My cats so want this bookcase:

I’d really love a book case like this! It’s not only fun for the cats, but I think the 3D design makes it a bit less boring than most cases. It makes me wonder though: are there more furniture concepts designed with pets in mind? Like sofas with a cat nook in it?

Designed by Corentin Dombrecht.

Yesterday was my 4 year blog birthday! I somehow always manage to forget that, but every year I want to do something to make it a little special. Technically it’s not MissGeeky.com’s birthday, but it’s the day I started blogging (and all the posts from that original blogged were moved to MissGeeky when I started that). Plus it’s my actual birthday next week Tuesday, and my cats’ birthday on Sunday, so it’s pretty much a special birthday week for me anyway.

To celebrate this birthday week, I’ll be doing a couple of giveaways! The first is your chance to win Feed by Mira Grant. This was my favourite book from last year, so I think whoever wins this will enjoy it:

All you have to do to enter is to leave a comment behind here with your favourite book. The giveaway ends on Monday the 28th 17:00, and I’ll randomly draw a winner then. This is open to anyone, so even if you’re based in the US, Australia or wherever feel free to enter!

Thanks to all my regular readers and commenters for sticking with me for 4 years! I can’t believe I’ve been writing here for so long, and it’s been amazing. I never expected my blog to lead to so many awesome experiences. On to the next 4 years!

Ooh, a book from Amber Benson! If that name sounds familiar, chances are you’ll remember her from her role on Buffy as Tara.

I’m normally not that excited about books written by actors, but Death’s Daughter looks like it could be fun. Here’s the description from Amazon:

Calliope Reaper-Jones so just wanted a normal life: buying designer shoes on sale, dating guys from Craig’s List, web-surfing for organic dim-sum for her boss…

But when her father—who happens to be Death himself—is kidnapped, and the Devil’s Protege embarks on a hostile takeover of the family business, Death, Inc., Callie returns home to assume the CEO mantle— only to discover she must complete three nearly impossible tasks in the realm of the afterlife first.

Death’s Daughter is available on Amazon.co.uk for £5.06 and on Amazon.com for $7.99.

I loved the first part of this fantasy series! It was a great mix of romance and fantasy, and some awesome world building with its own unique mythology and gods. I’ve been waiting for the second book for some time, and now I can’t believe I manage to miss its release back in November!

Here’s the description from Amazon:

In the city of Shadow, beneath the World Tree, alleyways shimmer with magic and godlings live hidden among mortalkind. Oree Shoth, a blind artist, takes in a homeless man who glows like a living sun to her strange sight. However, this act of kindness is to engulf Oree in a nightmarish conspiracy. Someone, somehow, is murdering godlings, leaving their desecrated bodies all over the city. Oree’s peculiar guest is at the heart of it, his presence putting her in mortal danger – but is it him the killers want, or Oree? And is the earthly power of the Arameri king their ultimate goal, or have they set their sights on the Lord of Night himself?

Suffice to say, you should start with the first in the series (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms).

The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin is available on Amazon.co.uk for £5.27 and on Amazon.com for $11.19.

Isn’t this cover gorgeous?

The book is a reissue of a 1995 book, so it’s not really ‘new’ (although I don’t think it’s been in print for a long time). It’s about Niviene, the daughter of the Lady of the Lake, and retells the Arthurian legend from the perspective of the faerie folk.

Merlin’s Harp by Regina McBride is available on Amazon.co.uk for £4.99 and on Amazon.com for $7.99.

One of my favourite books this year has been Feed from Mira Grant (here’s my review). Well, the cover of the sequel has been released and it looks awesome!

I don’t want to mention anything of the plot here, cause otherwise I’m just going to spoil the first book for you. So go read the first book if you haven’t already!

I tried to do a bit of book shopping in San Francisco, but the books weren’t as cheap as I expected them to be (the UK Amazon is most of the time cheaper). I did come across a couple of books though of which I wonder whether I would have found them here in the stores.

I had to groan when I saw the title of this book, but it actually looks pretty interesting:

The NorseCODE genome project was designed to identify descendants of Odin. What it found was Kathy Castillo, a murdered MBA student brought back from the dead to serve as a valkyrie in the Norse god’s army. Given a sword and a new name, Mist’s job is to recruit soldiers for the war between the gods at the end of the world—and to kill those who refuse to fight.

Journeying across a chaotic American landscape already degenerating into violence and madness, Mist hopes to find her way to Helheim, the land of the dead, to rescue her murdered sister from death’s clutches. To do so, she’ll need the help of Hermod, a Norse god bumming around Los Angeles with troubles of his own. Together they find themselves drafted into a higher cause, trying to do what fate long ago deemed could not be done: save the world of man. For even if myths aren’t made to be broken, it can’t hurt to go down fighting…can it?

Near future, Norse gods, sounds good to me!

Norse Code by Greg Van Eekhout is available on Amazon.co.uk for £5.06.

