One imperfect letter, one missing page

89. Lythande by Marion Zimmer Bradley A/Fantasy (237)

Anthology of short stories about Lythande, a woman who must stay disguised as a man or lose her sorcery and her life.

The Secret of the Blue Star
Not my favorite story, but a poignant look at how difficult it can be for Lythande to have to hide the truth from everyone.

The Incompetant Magician
Lythande performs a task for a fellow magician in exchange for a remnant of her past. The story itself isn't that interesting, but I like the end.

Somebody Else's Magic
Lythande's secret is threatened when she helps a dying woman and is bound by somebody else's magic. A frustrating story with a weird ending.

Sea Wrack
Lythande decides to help a fishing village rid itself of a murderous mermaid. I really quite like this one, and it brings to mind several old fairy tales I've heard.

The Wandering Lute
Lythande attempts to disenchant a lute and has several amusing adventures on the way. There is a sequel story, The Gratitude of Kings, that isn't in this book. I like both stories; there are several entertaining characters and situations.

Looking for Satan by Vonda McIntyre
This story isn't told from Lythande's perspective but that of Wess, a girl from the north who has come south with her companions to find their kidnapped friend Satan. They meet Lythande in the city and Wess and Lythande strike up a curious relationship. It is definitely the strongest story in the bunch and my favorite.

90. *Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka A/?? (94)

Definitely one of the strangest stories I've ever read.

91. Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi YA-A/SF (416)

Zoe's Tale is another fantastic book in John Scalzi's Old Man's War universe. Zoe is the adopted daughter of John Perry and Jane Sagan, who are chosen to head up a colony on a new planet. Except things don't go exactly as expected and along with the normal hazards of colonizing a new planet (unfriendly lifeforms, inedible vegetation, etc), they suddenly discover that they've been made pawns in an intergalactic war.

This book is a retelling of the timeline of The Last Colony from Zoe's perspective. Because she's a teenager, she isn't privy to everything the adults know and do - and, likewise, they don't know everything that happens to her - so Zoe's experience of that time is quite different from her parents'.

Scalzi writes the Old Man's War books so that each of them is a stand-alone as well as part of a cohesive story, and Zoe's Tale is no exception. And although I found it shelved in the adult science fiction section of the bookstore, this was intended to, and in my opinion does, bridge the divide between adult and YA. It is also hysterically funny throughout much of the book. Scalzi wrote Zoe as a brilliant, sarcastic, irreverent character who talks back to adults (human and alien alike) and uses her wits to save the day, yet still manages to act and sound like an believable teenager.

92. *To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (493) A/SF

Well, that was 500 pages of weird. Ned works for a sort of time agency that sends people to the past for...well, probably research, but that's never quite made clear. He's trying to find a sculpture-thing (the Macguffin of the book, the bishop's bird stump) and then ends up stuck unprepared in Victorian times to recuperate from "time-lag" brought on by too many jumps in too short a time.

This book is well-written, impeccably plotted, and intriguing enough that even though I didn't actually like it all that much, it kept me reading to the end in order to figure out what the heck was going on. I did enjoy how (and why) things got tied up at the end. However, this is not a book I'm planning to reread.

93. *The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip (343) A/F

A wizard, daughter of wizards, has a menagerie of mythical and powerful beasts. Her otherwise solitary life changes when a man brings her a child to raise.

I picked up this book due to several recommendations and I'm afraid I'm didn't quite get the point. The language is stilted, the characters are dull, and the plot is plodding and uninspired. Interesting parts are glossed over and boring parts are greatly elaborated on. Intriguing characters get little or no time, which is instead given to boring conversations that could have been summed up in a few lines instead of a few pages and often appear out of nowhere with no build-up.

I rather think it might have been as a better short story or several short stories.

I liked the end well enough, but I haven't yet read a book I disliked where the end made up for everything else, and this is no exception. Definitely will not reread.

93 / 150 books. 62% done!

45 / 75 *new books. 60% done!

2 / 10 ^non-fiction. 20% done!

29183 / 45000 pages. 65% done!