Thu. Nov 21st, 2024

Top Ten Tuesday – Bookish Worlds I’d Never Want to Live In

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme by That Artsy Reader Girl.This feature gives a weekly Top Ten list. We all love lists, right?
This week’s theme is: So, this week was supposed to be “Books I Decided to DNF (did not finish) too Quickly”, but quite frankly, I find that hard to tell without finishing, and ultimately, any book I DNF’d, I had a reason for. So, I am going with the topic from last couple weeks instead: Bookish Worlds I’d Never Want to Live In

Beyond Redemption – Magic is based on insanity, so the more unstable and crazy a person is, the more powerful they are. Yikes!
Top Ten Tuesday – Bookish Worlds I’d Never Want to Live InBeyond Redemption (Manifest Delusions, #1) by Michael R. Fletcher
Also by this author: Beyond Redemption
Published by Harper Voyager on June 16, 2015
Pages: 512

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Faith shapes the landscape, defines the laws of physics, and makes a mockery of truth. Common knowledge isn't an axiom, it's a force of nature. What the masses believe is. But insanity is a weapon, conviction a shield. Delusions give birth to foul new gods.

Violent and dark, the world is filled with the Geisteskranken—men and women whose delusions manifest, twisting reality. High Priest Konig seeks to create order from chaos. He defines the beliefs of his followers, leading their faith to one end: a young boy, Morgen, must Ascend to become a god. A god they can control.

But there are many who would see this would-be-god in their thrall, including the High Priest’s own Doppels, and a Slaver no one can resist. Three reprobates—The Greatest Swordsman in the World, a murderous Kleptic, and possibly the only sane man left—have their own nefarious plans for the young god.

As these forces converge on the boy, there’s one more obstacle: time is running out. When one's delusions become more powerful, they become harder to control. The fate of the Geisteskranken is to inevitably find oneself in the Afterdeath.

The question, then, is: Who will rule there?


Bite – A post apocalyptic world so harsh their are roving gangs of cannibals. Uhhh…. Nope!!
Top Ten Tuesday – Bookish Worlds I’d Never Want to Live InBite by K.S. Merbeth
Also by this author: Bite, Raid
Published by Orbit on July 26, 2016
Pages: 376

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Welcome to the Wasteland, a post-apocalyptic world where lawlessness reigns, and around every bend is another pack of bloodthirsty raiders.
Kid is trying to survive in a world gone mad.
Hungry, thirsty and alone in a desert wasteland, she's picked up on the side of the road by Wolf, Dolly, Tank and Pretty Boy - outlaws with big reputations and even bigger guns.

But as they journey across the wild together, Kid learns that her newfound crew may not be the heroes she was hoping for. And in a world that's lost its humanity, everyone has a bit of monster within them...

For more from K. S. Merbeth, check out:Raid
The Wastelanders (Omnibus edition)


Demon Cycle – The thought of demons just materializing around you is pretty scary. No thanks!
Top Ten Tuesday – Bookish Worlds I’d Never Want to Live InThe Warded Man (Demon Cycle, #1) by Peter V. Brett
Also by this author: The Daylight War, The Skull Throne
Published by Random House on March 10, 2009
Pages: 416

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As darkness falls after sunset, the corelings rise—demons who possess supernatural powers and burn with a consuming hatred of humanity. For hundreds of years the demons have terrorized the night, slowly culling the human herd that shelters behind magical wards—symbols of power whose origins are lost in myth and whose protection is terrifyingly fragile. It was not always this way. Once, men and women battled the corelings on equal terms, but those days are gone. Night by night the demons grow stronger, while human numbers dwindle under their relentless assault. Now, with hope for the future fading, three young survivors of vicious demon attacks will dare the impossible, stepping beyond the crumbling safety of the wards to risk everything in a desperate quest to regain the secrets of the past. Together, they will stand against the night.


The Fireman – A plague that makes people spontaneously combust. Sounds horrifying.
Top Ten Tuesday – Bookish Worlds I’d Never Want to Live InThe Fireman by Joe Hill
Also by this author: Welcome to Lovecraft, Heart-Shaped Box
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks on January 3, 2017
Pages: 768

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From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of NOS4A2 and Heart-Shaped Box comes a chilling novel about a worldwide pandemic of spontaneous combustion that threatens to reduce civilization to ashes and a band of improbable heroes who battle to save it, led by one powerful and enigmatic man known as the Fireman.

The fireman is coming. Stay cool.

No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.

Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child.

Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.

In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke.


Red Rising – The cast system is very repressive and the lower casts are treated as slaves to support the higher.  And honestly, there are some major downsides to being in the higher cast as well. As much as I love Darrow, I can’t say I’m interested in living in his world.
Top Ten Tuesday – Bookish Worlds I’d Never Want to Live InRed Rising (Red Rising, #1) by Pierce Brown
Also by this author: Red Rising, Golden Son
Published by Del Rey (Random House) on January 28, 2014
Pages: 382

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"I live for the dream that my children will be born free," she says. "That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them."

