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Willa Wallace is a government employee.  She is a phlebotomist working as a reaper. In the near future, after a very devastating war, all citizens are required to have mandatory blood draws and reapers are those who perform the draws, known as Harvest.  The company that is contracted to do the draws is Patriot, who rewards those who give the most as well as the reapers who draw the most. There is, of course, a hierarchy to the blood types that are the most rare and the most in demand. Willa hits on an idea to bring back an old collection technique that could bring a better balance to blood drawing in the city, but as she explores her options she discovers something quite sinister about the imbalance of blood availability in all parts of the city as well as a secret about Patriot - a secret so dire that Patriot will stop at nothing to silence her. This was a thrilling yarn in the tradition of the best pulp fiction of the golden era of science fiction. Author Chris Panatier sets...

Toronto P.I. Dan Sharp discovers a horrific scene in a burned-out building while working on a different case. The police give Sharp a hard time and hold him for questioning, but he's not an unknown figure in law enforcement and ultimately realize he didn't have anything to do with the crime. But it's got Dan buzzing with curiosity and he soon puts the pieces together and discovers that someone is killing known sex offenders whose identities have been illegally released online. The case comes close to home when a famous rock star contacts Dan and asks for protection because his name is on that list. This takes Dan to a dark underground scene where it will take all his wits to come out alive. I've mentioned before that I'm relatively new to mysteries and this was probably one of the earliest mysteries I had requested when I began writing my book review blog. From the description I was intrigued by the noir feel in a Canada setting. The first four or five chapters were...

It's probably just a little surprising to admit that I am not a big Andre Norton fan. Given my penchant for science fiction and fantasy (as well as for cats), Norton's work would be at the top of my list of favorites, one might think, but based on a couple of novels I'd read in my youth, I've never really gotten into her work. I'm not sure if my tastes have changed significantly with age, or the fact that I typically really like reading short stories, but I enjoyed this collection more than I initially expected (which is always the hope). Still, I'm not really a fan of fantasy stories featuring cats. The book starts with a few poems, which I would have to admit, I skimmed over.  I just don't enjoy poetry. My favorite story among the collection might have been "The Silent One" which was a bit of a ghost story, and that's definitely not the kind of fantasy I was expecting with this book. I also really liked "A Very Dickensian Christmas"...

In a wealthy suburb of Helsinki, Finland, the wife of a best-selling author is found dead sitting in her evening gown at the head of a beautifully set dinner table. It appears that someone is re-enacting the murders from the victim's husband's book The Witch Hunter , but as more and more bodies are found dead, investigator Jessica Niemi realizes that she isn't looking for a single killer, but for any number of believers in witchcraft. It seems that I am often reading a book that is part of an already established series, so I was excited to find this, the first book in what I presume will be a series featuring detective Jessica Niemi. Also, there is a style of thriller/detective fiction known as "Nordic Noir" which is crime fiction written from a Scandinavian point of view.  This was probably made most famous by Stieg Larsson and his Millennium series but includes authors such as Arnaldur Indriðason, Jo Nesbø, and Åsa Larsson (authors I have read). This had a uniqu...

 I was immediately attracted to this book because the title pretty much defines me. I was raised by an avid birder and my older brother might rival author Eli J. Knapp for obsessive birder behavior and my own children might think of me as too obsessive for their tastes (if they only knew...). I am a little conflicted on this book. It is presented as a book-length work of non-fiction, and judging by the title, about family birding and the struggles (or "delightful horror") of birding as a family. The non-fiction part is correct. The book reads as though it is a series of essays, all about various aspects of a personal experience birding, and then loosely connected to make one long narrative. At first I found this jarring ... wondering how we got from story A to story B, but once I decided to read this like a series of individual essays, I found the reading easier because I wasn't always trying to connect the different people in a story. But as to the 'family' part ...

  Just like her father who trained her, Raven Steele is a 'Reaper.' A Reaper is an assassin, but one who lives by a very strict moral code, which can be remembered by it's poem-like character: Human life has value. The poor living in the gutter are as valuable as the rich living in a manor. The scoundrel is no less valuable than the saint. Because of this, every life a reaper takes must be redeemed. She has spent a great deal of time (ever since her father died) trying to redeem herself for all the lives she's taken and she believes she is just about even and ready to settle down and spend her days in a more conventional manner when she is asked to take on a job that she cannot ignore. Raven saves the life of a young boy who is drowning. The boy is Darius, the youthful baron of New Haven. Darius is prone to strange fits and Darius' older brother, Solomon, begs Raven to take Darius away and protect him from their father who is ready to kill Darius because he fears th...

Huh.  So ... ReV .  I found this to be a really interesting sci-fi look at artificial intelligence, taken to the next level - you know, sentient robots and all that scifi jazz. Really cool.  But I sure as heck felt like I was missing something. Oh wait!  I am missing something. As in, the first two books in the trilogy, which were published in 2012 and 2013 respectively.  That means that the second book in the trilogy came out when I started writing my book review blog ... eight years ago!  I guess it should be no surprise then that this series, this author, was not on my radar. The vN are a 'race' of self-replicating humanoid machines. There has been a prophecy that the vN would one day rule over humans and that day is soon approaching. One of the last hurdles - the 'law' which prevents machines from harming humans has finally been cracked and Portia, a vN who has been looking forward to the day when 'she' can bring humanity to its knees is ready to capit...

