TEASER TUESDAY

Teaser Tuesday is an intriguing meme started by Ambrosia over at The Purple Booker.

All you have to do is:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I have waited too long to start the second volume of Juliet Marillier’s wonderful Blackthorn and Grim Saga, TOWER OF THORNS, but now that I have I’m loving it even more than Dreamer’s Pool – and that was an amazing discovery indeed.

In this new book, Blackthorn and her brooding companion Grim seem to have settled quite nicely in Darlriada, and both their lives appear more secure, but neither of them has forgotten the horrors of their pasts or the most recent terrible experiences as prisoners of Mathuin.  And Blackthorn still nurses her powerful need for vengeance.

But a new challenge faces them, that of a mysterious creature that haunts a nearby land with its anguished wails, so that the wise woman and her silent friend accept the task of trying to understand what it’s all about…

[…] the four of us set off together: the scholar and the monk, the so-called wise woman and… If this were an old tale, what name would I give Grim? The bodyguard? The companion? The protector, the keeper? The friend?  He was all of those and more.

This little quote highlight what is one of the most engaging elements in this series, the relationship between Blackthorn and Grim, something that seems to go even beyond ties of friendship and family, and is the truly fascinating core of the story.

TEASER TUESDAY

Teaser Tuesday is an intriguing meme started by Ambrosia over at The Purple Booker.

All you have to do is:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I’m happy and delighted to open this year’s run of Teaser Tuesdays with a book whose announcement made me quite happy: John Scalzi’s first book in a new space opera series, THE COLLAPSING EMPIRE.  The book will come out on March 2017, and to say I was looking forward to it would be a massive understatement, since a new Scalzi book is a cause for celebration (and instant acquisition) for me.

Thanks to Lynn I learned that NetGalley had the e-ARC for The Collapsing Empire on their request list, and I was beyond thrilled to have my request granted (thank you!). This is the premise, courtesy of GoodReads:

Our universe is ruled by physics and faster than light travel is not possible — until the discovery of The Flow, an extra-dimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transport us to other worlds, around other stars. […] The Flow is eternal, but it is not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well, cutting off worlds from the rest of humanity.

Intriguing, isn’t it? And here is just a tiny bit to whet your appetite:

The mutineers would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for the collapse of the Flow.
There is, of course, a legal, standard way within the guilds for a crew to mutiny, a protocol that has lasted for centuries. A senior crew member, preferably the Executive Officer/First Mate, but possibly the Chief Engineer, Chief Technician, Chief Physician or, in genuinely bizarre circumstances, the Owner’s Representative, would offer the ship’s Imperial Adjunct a formal Bill of Grievances Pursuant to a Mutiny, consistent with guild protocol. The Imperial Adjunct would confer with the ship’s Chief Chaplain, calling for witnesses and testimony if required, and the two would, in no later than a month, either offer up with a Finding for Mutiny, or issue a Denial of Mutiny.

If you’re interested you can read the entire prologue on Tor.com’s site, and enjoy John Scalzi’s engaging writing and distinctive brand of humor.

Salva

TEASER TUESDAY #16

Teaser Tuesday is an intriguing meme started by Ambrosia over at The Purple Booker.

All you have to do is:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week I’m going to showcase one of the books I was most looking forward to, this year, the sixth volume in the amazing space opera The Expanse, by James S.A. Corey (a.k.a. Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck).

Babylon’s Ashes comes after an amazing fifth book in which so much happened, and so many of the characters I’ve come to care about where in serious danger, and the apparently subdued tone of this volume might seem anti-climatic, but I’ve come to trust these two authors to deliver, and I was not disappointed.

Here is a brief excerpt from the thoughts of Chrisjen Avarasala, one of my favorite characters: her musings offer the possibility of giving the reader a condensed recap of all that happened before, but in such a genially offhand way…

Her mind danced across the solar system. Medina Station. Rhea, declaring against the Free Navy. The food and supplies of Ganymede. The starvation and death on Earth. […] The colony ships being preyed upon by the Free Navy pirates, and the stations and asteroids gaining the benefit of piracy. And the missing ships. And the stolen protomolecule sample.

