Wants to read The Vesuvius Club
book
Wants to read The Universe of Us (Volume 4)
Rated The War Master: Rage of the Time Lords 8/10
Poor Eighth Doctor. His brain is like a shredded sponge with all this memory mischief, ha. But this was good.
Rated Three Bags Full 8/10
<div>I heard about this book via Bluesky, maybe a year or so before the movie came out, but I didn't know it came out in 2005 originally! My library hold was very long until they recently got more copies.<br><br>Anyway, I enjoyed this unusual way of approaching a murder mystery story, and the sheep definitely still seemed like sheep, and not very human brains inside sheep bodies. I wouldn't necessarily call this a "cozy" mystery, but it's not grimdark either, and actually, there are a lot of funny parts. Glad I got to it. </div>
Rated The World We Make 10/10
<div>A really excellent conclusion to this story of living cities, though the ending leaves just enough wiggle room for another story, should NK Jemisin decide to come back to this universe. I always enjoy how inventive and detailed she is with her world-building, but never at the expense of character. I'll read anything by her.</div>
Rated Tiamat's Wrath 10/10
<div>Definitely one of those books where you say, "Just one more chapter," and before you know it, you've read over 200 pages in one day. Really looking forward to the ninth book, even it is the last.</div>
Rated Torchwood: Broken 10/10
Oh man was this good. So good. The best of all the Torchwood audios I've heard so far. All the best things about Torchwood -- love, loneliness, longing -- all pushed to the forefront. References several of the TV episodes, answers a lot of questions, and Gareth David Lloyd is so, so excellent as Ianto. Seriously, get your mitts on this.
Rated Torchwood: Fall to Earth 10/10
This was really great -- funny, dramatic, all the makings of a good Torchwood episode.
Rated Torchwood: The Conspiracy 8/10
John Barrowman's acting loses much of its appeal when you're not distracted by looking at him, but I enjoyed this story (or beginning of a story) quite a lot.
Rated Torchwood: The Lost Files 8/10
Really great set of three Torchwood stories. John Barrowman's acting weaknesses are more apparent when you can't see him interacting with others, or aren't distracted by his loveliness, but I'm glad I gave this a listen.
Rated The War Master: His Greatest Trick 8/10
Rated Doctor Who: The War Doctor, Vol. 4: Casualties of War 10/10
<div>This whole series with John Hurt is really great, but this fourth installment is perhaps the best of the bunch. Leela turns up too, which answers some questions about what happened to her in the Gallifrey: Time War installment I recently listened to, so I'm glad I heard that one first, even if it's not wholly essential to have done so.</div>
Rated The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide 8/10
Though this book is not at all heavy reading, I certainly recommend it as thinking material. Is it worth the $15 cover price? I don’t know — that depends on your love of tattoos more than it does literature, I think. Perhaps it’s more of a book you buy as a gift for others. Still, it’s always interesting to hear the stories behind why people choose to decorate their bodies in the way that they do, though I imagine that for any living writer, seeing their words as tattoos must be both bizarre and flattering.<br><br>(Full review on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2010/10/world-made-flesh-edited-by-eva-talmadge.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Rated The Zero 10/10
Not in recent memory have I read a book so enthralling, heartbreaking and with such deadpan humor. In what he calls his "9/12" novel, Jess Walter’s <i>The Zero</i> follows "hero cop" Brian Remy, who is trying to make sense of the world while also suffering from memory lapses. His journey is at once bewildering and mournful, and though I’m not one to go on about perfect first lines, Walter had me at the outset:<br><br><blockquote>They burst into the sky, every bird in creation, angry and agitated, awakened by the same primary thought, erupting in a white feathered cloudburst, anxious and graceful, angling in ever-tightening circles toward the ground, drifting close enough to touch, and then close enough to see that it wasn’t a flock of birds at all — it was paper.</blockquote><br><br><br>Is it a long first sentence? Yes. Does it matter? Absolutely not.<br><br>Part existential crisis, part satire, <i>The Zero</i> also presents some of the ridiculousness of government during this time. There’s talk of “evildoers” and an entire agency dedicated to collecting all those scraps of paper, The Department of Documentation. “Things will be better when all the paper has been cleaned up.” Cops and firefighters are getting agents and their faces on cereal boxes; tourists pose for photos by the wreckage. Even in the event of a national tragedy, capitalism and consumerism worm their way into the larger discussion.<br><br>(Full review can be found at <a href="http://therumpus.net/2010/07/sara-habein-the-last-book-i-loved-the-zero/">The Rumpus.</a>)
Rated The Wire in the Blood 8/10
<div>A few plot points were a little convenient, but this was a good one. A lot more gross, details-wise, than some of her others. Maybe that's just how this particular series is though, which is fine.</div>
Rated This Is How You Lose the Time War 7/10
<div>I don't know that this was exactly the book for me (which surprised me, since I do like a good time travel story), but I very much respect the unusual way this story is told. Count me among the many who picked this up after the posts about it on The Site Formerly Known As Twitter. Glad to see what the hype was about, but I think I wanted the worlds in which Red and Blue exist to be more clear, but that could be on me.</div>