The Zoo over Ambuscade Street

I just finished reading Nekropolis, a book that's almost exactly but not quite just like The Handmaid's Tale. Distopic, but not, dealing with Woman's Issues, but not, dealing with questions of identity, but not. It's a hard sort of book to categorize. It's a very lyrical book, with one continuous narrative told in three different voices. The ending was...powerful, but quiet, if that makes any kind of sense.

I finished Angel Seeker earlier in the week, and it was every bit as wonderful as all of Sharon Shinn's books have been. She needs to write faster.

I can't decide what I want to follow up with. Choices include Kushiel's Avatar, Joust, Jennifer Government, Native Tongue, Ring of Swords, and The X-President. Among others, but all of these except for the first two are also borrowed from Stacey, and I want to get as many of them back to her when she visits Easter weekend as I can. Books I borrow from her tend, however, to make me think (like Nekropolis), which isn't necessarily bad, but can lead to moodiness. I don't seem to have too many fluffy books on my list.

Any book that has a blurb stating "If Jane Austen had collaborated with Isaac Asimov, the results might have been something like this" is OK by me. Ring of Swords it is!

Nekropolis had an annoying little blurb on it stating that it was too good to be science fiction. I'm still feeling peeved about that. The Sparrow had something similar. Why is it that if a critic likes it, it can't possibly be science fiction?