July Reading Wrap Up

Okay, yes, I realise that it is now September, but in the interest of not making this obscenely long I'm spliting this into months.

So, July, the reading mojo of 2016 continued, but I will try and make this brief.

Demon Seed - Dean Koontz - 3 star

A solid AI taking over sci-fi. A quick compelling read like most of Koontz books. Just a shame I couldn't stop thinking about the Simpsons episode based on this while reading.  

The Guardian Cycle - Julia Grey - overall 4 stars comprised of:

The Dark Moon - 4 stars

The Jasper Forest -  4 stars

The Crystal Desert - 3 stars

The Red Glacier - 4 stars

Alyssa's Ring - 4 stars

I remember picking up the first book in this series years and years ago - it must have been when it first came out because I can't have been much out of primary school and still unaffected by the "readings not cool" taunts of high school.  I finally managed to track the whole series down and while it's not what I remembered (to be honest, I don't know exactly what I thought I remembered), the enjoyment was very definatly still there. The story could easily have fallen prey to classic fantasy clichés of comming of age and saving the world, but it didn't.  The fleshed out characters grew superbly with both the passage of time and experience and the world building was simply wonderful - something I definatly look for in the fantasy genre. I would have liked a map though, I like maps.  

Coma - Robin Cook - 2 stars

I'm convinced that my mum told me I'd love this book, and she's convinced that she didn't.  Either way, wasn't my favourite. I found the mystery predictable, the Suspense, dull and the characters insufferable. I did like the premise of otherwise healthy young people dying in comas, just a shame about the execution.

Insomnia - Stephen King - 4 stars

If I haven't said it yet, I'll say it now. King is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. The depth of the world that he has built in all of his novels is just staggering. I also really enjoyed that this story was told from the perspective of retirees - we don't see that often.