The Twelve - Justin Cronin

   So all last weekend I had The Twelve beside the computer, planning on writing my book review of it.  Then company came over, and I got sidetracked by pretty butterflies and life events, so here it is, Wednesday, and I discover that my friend Bride over at Bride of the Book God has already written a review of The Twelve today!  So here is the link to her fun review.

    I pretty much agree with what she says, so I'm going to say what I want to say about the book, starting after (and which includes) everything she says.
           

Mainly, I am disappointed it didn't have the creepy factor with the vampires.  It is still a well-written series, excellent characters and pacing, thrilling tension as they try to avoid the vampires - but that danger, that terror of them that prevades the first book, The Passage, is missing.  I know we have all seen the terror, but I want it to continue through the books. Not that the vampires have to develop into anything new, or unbelievable - absolutely not.  I wanted - want -that horror back, that creeping sense that we had all through The Passage of the wrongness of the vampires, of the sense of unease, the dread, of them.  Even though The Passage was about what caused them and how the world so drastically changed in the event, I think that a 100 years later of dealing with the vampires, that horror would still be there.  I think maybe there wasn't enough attacks, enough fighting them off, though there is one - In the beginning of the book is the set-up to an attack that I wish we had gotten the full details of , that we got to see it in full.  I think this is what changed the book for me, that we don't get to see the characters die, so the immediacy of their deaths is missing. This attack turns out to be important to the plot of Book 2, and some characters, so I think a chance was missed to make this a full horror novel here, and an outstanding one.  We do find out in flashback, what happens to the survivors, but I have to say, I like straightforward writing too.  As Bride calls it, timey wimey can be interesting, but it has to be carefully done, and maybe this is where that sense of distance comes in The Twelve, so that made it less of an impact that The Passage had.

 The evil of the Twelve is what they do to their followers, as the vampires are called (each main vampire spawning his own group of vampires).  Maybe it was just the sense of menace was missing, because the groups had defined - the survivors in their areas, the vamps in theirs.  Although the vampires are still hunting whoever they can find, and leaving a known safe area is still extremely risky.  I just missed the real wrongness that is a vampire, although there is plenty of darkness, and some horror, and lots of bravery and good souls in this book.  I do enjoy this series very much, and highly recommend it.  These are mostly minor quibbles about why I found this book less scary than the first one, and I'm in this series to be scared.  I want to see it written to scare, to terrify, like the first book, so I'm hoping Book 3 will be all that, and more.

       Amy is still a fabulous character, and developing along interesting lines in the book.  I like Peter, and Alicia.  Alicia is kind of scary, actually.  

 I will be reading Book 3 whenever it is done!  I also really enjoy the different covers, interesting how the publishers thought it would appeal over in the UK, and here.  Nothing about Fear the Dark, as her book cover has.

I also read this book in less than two days, that's how much I enjoyed it and couldn't put it down.  So if you are a little bit worried about being too scared, this is a good book for you  :-)    A very good vampire series, so far.

Other reviews:
The Book Smugglers
S Krishna's Books
Coffee and A Book Chick
Chrisbookarama

If you reviewed this book, please let me know and I'll link to it.

science fiction galore featuring Women in SF challenge!

                                                       

   I have to thank Andrea at Andrea's Book Nook, who commented in my last post about a new challenge: the Dystopian 2013 challenge, found here at Bookish Ardour.


It fits along with Carl's Science Fiction Experience, which officially began yesterday.
                                                    
  The Dystopian challenge runs all year.  Carl's lasts for 2 months, until the end of February.  There is also the Vintage Science Fiction not a challenge over at the Little Red Reviewer, which is a reading experience that lasts through the month of January.

 This is for science fiction whose publishing date is 1979 or earlier.

I am joining all of these.  I am excited, and I was surprised by how excited I was to be reading science fiction - after all I only read 9 last year - and then I realized, I'm excited because there are good books and good writing going on in science fiction, and I have a whole world of it waiting to catch up in. Carl says January makes him think of science fiction. I didn't associate it with winter particularly - I used to read it in the summer long ago - but now, I find myself settling in to books about 'out there', and I think it's a way to help me focus on something other than our long, long winters here in Ottawa. I like the idea of exploring, and I can do it safely from the comfort of my own home, reading in the light, while characters explore all the wondrous worlds and planets out there for me.  There are also the aliens amongst us, of course, and the terrors lurking in dystopian reality here.  Despite the piling snow and bitter cold outside, I can escape to far away planets,  alternate worlds, fly among the stars in between the pages of my books.

