Friday, February 5, 2010

One more day... news and ... book reviews!

That's right, one day left to enter the cozy contest- go to THIS LINK to see the easy rules and win. International entrants are welcome and don't worry, even if your favorite cozy has temporarily sold out, I think we can make a new one for you :o)

For those of you who would rather knit your own heart cozy we can now accommodate - check here! (this one counts in the contest too!)

Cozy shipping for any ordered between noon Friday 2/5/10 and Sunday 2/7/10 will be shipped Monday.

Reviews! We seem to have been ignoring the geekery posts promised, so I thought I'd talk about some recent (post-holiday) reading.

1. City of Thieves by David Benioff:
This quick read takes place in World War II ravaged Leningrad (or Piter according to natives of the city), loosely in the form of a flashback. The characters are vibrant, alive, and living through the terrible hardship of a city under siege. Told through the eyes of a boy just reaching adulthood it is a gripping and suspenseful novel, full of close escapes and close not-escapes... I thought that the ending was a bit predictable but it was still an amazing tale, more so because the author really did his homework and the bleak Russian landscape comes alive.

2. The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling:
Ok, here is the real geekery. Set firmly in the Steampunk provenance, this novel combines Victorian sensibility, vast calculating engines relying on gears, dinosaurs (most notably the doomed Brontosaurus), smog, and a feeling of overwhelming foreboding. Poets are turned scientists and it is very much a London of "what if". There are several main characters, but the story arc tends to use them and then leave them for dead (quite literally in a few cases) so it is a little hard to become too invested in the story. As a piece of hard steampunk and a bit of a mind bender this book is great... for more satisfying reading I may look elsewhere.


All right- have a GREAT start to your weekend, and go enter the contest if you haven't already done so!

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