Well, for some reason, I've read a TON of books in the last few weeks, here are my reviews.

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Sabriel
I really enjoyed this book. It's mostly a fantasy novel, and I believe it's a young adult book. Sabriel is a coming of age novel about a young girl who’s just completing the equivalent of high school. Oh, she's also a necromancer.

The magic system in it is unique, but not really well described (it doesn’t lay out all the rules like you find in some fantasy novels), but that doesn’t prevent it from being intriguing. Garth Nix pulls you into the story right away and does a fairly good job creating a few memorable characters that you really care about. He also creates some vivid imagery that I won’t soon forget (Abhorsen’s house, the paperwing flight). The book has some memorable lines that are reinforced by the themes of the story (“Everyone and everything has a time to die” and “Does the walker choose the path or the path the walker”).

I highly recommend this book. I found out that there are two sequels to this book (“Lirael” and “Abhorsen”) which are on my To Read list.

Darwin's Radio
This is the first book by Greg Bear that I’ve read, and I really enjoyed it. Darwin’s Radio is a contemporary novel set maybe a few years in the future. It follows the discovery of a family of Neanderthal mummies, the discovery of mass graves in The Republic of Georgia, and the outbreak of a disease targeting only pregnant women (don’t worry, I haven’t given you any spoilers!).

I found the book to be well written in that it not only had believable and interesting characters, but also intriguing scientific contemplations. The book deals with theme of evolution (I was reading Spin when I started this book, so the evolution ideas were doubly interesting) as well as how the public reacts to a disease outbreak. I have no idea how authentic the biology presented in the book is, but it did make me check the wikipedia entry on several ideas (like endogenous retroviruses), so that’s got to be a good thing!

I’d recommend this book if you’re in the mood for some present day speculative science (light on the speculative, heavy on the science). I just found out that this book has a sequel, Darwin’s Children. I’ll add that to my To Read list too!

Quantico
This one was my second Greg Bear book, and I’ll say it was OK. This is also a contemporary novel set a few years in the future. The book follows several FBI agents as an anthrax-related terrorist plot unfolds. Greg Bear does a fair share of ruminating on the ways society has changed since 9/11. He posits that we can never return to the pre-9/11 state of quasi-innocence and asks the reader to decide if humanity would be better off forgetting that it ever happened. It’s a decent story with ok character development. There wasn’t a lot of story to it, though, and I often wanted to just skip to the end.

If you are really in to police stories or want some terrorism-related food for thought, then definitely try this book. Otherwise, I’d skip it.

The Last Colony
This is the third book in the Old Man’s War series (by John Scalzi). This book, again, is a very different kind of book than the previous two. It follows the story of a group of colonists settling a new planet. It sounds a little mundane (and I almost lost interest in the first couple of chapters), but it turns out to be very satisfying. There are ample twists and turns, and the author ends up taking his ultra-violent Old Man’s War universe in a direction that I found very satisfying.

If you liked the first two in this series, then you MUST read this book. Scalzi says in the afterward that this is his last book in the series, however, a fourth book is coming out this year and I can’t wait!

Axis
Axis is the sequel to Spin (by Robert Charles Wilson), which I couldn’t say enough good things about. I wasn’t sure how Spin could have a sequel, but there were enough unanswered questions from Spin, that I was excited to read Axis. The thing that made Spin really stand out to me was the combination of superb character drama with a great “big science” science fiction story. Axis has a lot of both the character drama and the “big science,” but Wilson doesn’t do either quite as well as he did in Spin. Axis felt like less of a complete story than Spin did, mainly because it covers a much smaller chunk of the characters’ lives, and doesn’t go nearly into the same depth. Also, Axis doesn’t really move the Spin universe forward, you end sort of where you began, albeit with a slightly better understanding of their world.

That said, it’s still a good book and it’s very well paced -- giving you a little more substance in every chapter. If you liked Spin, you should probably read Axis too.

Artemis Fowl
I read the first chapter of Artemis Fowl about 3 years ago, but I didn’t continue. This time I read it all the way through and I’m really glad I did! This is definitely a young adult book, but there are a few non-critical references some kids might not get. Without spoiling the book, Artemis Fowl is a super-intelligent 12-year old criminal mastermind who tries to discover the secrets of fairies to get his hands on their gold. One of the reasons I liked this book so much is that for most of the book you’re not quite sure who you should be rooting for! There are definitely two sides in conflict, but both of them have antagonist and protagonist facets to them. That uncertainty keeps you guessing until the end, and frankly, I wasn’t sure how I wanted it to turn out until I’d finished.

This was a quick read but very enjoyable, and I highly recommend it.

Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident
The Arctic Incident takes place 1 year after the first book, with a 13-year old Artemis Fowl. This story (as hinted in at the end of the first book) involves Artemis being forced to work with the LEP. As such, it feels a little different than the first book. There’s a clearer antagonist and the plot is a little more complicated than the first book (it’s still not that complicated for you adult smarty-pantses!). The story is quick-paced and fun and gives all of the main characters some development. I recommend this one as well.

Lord of the Isles
Oh my. Lord of the Isles by David Drake.
OK, it’s my policy to give a book 100 pages. If it can’t hook me in 100 pages then it’s not for me. After dragging myself through 70 pages of this little gem, I gave up. This is just a poorly written book. David Drake may have some fabulous ideas for a neat-o magic system and Earthsea-like world, but he’s a bad writer.

One thing that really bothered me was his use of highly obscure jargon – all the time! Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty geeky. I’ve read my share of fantasy novels, DMed my share of D&D games, and gotten addicted to MMORPGs, so I know my way around a fair bit of medieval lingo. Well, apparently David Drake believes that you need to be institutionalizably (yes I said it!) into old world ship building or medieval dress making if you want to ride his ride. Well, sorry, I don’t know what a ship’s cordage or your boat’s thwart are, and I’m OK with that.

The other big problem is Drake’s awkward prose. I’m not sure how to describe it, but I kept having to re-read several sentences every paragraph to figure out what he was trying to say! I may make Amanda read a chapter or two to see if she can figure out what the problem is. Lastly, the fight scenes were boring, but at least they were long. This is going to come as a surprise, but I recommend running away from this book!

Recommend me some more books!
If you're reading anything good let me know!