The Romanov Prophecy by Steve Berry

A friend of mine recommended The Romanov Prophecy by Steve Berry.  I borrowed it from the library and finished reading it yesterday.

If you liked Angels and Demons and The Da Vince Code by Dan Brown, you should enjoy The Romanov Prophecy.  In fact, I think I liked it even better than Brown’s books.  There were fewer main characters to follow, and it was less bizarre and gory.

Waiting with Bated Breath

I can hardly wait for the following books to come out:

• Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol (Sept. 15)
• Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory, The Phoenix Transformed (Sept. 15)
• Todd McCaffrey, Dragongirl (at publisher)

I’ve requested the first two from the library.  I’m number 566 for The Lost Symbol but number 5 for The Phoenix Transformed.

New Addition to Recommended Reading List

I’ve added Ellyssa Kroski’s Web 2.0 for Librarians and Information Professionals to my Recommended Reading list.  Even though it’s written for librarians, it’s a good introduction to web 2.0.  She has chapters on the following:

• web 2.0
• blogs
• RSS and newsreaders
• wikis
• social bookmarking
• photo sharing
• social cataloging
• video sharing
• personalized start pages
• social networking software
• vertical search engines
• social news
• answers technology
• virtual worlds
• productivity tools
• podcasting
• mashups

I do have a couple of objections to her classifications:  (1) She included Second Life in a book on “web 2.0.”  To access Second Life, you have to download their software; it cannot be accessed on the web (i.e., by using a browser).  Therefore, in my mind, it doesn’t belong in this book.  (2) She included Ning in a chapter on “Mashups” when it clearly fits under social networks.

Recommended Reading

I’ve been trying to relax some the last week before the big push to get all my grading done after finals next week.  I discovered that Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory had written a new book set in the same world as The Obsidian Trilogy, which I’ve read and enjoyed.  The new book is The Phoenix Unchained, which is the first book of The Enduring Flame.  I actually liked the new book better than the first trilogy because it isn’t as dark or gory, which the scenes with the demons in the earlier books were.  I’d recommend The Phoenix Unchained to any fantasy reader, even one who hasn’t read The Obsidian Trilogy.