January in books
January wasn't a bad month for reading as things go. I started the year with fanfiction as I ended the year before. In fact, half of January's books were fanfic, the rest a smattering of detective novels and science fiction. I only really read Harry Potter fanfiction by the way, in case you were wondering.
There'll be no need for monthly Roundups if you're getting weekly ones, so February's will be the next one (as we're halfway through before I got these out). I'll perhaps do quarterly retrospectives highlighting the best reads of that part of the year, we'll see what people want. Reply and tell me!
January, 2024. 18 books, at least 10245 pages. 63 total rating, from me 71.27 on average from the public.
3 stars to Aurora: CV-01 (The Frontiers Saga #1), by Ryk Brown
Book Description:
Episode 1.1A world recovering from a devastating plague…A brutal enemy threatening invasion…A young man seeking to escape the shadow of his father…A ship manned by a crew of fresh academy graduates…A top-secret experimental propulsion system…A questionable alliance with a mysterious green-eyed woman…What destiny has in store for the crew of the UES Aurora, is far greater than any of them could ever imagine. And this is only the beginning… My Thoughts: I've never been a particular fan of wet-behind-the-ears people take control of a spaceship, the 2009 Star Trek movie put the cap on that stupidity for me. Heinlein did it pretty well, and this one doesn't come close to that. The opener seemed very disconnected to the main body of the work, maybe the politics will kick in later on. I also found it interesting that in almost every other military thing I've read the bad guys jam wireless communications, but it's the ship's hard-wired comms that suffer here. I'm also very skeptical about the lost-earth motif, the idea that we're in a cycle where prior tech was abandoned is often hard to pin down.
still, it was a short and readable story, so I might carry on.
This Book: has 301 pages, a community rating of 4.08 and was first published in 2011.
4 stars to The Lie I've Lived, by jbern
Book Description:
Fandom: Harry Potter
Not all of James died that night. Not all of Harry lived. The Triwizard Tournament as it should have been and a hero discovering who he really wants to be. My Thoughts:
I was unsure about the tone to start with, although the rarity of a Fic done in first person kept me going. The vulgarity of the Hat aside, this had a refreshingly different take on the Triwizard, a novel way of powering-up Harry (even if it's a bit of a stretch given when James died), and by the end, I was actually mourning the death. The funeral speech was great, the epilogue chilling, and overall this is one of the better fics I have enjoyed recently.
This Book: has 939 pages, a community rating of 3.91 and was first published in 2009.
2 stars to Harry Potter and the Lightning Lord, by Colt01
Book Description:
Fandom: Harry Potter Relationship: Daphne Greengrass/Harry Potter
This is smart! Powerful! Ravenclaw! Harry; How would the wizarding world react to a Boy Who Lived who is much different from what they expected? One that is set to change the course of the magical world forever? Grey Harry; Manipulative! Dumbledore. My Thoughts:
A proofread would not have gone amiss, although I quite like the idea of Harry living at either Privet Dive or Private Drive. And the Death Easters sound amazing.
It's unfortunate when there's never a challenge to our intrepid hero, and everything fell out fine for him after the age of 7 here. SO not really one to take much fun out of for me.
This Book: has 945 pages, a community rating of 3.53 and was first published in 2017.
2 stars to Ah, Screw It!, by mjimeyg
Book Description:
Fandoms: Stargate: SG-1, Harry Potter
Harry goes to sleep after the final battle... but he wakes up at his first Welcoming Feast under the Sorting Hat. Harry has been thrown back in time into his eleven-year-old body. If he's going to have suffer through this again, he's going to do all he can to make sure he enjoys himself. My Thoughts:
A bit too ... not quite fast-paced, but scattershot for me to properly get into it. Stargate's great, but this one was just light and irresponsible and I didn't really gel.
This Book: has 919 pages, a community rating of 3.52 and was first published in 2016.
3 stars to Harry Potter and the Last Chance (Harry Potter and the Last Chance), by LeQuin
Book Description:
Fandom: Harry Potter Relationship: Harry Potter/Hermione Granger
Response to Reptillia28's 'Don't Fear the Reaper' challenge. Harry has died for the twelfth time and his reaper sends him back for one last chance at completing his assigned destiny. My Thoughts:
Despite the constraints placed on the work by the challenge, I sort of put up with it and then got into it. It's nice not to see Dan and Emma, although in terms of any sort of adult writing this isn't my cup of tea. An average entry in the collection.
This Book: has 782 pages, a community rating of 3.69 and was first published in 2016.
