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This post written by Clint Genghis: Birth of an Empire
by Conn Iggulden
[cover name=genghisbirthofanempire]
Almost a thousand years ago, the Mongol Empire stretched from Eastern Europe all the way across Asia. The Mongol army appeared to be unstoppable – they conquered China, subdued Russia, ran through Afghanistan and Iran, and were on their way through Hungary before they finally stopped. Just decades before they had this massive empire, though, they were a collection of independent tribes. The person who united the Mongols and led them in their conquest of two continents was a man known as Genghis Khan. Depending on who you ask, he was a military genius, a genocidal monster, or fantastic leader.
Before he was Genghis Khan, though, he was Temüjin, the son of a minor tribal leader. Genghis: Birth of an Empire follows Temüjin as he grows up, becomes an adult, unites the Mongol tribes, and invades China. This is fiction, not a history book. However, it is based on historical events, and if you want to learn more, there is a section in the back that talks about the history and compares it to the story.
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This post written by Clint His Majesty’s Dragon
by Naomi Novik
[cover name=hismajestysdragon]
Did you enjoy the movie Master and Commander? This book is a lot like that, but with dragons.
His Majesty’s Dragon is set in the early part of the 19th century, during the Napoleonic Wars.* Will Laurence is a captain in the British Royal Navy who captures a dragon’s egg from a French ship. When the egg hatched, the baby dragon attached itself to Laurence. He names the dragon Temeraire, after the famous ship. As far as Laurence is concerned, Temeraire has just ruined his life.
Why? Wouldn’t it be awesome to have your own dragon? Well, not exactly. The dragon becomes property of the British Empire, and since it seems to really like Laurence, he is forced to give up command of his ship and serve in the Aerial Corps. That means living out in the middle of nowhere, where the dragons have the space they need and won’t cause trouble. That probably means never getting married, since the Aerial Corps is no place for a gentleman. As far as Laurence’s wealthy family and friends are concerned, commanding a ship is fine. Commanding a dragon is so undignified.
Temeraire, as it turns out, is an unusual dragon. He isn’t one of the kinds of dragons you find in Europe. Instead, he seems to be some special breed from China. He is smarter than many other dragons – he enjoys being read to, and he questions the way dragons are treated in the military.
Laurence stands out just like Temeraire does in the Aerial Corps. As a former Royal Navy captain, he is very fond of rules and regulations and politeness. Nobody else in the Corps really cares about that stuff. They are misfits, isolated from regular society. Of course, one of the most shocking things Laurence finds is that the Corps allows women to be soldiers.
Laurence also stands out because, despite his obsession with making lower-ranking soldiers salute and call him “sir,” he takes way better care of his dragon than anyone else. Most people in the Corps like their dragons, but they treat them more like pets and horses than people. Laurence is very different – he treats Temeraire like a person, and he thinks all dragons should be treated that way.
A lot of the story is about Laurence loosening up, learning to fit in as much as honor will allow, and dealing with his family, who are not happy about his new position. We also get to see a lot about the daily life of dragons, and we get to watch Temeraire grow up. As you might guess from a book about dragons in the military, there is also some good dragon-to-dragon and dragon-to-ship combat.
If you like Master and Commander and you also enjoy fantasy, this should be the perfect book for you. Unlike Master and Commander, there aren’t many nautical terms in the book, so you don’t need to worry about what a bosun’s chair is or anything like that.
If you want to read the first chapter or so online, it’s on the author’s official website.
* This is also when the Master and Commander series takes place. It’s also when the Horatio Hornblower and the Bolitho series take place. Why? Because Will Laurence and Jack Aubrey and Horatio Hornblower and Richard Bolitho and probably a dozen more fictional captains are all based on the same person, Thomas Cochrane. If you enjoy these kinds of books, you should really read about Cochrane.
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This post written by Clint Sharp Teeth
by Toby Barlow
[cover name=sharpteeth]
Anthony Silvo has just gotten a job as a dogcatcher in East L.A. He doesn’t really want to send the dogs to the pound, but he needs the money. Then he meets a mysterious woman who gets him caught in the middle of a big supernatural mess.
