What Else I've Been Reading

I guess it's about time for what have turned out to be semi-annual "what have I been reading" posts.

Since we last spoke, I've read a few PA novels.

First was I Am Legend. I liked it, but I thought the ending was strange. I had seen the Vincent Price movie version recently, so I kind of knew what was going to happen, but the book didn't really explain it better than the movie did. But overall it was ok.

More recently, I read through the a couple of "young adult" trilogies, both of which I really liked.

The first was the Uglies Trilogy by Scott Westerfeld. I also read the fourth related book, Extras. If you can suspend belief about the hoverboards, then the rest of the story is pretty good.

The other one was the Fire-Us Trilogy. This one was meant for slightly younger readers than Uglies, but it takes place in the very near PA-future, which is the sub-genere of PA fiction that I really love. The story is just 5 years after the Fire-Us has killed everyone older than the onset of puberty, and it's really interesting to see how children would grow up and how much they would know about the world if it ended when they were only eight or nine years old.

It even had escapes from religious whackjobs, which is enough to make any PA story great. Overall, highly recommended.

I'm currently reading Starcross
, which isn't PA, but it is by Philip Reeve, who wrote the Mortal Engines series. That one is PA, but I've only read the first one so far. I liked it, so I'll definitely get to the rest sometime.

Next on my list I think will be Darkness and Dawn by Andre Norton. I've got it on loan from the library, and mean to read it if I don't run out of time. I may start it and see if it's worth renewing.

I also picked up a copy of The Hopkins Manuscript on Ebay. I don't really know how good it's supposed to be, but it was written in 1939, and I tend to like that old style of writing. We'll see how it goes.

Doomorama - Discussing Books About The End Of The World As We Know It

Response to a Comment
Dave posted the following:
"Hey there - attempted to send ya an email on this - I've been looking for the name of a book that was read to me in my youth at school. This would have been around or before 1984 or maybe 1985. The basic premise is that everyone over a certain age has died from a plague or disease. There are only kids left. This focuses on probably one boy and 2 girls. I can't really remember all of it, but I've been looking for a while. The boy is starting to get feelings for one of the girls and the other girl gets jealous and I think comes after him or possibly the other girl with a butcher knife. :) That's about it for remembering. Maybe you've read it or have some other ideas on where to look - I've checked all of your links and have been searching other internet databases for a while.
Thanks,
Chris"

I'm wondering if he might be thinking of The Girl Who Owned a City by OT Nelson. It was written in 1975, which would fit Chris' recollection, and Wikipedia says it was often used in schools.

I hadn't ever heard of it, but it does sound interesting, so I think I'm going to track it down and give it a read.

ps If anyone has any other ideas for the book Chris is looking for, please leave a comment.