Band of Brothers - Steven Ambrose

Simon & Schuster, 2001, 336 pages 

ISBN: 9780743464116 

Read: May 2025, age 47

 

It was an interesting book, with interesting things happening, but filled with names and promotions and wounds to people that I didn't know and didn't care about, who popped into and out of the story all along the way.  

 

I think that the main people who would care about all the individual details were there, and this book didn't really help you know the people or their experiences.  

 

It was okay, and I'm happy that I read it - it was a nice, relatively focused window on the war in Europe from D-Day on, but the narrative was weak.

 

Rating: 3 

Sleeping Late on Judgement Day - Tad Williams

DAW, 2014, 453 pages

ISBN: 978-0-7564-0987-6

Read: May 2025, age 47

 

Bobby Dollar, book 3 of 3 

 

Decent: interesting along the way, reasonably fun.  I didn't feel that it ended particularly well - it left plenty of hooks dangling to keep the story going, more like the end of an instalment than of a series, so not particularly satisfying.  

 

Rating: 3+ 

New Spring - Robert Jordan

 Tor, 2004, 359 pages

 ISBN: 0-765-34545-5

 Read: June 2025

 

Wheel of Time prequel 

 

Unnecessary, but it was well-written, had a reasonable plot, and it was fun to spend a bit of time with Moiraine and Lan.  Not a lot of suspense, seeing as we know the end state right from the start, but this was 'Good Jordan'.

 

Rating: 3+ 

Ice Planet Barbarians - Ruby Dixon (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2017, 5.9 hours

Original copyright 2015

Read by: Hollie Jackson & Mason Lloyd

Listened to: May 2025, age 47

 

Ice Planet Barbarians book 1

 

Kinda funny, simple but reasonably fun plot, graphic descriptions of plated penises, and plenty of conventional sci-fi plot holes to allow for things like breathing, eating, and inter-species relations on a different planet.  Don't expect hard sci-fi.  It was touted as erotica, but really, it was about the level of a Harlequin romance, with aliens. The initial raping-to- establish-that-some-aliens-are-bad was unnecessary. Overall, though?  Better than it had any right to be.

 

Rating: 3+

Fire Touched - Patricia Briggs (Audiobook)

Brilliance Audio, 2016, 10.1 hours

Read by: Lorelei King 

Listened to: May 2025, age 47

 

Mercy Thompson, book 9 

Good, but this series is starting to feel like it's running in place a little bit.  

Rating: 4-

The Alchemist and an Amaretto - Annette Marie (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2020, 6.9 hours

Original copyright 2019

Read by: Chris Dukehart

Listened to: April 2025, age 47

 

The Guild Codex: Spellbound, book 5

 

The whole overarching series is good, but I *really* like the initial / main story.  Tory is a fun viewpoint for the insanity.  The characters don't necessarily change too much, but we get to learn a lot about why they are who they are along the way.  This instalment was a strong action/mystery story, but with some significant repercussions that look like they're going to start tying the other series in pretty quickly.

 

Rating: 5

Paladin's Grace - T. Kingfisher (Audiobook)

Tantor Audio, 2021, 12.5 hours

Original copyright 2020

Read by: Joel Richards

Listened to: April 2025, age 47

 

 Saint of Steel, book 1

 

I did not expect a straight-up romance hidden in fantasy trappings.  It was a good romance, funny, with complicated mature characters, a fun supporting cast, and just enough mystery to keep things moving, but... straight romance.  With poor communication and mistaken assumptions as main driving forces. Not a genre that I've read much in the past 20 years, and I probably won't go back too often, but it was a nice change.

 

Rating: 4