Werewolves are alive and well in East L.A. Well, not exactly werewolves. More weredogs, who can shift back and forth between human and dog whenever they want. There are a number of things going on in the story. Lark, the leader of one pack, is betrayed by one of his followers. He decides to hide out in an animal shelter and is eventually adopted. When his owners are out, he organizes a new pack, but he slowly realizes that he likes the quiet life. Meanwhile, Anthony’s mysterious girlfriend is killing off certain weredogs. A couple of people from Lark’s pack end up playing in a bridge (not poker!) tournament that may have a connection to the L.A. drug trade. Finally, a detective named Peabody (probably a reference to Mister Peabody) is investigating a series of murders that relate to the weredog packs.
This is a werewolf story, so you can expect a fair amount of violence. The author also sneaks in a lot of dog-related humor, as you can see from the bridge-playing dogs and Peabody. The unusual thing is that this story is told in verse, sort of. Why? I’m not sure, but a couple of recent authors have tried it, so I guess it must be trendy. The book looks like a giant poem, but once you start reading, it’s basically a novel with very short lines.
If you want to give the book a try, you can browse it for free at the publisher’s website.
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This post written by Clint Over and Under
by Todd Tucker
[cover name=overandunder]
Tom and Andy are best friends, and they have been for as long as they can remember. In their spare time during their last summer before high school, they explore the wilderness and the system of caves near their town. Meanwhile, there is a labor strike at the Borden Casket Company, where both their fathers work. Tom’s dad is a laborer, while Andy’s dad is a manager. That shouldn’t be a problem, should it? Oh, wait. Yeah, it will be. As the strike gets worse, Tom and Andy learn that there is more to life than running around the wilderness, climbing through caves, and shooting their rifles.
You can read some of the book online at Google Books, if you want.
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This post written by Clint Mudbound
by Hillary Jordan
[cover name=mudbound]
Welcome to the Mississippi Delta in the Jim Crow South. Henry McAllan has always wanted to own a farm, but his wife Laura grew up in the city and has trouble living without electricity and running water. Hap and Florence Jackson, two black sharecroppers, live and work on the McAllan’s farm. The story is set just after the end of World War II, and soon Henry’s brother Jamie and Hap and Florence’s son Ronsel return from their service in Europe.
Jamie was a pilot and war hero, but after the war, he started drinking hard. His friend Ronsel served with General Patton and got used to being treated like a human being in Europe. Both have trouble adjusting to the more restrictive, racist Southern society. Ronsel, of course, runs into trouble when he refuses to be a second-class citizen, while Jamie angers the locals by supporting his black friend.
This is not a happy story. Racism is one of the central themes, and the Jacksons don’t have easy lives. The local doctor “only treated colored people on certain days of the week and it wasn’t always the same.” When Florence has to stay with the McAllan family, she is told that she has to “sleep out in the barn with the rest of the animals.” Mudbound is well-written, though, as long as you don’t mind the sense of doom.
You can read some of it online at Scribd.
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This post written by Clint The Good Thief
by Hannah Tinti
[cover name=thegoodthief]
Ren is an orphan living in a monastery in New England. He doesn’t remember who his parents are, what life was like before the orphanage, or why he is missing one hand. Like all the other children there, though, he hopes somebody will adopt him, but this is 19th century New England. Most people who want to adopt a boy want one they can put to work in a farm or a factory, and that means they are looking for someone with two hands.
One day a young man named Benjamin shows up who is not looking for someone with two hands. In fact, he seems to be looking for Ren. Benjamin explains that their parents are dead and that Ren lost his hand in the same incident. However, Ren soon finds out that his brother is a thief, part-time body snatcher and grave robber, and con artist. Benjamin and his fellow criminals are pleased to discover that Ren seems to be a natural born thief, but Ren just wants friends and a family, and he starts looking for them in the strangest places.
You can read some of it online at Google Books.
