For the Win (Cory Doctorow)

I didn't hate this book, but I gave up halfway through. It is about the gold farmers in online games - people, generally poor people in developing countries, who work long hours inside the games gathering treasure or leveling-up characters so that their bosses can sell them to rich, lazy players who don't want to work for their status. In the entire book (so far anyway) there is nobody we meet who is actually playing any of these games for fun. They are all either downtrodden, oppressed workers or cruel, tyrannical bosses. I know the book was written for a young-adult market, but even so this level of oversimplification was too much for me. That's not even to mention the frequent lengthy passages lecturing on economics, in the world and in the games. It is all one big sermon on the importance of unions, which is appropriate for Labor Day Weekend, I guess, but I've had enough now.

The Forever War (Joe Haldeman)

This is a classic, from 1974, but it is still compelling. The central character is one of the first drafted into interstellar war in the early 2005, and with all the relativistic time-dilation effects, he makes it to the end of the war in 3143. Along the way technology and human nature both change, but he remains much the same, giving the reader a consistent viewpoint with which to view time going by. It is a combination of war story, with high-casualty battles and high-tech weaponry (with few false steps to remind us that it was written before ubiquitous computers and the Internet), and social commentary. I enjoyed it a lot.

Snuff (Terry Pratchett)

Sam is dragged away on a vacation in the country by his determined wife, away from his beloved city streets, and anticipates two weeks of mind-numbing boredom until his sensitive cop's nose detects a whiff of crime. Before he has unraveled the whole sordid ball of string, he has been proved a hero yet again, on land and sea, solved crimes of murder and smuggling, and helped to recognize an entire new race of sapient creatures. Just his kind of vacation!  In the hilarious, fantastical world that is Discworld, the subset of Sam Vines books put less emphasis on madcap hijinks and more on an examination of what it means to be a good cop in a chaotic world. Not to imply that there isn't plenty of hilarity to go around! Still, much of the story is about how to make things right within the law. I enjoyed it quite a lot.

Vanishing Act (Thomas Perry)

It's interesting to read a novel where some scenes take place here in Rochester, on streets I often drive! The story centers on a woman, native to the Seneca tribe, who works as a guide - helping people disappear. Her clients include woman escaping abusive spouses and small-time criminals who run afoul of big-time ones. In this story, she helps an ex-policeman who is being framed for embezzlement, but as events unfold we find that not everything is what it seems. She is smart and committed and resourceful and skilled, and I enjoyed the book very much.

Changeless (Gail Carriger)

This second story (a novel of vampires, werewolves, and dirigibles) is as interesting and charming as the first (Soulless). Alexia is just a strong-willed, unpredictable, and quirky as ever, as she works to discover what is behind a mysterious force that strips the supernatural of their powers and makes them simply human again. Alexia, of course, does this herself, but does it one-on-one with direct touch. Whatever is going on now covers all the supernatural creatures in a large region. In the process of solving this mystery, Alexia learns more about her husband's past, and at the end her life is overturned. Now I have to read the next book in the series!

Practical Magic (Alice Hoffman)

Women in the Owens family have been accused of being witches forever. Two sisters who grew up in the home of their witchy aunts both move out, but they can't leave behind their ties to the magic of their birthrights. They both have trouble dealing with love and relationships, though their lives couldn't  be more different. Gillian takes off as a teen, marrying multiple times but never getting tied down, while sensible widowed Sally is raising her two daughters as responsibly as she can, feeding them nutritious vegetarian meals and making sure they are never late to school. They are brought together again by tragedy, and have to find ways to reconcile their hopes, dreams, fears, and traumas. I loved the sensitive, beautiful story telling and the flashes of magic that seem to hide just out of most people's vision.

Artemis Fowl (Eoin Colfer)

This audio book kept me company on a long car trip, and I loved every minute! Artemis Fowl is a 12-year-old genius, the only child in a very wealthy family operating on the fringes of the law (and often over the edge). After his father disappears, his mother becomes unhinged, and the family fortune is diminished, Artemis and his loyal bodyguard Butler embark on a complex plot to restore that fortune: kidnapping a fairy to extort gold as her ransom. This fairy is a trained operative in the fairy military, and the entire force of fairy might is focused on getting her back and defeating Artemis. The story is delightfully inventive, with unexpected but entirely logical twists and turns, and led to a surprisingly satisfying conclusion. I will definitely read more.