So some of the books I will be reading for these various challenges, and they will all be cross-challenged if they fit, are:

Vintage science fiction:
Man Plus - Frederick Pohl
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K LeGuin
They Shall Have Stars - James Blish
Dragonflight - Anne McCaffrey
The Winds Twelve Quarters - Ursula K Le Guin
Witch World - Andre Norton
Catseye - Andre Norton
Sunburst - Phyllis Gotlieb
Farmer in the Sky - Robert A Heinlein

some dystopian science fiction:
The Clewiston Test - Kate Wilhelm
Directive 51 - John Barnes
Clay's Ark - Octavia Butler
The Postman - David Brin
I Am Legend -  Richard Matheson
 *more will come, these are on my shelves now.  I would like to get the sequel to Stephen Baxter's Flood,  the second book in the Hunger Games Trilogy, and I have one on request at the library.  Plus Insurgent, the sequel to Divergent by Veronica Roth. 

And then, the general (and excellent) science fiction books that I started collecting for the Worlds Without End challenge last year, which I failed at, for Carl's experience:

Timescape - Gregory Benford
Debris - Jo Anderton
Fool's War - Sarah Zettel
This Alien Shore - C.S. Friedman
A Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge
Mars - Ben Bova
All Clear - Connie Willis
The Dervish House - Ian McDonald
The Empress of Mars - Kage Baker
The Engines of God - Jack McDevitt
Catspaw - Joan D. Vinge

 I see now that at Worlds Without End they have a genre challenge going this year - and many thanks to Carl for his post today  about it.
 
                                                   

 The Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge it's called.  And it looks fabulous. 12 female authors, one post a month, one book read by each author.  Reviews posted to the site will get you entered into a draw to win gift certificates from Amazon.

6 books I  listed above for Carl's sci fi challenge experience, are by women writers!  Plus in the other groupings......Oh yes.  They all are on the women writers list for the women of genre challenge! It's an awesome list.  Go look, and see if you think you can do this challenge.  I bet you could, easily.  With Margaret Atwood, Hilary Mantel, Sarah Waters, and everyone you could possibly think of as a science fiction female writer, all the wonderful female writers are there.  Who are your favourites?  Who have you been wanting to read for the past while?

For just a few minutes, I forgot about the snow (we have had over 2 feet of snow in the past two weeks) and the cold (it is below -23c as I write this tonight).  I was all warm and happy, writing about books and science fiction.  My biggest challenge at the moment is deciding which one to read (and to stay warm).

What does January make you think of, Gentle Reader?  Which kind of books do you reach for in this, the darkest and coldest days of winter still stretching ahead?  What is your favourite winter reading?

Random book things for a rainy Sunday

New book!
I just had to post about this:  Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow have a new anthology out, and it's a collection of short stories featuring dystopian fiction!!!   Here is Terri Windling's post.  I am so excited!  The cover is interesting, isn't it?  It's going into my annual Christmas book box as soon as I find it!

 Is it too soon to be thinking about this?
To get in the mood for Christmas, Trish at Hey Lady, Watcha Reading, has a post about a lovely advent calendar she has made for her family this year.  It is so cute and whimsical, and filled with lovely little stuffed things that represent what her family loves. It totally got me in the mood for Christmas, even though I am still waiting for Hallowe'en to come.

Long live bookstores
I love this quote from Becca at Lost in Books: " 5. The Frankfurt Book Fair 2012 is going on now and there are already some buzzwords worth noting.  The best news traveling around so far is this: "bookstores are still the best showroom for publishers, and once they are gone, we won’t get them back."  Amen, Frankfurt.  Amen."  Here is the full post.

more on the Frankfurt Book Fair 2012 and some Shakespeare news

Becky at Musings From the Sofa has her post also on the Frankfurt Book Fair, and she has some new books from the publishers coming out this fall and next year, here. Sigh. They ALL look interesting. When she writes, "I’ve been thinking since it launched that Faber’s Shakespeare’s Sonnets app is the best inducement I’ve yet seen to buy an iPad, which just goes to show that I can be tempted by anything involving David Tennant." My heart went thump and I got excited, until I realized it was for an Ipad. Which I don't have, and don't want. Oh though, Shakespeare's Sonnets! Read by David Tennant!!!!!!!! Sir Patrick Stewart too!!!!!! Uh oh......the sonnets brought to life.....Hmm, it also says it is available on iTunes. Possibly I can buy this for my computer?

I'll be back. Off to see if my laptop will let me download iTunes 10. I love me some sonnets today, I hope....... I will let you know in a postscript. A lovely way to spend a rainy Sunday! Happy Sunday reading, everyone.

***Edited to add:
For RIP VII:

 New Susan Hill!!   I just had to add this.  Bride of the Book God has this new post, and in it she mentions a new Susan Hill novella, The Dolly!  It sounds very very good.  Dark and creepy and possibly scary.