epiphany_maria (epiphany_maria) wrote,
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Book Reviews: Horrors Beyond 2, part 2 + To Die For + Memory

Horrors Beyond 2: Stories of Strange Creations edited by William Jones, part 2

The Bigger They Are...

A tale of time travel. This was just bad.

The Margins
A cop learns of the 4th dimension. This was ugh.

Wormwood
Scientists travel to the Chernobyl Exclusionary Zone and find that something is moving. This was very good.

Best Line:
“Something crawled out. Something that was hungry.”

When The Ship Came
An alien ship lands near small town with an unexpected demand. This was bad.

The Manuscript In The Drawer
A short funny tale about the Necronomicon.

Spheres of Influence
A man gets paranoid. This was bad.

A Monster In The Lake
A monster moves into the duck pond. This was bad.

The Clockmaster’s Daughter
One weird family. Terrible.

Magic Fingers
New technology eats your soul. This was bad.

A Family Affair
This was cyberpunk rubbish.

The Mortification of the Flesh
A long lost colony is found, unfortunately. This was mediocre.

Predicting Perdition
What lies beneath the town reservoir? This was okay.

When The Stars Fell
An alien attack reveals an unexpected truth. This was ugh.

~
To Die For by Joyce Maynard

This novel (first published in 1992) centres on Suzanne Maretto, an ambitious small town girl who wants to be a TV reporter. She is the perfect daughter, an adored wife and an all round golden girl. Or is she just an immoral fame junkie?

Something terrible has happened and various people give their account of a tragedy that reveal many different facets to Suzanne Maretto. This is a very good read that was made into a film in 1995.

Best Line:
“As for Suzanne Maretto in her cheap suit and her push-up bra - not that I remember, understand, but I can guess - she was strictly a beginner.”

~
Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold

This 1996 ‘Miles Vorkosigan’ book marks the point where the series radically changed. For years (and many previous books), Miles led a double life as a black ops mercenary. But on a previous mission (as told in ‘Mirror Dance’) he died and was brought back through painful medical treatment.

His death and resurrection left him with side effects and his arrogance causes him to lie about them. The lie detonates his life and changes everything about the ‘Miles Vorkosigan’ saga. This was very good as years (and many books) worth of Miles lying and unpleasant personality traits come back to bite him, hard. This was very good and thankfully the tired Dendarii Mercenaries were written out.

Best Lines:
“God save me...from another such victory.”

“He has these historically well-founded genetic paranoias about - well - paranoia.”
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