THE BONEHUNTERS by Steven Erikson is the sixth huge novel in his fantasy series Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen. I thought this one was a big improvement over the bloated fifth book. The action begins right after the end of the events of the fourth book, House of Chains, and we are back in the lands of the Malazan Empire. The Malaz Fourteenth Army is in pursuit of the last remnants of the rebel forces in the desert subcontinent called the Seven Cities. Karsa Orlong, coolest badass in the history of fantasy, has not only discovered that he has a good mind and heart - but he also discovers a personal need to become a champion for the underdog. The dread Chained God has been granted a place in the Pantheon, and the gods are deciding to choose their sides in the upcoming war - and pity all of the poor mortals who might get in the way! And the Malaz and Lethari empires are beginning to clash along the edges of their spheres of control.
FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER: A DAUGHTER OF CAMBODIA REMEMBERS by Loung Ung is the memoir of a woman who was once a victim of the Killing Fields of Cambodia. She was the five year old daughter of a well-off family of a high government official when the Khmer Rouge took over the country. The family did their best to hide in the countryside as peasants, but eventually the truth of the father came out and the members of the large family begin to die one by one. It is amazing that this little girl managed to survive though horror, violence, and starvation - but she did, and came to America as a refugee - still a child in years, but anything but a child in experience. She has become a voice for the victims of genocide, and a leader in the movement against land mines. The brutality she experienced is horrifyingly painful to read about - but the fact that she has survived and has turned her passion into a burning need to help others also is a sign of hope for the human race.
HARROWING THE DRAGON by Patricia A. McKillip is an excellent short story collection by a fantasy Grand Master. Some of the stories are serious, some humorous - none are quite what you would expect. All are elegantly told and rich with meaning. I especially enjoyed A Troll and Two Roses, A Matter of Music, and The Fellowship of the Dragon.
POEMS, PROTEST, AND A DREAM by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz is a collection of writings from one of Mexico's first great poets and playwrights, who lived way back in the 1600's. Hers are some of the first feminist writings to come from the Western European tradition, as she passionately defends her right to study, learn, teach, and write when attacked by upperlings in the Church. Of particular interest was a short play where she compares the indigenous Aztec religion with Catholicism.
THE KITE RUNNER by Khaled Hosseini is a very powerful novel set in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and America. Amir is the son of a rich merchant of Kabul, born in the last days of the kingdom, a time of relative peace. He lives with his father, and his father's lifelong servant, Ali, and that servant's son, Hassan - born not long after Amir, and his milk brother, as both boys lost their mothers and shared a wet nurse. The novel centers around the relationships between Amir and his father and between Amir and Hassan. The themes of the book are dealing with violence and tragedy, survivor's guilt and being too hard on yourself - and in facing down your demons of memories and guilt and insecurity and fear. In becoming good again and making restitution for crimes and sins and errors of the past. Parts of the book are very painful - but the story ends with a huge note of hope that things can change, that things can become better - that you can, in fact, become good again.
ROMA ETERNA by Robert Silverberg is a science fiction/fantasy novel set on an Earth where Rome never fell. A set of short stories that tell of key moments of the history of this Rome or tell of the lives of individual Romans, or gives a taste of what it was like living there. The stories begin at about the year AD 450 (our time) and end with the beginning of the space age (about AD 1970 our time) and deal with such topics as the discovery of the New World, the competition between the Western and Eastern Empires, and how Rome dealt with a certain very powerful and charismatic religious leader in Mecca...right on up to the first manned space flight.
THE GRAND SOPHY by Georgette Heyer is a Regency romance and one of the funnest and most charming books I have ever read. Sophy is bright, vibrant, and charming - and she knows what is best for others and goes about getting that best for them in very unorthodox ways. When she is sent to live with the stuffy family of her aunt in England by her diplomat father when he is posted to Brazil, she cheerfully turns their lives upside down and they do not know what hit them. Absolutelyadorable story!
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