If you have not started this series yet, I urge you to do it, as soon as you can: you owe it to yourselves, seriously 🙂

TEASER TUESDAY #15

Teaser Tuesday is an intriguing meme started by Miz B over at Books and a Beat.

All you have to do is:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title & author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The name of George R.R. Martin is more frequently tied to his Song of Ice and Fire saga, a tale often filled with violence, cruelty and ruthless political intrigue, but a different GRR Martin can be found in his shorter works: a writer capable of subtle lyricism and poetical descriptions.

One of the best examples is THE GLASS FLOWER, a story included in the first volume of his DreamSongs, a collection of his tales ranging his entire writing career.  This story is a favorite of mine, full of mystery and strangeness.

Once, when I was just a girl in the first flush of my true youth, a young boy gave me a glass flower as a token of his love.  […]  My flower has a long and delicate stem, curved and graceful, all of fine thin glass, and from that frail support the bloom explodes, as large as my fist, impossibly exact. Every detail is there, caught, frozen in crystal for eternity: petals large and small crowding each other, bursting from the center of the blossom in a slow transparent riot, surrounded by a crown of six wide drooping leaves, each with its tracery of vein intact, each unique.

If you want to experience the full beauty of this story, I also recommend the audio version read by Australian actress Claudia Black: HERE is the first segment of the audio file, just to give you a sample of great writing and amazing acting.  Enjoy!

TEASER TUESDAY #14

Teaser Tuesday is an intriguing meme started by Miz B over at Books and a Beat.

All you have to do is:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title & author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

For this Teaser Tuesday I’m going to do something a little different: to celebrate the 10^th book in Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series – ONCE BROKEN FAITH – I will indeed quote two sentences, but from two recurring characters, the sea witch Luidaeg and the King of cats Tybalt – both of them huge favorites with the readers.

Double the quotes, double the fun!  🙂

The Luidaeg:

A Fetch shows up now, all these people lose their shit. Never invite a death omen to a murder party. 

You have to take care of yourself. Replacing you would take a long time, and frankly, I don’t want to go to the trouble.

Tybalt:

Tybalt raised an eyebrow. “Am I nothing but a taxi service to you?”

“No,” I said. “Danny, who actually has his license, is a taxi service. You’re more like a transporter from Star Trek. Me and you to beam up, Scotty.”

He looked at me blankly. Karen covered her mouth with one hand. Quentin started to snicker.

“Sometimes I wonder if you’ve ever actually encountered the English language,” Tybalt said […]

[…] “Tybalt?”

“How finely you pack an entire request into a single word of two syllables. Would that my name were shorter, that I might encourage you to even greater acts of brevity.”

Review: LOOKING THROUGH LACE, by Ruth Nestvold (and Teaser Tuesday)

Teaser Tuesday #13

This week I’ve decided to mix one of my usual TEASER TUESDAY posts with a brief review of this novella, that I received through Instafreebie in exchange for an honest review.  Teaser Tuesday is an intriguing meme started by Miz B over at Books and a Beat.

All you have to do is:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title & author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I was curious about this story because I am familiar with the author’s name, but had never read anything by her: now that I have I will certainly add some more of her books to my reading queue.

Antonia (Toni) Donato is a young xenolinguist who is enrolled for a tour on the planet Christmas – so called because of the inverted Christmas tree shape of its main continent – to study the humanoid natives’ languages, especially the women’s, who seem to possess one all of their own, not spoken with and by the men.   Her initial excitement about the project, one that could launch her career out of obscurity, is marred by the project manager’s dismissive attitude toward her skills, one that quickly transforms into open obstruction once Toni is able to reach some small breakthrough in the puzzle of the women’s language.

I’ve always been fascinated by stories dealing with first contact with alien cultures, and this one – even though the ‘aliens’ are quite human-like – is made doubly interesting by the strong link between language and customs, and the questions about the origins of both.

What Toni discovers will turn all the previous findings – and her own assumptions – on their head and lead to a conclusion I found both bittersweet and highly satisfying.  Ruth Nestvold is indeed a writer I must keep on my radar.

