Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Now for The Good, The Bad and the Undead by Kim Harrison. The second in her Rachel Morgan/The Hollows series.

I liked the first one, but I'm not sure her world building is coherent enough for me. We'll see how this one goes.

I quite enjoyed it, myself - and don't forget, the series concludes in September. Over the course of the series, I've found the world to grow in intriguing ways, both personally for the characters and metaphysically as a whole. Lots of surprises are coming your way...

Aside from the novels and the short story collection, there are three other works to be aware of. Two graphic novels take place before the books, when Rachel and Ivy first start working together. Neat stuff, but it's all backstory. Then there's The Hollows Insider, which is sort of a cross between an encyclopedia and a "found documents" story. Again, it's nifty supplemental stuff, but not essential.

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by Gazella

Currently reading The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie. The first "Miss Marple" mystery. Excellent so far.

Just finished reading this and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The story is masterfully woven. I’ve read a couple of "Poirot" mysteries and some of Christie’s standalone novels but this is my first “Miss Marple” mystery. Miss Marple is a wonderful character and while reading I was always waiting ethusiastically for her to appear throughout the story because she was sort of in the background, I assumed she’d be the main protagonist and the narrator of the story but that wasn’t true, she was a vital character nevertheless. I’ve read that her character changes in the other books so I’m interested to see how. As expected, the ending was a real shocker. I have nothing else to say except that … Christie is brilliant!

[ericws]

Currently reading The Unbounded Series, bool three, The Escape.

I like it.

[CRussel]

[QUOTE=CRussel;2826295]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Next up, the sequel to Grand Central Arena, Spheres of Influence, by Ryk E. Spoor.

It finally picked up, and I finished it. Overall, maybe a 4. Just.
[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

But I thought it was an excellent second volume in the new Grand Central Arena series, naturally without the grand reveal of the first book, but very much a 5/5 for me - whooshed through it.

I'm definitely glad. It could well have been where I was at as I read it. And it certainly picked up. Or, just a different taste. IAC, I'll certainly be interested in the next one.

Originally Posted by CRussel

Now, I think, time for some of Miss Silver. Lonesome Road, #3 in the series by Patricia Wentworth, whose works are public domain here in Canada. This, and almost all the rest of the Miss Silver books, are available in excellent editions from Faded Page. Some have made their way over to PG Canada, but that process seems uneven for reasons that aren't clear to me.

This may well be the least cozy of all the Miss Silver books. A very compelling story, but quite terrifyingly not cozy! Enjoyed this re-read, even knowing what was coming. I'll be inserting another Miss Silver into the mix soon, but I'm waiting a bit, hoping that #4 comes out of the proofreading queue at DPC. But failing that, I may just break down and buy it, since the Kindle edition is only $6.15. Wonder what Kobo has it for....

Originally Posted by CRussel

BTW, #20 in the Phryne Fisher Series, Murder and Mendelssohn written by Kerry Greenwood is still not available in either the US or Canada as an eBook, so I finally gave up and bought it from Audible. It is read by Stephanie Daniel, and very well read indeed. This is the last of the Phryne books that Ms. Greenwood has written so far, and I really can't stand the thought that I'm going to have to wait some indefinite time to get a new one. They are such little gems. Witty and wonderful.

The reviews of this particular one have been somewhat mixed, but I honestly can't understand the complainers. It has very much the same feel as earlier ones, is just as well written, and they've never been PG. All in all, it's still very much Phryne.

Well, I certainly enjoyed it. Not, perhaps, the best of the Phryne series, but still very enjoyable. I'm going to do a quick re-read of the first in the series at some point this month, but not immediately. Right now I've got Time's Echo, a novella by Rysa Walker that is my Amazon Prime Lending Library book for the month. Also on tap is Never Cry Wolf, by Farley Mowat. I read this years and years ago, but wanted to do a re-read now.

[Gazella]

Harry, I assume you've read all of the "Miss Marple" books and can give me an answer. I want to skip The Thirteen Problems which is the second book and move to The Body in the Library (book #3). I'm guessing since The Thirteen Problems is a collection of short stories, there won't be any references or repeated characters of the stories in the full novels? I want to leave the short stories last and read the novels first. What do you say?

[HarryT]

Why do you want to skip it? It's an excellent book.

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Why do you want to skip it? It's an excellent book.

I like to get to know the characters and see how they develop. I feel like novels have more details than short stories and the plot progresses in a gradual way. Short stories have generally very few characters and almost all of the short stories I've read felt rushed and ended in an abrupt way. I don't know, Christie's short stories might be different.

[HarryT]

This isn't a typical book of short stories. It's set within a connecting framework which gives it a novel-like continuity.

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This isn't a typical book of short stories. It's set within a connecting framework which gives it a novel-like continuity.

