melreads | Entries tagged with series

I noted in the other journal that there's a sample of the new October Daye book - #19 in the series - posted on Amazon's website. I just finished re-reading all eighteen previous books - I took my time and I still did it in a little over a month, since the earlier ones, especially, are pretty quick reads. So now I'm ready for the new one, only I think I'm like two weeks early. (I suspected all along that that might happen.)

On the other hand, it turns out that a couple of other things I pre-ordered are coming out soon - one was the sequel to The Naturalist Society and - well, I've forgotten for the moment what the other one was - one of those "Jane Austen variation" things, I think? so I guess I can re-read the previous volumes of those while I'm waiting!

spoilers!

July 31, 2020
I was talking about not having a book in the last entry - I wonder if the local library might have it. The library here is about two blocks away and I'm ashamed to say I've never set foot in it. I did poke around on the website a while back, though. But I think they're closed right now anyway.

I have a new Expanse theory, or, well, I have a couple of things that my brain is wanting to string together, anyway. I noticed that at some point Avasarala says that Alex has a kid on Mars he doesn't know about. Then I don't think it's ever referred to directly again. It could have been an affair or something from when he was younger - but what if it was his wife? He left suddenly to go fly for PurNKleen (however they spell it!) - if she found out later that she was pregnant, it sort of makes sense that she might not tell him. It would explain why she's so hostile when he turns up much later (or it could just be because he dumped her in the first place!). But if there's a kid, maybe she's afraid they might want to go flying off with dad.

I also keep thinking Naomi's not-dead son might pop up at some point.

The whole thing about dropping big rocks on Earth just breaks my brain. I've read this book half-a-dozen times, probably, but it still blows my mind.

(always possibility of spoilers here!! - especially for later Expanse books, in this case)

Monday, July 24
I was thinking about two-author books. The only thing I know about how "Corey" works is that they started out with one of them writing Holden and the other writing Miller. That reminded me of the books that Patricia Wrede wrote with Caroline Stevener (which were literally an exchange of letters, in real life, as I understand it) - starting with Sorcery and Cecilia. Those are basically Regency with magic - the first one is an out-and-out romance, too (only with magic). I think I may need to re-read that.

(It occurs to me to wonder if the idea for Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell came from that. Same combination of Regency and magic.)

Tuesday
I'm finishing up Cibola Burn, and the last time I read the epilogue I must've been totally skimming, because it lays down a foundation for the rest of the books in a way I didn't really take in before. (I can see missing it before I read the others, but that was a while ago now.) The gist: once Mars' population starts leaving for the gates in significant numbers, the Martian terraforming project will fail, so Mars as a civilization fails too. Nobody needs their natural resources when they can get them beyond the gates - and that means the immediately valuable thing left is their military might - leading to Marco and Laconia and all that.)

Friday
It's early and I can't sleep so I thought maybe writing would clear my brain a bit and help me sleep. I can't say I really have anything brilliant to say about books at the moment, though. I did read straight through Sorcery and Cecilia the other night. There are two more books in that series, but I don't think I have the second one any more, only the third. Which is a shame, because even if the third one is better than the second (which it is), I'd still like to re-read the whole series, not just 2/3 of it.

Spoilers always possible here!

Tuesday, July 21, 2020
These books (meaning the Expanse series) are really "boy" books, in a way. Lots of violence, I prefer my action without a whole lot of actual killing, but I'm not likely to get that wish unless I go back to reading romance novels. Even "girl" books usually have some violence. Heck, even romance novels often have some level of violence. Often there's a little murder mystery, or a violent suitor or something like that.

(Later) I was trying to remember one romance where an evil guy deliberately eggs somebody on to kill themself. - It took me a while to figure it out, but i think it's The Proposal - or at least one of the books in that series, a Mary Balogh series where all the protagonists were in the Napoleonic wars and all of them are traumatized. The maybe-suicide that I was thinking about was the heroine's late husband.

(Even later, continuing the thought) To say "maybe-suicide" is not fair to the evil guy. It was a suicide - the guy jumped off a balcony. It's just that the guy who could have been trying to dissuade him, didn't. (And he stood to inherit, so there's definitely motive there.) I've actually started re-reading this now, did I say that? I need an antidote between doses of Expanse, anyway.

Beware - definite spoilers here!

Saturday, July 18, 2020
Finished Abaddon's Gate. I guess moving on to... what's the name of the next one, I can't think. The one on the planet beyond the gate, anyway. (Cibola Burn, I just looked.) I need to look up Cibola, I don't what it means beyond what Trashcan Man says in The Stand. A mythical city? My grasp of mythology beyond the very basics of Greek and Roman gods is tenuous.

Let's see, before we move on, do I have more thoughts about Abaddon? Don't really understand that reference either, beyond Abaddon being a Big Bad. These guys, meaning the authors (I can't think of them as one person) write such good characters. Sam dying feels like a punch in the gut. (I also think of the revelation way later that she and Pa were lovers. Doesn't surprise me that Sam would like girls, but there's hardly even any inference that she knows Pa to speak of. Sam's been on Tycho and I mostly never got the impression that Pa was, although maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, never occurred to me at all.)

Sunday a.m.
I forget every time how depressing Cibola Burn is - actually all these books are pretty depressing, come to that. Dropping rocks on Earth, for god's sake - and we haven't even gotten to that part yet! By that standard, Cibola Burn's terrorists and alien robots and killer snails are minor-league.

Monday
Well into Cibola Burn now - well 10%, according to Kindle. (Still getting rolling, but not the very beginning.) I was thinking that nowadays my brain registers this duality: I think of the characters and I also think of the way the authors are setting things up, to play out later in the book. I think as time goes on I see it from the authors' POV more and more. Maybe that's why I have trouble getting quite as immersed in books in general the way I used to. Or, I don't know, maybe I've been that way for years and I'm just now noticing. (Some of that definitely came from being an English major, though. I think before that, I was oblivious.)

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The month of October (Daye)

Flashback: 2020, July into August - libraries, & more Expanse

Flashback: 2020, late July - still slogging through Cibola Burn

Flashback to July 2020: gender issues

Flashback: 2020, mid-July (spoilers for Expanse books 3-4)

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