Wow, it’s been 20 days since I last blogged here! I’ve just been so busy lately and still have tons of stuff to write up for you all. I’ve been to the Future of Web Apps, Playful 2010, BoardGameCamp and lots of other events I really need to write about! I’m going to try to get back into my blogging rhythm, but with my trip to San Francisco less than two weeks away, I think it might only be getting busier for me!

Anyhow, let’s get back to the actual topic of this post: books! I’ve just started reading The Black Prism by Brent Weeks and so far it looks awesome. It’s set in a world where magic is formed out of light; most mages can only draft magic out of 1 colour from the colour spectrum (think: rainbows) and which colour they can draft determines the type of magic they can do. It’s an interesting concept and I always love reading about worlds that are built up so differently.

Here’s the description on Amazon:

Gavin Guile is the Prism, the most powerful man in the world. He is high priest and emperor, a man whose power, wit, and charm are all that preserves a tenuous peace. But Prisms never last, and Guile knows exactly how long he has left to live: Five years to achieve five impossible goals. But when Guile discovers he has a son, born in a far kingdom after the war that put him in power, he must decide how much he’s willing to pay to protect a secret that could tear his world apart.

The only problem: it’s only out in hard cover right now and the paperback version only comes out in September next year! It’s only £8 on Amazon which isn’t too bad for a hardcover, but I still prefer reading paperback myself. Plus they take up so much less space!

I read the first part of this series two years ago, and have been waiting for the sequel ever since! The books feature an intriguing setup where magic is linked to life force. With each spell a witch does, they’re basically draining their own life force and giving up minutes, days, years of their life. Each witch must think carefully whether or not she wishes to use power and on what. Is a life worth saving if it means giving up a year of your own life?

The series is about Kamala, a young witch, who wants to join the group of sorcerers who can use unlimited magic. Nobody knows the secret to their powers, but Kamala is determined to be the first woman to join them.

If you haven’t read the first part yet (Feast of Souls), I can highly recommend it. If you have… go get the second one!

Wings of Wrath: The Magister Trilogy Book Two by Celia Friedman is available on Amazon.co.uk for £5.99 and on Amazon.com for $10.38.

In 2014, two experimental viruses—a genetically engineered flu strain designed by Dr. Alexander Kellis, intended to act as a cure for the common cold, and a cancer-killing strain of Marburg, known as “Marburg Amberlee”—escaped the lab and combined to form a single airborne pathogen that swept around the world in a matter of days. It cured cancer. It stopped a thousand cold and flu viruses in their tracks.

I’ve seen my fair share of zombie movies, but when it comes to books, I’ve never actually read any zombie-themed stories (although I’m not counting fantasy series with living dead type monsters, I mean proper zombies-in-our-universe). So I don’t have that much to compare this book to besides the movies. One thing though that almost always annoys me in zombie films is that most characters have no idea how to deal with zombies or have never even heard of them. It’s as if they’re in a world where zombie movies don’t exist. Or it’s set in a apocalyptic future where zombies are threatening to take over.

In Feed that’s quite different. It’s set 20 years after a “zombie” outbreak; this is a world where people grew up with zombie movies and have adapted to a different way of living to deal with the outbreak. The zombie virus is dormant in every living person and can get activated when it comes in contact with the live virus (aka the zombies). Besides that it also gets activated if you die. Now think about it: how would this change the world you live in?

Mira Grant takes that idea and fleshes it out. Buildings require blood tests before entering, being a doctor is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, and George, Georgina and Georgette are popular kids names (because of George Romero in case you didn’t get why). I loved discovering how this world works; Grant has created an interesting future and I wonder if there was a zombie outbreak how close to the truth this could be.

The story is about a blogger Georgia, who together with her brother Shaun and their friend Buffy, is invited to cover a senator’s presidential campaign. They slowly discover a conspiracy… Yeah, it sounds a bit cheesy, but before I knew it, I got so invested in Georgia’s story. First book in a long time that made me cry and that’s a tough thing to do.

What didn’t completely work for me was how the blogging and online world was explained. In the future every blogger fits a certain category; you have the Newsies, those who write up the news and are objective about it; the Stewarts, those who comment on the news; the Irwins, adventure/action/zombie-antagonizing bloggers; the Fictionals, those who write stories or poetry (including of course fan fiction); and finally the Aunties, recipe/mummy/lifestory bloggers. Then there was the way each blog had ratings and a spot in the uber list of rankings, as if it was more kindred to traditional broadcast media. Also: no mention of Twitter, but I’m guessing this book was written before that hit. It doesn’t diminish the reading experience, but I wished this was a little more similar to reality.

I really enjoyed Feed and I’m now really curious to what else Mira Grant has written (this is her first book as Grant, but she also writes as Seanan McGuire). Feed has a great story, which sucks you completely in. And it’s got a fascinating world to discover along the way.

Feed by Mira Grant – Available on Amazon.co.uk for £5.49 and on Amazon.com for $9.99.