Death on Demand (Carolyn Hart)

This light mystery is set in a bookstore on an island, and the central murder takes place in a mystery book store at a gathering of local mystery writers. It is a classic locked-room murder: the lights go out, and when they come back on one is dead and all the rest are suspects. There is no shortage of motives, but the local police single out the main character as their primary suspect, so she naturally must go about solving the crime herself, with her convenient love interest. I didn't find the plot convincing or the characters especially engaging, and don't feel that the final reveal had been established well enough, but it was still pleasant to read. I probably won't look for more in the series, though.

Soulless (Gail Carriger)

This "novel of vampires, werewolves, and parasols" is delightful fun. It is set in a version of Victorian London in which vampires and werewolves are socially recognized classes of people who hold lordships, gather in gentlemen's clubs, and serve on Her Majesty's council. A few rare individuals are born without souls and are immune to these night people, so that their touch turns them back into ordinary humans. Alexia faces this London with several handicaps: her father was Italian, and dead. She herself is tan of skin, large of nose, and unmarriageable -- and soulless. She is also intelligent, strong-willed, cheeky, and great fun to be around. I enjoyed this story a lot, and will read more.

Steve Jobs (Walter Isaacson)

This is the biography of a man who was brilliant, arrogant, sensitive, brutal, charismatic, delusional...a man of contradictions. There is little doubt that Apple is successful because of Steve Jobs. It is also true that he hurt the people around him, mostly deliberately, often with no real reason. He saw the world, including people, in absolute black and white terms: everything, and everyone, was either intolerably awful or amazingly wonderful, often alternately within hours. He had an overarching vision of technology, believing throughout his career in the importance of controlling the user's experience from end to end. He also meddled in every tiny detail of his products, from the precise shade of blue for the shell of the iMac to the finish on the screws inside the unit. Love him or hate him (or both), it is hard to read this story without sheer fascination.

The Body in the Transept (Jeanne Dams)

A pleasant murder mystery in the cozy style. An American widow, recently moved to a small English town, is the first to find the body of the canon in the local cathedral, and dives into solving the mystery of his murder. The canon was universally disliked, which makes for a fine range of suspects, and her persistence in asking questions makes her a target as well. The story is lightweight and ultimately unconvincing; I never felt the sense of danger that such a story really needs. I also didn't feel that all the clues were there for me to have figured out the murderer when she did, though she had basically ruled everyone else out. Not bad, but not good enough for me to want to read more in the series.

Dandelion Wine (Ray Bradbury)

I picked this up after hearing that it was a favorite of several astronauts in the US space program, and thought it might be one of his science fiction works. Instead, it is a poetic, sentimental portrait of what it is like for a boy in a typical midwest small town in one splendid summer in 1928. Lots of things happen, including the natural death of a neighbor and some murders, the accusation that a pillar of the community is a witch, and a good friend moving away, so it is not all perfect, but there is also fireworks and apples and new sneakers. Everything is bottled away in shelves of homemade dandelion wine. The writing is lovely, but the philosophy a little too heavy-handed for my taste. Still, it was enjoyable.

A Game of Thrones (George R. R. Martin)

Many of my friends are obsessed with this series, so I finally read the first book. It is certainly exciting, and the world Martin has built is dense and complex. In an imaginary medieval world, the king of the Seven Kingdoms has married a daughter of the rival house of the Lannisters, who plots for power, while in the far North, beyond the Wall, winter is coming with death and dark magic. At first I had trouble keeping all the people straight, but before long they were all distinct and interesting, each with his or her own strengths and weaknesses, purity and corruption, and a clear voice. I can't say I loved it, and I'm certainly not obsessed (I don't feel the need to read the next book right away); the focus is too much on the soap opera and the political intrigues for my taste. Still, I admire the skill that went into creating it.