Finished 2 books that were continuing series I've already mentioned:
John Zakour's
The Sapphire Sirens, which it turns out is 7th in the "Zach Johnson, last remaining 21st century PI" series and not 6th as I'd thought, thus throwing a wrench in my hypothesis that even-numbered books spoiler the odd-numbered ones immediately preceding.
Nevertheless, it was a fun light spoof sf/mystery/action-adventure read like the rest of them, with nice character treatment of the snarky AI sidekick and the implications of his ongoing personal development over the course of the series, and a nifty misdirecting whodunnit that turns into multiple red herrings for the actual plot.
Quite liked this one and recommend it like the rest (although this adventure kind of builds on the ones before, so best to read some of the previous in series before tackling this one).
Then went and read a Fictionwise purchase,
Castle for Rent, 2nd in
John DeChancie's Castle Perilous comedic fantasy world crossover series.
A little like the 1st eponymous series book, this one involves an attempted invasion/takeover of the multi-dimensional gateway castle. But this time it's a lot more interesting, as the (mostly) Earth-ly "Guests" are left to fend on their own while Lord Incarnadine, ruler of Castle Perilous, is stranded on Earth and has to figure out which if any of his somewhat estranged relatives is trying to take over his throne.
More polished writing in this one, as I suspected there would be
after I read the 1st book, since the characters and premise are better established.
Also some fun in-jokes, with Incarnadine's income source on Earth comes from being the writer of the "Castle Ramothornax" series, published by "
Spade Publishing", now a division of "
Bishop* Books", or terms to that effect.
Medium recommend if you like light comedic fantasy/mundane world crossovers. I actually think it's a stronger starting point for the series than the original
Castle Perilous book, but you might prefer to be introduced to the characters and premise from the beginning, especially if you can pick up these books cheap during a Fictionwise coupon sale.
* Originally I thought this was supposed to be
Tor, since the tower-y thing is a chess piece. But then I wiki'ed Ace and it looks like they were bought out by Penguin, who owns Roc, which is pretty close to "Rook", which is the actual name of said tower-y chess piece.