Title: Assassin's Apprentice

Author: Robin Hobb

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Publisher: Bantam Spectra

Copyright: 1995

ISBN: 055357339X

Pages: 448

Keywords: fantasy

Reading period: 30 July, 2010

The boy is abandoned at the castle gate when he's six, Prince Chivalry's bastard. Over ten years, he grows up on the sidelines, where he is ignored by most save the stable master. The king eventually finds a use for him, apprenticing the boy to his assassin.

There are few swords swung in this book. It's a character study of an outcast boy and his often strained relationships with others. It details his developing awareness of court intrigue and national politics, and the difficult choices that confront him.

Highly recommended.

Title: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Author: Alexander McCall Smith

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Publisher: Anchor Books

Copyright: 1998

ISBN: 1400077656

Pages: 235

Keywords: mystery

Reading period: 28 July, 2010

The first of the The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.

Mma Precious Ramotswe sets up a one-woman detective agency in Gaborne, the capital of her native Botswana. She is shrewd and observant and makes a go of it, despite the naysayers. The book is a collection of short episodes, loosely tied together. Her good nature helps lead her to find satisfactory resolutions for most of her clients.

Enjoyable, if frothy.

Title: His Majesty's Dragon

Author: Naomi Novik

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Publisher: Del Rey

Copyright: 2006

ISBN: 0345481283

Pages: 384

Keywords: fantasy, alternate history

Reading period: 26 July, 2010

The first in the Temeraire series.

Capt. Will Laurence of the Royal Navy captures one of Napoleon's ships. It's carrying a dragon egg, from which the dragon Temeraire promptly hatches and bonds with Laurence. Laurence must leave the Navy and become an aviator in the socially undesirable Royal Aerial Corps, where he and Temeraire will fight against Napoleon's dragons.

This is a delightful cross between the Napoleonic seafaring of the Aubrey-Maturin novels and Dragonriders of Pern, with a little bit of Hogwarts for dragons thrown in. Temeraire is a precocious and intellectually curious dragon of exceptional abilities, who charms not only the readers but most of those he meets.

I'm looking forward to reading the next few books in the series.

Title: Bulldog Drummond

Author: Sapper

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Copyright: 1920

ISBN: 1842325434

Pages: 280

Keywords: crime, pulp

Reading period: 25 July, 2010

First of the Bulldog Drummond novels.

Bored former army officer, Capt. Hugh Drummond, “late of the Royal Loamshires”, puts an advertisement in the paper looking for adventure. He gets more than he expected when a young woman puts him on the trail of a master criminal who is organizing a would-be socialist putsch.

Entertaining in a square-jawed, stiff-upper-lip sort of way.

Title: Playback

Author: Raymond Chandler

Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

Publisher: Vintage

Copyright: 1958

ISBN: 0394757661

Pages: 176

Keywords: crime

Reading period: 23–24 July, 2010

Playback is the last Philip Marlowe novel completed by Raymond Chandler. Marlowe is hired to tail a woman who arrives on a train from the East. He follows her to a small town near San Diego, where she falls under the influence of a blackmailer—and Marlowe starts to fall for her.

Not Chandler's best work—one is left feeling that both Chandler and Marlowe are old and tired and going through the motions—but enjoyable none the less.

Title: The Scent of Shadows

Author: Vicki Pettersson

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Publisher: Eos

Copyright: 2007

ISBN: 0060898917

Pages: 464

Keywords: urban fantasy

Reading period: 28 May–23 July, 2010

The plot is more than slightly ridiculous. Young woman discovers that exactly on her 25th birthday she will come into her hitherto unknown powers and join the secret superhero zodiacal troupe that protects Las Vegas from their nemeses. For her own protection, she must assume the identity of her murdered sister.

It's better than it sounds though. The heroine is appealing and copes fairly well with the traumatic upending of her life.

Title: Containment

Author: Christian Cantrell

Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

Publisher: Cantrell Media Company

Copyright: 2010

ISBN: 0984550518

Pages: 248

Keywords: science fiction

Reading period: 20–22 July, 2010

Arik is the smartest of the 100 young humans born to the only colony on Venus—a colony that needs to develop its independence from Earth. After he wakes from a three-month coma, he grows to realize that there is something very wrong going on in the colony.

The book starts off very slowly, with massive amounts of exposition that the author apparently couldn't bear to cut. Later, it develops some interesting ideas and unexpected plot twists, making it worthwhile.

Available as a free ebook from the author's website.