[tag]Taken Liberty[/tag] is a free audiobook that I listened to (mostly) at work this summer. The summary from the above-linked website: The Confederated Worlds are unparalleled as a society of free people, yet, somehow, slavery still manages to exist. Aer’La, a non-human, was bred to serve as a pleasure slave. Years ago, she escaped her masters and masqueraded as a human, joining the Confederate Navy, where she worked her way up to ship’s Bos’n under the heroic Captain Jan Atal. Now, Aer’La’s secret has been discovered by Atal’s superiors, the media, and the world at large. Branded a sociopath, she learns that even a free society isn’t willing to grant…

Last September, I reviewed [tag]Wen Spencer[/tag]’s Tinker, a fantasy novel. This summer I picked up WO’s copy of [tag]Alien Taste[/tag], Spencer’s second novel. She’s grown a decent amount as a writer, in my opinion. Gone is the awkwardly-inserted sex and the overpowered main character. [tag]Ukiah Oregon[/tag], the main character in [tag]Tinker[/tag], does a good job of having limitations and not having sudden personality changes. This book is really a lot of fun if you’re looking for some light reading. It’s not a book that induces a lot of finger-biting over what’s going to happen next, but the characters are fun and do evoke sympathetic reactions. Spencer has evidently turned this…

And by “owned”, I mean held my attention obsessively for a few weeks as I read, back to back, the books of the [tag]Dark Tower[/tag] series. I loved the first four. I liked the last three, although I felt their flaws increasingly as the series progressed. The ending… the ending in the epilogue rather floored me. It wasn’t original, and may have even been clichéd, but it was… fitting, I think. Or fitting enough. I felt that King had gone through all the trouble of changing Roland through his friendships, only to make the series selfish again at the end with Susannah’s departure and Oy’s death. I was disappointed. I…