overlays some kind of odd justice system and adds a plot about revenge which I found odd, though I can see the thing in applying the worst of human emotions to things that are essentialy meant to be the best of human emotions only.

The saga of Anund the Beserk
I could not make head or tale of this. It's written in the style of a old Norse legend and involves some Vikings who wander around a while then find the land of the elves, kill and rape them, then go home and it's all good. I just, it was incredibly hard to read and I didn't get what the point of it was.

And their mothers
A kind of strange follow up to the story about the elf getting beaten up by the police. I didn't really know why it got included so much later in the book or...just why in general really The point about elves not loving was made in the first story, we didn't need this continuation.

The mischief makers
Read kind of like a emo kid's wet elf-dream. There is a elf who plays tricks, like in old elf stories, only they're tiny and live in a tree and have beurocrasy for some reason. And he needs to trick this girl who is like totaly a prep and into twilight and this girl who is so goff of whatever helps him and then the fall in wuv and trick people together. Yeah, I didn't think highly of it.

To kill the oak king
Ok, this...I admit I liked. We have the set-up of a Kingdom where elves are opressed and a nobel is saved by an elf (both male) who he then nurses back to health and they have sex and it reads kind of like a cliche fanfiction plot appart from the ending which I won't spoil and I'm kind of a sucker for these kinds of stories so, yeah, I have to admit that I enjoyed reading this one.

David and Gerty
The joke is that all online gamers are fat, socialy-inept fanboys who should never leave their computers. Hahahahahaha, that's never been done before.

Unseen
The last two play to cliche a lot. Ok, the back half of the book does and I didn't mind it what it was a cliche I liked but poor little elf girl gets trampled by horse and lover is upset doesn't do much for me.

Feather fall
Last one is a bad case of really bad love at first sight. They're from rival clans and his side killed her brother and her ide killed his son but they see each other and inexplicably fall in love and defy their tribes and their love that is like an entire 5 minutes old so totaly destined to last will definetley eventualy unite these two lands. Definitley.

So, yeah, that's the book. It's not a bad collection, if definitley has some high notes. It does have some low ones too, and the strong first half was very much let down by the weaker back half which is why I've given it a three. I think there are good stories and it's worth looking for, and I'll be keeping an eye open for other anthologies from this press, but the good is weighed down by the bad and the mediocre.

#31: That one is not something to my taste, but I am glad it turned out better for you than you had hoped, Emma!

It brought a smile to my face during the Read-a-Thon to see you reading a Roger Zelanzy title. His Amber series was the first fantasy series I ever read. I don't think I've actually read Lord of Light, though.

>29 TPauSilver: Bonshaker keeps popping up in my recommended by amazon page, but whenever I read the book description I thought, eh. But I think since you still liked even with your reservations, I'll give it a shot.

Yeah, I saw it a few times in waterstones but couldn't bring myself to buy it. I actualy got it from santathing and it was pretty good. I enjoyed it, anyway, and as I said above I really do like the main character. The characters are the most important thing for me when I read and Briar was great.

I've finished Lord of light by Roger Zelazny. Will be back later...maybe tomorow when I've digested it...with a review.

Hello and Welcome!

Review for Lord of light by Roger Zelazny

Now, for me, this is a hard book to rate and review. It was wonderful. Don't doubt that I thought this book was amazing. I found it difficult and confusing at the start, due to non-chronological story telling, but as it progressed and it became clear the entire srawling complexity of it. I love the story, I love how subtle it is. I love the way the story is never laid out for you to grasp and nothing is neat and packaged up but, instead, everything is hinted at. A book that requires you to think but isn't deliberatley misleading or confusing, things that authors do all too often when trying to not hand the plot out. I loved the world of this book, I loved the way he used language to build the world and to build the legend, it was wonderful and well worth anyone's time to read, I fully intent to recomend this to friends.

But I rated it a 4.5 instead of a 5. The reason I did this was at the end of the day that scoare reflects what I felt about the book, as well as my appreciation of the book as a piece of work. I never really connected with the book, with the characters. Due to the writing style only a few are in it long enough for us to realy grasp them, and they were fine but not...I don't know. I did like how the gods were esentialy human (in all ways) and how the war between the gods played out. I just didn't feel emotionaly invested in any of them. The language distanced me in a way and while it was entirely appropriate for the story, it left me feeling removed. Also, not many female characters and when they do appear they are not favourable or well drawn out. So, a damn good book, but not something I connected with personally so while I think it's awsome it's still, for me, a 4.5

And a blog thing. Only more me rambling. Picked up Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld this afternoon. Been a while since I really read anything young adult, so it's a nice change. It seems good so far though I'm only about 50 pages in. I'm doing really well for reading so far this year, not that I expect to keep that up. I'll admit now, 75 is more or less an unrechable goal. 50 would be stretching it. Honestly, I'm happy as long as it's over 25...but we'll see how it goes. The point is to read more, so I won't be picky.

Also, I see to have started tracking how long it takes me to read books. I blame my obsessive need to catalogue everything and have statistics about it, but that's kind of why I'm here.

So yeah. Yay books and yay for tracking. Now, back to it!

#38: I have really got to get to both Leviathan and its follow up, Behemoth, this year! Glad you are enjoying Leviathan, Emma.

As far as your book count for the year goes, you are right - the point is to read more. Anything you do is all to the good!

I've had Leviathan on my TBR pile for a year or two now. Eventually, I'll get to it.