2 stars to Apex, by JustBored21
Book Description:
As found on FanFiction:
Harry has spent years pretending to be someone he was not, but in his fourth year he had finally had enough. He would no longer pretend. Now the real Harry Potter is out, and everything is changing. Dumbledore bashing, Hermione and certain Weasley bashing. Grey/Dark Harry. My Thoughts:
I can see why this is rated quite poorly. The idea of a Dark or Grey harry isn't new, but there's just no denying that the plot devices are sloppily executed, the author's notes serve to show the age of the writer, and the quality of fic is not quite up with some of the other stuff out there. Learning experience for everyone, but I'd have had a bit more respect if JB hadn't stolen the Riddle from Rowling, and if the fight scenes were a bit better (we seem to move from named to coloured spells with no rhyme or reason). Those are just 2 of the little irritations
This Book: has 705 pages and a community rating of 2.80.
4 stars to The Boys, by Katie Hafner
Book Description:
A tour-de-force novel about love, the yearning for connection, and the ways in which childhood trauma plays out in adult life.
When introverted Ethan Fawcett marries Barb, he has every reason to believe he will be delivered from a lifetime of solitude. One day Barb brings home two young brothers, Tommy and Sam, for them to foster, and when the pandemic hits, Ethan becomes obsessed with providing a perfect life for the boys. Instead of bringing Barb and Ethan closer together, though, the boys become a wedge in their relationship, as Ethan is unable to share with Barb a secret that has been haunting him since childhood. Then Ethan takes Tommy and Sam on a biking trip in Italy, and it becomes clear just how unusual Ethan and his children are—and what it will take for Ethan to repair his marriage. This hauntingly beautiful debut novel—a bold and original high-wire feat—is filled with humor and surprise. My Thoughts:
A fascinating work, we never quite get the impression that our narrator is holy unreliable, but the nods to deep-seated childhood trauma are plentiful. I found myself engaged and, by the end, felt a strange sense combining sadness and hope for the future. It made me stop and think that for all our progress, the technology and the expansion of Humanity must never stop also looking inward, at the things that impact on a deep emotional level that make us who we are.
This Book: has 256 pages, a community rating of 3.75 and was first published in 2022.
5 stars to The Accidental Animagus (Accidental Animagus, #1), by White Squirrel
Book Description:
Fandom: Harry Potter
Harry escapes the Dursleys with a unique bout of accidental magic and eventually winds up at the Grangers' house. Now, he has what he always wanted: a loving family, and he'll need their help to take on the magical world and vanquish the dark lord who has pursued him from birth. My Thoughts:
5 days to get through this, and I don't regret a bit. Some lovely tropes - Hermione's dad has a shotgun being one of my favourites, and just a really nice take on a cleverly-handled, newly imagined rendition of Harry's first 4 years at Hogwarts.
This Book: has 2789 pages, a community rating of 3.90 and was first published in 2016.
3 stars to The Earth We Knew (I, Starship: A Space Opera Book 3), by Scott Bartlett
Book Description:
They say you can’t go home again…
… especially if you’re the governing mind for an interstellar military starship.
It's Sergeant Henry Morgan has now spent more time as a starship than he spent dead. His mission is more than a century old, but in some ways, he feels like it's just begun.
A desperate distress call from Earth has brought him back to his old cosmic stomping grounds, for your standard save-humanity-from-extinction-by-alien-constructs operation.
But Henry needs to realize while his species might be the new kid on the galactic block, it is not without its secrets. Many of them deep and dark, with implications that reach back to the time when he himself walked the Earth on two legs.
In some ways, humanity has become more alien than the extraterrestrials. And if Henry can't figure out what this means - fast - he's going to have serious problems keeping himself and his crew safe.
Download I, The Earth We Knew and grab the edge of your seat for this bold new space opera.
My Thoughts:
The time jumps get a bit wider here and we start to see more things. I started to drift a little mentally in spots, but still want to know what happens next.
This Book: has 318 pages and a community rating of 4.3.
4 stars to Tin Can Combat (I, Starship: A Space Opera Book 2), by Scott Bartlett
Book Description:
When Sergeant Henry Morgan died and awoke a century later as the 'governing AI' for a starship...
...he didn't expect this.
A darkness is spreading across the stars - and not just any darkness. This is a hyper-advanced, cancerous darkness named Corthaur, who was originally thought to be a pretty okay guy.
He is not an okay guy.
As the governing mind of humanity's first interstellar military starship, Henry just wants to help.
But so much stands in his way.
There's his AI-hating captain, for starters, who has severely limited the functions Henry can access.
There's Corthaur, obviously, threatening to annihilate all life because he's just that bitter.
And then there's the fact that a single star system stands in the way of Earth and total destruction.
A system that's about to fall under brutal attack.
The same system, as it happens, that Henry and his crew are about to show up in.
Download I, Tin Can Combat now and grab the edge of your seat for this bold new space opera.
My Thoughts:
On the one hand I thought I'd enjoy this less as the series of viewpoints diversified and we saw a growing number of less comprehensible alien ideas, but the big battle was pretty well done and the last couple of chapters wrenched things back toward Humanity and made me want to go pick up the third one straightaway. So I am doing just that!
