The View From Monday - September 20, 2010 - What are you reading?

The blog was quiet this weekend due to family committments, sick children, and the usual life stuff. And once again it's Monday. I'll be announcing contest winners later today. There are not that many books coming out this week so there will probably be no vlog on Tuesday. I was looking ahead to next Tuesday, the 28th, when I originally posted that there were a zillion books being released! I'm not sure entirely what I'll be doing Wednesday, but there will be some sort of a contest as usual. Thursday will be comics and Friday will be photos. It's almost Fall. The Autumnal Equinox is on September 22, 2010 at 11:09 PM EDT. I hope to capture some of the gorgeous New England foliage for you.

I did pick up a book yesterday in the brief time I had to myself: The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia. This book was published last month.


Every city contains secret places. Moscow in the tumultuous 1990s is no different, its citizens seeking safety in a world below the streets - a dark, cavernous world of magic, weeping trees, and albino jackdaws, where exiled pagan deities and faery-tale creatures whisper strange tales to those who would listen.
Galina is a young woman caught, like her contemporaries, in the seeming lawlessness of the new Russia. In the midst of this chaos, her sister Maria turns into a jackdaw and flies away - prompting Galina to join Yakov, a policeman investigating a rash of recent disappearances. Their search will take them to the underground realm of hidden truths and archetypes, to find themselves caught between reality and myth, past and present, honor and betrayal . . . the secret history of Moscow.

Ekaterina Sedia, among other things, edited Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy, which won a World Fantasy Award for Anthology in 2009.

This anthology of 21 original fantasy stories explores humanity’s most dynamic and forceful creation—the city. Featuring tales from fantasy heavyweights such as Hal Duncan, Catherynne M. Valente, Jay Lake, and Barth Anderson, the collection whisks readers from dizzying rooftop perches down to the underpasses, gutters, and the sinister secrets therein. Mutilated warrior women, dead boys, mechanical dogs, and escape artists are just some of the wonders and horrors explored in this bizarre assembly of works from voices new and old.





Unbelievably I did not get to read much this weekend. I did start Marc Del Franco's Connor Grey series. The first book is Unshapely Things.

In the alleys of the decrepit Boston neighborhood known as the Weird, fairy prostitutes are turning up dead. The crime scenes show signs of residual magic, but the Guild, which polices the fey, has more "important" crimes to investigate and dumps the case on human law enforcement. Boston police call in Connor Grey, a druid and former hotshot Guild investigator-whose magical abilities were crippled after a run-in with a radical environmentalist elf. As Connor battles red tape and his own shortcomings, he realizes that the murders are not random, but part of an ancient magical ritual. And if Connor can't figure out the killer's M.O., the culmination of the spell might just bring about a worldwide cataclysm.


Connor Grey Series:
Unshapely Things (January 2007)
Unquiet Dreams (January 2008)
Unfallen Dead (January 2009)
Unperfect Souls (January 2010)

Also by Marc Del Franco -

Laura Blackstone Series:
Skin Deep (July 2009)
Face Off (July 2010)


Qwill's Qwestion: What are you reading?