The Snow Child (Eowyn Ivey)

This lovely story of a childless couple making their way on a homestead in Alaska in the 1920s features poetic language, delightful characters, and a gripping sense of the wild, cruel beauty of the place. It also straddles the line between reality and magic in a way my prosaic soul had some trouble with. The main characters basically fled to the Alaskan wilderness to escape their grief after their only child was stillborn, but found that they had brought the grief with them into a land that was unforgiving and harsh. In a rare moment of frivolity they built a little girl out of snow and gave her a coat, mittens, and a scarf. The next day the snow and the clothes are gone, and there are only footsteps leading away into the woods. After that the girl become more and more real. I kept alternating between believing the child they saw was a real girl living by her wits and believing she was some kind of spirit of the wilderness; perhaps she was both. Regardless of my unease with this dichotomy, I still loved the story and the people.

Arctic Rising (Tobias Buckell)

The plot of this story was interesting and kept me turning pages. In the fairly near future, global warming has melted the ice caps and opened the entire arctic circle to settlement and shipping. Lots of groups are exploring and exploiting this region, including those who want to do things like dump various waste products. The UN has airships in the area watching for this, but one gets shot down, and its pilot barely survives. She finds herself hunted and threatened, and is nearly killed several more times as she tries to unravel the mystery of what's going on at the pole. With the help of various shady characters, she uncovers a nest of competing conspiracies between those fighting to save the world from ecological disaster and those who just want to exploit it, and it turns out that neither of these is really the good guy. Things are very exciting, but none of the characters ever felt very real to me, partly because the dialogue never rang true. A good thriller, though.

The Most Human Human (Brian Christian)

This is the story of the Loebner Prize, a real-life Turing test competition in which various computer systems compete against actual humans to prove they can converse just like a person. A team of judges have 7-minute instant-message type conversations with others and have to vote for which ones they think are humans and which ones are computer programs. Each year the program that gets the most human votes wins the prize for Most Human Computer - and the human who gets the most human votes wins Most Human Human. The author of the book, who has degrees in both computer science and poetry (!), competed in 2009 and was determined to be voted the Most Human Human. In this book he wanders through a delightful landscape of concepts related to what makes someone human, and how you can tell. He talks about computer chess (of course), pick-up lines, information theory, Zen, compression, and inattentional blindness, among many other topics. I was constantly sharing nuggets of fascination with others. Very much recommended, especially for the nerdy among us.

Boneshaker (Cherie Priest)

I couldn't really get into this book. I gave it over 100 pages, but I never really connected with the main character. The setting was interesting, but not really compelling for me. I'm not a big fan of steampunk, so that's probably part of the reason. Mostly, though, it was just a lack of emotional connection. It might work for other people, but apparently not for me.

Among Others (Jo Walton)

This is a lovely and touching story about a troubled teen girl finding her way in an uncomfortable world. She has escaped from her mad, magical mother in Wales to live with a father she never met in England and is sent to a posh boarding school, where she has trouble fitting in. Her lifeline is books, particularly SF and fantasy books, and they help her keep herself grounded and find others she can belong with. The magic and the fairies in the story are unusual and entirely convincing, as is her struggles with friendships, boys, teachers, and the health issues she's been left with due to her battle with her mother. I especially enjoyed it because I've read most, though not nearly all, of the books she refers to on practically every page, and could compare my opinions with hers. Recommended.

All Clear (Connie Willis)

This is the second half of a single novel, published in two parts (the first part was Blackout). It belongs to Willis's time travel universe, which I enjoy a lot. Aside from being much too long, this is another good story in this setting. Three historians go back in time to the London Blitz and become trapped, unable to get back to their present (our future - 2060). The story describes their attempts to find each other, then to figure out what is wrong and how to get out. The backdrop of WWII London is compelling, making "England's finest hour" vivid and underlining the strength and courage of the people who lived through it. There is too much redundancy (too many newspaper clues, too many near misses, too many exploits of the Hodbins), and then the very end is not given quite enough (who exactly is he?), but it is still very much enjoyable.

Fracture (Megan Miranda)

This story is written for young adults, but it deals with challenging situations, including sex and death. The young heroine falls through the ice on a pond and is revived after too long in the water. Her brain scans show extensive damage, but she seems unimpaired, a real medical miracle. However, she find herself with disturbing behaviors she didn't have before, which cause her family strains with her family and her friends, including a fragile teenage romance. The story is dark, but ultimately she is able to find the light and bring herself back to the side of life.