Daniel Suarez, "Daemon"

Daemon hovers on the edge of being science fiction, as it is so contemporary.  This is a problem to the narrative in my opinion because it makes it harder to suspend your disbelief.
First the good parts.  Daemon is a bit of a page turner.  I had not a speck trouble getting through it at all and enjoyed the read.  Suarez writes very well, and the techno geekery of the novel appealed to me.  What is wrong with the book is more difficult to explain, as I think it really comes down to what is wrong with the book in a technical sense, rather than in literary sense.  This is precisely why it being contemporary and not more SF in feel is what stops it from working for me.
Basically he posits the ability to leave programs waiting on machines to carry out instructions when they get triggered.  All to the good.  That is the daemon and it gets its name from processes that run continuously in the background on computers monitoring for events before doing something.  In the case of the Daemon of Suarez's book it is murder, at least initially.  This part is fun, and in fact plausible.  The problem with the idea is that it keeps going on and acting and disobeys one of the laws of the universe.  Which is that if you engineer something to do something, even something simple, it probably will not work.  In reality, you have to test things, tinker with things, change things to get them to work.  It requires intelligence.  Suarez has a computer program without intelligence doing things without being tested.  It just simply defies belief.

In that way this book is a thriller, even though at first glance it looks more like near future sci fi.  Thrillers always it seems have to take a step beyond plausible into the realms of the ridiculous.  And unlike SF they cannot posit something new to explain it and allow the reader to suspend their disbelief.  I would reccomend it to people who love thrillers though!

(Suggested reading by my friend Dale, who I have not seen in years, thanks Dale.)

Maya Kaathyrn Bohnhoff, "The Meri"

The Meri was first off a fun read.  I read it very quickly and found it enjoyable and though provoking.  It follows the path of a young lady who has had her family killed and been raised in a patriarchal religious community by an elderly priest.  Her simple femaleness causes her problems and she ends up going on the same prescribed voyage of religious discovery her mentor followed.  Now there a few themes in the novel that I had issues with, so do not read too much if you want to read the novel......
First, she is setup as wanting revenge for her dead family.  But she never really tries to get revenge and is basically portrayed as too good to follow that route.  I think it would have been more interesting if she were to have a taste of revenge and find it unsavory and then take the saintly path.  In a similar way to real courage is only really shown by those who have a lot to be afraid of.
Another thing that was not quite right is that in the world Maya creates, they have palpable evidence of a God, and good, and what is required of them, there is almost no need for faith, or the character to stand up to atrocities supported by a paper religion.  Which would be a fine thing to have in the real world.  But it seems to have no effect on the world or society she portrays, which is basically like our own as regards faith and respect for the church.  If you took a devout agnostic and put them in such a world,  daily miracles would possibly lead to a conversion, after all evidence is evidence, and agnosticism would likely fall before the overwhelming deluge of religious reality.  Maya's world however seemed to be much like our own, where everything is so much more murky.
Overall though I enjoyed the book, though it was maybe a little to saccharine for my taste, but the theme is such a hard one to succeed at.  I will read some more work by her before I decide to giver her a recommendation, but I will definitely give her a shot.  Another writer who did something similar, and to my mind succeeded better was Elizabeth Moon with the "Deeds of Paksenarrion" trilogy.  That was more routed in traditional fantasy however, unlike Mayas work, which is maybe a little too close to the real world?

Susanna Clarke "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell"

Following a theme of alternative history sci fi (S. M. Stirling), we have here an example of alternative history fantasy writing.  The fabulous case of Jonathan Strange, Mr Norrell, and more mysteriously John Updike, the King of the North.  In this lengthy novel Clarke weaves a rich tapestry of a haunting England, were there was once such a thing as magic, with the North ruled for 300 years by a wizard king.  It is set in the time of the Iron Duke and Napoleon and it paints a picture of England at a time when magic once more comes back into common use.
The style of the book is interesting, like a cross between reading Jane Austen and Edgar Allen Poe with an incredible amount of footnotes, sometimes there are multiple pages of one one footnote and you grow confused as to where the thread is.  The footnotes actually draw you in though, they make the historic backdrop to the story seem quite real due to their detail and wit.
At no point does Clarke attempt to explain magic, or give a reason for there being fey creatures that interfere with human existence, it is an assumption of the narrative that is so seamless that the reader loses all skepticism for the occult and just instead marvels at what is accomplished by its modern practitioners.  The story has many notable characters, not just the title characters, but perhaps the most interesting is the hidden character of the Raven King, whose existence and history is the warp and weft of the story, the real backbone.  He remains at the end wrapped in as much, if not more, mystery than in which he starts the tale.

Susanna Clarke is clearly a talented writer, and I will definitely get hold of more books that flow from her pen.  I hope though that she branches out in terms of her themes and styles, because as much as I enjoyed the novel, I was not left eagerly anticipating its sequel.  I was rather well satisfied with the literary meal and had no room for dessert.  I will though recommend this book as a great read.