84. Song of the Lioness 2: In The Hand Of The Goddess, by Tamora Pierce.

Alanna has survived her years as a page, and is training as a squire, deception still intact. This book covers her years as a squire, her first war, and her ongoing struggles with some very prominent smiling noblemen.

After sorting my bookshelves and being thoroughly distracted by the first book of this series, I decided it had been enough years since I read them to make a reread worth my while. I chewed through this one in a similarly abrupt fashion, reacquaintancing myself with familiar characters and old friends. Much like the first book in the series, it's written for young adults and uses simple language and plot themes to get the ideas across. Lots of nostalgic value, but also a decent read, particularly if you're after something  reasonably easy to follow.

83. Song of the Lioness 1: Alanna: The First Adventure, by Tamora Pierce.

Alanna is determined to become a knight. Only problem is, she's female, and that's just not done. Due to some lax parenting and a mischievous twin brother, she is able to swindle her way into training, masquerading as 'Alan', and pretending to be male. Training to be a page is hard enough for most, but it's even harder when the gods are taking a special interest in your case. This book covers Alanna's training as a page, and the adventures she has therein.

This was one of my favourite books as a child. It's got a strong heroine, it's fantasy based, the characters are set out simply and concisely, but with depth and meaning hidden behind every sentence. The story's interesting and the pace is fast enough to prevent boredom. Even on the umpteenth re-read, I was able to sit down and finish this book in one session of reading, and I'd gladly do the same again.

82. The Fire Raiser, by Maurice Gee.

When fires start being lit in the small town, everyone is busy trying to figure out who is behind them. Some lucky schoolkids happen to be in the right places at the right times, and are able to put together the pieces to point out the culprit. But he's not going to give up without a fight.

This is very much a children's book, and the writing reflects this. I found it a bit dull and far too convenient in places, but I imagine it would suit a younger audience more thoroughly. It was written quite well, but there are more than a few plots that are starteed in various places and never finished, which makes me wonder why he bothered to include them at all, since several of them don't actually contribute much, and leave more questions unanswered than they actually help. Maurice Gee is an author I've heard good things about, but on the basis of this book alone, I would find it hard to gather much enthusiasm for his work.

81. Doctor Who Quick Reads: The Sontaran Games, by Jacqueline Rayner.

The Tenth Doctor is between adventures when he lands in an elite sports academy. As usual, he stumbles across a nefarious plot, hidden aliens, and some humans for him to bring out the best in.

As previously mentioned, a good friend introduced me to Dr Who and I quickly became enamoured with the series. So when I saw this book at a library sale (for 50c!) I automatically picked it up. First thing I noticed was that when they say "quick read" they really aren't kidding - I think it took me twenty-five minutes from cover to cover. It reads rather a lot like fanfiction to me, but the Tenth Doctor is very much in character, which made me happy. Decent story, but really rather too short for it to be explored in enough detail to satisfy.

80. The Redemption Of Althalus, by David and Leigh Eddings

The Redemption of Althalus follows the key character of Althalus on a number of brief adventures before he is hired to steal the Book from the House at the End of the World. Upon his arrival there, he is greeted by a talking cat, and concludes that he has gone mad, or died without noticing. Emmy disabuses him of this notion after a while, and he returns to the world to seek out those who may help him and Emmy in their quest to preserve the universe and current version of history.

I'm quite a fan of this book. I like most of the characters, and I think it has some interesting ideas put forth in the text. One of the characters appeals to me rather a lot, and those who know me well may be able to pick them out based on a few obvious physical characteristics. I enjoy the story because it plays around with some neat mechanics and keeps your attention through almost all of the book. I do find that one of the last sections gets a bit tedious, but that could just be me being finicky. Overall definitely worth a read for any classic fantasy fans.

79. Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

(I am aware that this is a comic rather than a book, but I'm counting it nevertheless because it was equivalent time-wise. And look! The cover even refers to it as a novel.)

Watchmen depicts the adventures of a few masked vigilantes towards the end of their socially acceptable reign of power. Nuclear war draws ever closer, both pushed forward and impeded by the presence of Dr Manhattan, a true super hero. Society is very unstable, and there are some out there that want to take advantage of that to tip the future into the channel they prefer.

Several of my friends are comic fans, but I've never really gotten that involved with them before. I really enjoyed reading Watchmen, not only because the story was chaotic enough to be interesting while still being straightforward enough to understand, but because I enjoyed the medium as well. Comics are much more visual than books, and it's quite fun to read a story mostly through dialogue and images. I had a bit of trouble reading this at first due to computer display issues, but once I had located a paperback copy at my local library, I was able to dive right in to the story. Definitely worth a look.

78. Watchers, by Dean Koontz.

Travis is hiking when he stumbles across an unusual golden retriever. The dog seems far too intelligent, and ensures that he leaves the mountains immediately - but not before he catches a glimpse of something unusual that seems to be making the dog very uneasy. After adopting him, Travis sets about figuring out where the dog came from, and what the creature in the mountains was.

This book was fairly decent. Nothing particularly special, but a decent read that left me guessing at rather a few points. I found it fairly amusing that Dean Koontz read into things enough to know about certain dog diseases, but not to know that chocolate is fairly toxic for dogs. I thought a few of the ideas in this book were sort of beaten into the ground by the end of it (mostly because all the good characters are pristinely amazing and all the bad characters are hideous monsters), but it was a suitable way to while away some lunchtime hours.