My Amazon Cart – A List.

I think I’m going to make Thursday’s a day of lists – as such, this is a list of things I recently purchased at Amazon (they arrived on tuesday), and oh my gosh could this have been longer…

Kilkenny by Louis L’amour -
He came to the valley of the whispering wind a man who rode with the caution born of riding long on strange trails in a land untamed and restless with danger. Kilkenny could find no peace in the valley, for he came with a reputation for a lighting draw. Eager gunmen arose like coyotes to test him. One trigger happy victim was a Tetlow. Old man Tetlow was a hard man driven by greed to build a cattle empire. Now he would use every ruthless killer he could hire to fulfill an even more powerful urge--to destroy Kilkenny.

I realized the other day that I have never read a western. This is an odd thing to realize when you consider the fact that my memories of my father, from my childhood, always include him holding a Louis L’amour novel in his hands. So I added that to my mental list of things to talk about/ask on father’s day. He suggested Kilkenny (which I always want to spell with a double “L”).

Finders Keepers by Linnea Sinclair  -
Independent trader Trilby Elliot is making some not-quite-legal modifications to her starfreighter, when an unexpected visitor falls out of space. Literally. He’s crashed onto the uninhabited planet of Avanar in a crippled ’Sko fighter–the last place you’d expect to find a Zafharin military officer because the ’Sko and the Zafharin have been at war as long as Trilby can remember.


Rhis Vanur is your typically arrogant Zafharin. But to Trilby’s surprise, he doesn’t look down on her or her slapdash ship. Still, Trilby’s learned the hard way that even though she found Rhis, she can’t keep him. She’s just a low-budget jump jockey as far as men like him are concerned. She’s not falling for his offer to help…until Port Rumor reports her best friend missing and Trilby learns that the ’Sko are hunting both her and Rhis. Now they’re in it together for better, for worse–or till death blasts them to oblivion....

I’ve heard good things about this author. Good enough to buy the book. I found it odd that Amazon coupled this with the second Halo book “The Flood” which I will not be purchasing now, or prospectively ever. I’m twitching for more sci-fi in my reading list since I have a while to wait for Children of Scarabaeus.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card  -
Aliens have attacked Earth twice and almost destroyed the human species. To make sure humans win the next encounter, the world government has taken to breeding military geniuses -- and then training them in the arts of war... The early training, not surprisingly, takes the form of 'games'... Ender Wiggin is a genius among geniuses; he wins all the games... He is smart enough to know that time is running out. But is he smart enough to save the planet?

My friend Morgan has ranted on about this novel enough to incite my purchase of it. I can only hope it lives up to his hardy recommendation. I can’t remember him steering me wrong before but we don’t often discuss books.

White Cat By Holly black -
Cassel comes from a family of curse workers -- people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn't got the magic touch, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail -- he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.



Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.

I’ve heard things about this cat and it makes me curious… I couldn’t stop myself from keeping this in the cart.

Outland Staring Sean Connery -
In the distant future, a police marshal stationed at a remote mining colony on the Jupiter moon of Io uncovers a drug-smuggling conspiracy, and gets no help from the populace when he later finds himself marked for murder. (imdb)
Sean connery… space western… need I say more?