Book lust at it's best. I devoured Enclave, the first in the Razorland series, then the wait for Outpost. The long torturous wait! Then the morning caBook lust at it's best. I devoured Enclave, the first in the Razorland series, then the wait for Outpost. The long torturous wait! Then the morning came when i grabbed my Kindle and snapped up my electronic copy of Outpost! I was giddy. I was mad work was going to stop me from reading. I read on ever break, every lunch, and the moment I returned home. I loved Outpost. While not quite as gritty as Enclave, it was amazing!
Description from the book cover: "Deuce’s whole world has changed. Down below, she was considered an adult. Now, topside in a town called Salvation, she’s a brat in need of training in the eyes of the townsfolk. She doesn’t fit in with the other girls: Deuce only knows how to fight.
To make matters worse, her Hunter partner, Fade, keeps Deuce at a distance. Her feelings for Fade haven’t changed, but he seems not to want her around anymore. Confused and lonely, she starts looking for a way out.
Deuce signs up to serve in the summer patrols—those who make sure the planters can work the fields without danger. It should be routine, but things have been changing on the surface, just as they did below ground. The Freaks have grown smarter. They’re watching. Waiting. Planning. The monsters don’t intend to let Salvation survive, and it may take a girl like Deuce to turn back the tide.
I want to give a truly detailed description, but I'd be to busy yelling at the characters or cheering for them or crying while I try to type. I will say this, Ann Aguirre has created a series that gives you a knee jerk reaction of either love or hate. I love it. The characters are seriously flawed because of the world they live in and I can't get enough of it. Now I wait for Horde!...more
Imagine waking up on a beach with no memory. The beach in question is littered with non-humonoid monsters. You have more weapons hidden on your body tImagine waking up on a beach with no memory. The beach in question is littered with non-humonoid monsters. You have more weapons hidden on your body than an special operations soldier. You also know only one thing to the marrow of your bones. You are a killer.
When Cal wakes up this way it could be a bad, bad thing for the world as we know it. Luckily he is taken in by a good souther brother and sister for the three days he is "lost" until Niko and Robin manager to locate him. Now comes the hard part, what do Niko and Robin do when they realize Cal has forgotten who he is and is having a habit of attacking anything non-human with the closest eating utensils? Robin knows he's removing all forks from the vacinity. Niko, he's not sure what to do but protect the brother he loves as they go about trying to stop a demi-goddess from using her pet spiders to kill or enslave the world.
Watching Cal struggle to remember, while buffing his way through the life he's forgotten was a strange torture and yet oddly endearing. There is sorrow and joy in forgetting, but Cal can't let who he was be lost forever....more
I sat here for a good ten minutes trying to think of how to explain this book. Many descriptive words came to mind: Tragic. Poetic. Stunning. TerrifyiI sat here for a good ten minutes trying to think of how to explain this book. Many descriptive words came to mind: Tragic. Poetic. Stunning. Terrifying. Constrained. Frantic. All of them in their own unique singularity, but my problem still existed, how do I describe the wonder, horror and dreams I found in this book? I realise now that I can't.
The most fitting words I've found came from Scott Westerfeld: Teenagers love a good apocalypse. Who doesn't? All those annoying rules suspended. Society's pretenses made irrelevant. Malls to be looted. School out forever.
But in The Forest and Hands and Teeth, Carrie Ryan's marvelous debut novel, the post-apocalypse is defined more by constraints than freedoms. The book begins seven generations after the Return, an undead plague that has ended civilization as we know it. Of course, a zombie outbreak usually means shotguns and mall looting--the very essence of freedom. But more than a century on from the Return, the malls have already been looted, and shotguns are a distant memory. The novel's heroine, Mary, lives in a village surrounded by one last vestige of industrial technology: a chain-link fence, beyond which is a vast forest full of shambling, eternally ravenous undead--the forest of hands and teeth. No villager ever goes outside this fence, unless they want to die. (And given this bleak scenario, some do.)