The lace mentioned in the title plays an important role in the economy of the story, and so I have chosen a quote that showcases it while offering a clue to the interpretation of the title itself:

Our ways differ so much, when you say one thing, I understand another. We can’t help but see each other through the patterns we know from the cultures we grew up with. Like looking through lace — the view isn’t clear, the patterns get in the way.

Fascinating, indeed.

TEASER TUESDAY #12

Teaser Tuesday is an intriguing meme started by Miz B over at Books and a Beat.

All you have to do is:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title & author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week’s offering comes from a book I just finished reading, Alastair Reynold’s HOUSE OF SUNS, a sweeping space opera that encompasses both space and time, since the characters are long-lived people who spend their lives traveling across the galaxy, gathering knowledge that they store and trade as a very useful commodity.

We did have almost everything we could dream of. We had lived for millions of ears, crossed the galaxy countless time over, drunk from the riches and glories of ten million cultures. […] Entire civilizations owed their existence to our good deeds, unwitnessed and uncommemorated. We did marvelous, saintly things and we never stopped to ask for thanks.

Intriguing, isn’t it?

TEASER TUESDAY #11

Teaser Tuesday is an intriguing meme started by Miz B over at Books and a Beat.

All you have to do is:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title & author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week I’m very pleased about sharing a quote – or rather, the very beginning – of a book I read very recently, the first book of a writer who’s also a fellow blogger: I’m talking about Children of the Different, by S.C. Flynn.

It’s a post-apocalyptic scenario and a coming-of-age story set in Australia, and depicts a world dramatically changed by a terrible epidemic. But it’s also a story about bonds of love, about courage and determination, and the hope for the future.

The group were getting ready to go on a Wrecking when Arika’s Changing started. Narrah heard the strangled choke in Arika’s throat and spun around. Arika was lying on the wooden floor of the hut, her limbs tense. Her green eyes turned up in her head and then closed. Narrah gulped. His mouth was dry and his heart was racing as he watched his twin sister turn pale and shiver like rippling water.

I urge you to check out the amazing cover as well, and I just learned that there is an official publication date as well: September 10^th. Here you will find all the information you need (including an animated version of the cover!)

TEASER TUESDAY #10

Teaser Tuesday is an intriguing meme started by Miz B over at Books and a Beat.

All you have to do is:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title & author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

One of the books I intended to read this summer was the next in line for my exploration of Iain M. Banks’ Culture series: EXCESSION.  Considered by many a complex book, it intimidated me – sort of – but I finally decided to take the plunge: the first few pages were indeed a little puzzling, and made me flounder a bit, until I reached the point where a human character gives the readers the following peek into the alien society of the Affront. Faced with Iain Banks’ peculiar brand of humor, I finally felt at home, and knew I would enjoy this book just as much as I did the previous ones.

The mess space […] was hung with flags, banners, the hides of enemies, bits and pieces of weapons and military paraphernalia. The curved, veined-looking walls were similarly adorned with plaques, company battalion, division and regimental honor plaques and the heads, genitals, limbs or other acceptably distinctive body parts of old adversaries.   Genar-Hofoen had visited this particular nest space before on a few occasions. He looked up to see if the three ancient human heads which the hall sported were visible this evening; the Diplomatic Force prided itself on having the tact to order that the recognisable trophy bits of any given alien be covered over when a still animate example of that species paid a visit, but sometimes they forgot.

TEASER TUESDAY #9

Teaser Tuesday is an intriguing meme started by Miz B over at Books and a Beat.

All you have to do is:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I finally decided to start reading Daniel Abraham’s series The Dagger and the Coin, a five volume fantasy saga whose first volume THE DRAGON’S PATH has been sitting for a long time on my reader.   The quote I’ve decided to share belongs to a character that has all the appearances of a bumbling loser, and yet there are sides to him that make me think he will not stay that way….

It occurred to him, as he descended the wide, polished wood stairs and walked across the wide hall, that he wore the cloak much the way he’d have worn a mask. Because it was well made and impressive, he hid in it, hoping people would see it and not him.

As first books go, this one sounds very promising, and the fact that the whole series has been published and I will not have to wait to see how events unfold is a huge plus, indeed.