Ken Newquist's Blog at Lafayette College
I read a tremendous amount of Stephen King as a kid and teenager, but I stopped keeping up with him when he finished the Dark Tower series. I do occasionally venture back to that old well, the most recent time being 2013 when I read Doctor Sleep, the follow-up to his classic ghost story novel … Read more
The Fuller Memorandum continues the ongoing saga of Bob Howard, IT professional, British civil servant … and defender of Earth against arcane invasions. In the third entry in The Laundry Files, Bob’s boss has gone missing … and that probably doesn’t bode well for the planet. I haven’t gotten very far in the book, but so far … Read more
I’m finally reading Jim Butcher’s urban fantasy novel Storm Front, Book 1 of the The Dresden Files series. My friends have been raving about it for years, but urban fantasy isn’t one of the genres I typically read. I decided to branch out, and Butcher’s book seemed a good place to start.
A Night Without Stars is the latest novel in Peter F. Hamilton’s Commonwealth series of space opera / science fantasy novels. You’ll be excused if that’s not readily apparent, as the novel is far removed in both time and space from the Commonwealth as depicted in the series’ inaugural novel, Pandora’s Star. The book picks up where its immediate … Read more
Acceptance is the third and final novel in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy. The trilogy is reminiscent of a novelized version of the TV show LOST, complete with a strange land called “Area X” that’s fallen out of time and a covert agency that’s been setup to study it. Unlike LOST, all of the people who venture into the “anomaly” are volunteers; … Read more
I’ve compiled my summer reading list for 2016. As is normal for me, it’s dominated by space opera and military science fiction, but peppered with some steampunk and superhero fiction. It weighs in at 14 books and 6 graphic novels. That’s one fewer than last year, but that gives me gives me some wiggle room to … Read more
My slow voyage throughPatrick O’Brian’sAubrey/Maturin epic series nears its end with The Hundred Days, his 19th novel . The books are set in the late 1700s and early 1800s against the backdrop of a series of European wars. The protagonists are Jack Aubrey, an captain in the British navy, and Stephen Maturin, Jack’s long-time friend, sailing companion … Read more
I got this book in Kindle format for Christmas 2015 and then promptly forgot about it. Since then I’ve read a number of books, so many that I was getting dangerously close to having to buy another one (or at least, check it out of the library). And then I remembered … my old friend … Read more
Sun of Suns takes place in an immense habitable Dyson sphere (or something like a Dyson sphere) inclosing the star Virga. A freefall civilization — complete with barrel-like towns spun to produce gravity — has spread throughout the enclosed habitat. The book tells the story of Hayden Griffin, a young man seeking revenge against the … Read more