Sunday, June 26, 2011

Hardcovers are for Home

I spent my weekend catching up on hardcovers, since I hate dragging them around on public transportation. All three books were series installments, and two of the three were actually the final volumes of their series.

First up was 'The Demon's Surrender' by Sarah Rees Brennan. It was the third and final volume in her YA Demon's Lexicon trilogy and I thought it was a fine conclusion to the series, though I didn't agree with some of her choices in romantic pairings. This is one of those rare series where, although the ending works and doesn't need anything more to make the story complete, I'd really like to go back and see how this world develops after the events of this final book. And, really, I'd like to see how some of the couples she threw together are weathering their relationships.

'Plague' is the fourth volume in Michael Grant's Gone series of post-apocalyptic YA novels and this story is far from over. In fact, with each volume, the world gets darker and more complicated and I'm pretty well convinced that there's no way this can end well. Too much awful stuff has happened and, unless Mr. Grant writes a complete bullshit ending, these kids are not going to go back to a world of happy fun times. In this volume alone, several of the kids caught a flu that caused them to literally cough up parts of their internal organs and several others were eaten alive by nearly-unkillable giant bugs. How do you make that okay? How do you not end up with a town full of kids in serious need of high-grade pharmeceuticals? It's just not possible, unless you write an ending that disrespects your readers. (If this all ends up being a dream, or the timeline is reset and no one remembers what happened, I am probably not the only one who is going to be righteously angry.)

And, finally, 'Naamah's Blessing' is the third and final volume in Jacqueline Carey's Naamah trilogy, which is, in itself, an extension of the world she created in her Kushiel novels. It was a pretty damned good ending to this particular trilogy, though I could have personally done without the river of killer ants. I like the way that a lot of elements that were introduced in the first novel of the trilogy were paid off here at the end. It's always satisfying to read a series where there was apparently some serious thought given to the ending even from the beginning. I'm always sad to finish one of Ms. Carey's trilogies set in this particular world because they always really do feel like endings. Thankfully, she's always returned to give readers more stories in this setting, and enough seeds were planted here for future stories. Then again, this could be the last we read of this world, which would, in my opinion, be a shame.

I'll most likely be back to reading September galleys for a while now, since the stack is ginormous. But, it was good to take a break and catch up on some series that I love.

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