One of the books that accompanied me on holidays was Sherwood Smith's fantasy novel Inda. It was a good choice - nice and solid to outlast those periods of boredom at airports etc - but also bad as I was increasingly reluctant to put it down and, you know, go and see the things I went away to see.

The story starts with 10-year-old* Inda being called away from his home - an estate he expects to defend when he is an adult for his older brother - to the Royal Academy to be trained with other second sons. This part reminded me slightly of Ender's game because of the military training, and the need for younger children to outwit older ones, but it wasn't as freaky as Ender. Over the course of 6 (?) years the subsequent plot involves lots of political intrigue, ships and pirates. Yay! I was quite cranky at the end as I didn't have the next book to hand to read - sorry in advance to other fans who can now tell me how long THEY had to wait :)

I was very impressed by the characters in the book, especially the ones who started off as baddies but ended up being complicated and mixed. The social set-up was lovely and complex and evolved in a way that made it feel real. I had been warned that it might be difficult to follow the character names in Inda due to a wide array of titles, nicknames etc but perhaps the warning actually made me pay attention because I didn't think it was too bad. However, as in real life I do tend to be a bit casual about names (I think I tend to go with context) so here is a list Sherwood Smith has put up at her website for more organised readers than me.

All up, a great book for when you feel like a nice fat fantasy!

Tags: books, fantasy, smith

I started writing this on the 31st, OK? Surely that counts for something (even if I didn't get around to finishing it yet!). Anyway, here is my belated goodbye to 2007's books. I haven't linked to my discussion of each one but just use the author tags on the side of my LJ if you want to see what I originally thought.

As with last year, these are fairly random categories and any book I read in 2007 is eligible regardless of publication date.

( The books )

Overall, it was a good year. I seem to have blogged less than usual about books which makes remembering them difficult. The preponderance of recently read books is what makes me worried about the validity of my awards! I might start a reading list this year as I've only read one so far.

ETA: I forgot one of the books that as I read it made me think this is one of the best books I will read all year. *facepalm* Privilege of the sword by Ellen Kushner. It was such a great combination of swashbuckling and romance!

Most belated ETA of all time: I forgot to add Geraldine McCaughrean's The white darkness even after being reminded by philia_fan. It took the Printz prize to shove me along - congrats to a fantastic book!

Tags: books, brande, dessen, fisher, green, johnson, knox, kushner, mccaughrean, perkins, smith, tan, wells

Because I have not posted about books for so long it is kind of daunting thinking about which one to write about. And what to write. I strongly suspect I have old entries on the computer I could post (luckily the hard drive came along with me so there was no need to tidy it up) but for now I thought I’d start writing brief descriptions of some of the reading highlights of the last couple of months. Apologies for the lack of insight and thought here; I hope my enjoyment of the books is still clear!

( A countess below stairs/The secret countess )

( Crown Duel )

Tags: books, fantasy, ibbotson, romance, smith