Wednesday Reading Meme
Dec. 24th, 2014 01:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archer What I've Just Finished Reading
Lots of things! I have two weeks worth of things to report on, after all.
I finally read Lia Silver's Prisoner, which I have foolishly, foolishly left sitting on my Kindle for *mumblecough* a while - although possibly this was not so foolish, as it means that I won't have to wait quite as long before the sequel comes out?
ANYWAY. DJ's a werewolf marine, Echo's a super-secret badass assassin with an angsty past who valiantly struggles against her feelings - all her feelings, not just her feelings for DJ, although those too. They meet after DJ ges kidnapped by a secret evil government organization with shadowy but clearly assassinate-y aims. Obviously they fall in love.
Echo is actually the fifth of a line of genetically engineered super-assassins. She is also, so far, the only one whose genetic engineering actually worked well enough to send her on missions: three of her four sister clones have died from the health problems caused when their genetic engineering went wrong.
I feel a burning curiosity to know more about their childhood, because clearly it must have been really, really weird. How did the lab techs try to socialize them, and how did they so signally fail to brainwash Echo into anything? (And did they make notes so they can do better next time? "When we genetically engineer Foxtrot, she needs to be stupider, less empathetic, and more docile. And none of this introducing her to her sisters bullshit! Clearly all that familial affection has corrupted them all.")
Also the evil government organization has created an unruly pack of creepily codependent miserable werewolves, I am so there for that.
I finally got the third of Sam Eastland's Inspector Pekkala mysteries set in Stalinist Russia, The Red Moth. Now that his premise is no longer new and exciting, the thinness of his characterization is beginning to gnaw on me.
Also Barbara Hambly's Crimson Angel, the latest Benjamin January book, and probably the most OT3 of the books so far. Rose has to pretend to be Hannibal's concubine for Reasons! They are forced to sleep together in an extremely narrow ship's berth - like, just sleeping, obviously - and Ben notes that it totally doesn't bother him at all because he trusts them both so much.
And then Rose gets kidnapped and both Ben and Hannibal (who are separated) chase her at top speed across the ocean to Haiti, even though Haiti is pretty much a death trap (especially for Hannibal, who is white, but really for everyone)! And when he arrives Ben is tormented, tormented by the fact that he will have to choose whether to search for Rose or Hannibal first. He chooses Rose, but because he has at least a vague idea where she might be, not because he feels good about abandoning Hannibal to his fate.
I also read Isabelle Holland's Trelawny, which is a trip. In fact it's such a trip that my discussion of it bloated out to five hundred words because there is just so much WTFery to discuss, so I'm going to post that separately after Christmas.
What I'm Reading Now
Ben MacIntyre's A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal, which is about, well, what it says on the tin. People betraying the hell out of each other for ideological reasons is kind of my jam.
What I Plan to Read Next
Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.
Lots of things! I have two weeks worth of things to report on, after all.
I finally read Lia Silver's Prisoner, which I have foolishly, foolishly left sitting on my Kindle for *mumblecough* a while - although possibly this was not so foolish, as it means that I won't have to wait quite as long before the sequel comes out?
ANYWAY. DJ's a werewolf marine, Echo's a super-secret badass assassin with an angsty past who valiantly struggles against her feelings - all her feelings, not just her feelings for DJ, although those too. They meet after DJ ges kidnapped by a secret evil government organization with shadowy but clearly assassinate-y aims. Obviously they fall in love.
Echo is actually the fifth of a line of genetically engineered super-assassins. She is also, so far, the only one whose genetic engineering actually worked well enough to send her on missions: three of her four sister clones have died from the health problems caused when their genetic engineering went wrong.
I feel a burning curiosity to know more about their childhood, because clearly it must have been really, really weird. How did the lab techs try to socialize them, and how did they so signally fail to brainwash Echo into anything? (And did they make notes so they can do better next time? "When we genetically engineer Foxtrot, she needs to be stupider, less empathetic, and more docile. And none of this introducing her to her sisters bullshit! Clearly all that familial affection has corrupted them all.")
Also the evil government organization has created an unruly pack of creepily codependent miserable werewolves, I am so there for that.
I finally got the third of Sam Eastland's Inspector Pekkala mysteries set in Stalinist Russia, The Red Moth. Now that his premise is no longer new and exciting, the thinness of his characterization is beginning to gnaw on me.
Also Barbara Hambly's Crimson Angel, the latest Benjamin January book, and probably the most OT3 of the books so far. Rose has to pretend to be Hannibal's concubine for Reasons! They are forced to sleep together in an extremely narrow ship's berth - like, just sleeping, obviously - and Ben notes that it totally doesn't bother him at all because he trusts them both so much.
And then Rose gets kidnapped and both Ben and Hannibal (who are separated) chase her at top speed across the ocean to Haiti, even though Haiti is pretty much a death trap (especially for Hannibal, who is white, but really for everyone)! And when he arrives Ben is tormented, tormented by the fact that he will have to choose whether to search for Rose or Hannibal first. He chooses Rose, but because he has at least a vague idea where she might be, not because he feels good about abandoning Hannibal to his fate.
I also read Isabelle Holland's Trelawny, which is a trip. In fact it's such a trip that my discussion of it bloated out to five hundred words because there is just so much WTFery to discuss, so I'm going to post that separately after Christmas.
What I'm Reading Now
Ben MacIntyre's A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal, which is about, well, what it says on the tin. People betraying the hell out of each other for ideological reasons is kind of my jam.
What I Plan to Read Next
Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.
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no subject
Date: 2014-12-24 07:03 pm (UTC)Partner (forthcoming some time in January I HOPE) has a little more detail on what it's like to grow up as a clone raised in an evil government base.
Much like my own childhood but with more sisterly bonding.no subject
Date: 2014-12-25 02:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-25 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-25 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-25 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-25 08:35 pm (UTC)