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This post written by Clint The Stepsister Scheme
by Jim C. Hines
[cover name=thestepsisterscheme]
You have probably seen the Disney films Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Cinderella. However, you may not know that there were stories about these three characters long before Disney, and that some of the old stories were much more disturbing. In some older Sleeping Beauty stories, the prince’s mother tries to kill and eat Sleeping Beauty. In one old Snow White story, the wicked queen is tortured to death. In an old Cinderella story, those cute Disney birds attack her step-sisters and blind them.
Jim Hines takes some of these older stories and tells you what happens after Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Cinderella had their happy endings. The story begins shortly after Snow White’s wedding, when one of her step-sisters tries to assassinate her. When that fails, she kidnaps the prince. Cinderella sets off to save him, accompanied by Snow White and a particularly kick-butt Sleeping Beauty.
If you want to read the first chapter, the author has put it up on his website.
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This post written by Clint Finding Nouf
by Zoë Ferraris
[cover name=findingnouf]
Sixteen-year-old Nouf ash-Shrawi, a member of a wealthy family in Saudia Arabia, goes missing three days before her wedding. Her brother, Othman, hires Nayir al-Sharqi to find her. Nayir usually works as a guide, leading the rich and famous through the desert, but he accepts this job. He never finds Nouf, but a week and a half later, someone else finds her body in the desert. According to the medical examiner, Nouf drowned in the desert. Nayir finds this a little suspicious, so he decides to continue his investigation. He ends up working with Othman’s fiancee, who is a lab technician in the medical examiner’s office. Nayir has a traditional view on how men and women should interact, and working with a female lab technician makes him very uncomfortable at first. As the story continues, though, Nayir’s views change, and the two work together as a team.
If you want, you can read some of this online through Google Books.
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This post written by Clint The Dragons of Babel
by Michael Swanwick
[cover name=thedragonsofbabel]
The Dragons of Babel is set in a fantasy world that includes some bits of the real world. You’ll find assault weapons, Vespa scooters, and Mohammad Ali mixed in with elves, dwarves, centaurs, and dragons. There is a war going on, with mechanical dragons fighting basilisks. One day a dragon is shot down near the village where the main character, Will le Fey, lives. Even though the dragon is badly damaged and cannot fly, it is still powerful enough to take over the village. It makes Will its servant and uses him to identify people who might cause trouble. Naturally, since Will’s job is to spy on his friends, people start to hate him, and he is eventually thrown out of the village.
Will ends up in a “refugee camp,” and from there is put on a train and taken to Babel, a sort of fantasy version of New York City. On the train he meets Nat, a con artist, and Esme, a woman who has traded all of her memories for eternal youth. Once he gets to Babel, he gets involved with a gang and becomes a hero to the poor who live in tunnels underneath the city. Eventually he meets and falls in love with Alcyone, a noblewoman. Then Nat comes up with an elaborate scheme that, in addition to making a lot of money, might help Will and Alcyone get together.
You should keep in mind that this world is not the real world and the people are not humans, so they do things that seem strange to us. For example, when Will had a good day fishing, he would smear fish on his great-great-great-grandmother’s feet to show respect. Sex is also mentioned in the story, and since the characters are not human, one or two scenes might seem a little weird. However, all of these details and many more make a really interesting, elaborate world. It’s a very different world, but it’s one that can easily pull you in.
You can read some of it online through Google Books.
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This post written by Clint Black and White
by Paul Volponi
[cover name=blackandwhite]
Marcus and Eddie, also know as Black and White, are two local high school basketball aces who will probably make it to the NBA. However, their families are both kind of poor, and the NBA seems like a long way off. They can’t get part-time jobs, since they need that time to practice, so they decided to commit armed robberies instead. Things go terribly wrong during one robbery, and Eddie accidentally shoots somebody.
The story focuses on how Marcus and Eddie deal with the situation, what happens to their friendship and their families, and how they are treated by the legal system. Despite having been friends for many years and spending a lot of time together, Marcus’s and Eddie’s lives go in two very different directions after the shooting. Black and White takes a serious look at racism in modern American society, and it manages to combine a good story with lots of issues to think about. You might want to have your friends read this, too, so you can have somebody to talk about it with.
You can read some of it online at the author’s website.
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