Joe Pickett is a game warden in Wyoming and when the governor of the state asks him specifically to act as a hunting guide for a VIP, Joe agrees.  That VIP is Steve "Steve-2" (because Steve Jobs is Steve-1) Price, a CEO of a Silicon Valley social media creation, ConFab, that is a cross between Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Steve-2 is on his social media platform constantly, sharing his thoughts with his millions of followers every few minutes. He's asked to experience something new (so that he can share those reactions, of course) and wants to go on an Elk hunt in Wyoming, where he knows he'll likely be off-line for a bit.  Steve-2 has never really been much of an outdoors person, so this will be a true challenge for patient Joe Pickett. Steve-2 is a bit of a celebrity among the tech-savvy youth, and Joe's own daughter is impressed that he gets to be Steve-2's personal guide. But for Joe, it's another greenhorn he must oversee in the unforgiving Wyomin...

 It seems as though graphic novels have really pushed the boundaries when it comes to storylines and standards. Whether it's hard core gore or hardcore sex, you can probably find it in a graphic novel somewhere. Money Shot leans toward the sex end of the spectrum, and while moderately graphic, it's still a relatively tame sex story.  Alien races are out there in the universe and human scientist Christine Ocampos has invented a device she calls Star Shot - a teleportation device to get people out among the races.  But Star Shot is ridiculously expensive to use (and its nickname is 'Money Shot'). And so Christine, and four of her fellow scientists toil away in their labs, writing 600 page grant requests so that they can continue their various research work. Meanwhile, most humans have become so jaded and apathetic that even watching porn becomes a dull, routine chore. Christine convinces her compatriots to follow a new path of scientific research - sex.  Specifically,...

 Have you ever been going along your day and for no particular reason suddenly noticed unique patterns in unusual places? For instance, it's April 4th and you happened to look at your clock at the exact minute when it reads 4:44. Or perhaps you are convinced you know the name of a store you've shopped at or the title of a book you read recently, only to discover that no such store or book exists? If so, you are quite possibly seeing the effects of the game, known to the insiders, as Rabbits. The game is highly secretive, though it's been going on for sixty years or more, and those who play must put together these strings of unusual circumstances just to be able to get a clue for the next step in the game.  'K' has been fascinated with the game Rabbits for years and has been trying to find his way into the circle of players when he meets billionaire Alan Scarpio who, it has been rumored, was the 16th winner of the game. Scarpio confides to K that something has gone w...

I loved this book. There is no shortage of books about Greek mythology or featuring gods and goddesses pulled from the Greek (and Roman) myths, so to stand out in this field you really need to provide something unique to be a draw. Author Liv Albert manages to do just this and thereby provides a tremendous resource. The book is separated into four parts.  The first part is an essay on "What is Greek Mythology?" I really appreciated that Ms. Albert spends a good amount of time in this section discussing the role of the Titans and how they begat the Gods. The Titans' stories are so rarely told today - or at least rarely told in the context as 'Titans' but instead referred to as gods. Here we learn about power-hungry Kronos and how he castrated his father Ouranos and, when his wife Rhea gave birth to a child, Kronos would eat the child. Rhea finally got wise and took a child to be hidden away and instead gave Kronos a rock, wrapped up in a blanket as if it were a chi...

  Coburn just woke up.  Coburn has been asleep for the past five years (not strictly by choice, and he is now awake and hungry, and for someone like Coburn ... a vampire ... being hungry is not good for the rest of the world. Unfortunately, however, Coburn woke up to a world in which everyone (or almost everyone) is dead.  Not dead like he is, with a thirst for blood and a keen intellect, but rather dead with rotten blood and a hunger for brains. Awake now in a world in which most of the blood around him won't sustain him, Coburn the vampire is hungry and must fight off the other undead seeking to be sated by the few remaining living humans. Chuck Wendig has become one of my favorite authors ... someone whose books I actively search for.  His prose is delicious, his characters gritty, real, and often on edge, and his stories always have a bite to them (pun slightly intended). Double Dead is one of Wendig's earliest published novels and for the discerning Wendig read...

We're back with the Price family in this 10th book in Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series.  A family of cryptozoologists (the Price family, who study mythical and not so mythical creatures) are trying to help the Cryptid communities in the United States, while avoiding The Covenant - a group bent on eradicating the Cryptid population. Sarah Zellaby is a Cuckoo, a form of cryptid that is normally a little evil and tends to hijack the minds of others around them.  However, she was adopted and raised by a good Cuckoo (cousins to the Price's) and she tends to follow her own code of conduct to avoid evil. But there is a battle raging, between her adoptive family and the Cuckoo population, to turn Sarah completely to one side or the other. At the moment, Sarah is in limbo.  Literally. She is stranded in another dimension with a handful of friends who are unaware that there is a group of Cuckoos who want her dead. Sarah has much to figure out - who she is; who she wants to be; and...