"I live for you," I say sadly.

Eo kisses my cheek. "Then you must live for more."

Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations.

Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children.

But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.

Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity's overlords struggle for power. He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society's ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies... even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.


The Great Library – They BURN books! The Great Library controls knowledge by controlling access to books instead of being a resource that would allow people to search all available resources.Need I have more reason than that??
Top Ten Tuesday – Bookish Worlds I’d Never Want to Live InInk and Bone (The Great Library, #1) by Rachel Caine
Also by this author: Ink and Bone, Paper and Fire
Published by NAL on July 7, 2015
Pages: 355

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In an exhilarating new series, New York Times bestselling author Rachel Caine rewrites history, creating a dangerous world where the Great Library of Alexandria has survived the test of time…

Ruthless and supremely powerful, the Great Library is now a presence in every major city, governing the flow of knowledge to the masses. Alchemy allows the Library to deliver the content of the greatest works of history instantly—but the personal ownership of books is expressly forbidden.

Jess Brightwell believes in the value of the Library, but the majority of his knowledge comes from illegal books obtained by his family, who are involved in the thriving black market. Jess has been sent to be his family’s spy, but his loyalties are tested in the final months of his training to enter the Library’s service.

When his friend inadvertently commits heresy by creating a device that could change the world, Jess discovers that those who control the Great Library believe that knowledge is more valuable than any human life—and soon both heretics and books will burn…


The Water Knife – The rich have easy access to water, but the poor, not so much. A world where something so critical to life is denied based on economic station is no where I want to live
Top Ten Tuesday – Bookish Worlds I’d Never Want to Live InThe Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
Also by this author: The Water Knife
Published by Knopf on May 26, 2015
Pages: 371

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In the American Southwest, Nevada, Arizona, and California skirmish for dwindling shares of the Colorado River. Into the fray steps Angel Velasquez, leg-breaker, assassin, and spy. A Las Vegas water knife, Angel "cuts" water for his boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her luxurious developments can bloom in the desert, so the rich can stay wet while the poor get dust. When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in drought-ravaged Phoenix, it seems California is making a play to monopolize the life-giving flow of the river, and Angel is sent to investigate. There, he encounters Lucy Monroe, a drought-hardened journalist, and Maria Villarosa, a young refugee who survives by her wits in a city that despises everything she represents. For Angel, Lucy, and Maria, time is running out and their only hope for survival rests in each other’s hands. But when water is more valuable than gold, alliances shift like sand, and the only thing for certain is that someone will have to bleed if anyone hopes to drink. 


Neverwhere – I think the London Below is just a bit too weird and creepy for me. I’d rather not accidentally find myself there
Top Ten Tuesday – Bookish Worlds I’d Never Want to Live InNeverwhere (London Below, #1) by Neil Gaiman
Also by this author: InterWorld, Fortunately, the Milk . . .
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks on September 2, 2003
Pages: 370

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Under the streets of London there's a place most people could never even dream of. A city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, knights in armour and pale girls in black velvet. This is the city of the people who have fallen between the cracks.

Richard Mayhew, a young businessman, is going to find out more than enough about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his workday existence and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and utterly bizarre. And a strange destiny awaits him down here, beneath his native city: Neverwhere.


White Trash Zombie – I think this is just representative of not wanting to live in a world where a portion of the population sees me (and particularly, my brains) as a food source. That said, if I did have to hang with a zombie, I think I’d have to pick the lead character from these books as I love her sarcastic sense of humor
Top Ten Tuesday – Bookish Worlds I’d Never Want to Live InMy Life as a White Trash Zombie (White Trash Zombie, #1) by Diana Rowland, Daniel Dos Santos
Also by this author: My Life as a White Trash Zombie, Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues
Published by DAW on July 5, 2011
Pages: 320

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Angel Crawford is a loser.

Living with her alcoholic deadbeat dad in the swamps of southern Louisiana, she's a high school dropout with a pill habit and a criminal record who's been fired from more crap jobs than she can count. Now on probation for a felony, it seems that Angel will never pull herself out of the downward spiral her life has taken.

That is, until the day she wakes up in the ER after overdosing on painkillers. Angel remembers being in an horrible car crash, but she doesn't have a mark on her. To add to the weirdness, she receives an anonymous letter telling her there's a job waiting for her at the parish morgue—and that it's an offer she doesn't dare refuse.

Before she knows it she's dealing with a huge crush on a certain hunky deputy and a brand new addiction: an overpowering craving for brains. Plus, her morgue is filling up with the victims of a serial killer who decapitates his prey—just when she's hungriest!

Angel's going to have to grow up fast if she wants to keep this job and stay in one piece. Because if she doesn't, she's dead meat.

Literally.

 


So, what about you? What world would you never want to wake to find yourself in?


7 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday – Bookish Worlds I’d Never Want to Live In”
  1. I really need to read a couple of these – Beyond Redemption for example which I’ve had a copy of for ages.
    Lynn 😀

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