I had Leviathan recomended to me and got it with a voucher the sister gave me for christmas. Enjoying it so far, not that I've had much time to read this week. I'm thinking of going on an epic quest to poke chraity shops tomorow, smart money says I bring back more books, so I'd probably better just stay in and read instead. But I find something incredibly comforting about being surrounded by books.

#41: I find something incredibly comforting about being surrounded by books.

So do I!

I'm still alive. Not had much time for reading, have to educate children. Have some more reviews!

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

3 1/2 stars

I did enjoy this book. It's a good, solid young adult book with steampunk themes. An alternate reality set around world war 1 with our two sides, the axis being replaced by the clankers who drive machines and the alies replaced by the Darwinists who use aircraft and such manufactured out of living organisms. And I do get sick of the way sci-fi in general warps biology but that's just my inner biologist speaking. So we suspend disbeliefe and on with the story.

We have two characters, one from each side (only not realy because nobody realy sided with the Nazis). Alex, the son of Archduke Ferdinand, is on the run to save his own life and, representing the Darwinists, a girl disguised as a man so that she can work for the air foces. Both kind of cliche and the book does nothing to break the cliches but whatever.

The airship goes down (really, there's a reason we don't use zeplins for war. I mean, come on! You're inventing giant floating beasts, surely you can think of something better to fill them with then a highly explosive gas?) and the protagonists meet. There is friendship, the inevitable hint of potential future romance, and the set up for the next book in the series.

I have to admit that bugs me a little. A solid set up for the next book in the series. I feel almost as though the book doesn't work as a book on it's own, it's a set up for the next book. Which is fine but title it "The levianthan trilogy part 1" or whatever. Picking up what I expect to be an independent book and finding it to be just a set up for another book annoys me no end.

But it is a good, solid, non-boundary-pushing example of young adult steampunk. So, yeah.

Steampunk prime by Mike Ashley

2 1/2 stars.

This is a collection of stories written in the era steampunk extrapolates from selected from the old sci-fi magazines. It's fascinating just for that and I did enjoy reading it. There were some lovely stories in here, "The Automaton" and "The plague of lights" stand out in my memory as good strong stories. "The plague of lights" in particular was a favourite.

The problem was, I feel that a lot of the stories chosen haven't aged well, and a few were too plot focused for me. Nothing turns me of quicker then a long-winded description of the propulsion system of your air car. Examples, "In the deep of time" involved a man running around the place giving technical descriptions of everything he saw and generally being a bit of a bastard to all the other characters. "The Abduction of Alexandra Seine" also stands out as something made entirely of cliche and the kind of dross that even a bad fanfiction writer can recognise as not worth publishing.

So, high notes and low notes. I also had a bit of a problem with the fact that this is published as steampunk. It felt very much like a gimick to get me to buy the book and, while it worked, it didn't result in my having the book I wanted so it let us both down. Sure, there's Sci-fi in here extrapolating forward from victorian times but I don't think all sci-fi written then is neceserily steampunk. There are certain trapings associated with the sub-genre and most of these stories just don't have them. A few, yes, I'll give you. But, for example, "The star shaped marks" (which, I should point out, is listed as "the brotherhood of the seven kings" in the index, though the author blurb clearly describes "the star shaped marks", so some kind of editorial crazyness has gone on here) is a decent detective story but in no way, at all, steampunk. Seriously. There's an x-ray machine in it, but that's about it. So, yeah, it annoys me when books explicitly promise something and don't particularly deliver on it.

#43: Currently reading that one.

#44: Sounds like I can give that one a pass. Too bad about it.

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

4.5/5

This is a damn good, solid, enjoyable adventure story. The writing was nice, rightly paced and with good dialogue and description. The plot was tight, lots of twists and a lot of interesting stuff going on, a real page turner with solid writing and interesting characters. Definetley a good I would recomend.

Scored a 4.5 not a 5 as, while a solid example of the genre, it doesn't do anything to try to defy the genre.

Something I will note, if you've ever seen Haruhi Suzumiya, the protagonists of this are very much like Kyon and Haruhi only there isn't the horrible objectification of vulnerable women and sexism that's in those novels so if you enjoyed their dynamic in the anime where you don't have to put up with as much of Kyon's sexist by-play this book has much the same dynamic.

Finaly had time for some reading today. Well, actualy I should have been doing other things, as always, but I sat down with Airborn for a chapter and ended up spending over three hours finishing it, then my computer decided it didn't want to work properly and would only do one thing at a time so while files were transfering I've read about an hour and a half worth of the tooth fairy by Graham Joyce. Not sure what I think about that one yet...we'll see. Other then that, life has been crazy busy and I barely have time to breath. I'm still doing ok though, reading wise. The minimum goal is 'more then 2 books a month' and we're still on track for that.

#46: I loved Airborn too. I am glad to see the book has another fan, Emma.

I read The Tooth Fairy a long time ago and remember it being pretty dark.

Been a while since I commented here. Life got busy. I think 75 as a goal is right out the door now, though I finally have some time to do things like read and breath again XD And I'm very nearly a qualified teacher so yay!

#50: I'm very nearly a qualified teacher

Congratulations!

Congrats on finishing up your courses and good luck on finding a good position. Do you have to do any student teaching or have you already done that?

Congratulations - hope you are enjoying having more time for reading etc again. Do come back and post about the books you are reading - doesn't matter if you're not going to make 75, there are plenty in this group who don't and it's not really about the numbers, but about sharing our enthusiasm for good reads.