The Booker Award

I found out recently I was a recipient of The {Booker} Award.  Granted, it came from my fiancee, but it also served as a reminder that I haven't devoted any time to my blog of late.  As such, I both thank Sonnia for the award, and I take this opportunity to write something of note.

Upon receipt of this award, one is supposed to blog about five of their favorite books or authors and give the award to five bloggers that I follow or read.  These rules seem a bit too chain-letter-like for me, so I'm going to do a variant on the above.  For bloggers that I follow, I would suggest readers of my blog check out who I've been following - there's some good stuff there :-)  And as for authors, I'm going to list out the ones that I've been reading most of late.

I've been largely concentrating on supernatural fiction books over the past few years.  I've been borrowing books from the local library, since their online request system makes it easy to get the books I want delivered to my local library for pickup, and based on volume I'd otherwise be spending a LOT of money on reading about vampires, werecreatures, witches, wizards, etc.  In some ways it's kind of a throwback to how I used to haunt the SciFi/Fantasy section at my local library as a kid growing up.  No, I didn't just go there in summer for the free A/C.

Anyways, here's the list of supernatural fiction book authors and series' that I've been reading and enjoying:

Charlaine Harris - The Sookie Stackhouse books - here's where I started, largely because I wanted to read the books that formed the basis for the True Blood series on HBO.

Laurell K. Hamilton - The Anita Blake series and the Merry Gentry series - Got here after the Sookie Stackhouse books.  Lots of sex mixed in with the stories and supernatural critters, but then, that's part of the intrigue isn't it?

Patricia Briggs - Mercy Thompson series and Alpha & Omega series - Mostly shapeshifter oriented, interesting dynamic between the main character being a walker rather than the more commonly written werewolf.

Kelley Armstrong - Women of Otherworld series - Nice mixture of stories set in the same world but with different books written from the perspective of different characters in it (werewolf, witch, etc.)

Carrie Vaughn - Kitty Norville series - Here the main character is a werewolf out in the open who conducts a regular radio talk show.  Brilliant premise.

Ilona Andrews - Kate Daniels series - These books have a multifaceted cast of characters but tend to be a bit darker than other authors in this list.

MaryJanice Davidson - Undead series - So as a stereotypical guy I have zero knowledge of shoes or fashion which are obsessions of the main character.  However, the writing is so entertaining and downright comedic at times (in a good way) that I became a quick fan.

Rachel Caine - Morganville Vampire series and Weather Warden series - Plot twists abound in both series, with the former having various Orwellian undertones regarding human/vampire interactions and the latter being just out there in an interesting way.

Jim Butcher - Dresden Files series - Gotta love the hardboiled detective style of series mixed in with supernaturals and magic.

If you have any suggestions for other authors similar to the ones I've listed, please let me know in a comment.  In the meanwhile, happy reading!