Sudsy Skald Book Reviews

"Matthew, so few humans achieve their destiny before leaving this world. You have that chance."Matthew Peters had spent the last seven years creating the ultimate online comic hero. He never dreamed that he would find the true hero within himself.

What if I told you you'd be dead in a year? That a food corporation would experiment with genetic modification, and nearly destroy the human race. Would you believe me? Sounds crazy, right? Because nobody can see the future. Nobody but me. And what I see isn't pretty. A dystopian wasteland. Bodies rotting to nothing in the streets. Humans on the brink of survival. The wilderness eating away at what used to be my hometown. A shadow organization rounding up children. Bands of warring tribes. And let's not forget the modifieds - the zombie-like remains of what used to be the human race. Civilization is destroyed. There is no chance to undo the damage. No one can save the world... except me. Because for me, it hasn't even happened yet. For me, it might never happen. The only thing is, the more time I spend in the future, the less I want to erase it. Stopping the future might break me... I'd be erasing a face, a smile, that I never want to forget. This is Part One of Prescient, a dystopian time-travel based on the Oracle of Delphi.

The essential universe, from our most celebrated and beloved astrophysicist.

"For her to love me, she had to be willing to kill me. Anything else would show that her heart was untrue." The struggle against not-so-charming storybook narratives isn't the only complicating factor in Henrietta "Henry" Marchen's life. As part of the ATI Management Bureau team protecting the world from fairy tales gone awry, she's juggling her unwanted new status as a Snow White, dealing with a potentially dangerous Pied Piper, and wrangling a most troublesome wicked stepsister--along with a budding relationship with Jeff, her teammate. But when a twisted, vicious Cinderella breaks out of prison and wreaks havoc, things go from disenchanted to deadly. And once Henry realizes someone is trying to use her to destroy the world, her story becomes far from over--and this one might not have a happily ever after. Indexing: Reflections is New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire's continuing new urban fantasy, where everything you thought you knew about fairy tales gets turned on its head.

“Never underestimate the power of a good story.”

Good advice...especially when a story can kill you.

For most people, the story of their lives is just that: the accumulation of time, encounters, and actions into a cohesive whole. But for an unfortunate few, that day-to-day existence is affected—perhaps infected is a better word—by memetic incursion: where fairy tale narratives become reality, often with disastrous results.

That's where the ATI Management Bureau steps in, an organization tasked with protecting the world from fairy tales, even while most of their agents are struggling to keep their own fantastic archetypes from taking over their lives. When you're dealing with storybook narratives in the real world, it doesn't matter if you're Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, or the Wicked Queen: no one gets a happily ever after.

Indexing is New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire’s new urban fantasy where everything you thought you knew about fairy tales gets turned on its head.

From the author of The Iron Druid Chronicles, a thrilling novel that kicks off a fantasy series with an entirely new mythology—complete with shape-shifting bards, fire-wielding giants, and children who can speak to astonishing beasts. Set in a magical world of terror and wonder, this novel is a deeply felt epic of courage and war, in which the fates of these characters intertwine—and where ordinary people become heroes, and their lives become legend.

Bill is an IT manager at Parts Unlimited. It's Tuesday morning and on his drive into the office, Bill gets a call from the CEO. The company's new IT initiative, code named Phoenix Project, is critical to the future of Parts Unlimited, but the project is massively over budget and very late. The CEO wants Bill to report directly to him and fix the mess in ninety days or else Bill's entire department will be outsourced. With the help of a prospective board member and his mysterious philosophy of The Three Ways, Bill starts to see that IT work has more in common with manufacturing plant work than he ever imagined. With the clock ticking, Bill must organize work flow, streamline interdepartmental communications, and effectively serve the other business functions at Parts Unlimited. In a fast-paced and entertaining style, three luminaries of the DevOps movement deliver a story that anyone who works in IT will recognize. Readers will not only learn how to improve their own IT organizations, they'll never view IT the same way again.

