Wool, by Hugh Howey

Rating: 5/5
56 pages
2011
Publisher: Broad Reach
Source: Amazon.com

Description: They live beneath the earth in a prison of their own making. There is a view of the outside world, a spoiled and rotten world, their forefathers left behind. But this view fades over time, ruined by the toxic airs that kill any who brave them.

So they leave it to the criminals, those who break the rules, and who are sent to cleaning. Why do they do it, these people condemned to death? Sheriff Holston has always wondered. Now he is about to find out. (from Goodreads)

Trapped Under the Sea, by Neil Swidey

Rating: 5/5
407 pages
2014
Publisher: Crown
Source: LibraryThing Early Reviewers

My copy is an uncorrected proof.

Description: In the 1990s, Boston built a sophisticated waste treatment plant on Deer Island that was poised to show the country how to rebound from environmental ruin. The state had been dumping barely treated sewage into the waterfor so long that Boston had had America's filthiest harbor, with a layer of "black mayonnaise" coating the sea floor. Fisheries collapsed, wildlife fled, and locals referred to floating tampon applicators as "beach whistles." But before the dumping could stop, a team of divers had to make a perilous journey to the end of a 10-mile-tunnel, devoid of light and air, to complete the construction. Five went in, but not all of them came out. (from the backcover)

Discount Armageddon, by Seanan McGuire

Rating: 5/5
344 pages
2012
Publisher: Daw
Source: Present

Description: The Price family has spent generations studying the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity - and to protect humanity from them. Enter Verity Price. Despite being trained from birth as a cryptozoologist, she'd rather dance a tango than tangle with a demon, and is spending a year in Manhattan while she pursues her career in professional ballroom dance. 
Sounds pretty simple, right? It would be, if it weren't for the talking mice, the telepathic mathematicians, the asbestos supermodels, and the trained monster-hunter sent by the Price family's old enemies, the Covenant of St. George.
To complicate matters further, local cryptids are disappearing, strange lizard-men are appearing in the sewers, and someone's spreading rumors about a dragon sleeping underneath the city.... (from the back cover)

Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

Rating: 5/5
372 pages
2011
Publisher: Broadway Books
Source: B&N.com

Description: In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines--puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.

But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win--and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape. (From the back cover)

Goblin Quest, by Jim C. Hines

Rating: 5/5

184 pages

2006

Publisher: Daw

Source: Amazon.com

Description: Jig is a scrawny little nearsighted goblin-a runt even among his puny species. Captured by a party of adventurers searching for a magical artifact, and forced to guide them, Jig encounters every peril ever faced on a fantasy quest. (From Goodreads)

Let the Right One In, by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Rating: 5/5
472 pages
2004
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Source: My collection

Description: Twelve-year-old Oskar is obsessed by the murder that's taken place in his neighborhood. Then he meets the new girl from next door. She's a bit weird, though. And she only comes out at night... (from the back cover)

Those Who Hunt the Night, by Barbara Hambly

Rating: 5/5
Publisher: Del Rey
340 pages
1988
Source: Borrowed from family

Description: The vampires had been living in London since the time of Elizabeth I, but now they were being ruthlessly murdered by someone who ripped their coffins open for the light of day to burn them to ashes. 

No vampire could endure the daylight to destroy the murderer. They had to turn to a mortal human for aid.

Thus it was that Professor James Asher, one-time spy, returned home to find his young wife in a strange coma and Simon Ysidro, oldest of the London vampires, waiting for him. Ysidro, although polite, left no doubt of his power to locate his spell on the young woman, wherever she might flee. Asher must agree to find the destroyer of the vampires for them.

But if he found the killer, what must happen to them? What would inevitably be the fate of any mortal human who learned the identities and locations of the vampires? The answer was all too obvious. 

Whether he succeeded or failed, it seemed that Professor James Asher was doomed! (From the back cover.)

Bunnicula, by Deborah and James Howe

Rating: 5/5
Publisher: Listening Library
About 1.5 CDs
Narrated by Victor Garber
1979
Source: Library book

Cover note: Not the cover of the audio collection I'm listening to. This one matches my old copy of Bunnicula.

Description: Beware the Hare. Is he or isn't he a vampire? Before it's too late, Harold the dog and Chester the cat must find out the truth about the newest pet in the Monroe household--a suspicious looking bunny with unusual habits . . . and fangs. (From the back of the audiobook.)

Review: This book is, still, a cute, fun read.

Allegedly written by Howard the dog, we get to watch Chester's frantic attempts to warn the Munroe family of the danger that lurks in the form of their new pet and, when that doesn't work, his various attempts to slay the vampire in their midst, from his rather bewildered perspective.

Needless to say, its pretty clear that the vampire is not actually dangerous, unless you're a vegetable, and everything ends happily.

I loved this book as a kid, and it doesn't seem to have any references that would make it seem dated to a modern audience.

Use of Weapons, by Iain M. Banks

Rating: 5/5
Publisher: Orbit
486 pages
1990
Source: Amazon.com

Description: The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks, or military action.

The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought.

The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a burnt-out case. But not even its machine intelligence could see the horrors in his past.  (From the back cover)

The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco, by Marilyn Chase

Rating: 5/5
Publisher: Random House
276 pages
2003
Source: Library Book

Description: “San Francisco in 1900 was a Gold Rush boomtown settling into a gaudy middle age. . . . It had a pompous new skyline with skyscrapers nearly twenty stories tall, grand hotels, and Victorian mansions on Nob Hill. . . . The wharf bristled with masts and smokestacks from as many as a thousand sailing ships and steamers arriving each year. . . . But the harbor would not be safe for long. Across the Pacific came an unexpected import, bubonic plague. Sailing from China and Hawaii into the unbridged arms of the Golden Gate, it arrived aboard vessels bearing rich cargoes, hopeful immigrants, and infected vermin. The rats slipped out of their shadowy holds, scuttled down the rigging, and alighted on the wharf. Uphill they scurried, insinuating themselves into the heart of the city.” (From the hardcover edition)