What has Lee been reading for the last, oh... 7 months?

So it's only been, what, 7 or 8 months since my last post, right? I'm sure you're wondering what on earth I've been reading, right?

Well, here you go!

I can't remember the order of everything, exactly, but I know when I last posted I was about to read Time's Eye. I ended up enjoying that book quite a bit.

The others:

• One of my favorites (yes, I'm a kid at heart): Peter and the Shadow Thieves by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. This is the second in a series of books that are essentially an alternate telling of the Peter Pan story. Very good and a pretty quick read. Another suggestion from my son.
• Another recommendation from my son, which I felt was far too much like just a set up for a continuing series, though it was still fun, was Monster Blood Tattoo by D.M. Cornish.
  
• Mammoth by John Varley. I've really enjoyed a lot of Varley's work in the past (I especially liked the Gaean Trilogy and Red Thunder). I also liked this one a lot. An interesting twist on time travel.
  
• I've been traveling a lot more than normal in the last year, so I've read a few of what I think of as "airport crap" - books I normally wouldn't read but they are common in the airport bookstores and are usually a light read. Lately, that would include Tyrannosaur Canyon by Douglas Preston and Map of Bones by James Rollins. A few years ago, I read The Codex by Preston and didn't realize Tyrannosaur Canyon had the same characters until I was a hundred or so pages in. Whoops. I still enjoyed it in a this-is-kind-of-a-dumb-story kind of way. As for Map of Bones - it was so similar in structure to The DaVinci Code that I couldn't believe it. Still, a fun read and I enjoyed it enough to put a few other books by Rollins on my Amazon Wish List.
• Next, a few "serious" sci-fi books: Darwin's Children by Greg Bear and Transcendent by Stephen Baxter. Darwin's Children was the second (I think) in a series about a set of mutations sweeping through the human population very quickly. An interesting read and I enjoyed it. Transcendent was the third in Baxter's "Destiny's Children" series, which have all been typical Baxter story lines - long term evolution and growth of humanity coupled with a more straight up "space" sci-fi component.
  
• I've also returned to an author I haven't read in a very long time - David Eddings. I read a lot by him about 20 years or so ago and always enjoyed the books. I just read The Elder Gods which is book one in his series The Dreamers. A very light read (after some of the heavier stuff I've been reading), almost to the point of not being interested. The characters were all just a bit too stereotypical for me. Which doesn't mean I won't read the rest of the books now, of course :-)
• For Christmas, I asked for Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz upon a recommendation from a co-worker. I really enjoyed the book, though it was another odd story - a man who could see dead people, but as the character says, "I do something about it!" A good build up over the course of the book to what you expect to be a really cataclysmic ending, which it almost is. An interesting twist, too, which seems obvious after the fact.
• Last but certainly not least, is Lamb by Christopher Moore. This was suggested by the same co-worker who suggested Odd Thomas to me. I have to say that I have never laughed so hard reading a book in my life. I also thought Moore did a great job combining parts of biblical lore with some more historically-based parts of the story. I can not recommend this book enough for anyone who likes a good laugh and isn't easily offended by someone painting the life of Jesus in such a down-to-earth kind of way.

Hopefully, my next posting won't be quite so long in the future!