This Book: has 265 pages and a community rating of 4.33.
3 stars to I, Starship: A Space Opera, by Scott Bartlett
Book Description:
As a Marine, Henry Morgan would have said it was more likely he’d die from enemy fire than from being struck by a flying lawnmower while at a baseball game.
But it was the lawnmower that ended up taking him out.
A century later, Henry wakes up as a reconstituted intelligence, and is promptly drafted to be the governing AI for America’s first military starship. After decades of model-trained AIs wreaking havoc across the globe, humanity is ready to try something a little more…human.
Henry is perfect. For one thing, as a reconstituted intelligence, he has no rights and can be forced to do the bidding of the powers that be. For another, he’s the only Heritage Mind™ with any military experience that survived the Great Power Surge of 2072.
So, Henry’s it.
Blastoff, good Henry! Our hopes and dreams go with you. Oh, and while you’re at it, could you take a look at the aliens setting up shop in our asteroid belt? They seem to be…multiplying.
Download I, Starship now and grab the edge of your seat for this bold new space opera.
My Thoughts:
An up-and-coming genre, Human mind, machine body. There were a few things that I didn't quite click with, specifically the utter passivity of Major Anderson, the almost comical nature of the crew's glowing reports leading to a lack of harmony and the stereotypical captain having it "in for" our hero. Still, I kept at it and enjoyed much of the storytelling. Not a standout start to the series, but with potential and certainly room for more.
This Book: has 415 pages and a community rating of 4.12.
4 stars to Love, Sex and the Alien Apocalypse, by Peter Cawdron
Book Description:
Alice is a college student. All she wants is to find a little love in the world, but when a gunman pulls up in a black SUV at her fast-food restaurant, life changes in an instant. The appearance of an extraterrestrial spacecraft in orbit is meaningless when a gun is being pointed in her face. The alien apocalypse seems trivial by comparison to a 9mm Glock inches from her nose. When it comes to an alien invasion, all she has are her wits and a fridge magnet that Omnia Vincit Amor
FIRST CONTACT is a series of stand-alone novels that explore humanity's first interaction with extraterrestrial life. This series is similar to BLACK MIRROR or THE TWILIGHT ZONE in that the series is based on a common theme rather than common characters. This allows these books to be read in any order. Technically, they're all first as they all deal with how we might initially respond to contact with aliens, exploring the social, political, religious, and scientific aspects of First Contact. My Thoughts:
Whilst I didn't get the connection and feelings of awe I've often felt with Peter this time around, there was still a lot to take in here, and I didn't find myself disappointed as I thought I might given the title. I was - not put-off, but perhaps a little disgruntled - at the sheer number of the uses of the word fuck, for although they weren't gratuitous, it just poked my dour Englishness a little.
For a story of character, not perhaps my cup of tea, but the aliens were at least interesting in their modus operandi.
This Book: has 364 pages, a community rating of 4.12 and was first published in 2025.
5 stars to Leave No Trace (Kat and Lock, #2), by Jo Callaghan
Book Description:
DCS Kat Frank and AIDE Lock return in the provocative new thriller from the author of In the Blink of an Eye.
One detective driven by instinct, the other by logic. It will take both to find a killer who knows the true meaning of fear . . .
When the body of a man is found crucified at the top of Mount Judd, AIDE Lock – the world’s first AI Detective – and DCS Kat Frank are thrust into the spotlight as they are given their first live case.
But with the discovery of another man’s body – also crucified – it appears that their killer is only just getting started. With the police warning local men to be vigilant, the Future Policing Unit is thrust into a hostile media frenzy as they desperately search for connections between the victims. But time is running out for them to join the dots and prevent another death. My Thoughts:
Just as good as the first and with a twist I didn't see this time, I can hope that this series continues to thrive. I found it compelling and can really see what people mean when they say these would work really well on television, but you'd really want proper cast chemistry and someone to do a proper job voicing Lock.
This Book: has 383 pages, a community rating of 4.28 and was first published in 2024.
3 stars to Mindswap, by Robert Sheckley
Book Description:
In the future, interstellar travel to alien worlds will be too expensive for most ordinary people. It certainly is for Marvin, a college student who wants to take a really good vacation. And so he signs up for what he can afford, a mindswap, in which your consciousness is swapped into the body of an alien lifeform. But Marvin is unlucky, and finds himself in the body of an interstellar criminal, a body that he has to vacate fast. But that criminal consciousness has stolen Marvin's earthly body, and Marvin has to find a body on the black market. Travel from world to world with Marvin, each one crazier than the last, as he keeps finding far from ideal bodies in awful situations, just to stay alive.