Mary's world is bounded not only by the fence but by the archaic traditions of her people, which are enforced by a religious order called the Sisterhood. Marriages, childbirth, death, every stage of life must be controlled to sustain the village's precarious existence. Even the houses are circumscribed--literally--with passages of scripture carved into every entrance to remind the inhabitants of the rules that sustain human life amid the horrors of the forest.
After so long an isolation, the village is beginning to forget. Some doubt that there really was a time before the Return, with giant cities and wondrous technologies. Others believe that nothing at all exists beyond the forest of hands and teeth. And nobody but Mary and her slightly mad mother believes in something called "the ocean," a huge and unbounded space beyond the reach of the undead.
Mary is the sort of teenager who dreams of bigger things. Not just the ocean, but epic romance and adventure beyond the fence, maybe even other villages somewhere out there, safe behind their own fences. She believes that answers can be found to questions like, What made the Return happen? And what was it like before?
Escaping the confines of home for the greater world is, of course, one of the great themes of teen literature. But few heroes in any genre have faced an obstacle as daunting as the forest of hands and teeth. Though Ryan's writing is as lyrical as her title, this novel is driven by the same grim relentlessness that animates any good zombie film. Elegant prose and undead hordes combine to create a story where high drama feels completely unforced, where tension is constant, and where an image as simple as the open sea is achingly romantic.
Zombies have been metaphors for many things: consumerism, contagion in an overpopulated world, the inevitability of death. But here they resonate with a particularly teenage realization about the world--that social limits and backward traditions are numberless and unstoppable, no matter how shambling they may seem at first.
And yet we must try to escape them anyway, lest we wither inside the fence....more
Another amusing horror story from Rob Thurman. Cal, Niko, and Robin are hired by psychotic Abelia-Roo, a grandmotherly Rom with a streak of cruelty thAnother amusing horror story from Rob Thurman. Cal, Niko, and Robin are hired by psychotic Abelia-Roo, a grandmotherly Rom with a streak of cruelty that puts Hitler to shame, to find and retreive an iron coffin. The catch? An anti-healer called the Plague of the World, is slowly breaking the seals that keep him in the coffin and is leaving a trail of dead behind him. The Plague of the Worlds ultimate goal? The destruction of all living things. Thanks to an odd freindship, Niko manages to get Rafferty and his wolf cousin Catcher to help them. Only Rafferty's healing abilities are able to keep them alive through all the peachy little viral death traps the Plague of the World leave behind for them. A great side story in this is Robin's attempt at monogamy. Highly amusing. Cal's semi-girlfreind, Delihlia, is also along for the ride. The question Cal is asking is if she's there to help them or kill him. It will be a wonder to see who gets the honor of trying to kill him first. A great book that pulls you along with slices of horror mixed with a goodly dose of humor....more
Rob Thurman delights with a dark twisting story that is literally splattered with brightly burning characters full flaws. A chilling carnivale ride thRob Thurman delights with a dark twisting story that is literally splattered with brightly burning characters full flaws. A chilling carnivale ride that has you alternately laughing out loud at the page and avidly scouring the words for more to the story.
Between hunting for a magical artifact called the Light of Life and trying to be a good human, Trixa manages to do brisk business collecting and selling information while working in the bar she owns. She also has a habit of picking up strays who end up standing by her side when it really counts. The mysterious Leo who may or may not be the bird Leonora and who seems to have a past with Trixa, Zeke, who's moral compus only sees black and white, and Griffin, who's empathy helps him show Zeke the right path.
Trixa's been searching for The Light of Life for a number of years in order to use it in order to protect herself while she extracts vengeance on the demon who killed her brother, when a lead suddenly comes to her attention. Unfortunately, or not, it also catchs the attention of the forces of Heaven and Hell, who would do anything to possess this object. While Trixa is searching out The Light, demons, angels and the heavenly sponcered Eden House are all bargaining, or more acurately, threatening her to give it to them. It's a race to see if anyone can turn her or her freinds when The Light is finally found.
I'll let you read Ms. Thurmans final twist for yourselves. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to more because this book was wicked good....more
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