Thank you for letting me know. I've already started reading The Body in the Library before your reply. I just couldn't wait any longer

I'm now very absorbed in the story so I think I'll just continue reading it and then read the The Thirteen Problems when I'm finished.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This isn't a typical book of short stories. It's set within a connecting framework which gives it a novel-like continuity.

Is that added for the book publication, or were the original stories published like that?

Murder at the Vicarage is the next novel for me to read in my roughly-chronological (and very slow) Christie read-through. I'm also trying to read a short story a day, although I occasionally forget. I'm reading from the three large Complete Stories volumes rather than the canonical collections. I feel they are mostly better organised than the original collections. I've read about thirty Poirots, and all of the Tommy & Tuppence (Partners in Crime) and Mr Quin (Mysterious Mr Quin + 2 strays) so far.

The Marple stories are collected in a volume I haven't yet started with all of the non-series stories, in chronological order of first publication. I'm wondering if that's going to be missing anything compared to the Thirteen Problems book version? Unlike Miss Marple's Final Cases, they do at least seem to be in the same order.

[treadlightly]

Originally Posted by Gazella

Thank you for letting me know. I've already started reading The Body in the Library before your reply. I just couldn't wait any longer

I'm now very absorbed in the story so I think I'll just continue reading it and then read the The Thirteen Problems when I'm finished.

The Thirteen Problems was my least favourite Miss Marple book. I'm not a fan of short stories. If you skip it, it won't cause any problems with the continuity of the series.

[Hampshire Nanny]

Originally Posted by CRussel

BTW, #20 in the Phryne Fisher Series, Murder and Mendelssohn written by Kerry Greenwood is still not available in either the US or Canada as an eBook, so I finally gave up and bought it from Audible. It is read by Stephanie Daniel, and very well read indeed. This is the last of the Phryne books that Ms. Greenwood has written so far, and I really can't stand the thought that I'm going to have to wait some indefinite time to get a new one. They are such little gems. Witty and wonderful.

Scheduled for September 2014. I'm hoping that it arrives by then. I'm currently reading #17, Murder on a Midsummer Night.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Now for The Good, The Bad and the Undead by Kim Harrison. The second in her Rachel Morgan/The Hollows series.

I liked the first one, but I'm not sure her world building is coherent enough for me. We'll see how this one goes.

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

I quite enjoyed it, myself - and don't forget, the series concludes in September. Over the course of the series, I've found the world to grow in intriguing ways, both personally for the characters and metaphysically as a whole. Lots of surprises are coming your way...

Aside from the novels and the short story collection, there are three other works to be aware of. Two graphic novels take place before the books, when Rachel and Ivy first start working together. Neat stuff, but it's all backstory. Then there's The Hollows Insider, which is sort of a cross between an encyclopedia and a "found documents" story. Again, it's nifty supplemental stuff, but not essential.

I've loved this series. I'm on the waiting list at the library for the most recent book, The Undead Pool, and that catches me up until September's release of The Witch With No Name

Originally Posted by Gazella

I like to get to know the characters and see how they develop. I feel like novels have more details than short stories and the plot progresses in a gradual way. Short stories have generally very few characters and almost all of the short stories I've read felt rushed and ended in an abrupt way.

Yeah - that's my attitude, too. I enjoy short stories written in the "world" of a novel series since they're just small vignettes involving characters I've already come to like (or loathe). I'm not interested in reading stand-alone short stories.

[Hampshire Nanny]

I'm currently finishing up the last of the Pern novels. I read them a bit out of order because of availability through the library. And still listening to The Serpent's Shadow, the last book in Rick Riordan's Kane Chronicles. Just started reading Murder on a Midsummer Night, #17 in Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher mystery series.

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by Hampshire Nanny

And still listening to The Serpent's Shadow, the last book in Rick Riordan's Kane Chronicles.

Rick Riordan is one of my favorite authors. His books are very enjoyable, especially if you're into mythology. The only series I still haven't read is the Heroes of Olympus series.

[HarryT]

Just finished "Towards Zero", by Agatha Christie. This was her 42nd book, and the last in which the always likeable "Superintendent Battle" (who first appeared in "The Secret of Chimneys") appears.

The book starts out with a scene in which an old retired barrister is talking to his friends, and saying that a murder is simply the "Zero Hour" (hence the book's title) of a long sequence of events leading up to that murder, following which we have the story of the sequence of events resulting in a murder at a seaside town (and its solution by Superintendent Battle). A very good story, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

This is one example of a book which links together more than one of Christie's different detectives, in that there's one scene in the book in which Battle refers to Hercule Poirot, and says that he wishes he had his help in the case, because it's one in which he'd be of great help, with his psychological insights into the mind of the criminal.

I should perhaps add that this was one of those annoying cases where ITV had run out of "Miss Marple" books to produce TV adaptations of, and started inserting her into completely unrelated stories. Miss Marple (Geraldine McEwan) replaced Superintendent Battle in the TV adaptation of this story in 2007.