My Thoughts:
Sheckley is a legendary figure in the field, of course. His particular brand of humour can be great if you get into it, which i did to an extent but it was perhaps not best to read something like this at 2 in the morning after finishing a more serious crime novel. I enjoyed it, but do feel that revisiting in the future when I am more alert and receptive would be welcome.
This Book: has 224 pages, a community rating of 3.70 and was first published in 1966.
5 stars to In the Blink of An Eye (Kat and Lock, #1), by Jo Callaghan
Book Description:
In the UK, someone is reported missing every 90 seconds. Just gone. Vanished. In the blink of an eye.
DCS Kat Frank knows all about loss. A widowed single mother, Kat is a cop who trusts her instincts. Picked to lead a pilot programme that has her paired with AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity) Lock, Kat's instincts come up against Lock's logic. But when the two missing person's cold cases they are reviewing suddenly become active, Lock is the only one who can help Kat when the case gets personal.
AI versus human experience. Logic versus instinct. With lives on the line can the pair work together before someone else becomes another statistic?
In the Blink of an Eye is a dazzling debut from an exciting new voice and asks us what we think it means to be human .
My Thoughts:
Absolutely gripped from start to finish, this was a clever police procedural with a cracking extra in the technology. While there was nothing surprising about the whodoneit nor indeed the howtheydidit, the way the teamwork progressed had a bit of a different flavour with the technology angle and the reasons for its creation. Perhaps the ending may feel a bit liberal to some, but no harm in that if that's where the author wants to go and I was hooked, and read the entire book in a single sitting.
This Book: has 416 pages, a community rating of 4.13 and was first published in 2023.
3 stars to Harry Potter and the Triangle Prophecy, by B.L. Purdom
Book Description:
Harry’s seventh and final year of school. In a time of uncertainty, the Muggle world has found a source of comfort and stability. Only Harry suspects that it isn’t safe. Wizards are more concerned about themselves than Muggles since Voldemort’s return, but are only Muggles at risk? Will anyone listen to Harry? He must decide whether Draco Malfoy is ultimately friend or foe and discover the identity of the Daughter of War and get her help in defeating Voldemort; and finally, Harry must decide whether to make a sacrifice that will change him – and the wizarding world – forever.
Cover by Leela Starsky My Thoughts:
I couldn't not follow up after getting back into the first 2 of these, but I really struggled to persist with the sheer amount of teenageness. I know, it's that age, but so much was just based on hormones. Crazy. it almost felt like 2 different people wrote the last few chapters and the epilogue.
Still, it's a very impressive trilogy given that, at time of writing, we had no idea how Harry was going to really end. I can see why it's got a devoted fan following and, at times, I was able to re-capture the magic of it all.
This Book: has a community rating of 4.34 and was first published in 2003.
4 stars to Someone's Been Messing with Reality, by John Hearne
Book Description:
When Martin Ryan sees a video of his father flying unaided through the air, he realises everything he believed about his life has been a lie.
Now his parents have disappeared and Martin discovers something weird brewing in the disused mines of the seaside village where he lives. Something glowing. Something ... egg-like.
Someone's definitely been messing with reality. Martin and his friends must do whatever they can to defeat the aliens that threaten the entire human race. Even if it means stealing cop cars, blowing up the mines and turning a paddling pool into a fighter aircraft. My Thoughts:
A quick and pretty fast-paced story for your average teen with a bit of a sci-fi interest, although it felt a bit shallow as a science fiction story in its own right. Fun enough though.
This Book: has 224 pages and a community rating of 4.33.
4 stars to Harry Potter and the Time of Good Intentions, by B.L. Purdom
Book Description:
During his fifth year, Trelawney did a Tarot reading for Harry. She told him he would have to make a choice that could "change the world as we know it." At the beginning of his sixth year, Harry chooses, and the world does change. Does it change for the better? If he wants, can Harry change it back? Or is giving Harry exactly what he wants Voldemort's ultimate revenge? The sequel to Harry Potter and the Psychic Serpent.
Cover by Leela Starsky My Thoughts:
As the middle book of a set of 3, the idea behind this really knocked my socks off 20 years ago. I thought at the time it was clever, and really enjoyed seeing Harry trot across England and peek into the lives of Muggleborn friends who never got to attend Hogwarts.
The scene with the paint and the emergency services stuck with me, and the end, although now feeling quite disconnected from the rest also stayed in my head (I was surprised at the end of the Psychic Serpent when Ron didn't change, though, which happens here and I had remembered incorrectly). Also, the funeral was quite well done, if a bit overblown given we also had one in the first book I thought. It's really odd, too, not seeing so much of the later potterverse.
Would I recommend these nowadays? Perhaps not. Did I really enjoy the nostalgia? Absolutely.
This Book: has a community rating of 4.35 and was first published in 2002.