Nate > Recent Status Updates

Yikes. I’m definitely reading something really light and easy after this one.

This book is, uh, wow. It’s a book. Definitely a book.

As great a title as Satan Sublets is, its cover is even more incredible.

Already loving this…and can tell my want-to-read list is about to get way bloated all of a sudden

Has the Goodreads search function been fucky for anyone else?

I feel like using a Beck quote as an epigraph in this book is tonally goofy as fuck…I got page upon page of Stygian darkness and Cronenbergian body horror and then suddenly I have the slide riff to “Loser” stuck in my head.

My first read of this a few years ago didn't bowl me over but something bugged me to give it a second shot so here we go. I do love the illustrations, muted as they are on the Kindle (guessing they're bigger and in color in the physical copies.)

Crais is an absolute master of “show, don’t tell” when it comes to emotions. You’d think this would be an easy rudiment with any professional writer but it really isn’t easy or even that common. Dude is closer to communicating feelings on the level of when the doctor or nurse takes your vitals than the vast majority of writers I’ve read.

Man…this one is really pushing the Incompetent Cop ™ trope to the saturation point. It’s irritating the shit out of me. Thank gods for the World’s Greatest Detective.

SILKEN PREY II: TARYN IT UP

I like Bob and Rae. They have some big shoes to fill following the usual supporting duo of Shrake and Jenkins but I'm enjoying what I'm seeing so far.

Man, the underlying plot on this one is thoroughly unpleasant. It’s weird ‘cause the Flowers novels have seemed relatively lighthearted compared to some of the Davenport books but then you get into this one and just…blech.

Pretty sure I'm starting to grasp the gist of what's going on here, but it took me a while. Also, the scenes at night in the woods are creepy as FUCK.

I’ve never had buttermilk chocolate pie before but I feel like it’s something I need in my life.

I guess the easy comparison here is to a grittier, creepier To Kill a Mockingbird…and never let it be said about me that I liked doing things the hard way.

Really not getting the love for Stillwater I’m seeing in some of the reviews online. Maybe I’m missing something, hoping she grows on me.

Took almost 200 pages before my first sighting of the word “ochre”. Remarkable restraint here by Erikson.

You know a series is over the top epic when the author brings back a character you don’t remember and in the course of looking him up you find out even the fucking author himself forgot the character and had to ask fans to refresh his memory…

Lots of classic Malazan army goodness already in this one. The new characters are interesting and the banter is definitely still there.

This is fun and charming so far, inasmuch as a book about a serial killer who strangles and cuts up boy prostitutes can be.

Already dreading finishing this one and having to wait another year or whatever for the next one.

YOU’RE fucking (meta)crying.

Blood Rights by Leanne C. Harper was fantastic and made me look her up for more. Unfortunately it seems like she only wrote/writes for Wild Cards.

You really have to give these writers credit for their ability to come up with really, really repulsive antagonists. The megalomaniacal Puppetman returns in this entry and we also meet Ti Malice, who's basically like a vampiric fetus that sticks his gross tubular mouth into your neck and controls you as one of his "mounts." Just...blech.

Wow, this got SUPER Vachssy all of a sudden.

Ahhh…just couldn’t keep himself from throwing in a Kingverse reference. This one was relatively subtle, though.

The war sections of this novel are super intense. I remember watching a documentary on Phantom Fury a few years ago—IIRC the US and Iraqi security forces basically funneled as many enemy combatants into a small section of the city as they could and then went house by house. You basically had a really good chance when you went into a house that a dude with an AK47 was standing there pointing it at face level.

I’m glad that Uncle Stephen is a Stephen Hunter fan too. That dude writes the hell out of Gun Shit.

I don’t remember exactly when Uncle Stephen started using this first-person-present or whatever you call it perspective but it really works for the crime thriller genre. I think it was Mr. Mercedes?

Not exactly gripping so far but the characters are (as always) real feeling and interesting and the plot is promising to get wild. Just glad Uncle Stephen is still churning them out.