Reads of the Month: December

[., Red Queen]

The polls are closed, and here are your reads of the month! I don't think I mentioned this, but if your recommendation didn't make it to our monthly reads, you're more than welcome to do buddy reads. Just create the discussion under the appropriate folder, and label it as a buddy read so others can join you. I'll be reading The Gate to Women's Country this month so if you've already read or don't want to read Do Android Dreams of Electric Sheep?, feel free to join me.

With the new year rolling around the corner, we have a theme for our January recommendations. Check it out, and leave your suggestions. That thread will close and the polls will start on the 28th of this month. Also, we'll have a thread for your 2013 reading challenges and resolutions so have them ready!


Fables, Vol. 1: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham



"When a savage creature known only as the Adversary conquered the fabled lands of legends and fairy tales, all of the infamous inhabitants of folklore were forced into exile. Disguised among the normal citizens of modern-day New York, these magical characters have created their own peaceful and secret society within an exclusive luxury apartment building called Fabletown. But when Snow White's party-girl sister, Rose Red, is apparently murdered, it is up to Fabletown's sheriff, a reformed and pardoned Big Bad Wolf (Bigby Wolf), to determine if the killer is Bluebeard, Rose's ex-lover and notorious wife killer, or Jack, her current live-in boyfriend and former beanstalk-climber."


Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick



"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. First published in 1968, the book served as the primary basis for the 1982 film Blade Runner. The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic near future, where Earth and its populations have been damaged greatly by nuclear war during World War Terminus. Most types of animals are endangered or extinct due to extreme radiation poisoning from the war. To own an animal is a sign of status, but what is emphasized more is the empathic emotions humans experience towards an animal.

The main plot follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter who is faced with "retiring" six escaped Nexus-6 brain model androids, the latest and most advanced model, while a secondary plot follows John Isidore, a man of sub-normal intelligence who aids the fugitive androids. In connection with Deckard's mission, the novel explores the issue of what it is to be human. Unlike humans, the androids possess no empathic sense. In essence, Deckard probes the existence of defining qualities that separate humans from androids." -Wikipedia


Clover by CLAMP



"Kazuhiko is a young, but already deeply wounded black ops agent of a baroque, retro-tech future - pulled out of retirement to escort Sue, a mysterious waif, to a destination she alone knows. Sue and Kazuhiko have never met, yet she knows him, having grown up since the age of four with her only human contact, two distant voices: that of her elderly "grandma," General Ko, and of Kazuhiko's dead girlfriend, Ora. And Sue has been kept in that cage all these years because of what she is, and what the Clover Leaf Project found her to be - a military top secret, and the most dangerous person in the world."