"In a village at the edge of the wilderness of northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and the snow falls many months of the year, a stranger with piercing blue eyes presents a new father with a gift - a precious jewel on a delicate chain, intended for his young daughter. Uncertain of its meaning, Pytor hides the gift away and Vasya grows up a wild, willful girl, to the chagrin of her family. But when mysterious forces threaten the happiness of their village, Vasya discovers that, armed only with the necklace, she may be the only one who can keep the darkness at bay"--

With great burrito comes great responsibility. Pete's food truck at the University of New Mexico isn't going well. Seniors dare freshman to eat his burritos. Frats use them for pledges and pranks. Rumors fly around campus that they are chupacabra ground up with rat. Pete needs a change, and it comes in the form of a physics experiment gone awry. After being sucked into the past, he stumbles across an ingredient that goes great in one of his creations. First, there was Marty McFly. Then there was Bill and Ted. And now Pete-

In the #1 New York Times bestselling Mercy Thompson novels, the coyote shapeshifter has found her voice in the werewolf pack. But when Mercy's bond with the pack--and her mate--is broken, she'll learn what it truly means to be alone... Attacked and abducted in her home territory, Mercy finds herself in the clutches of the most powerful vampire in the world, taken as a weapon to use against alpha werewolf Adam and the ruler of the Tri-Cities vampires. In coyote form, Mercy escapes--only to find herself without money, without clothing, and alone in the heart of Europe... Unable to contact Adam and the rest of the pack, Mercy has allies to find and enemies to fight, and she needs to figure out which is which. Ancient powers stir, and Mercy must be her agile best to avoid causing a war between vampires and werewolves, and between werewolves and werewolves. And in the heart of the ancient city of Prague, old ghosts rise...

The secret is in the tower. The problem is the beast.The answer is two thieves. ABOUT THE BOOK When a destitute young woman hires Royce and Hadrian to help save her remote village from nocturnal attacks, they are once more drawn into the schemes of the wizard Esrahaddon. While Royce struggles to breech the secrets of an ancient elven tower, Hadrian attempts to rally the villagers to defend themselves against the unseen killer. Once more, what begins with the simple theft of a sword places the two thieves at the center of a firestorm but this time the outcome could change the future of Elan. ABOUT THE SERIES Although part of a multi-book saga, Avempartha is a stand-alone story and can be read independently of the series. Instead of a string of sequels, The Riyria Revelations is a six-book series conceived as a single epic tale divided into individual episodes. All were written before the first was released. The books are being released one every 6 months. The first The Crown Conspiracy was released October 2008.

Art is power, Music is magic, And no one is what they seem. When powerful and charismatic painter Lord Malrec brings newly-unemployed music teacher Alannys Gale to Ravanmark, it seems to be the answer to her prayers. She's had all she can stand of the power plays and politics at the middle school where she used to work. But Lord Malrec has plans for her...plans that may not be as noble as they appear. The more she sees of Ravanmark, the more it looks like she may have jumped from the frying pan into the proverbial fire--power plays and politics surround her from the first breath she draws there. And it looks like the biggest player of all...may be her. Music is magic in Ravanmark, and Alannys is a professional musician. A plot unfolds in darkness against the controlling and secretive royal family, and her newfound power may be the key to its success. From the moment she arrives, Alannys knows the nasty feeling of being a pawn in someone else's game of chess. She must begin the tricky business of choosing her side in the coming war. But how can she make a choice, when there is so much she doesn't know? And can she survive the consequences, if her choice is wrong? In a world with magic whose true power is shrouded in the mists of time, and whose people are not always what they seem, Alannys must use all of her strength and courage to harness her power and shape her own destiny as the Music Mage.

Fourth in the "flawless" (The Reading Café) New York Times bestselling series from the author of Vision in Silver. For centuries, the Others and humans have lived side by side in uneasy peace. But when humankind oversteps its bounds, the Others will have to decide how much humanity they're willing to tolerate--both within themselves and within their community... Since the Others allied themselves with the cassandra sangue, the fragile yet powerful human blood prophets who were being exploited by their own kind, the delicate dynamic between humans and Others changed. Some, like Simon Wolfgard, wolf shifter and leader of the Lakeside Courtyard, and blood prophet Meg Corbyn, see the new, closer companionship as beneficial--both personally and practically. But not everyone is convinced. A group of radical humans is seeking to usurp land through a series of violent attacks on the Others. What they don't realize is that there are older and more dangerous forces than shifters and vampires protecting the land that belongs to the Others--and those forces are willing to do whatever is necessary to protect what is theirs...

A magnificent epic tale of devotion, possession, obsession, and strange destiny from the author of the Hugo Award-winning Paladin of Souls Lois McMaster Bujold The half-mad Prince Boleso has been slain by a noblewoman he had intended to defile -- and Lord Ingrey kin Wilfcliff must transport the body to its burial place and the accused killer, the Lady Ijada, to judgment. With the death of the old Hallow King imminent and the crown in play, the road they must travel together is a dangerous one. And though he is duty-bound to deliver his prisoner to an almost certain death, Ijada may be the only one Ingrey dares trust. For a monstrous malevolence holds the haunted lord in its sway -- and a great and terrible destiny has been bestowed upon him by the gods, the damned, and the dead.