Quote:
Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks
Saw on another forum that Lilian Jackson Braun (of the Cat Who series) died. She was 97.
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That's sad for her devoted readers. But she did live for nearly a century (and two decades past what the normal US life expectancy, I believe) and had a good long career that produced a lot of nice books. I think I've read a couple of her short stories in mystery anthologies (if they're the ones with the sleuth Siamese) and they were pleasantly enjoyable even if not really my kind of thing.
As for me, in between term tests, so not leisure-reading as much as before, but did manage to finish two recent-ish Fictionwise MultiFormat purchases:
Conspiracy of Silence: A Joe Scintilla Mystery by
S.T. Joshi, who's probably better known as a guy who edits and writes commentary on classic horror stories by Lovecraft et al.
This was a consciously retro-30s noir detective thriller with the beautiful dame hiring the hard-boiled PI to find out who really dunnit. I kind of liked it, enough that I'm willing to pick up the other available e-book (and apparently there's a more recent third tale in paperback) when FW next has a good sale coupon.
Mild recommend, since I don't know enough noir to really judge if this is a good book compared to the rest of the field, or merely a passable one. But it did seem to have all the essential elements played out in a coherent way, and was an entertaining enough read, even if not particularly outstanding.
Moonlight by
Susan Dexter, an apparently YA fantasy about a slightly inept wizard's apprentice who has stumbles into some minor adventure where he has to use his skills and wits and discovers that maybe he's not so bad off as he thinks.
I rather liked this one, which reminded me a bit of
Lawrence Watt-Evans's earlier books in his Ethshar series, with the young misfit going off on adventure and finding their niche. The writing on this one tends to skew younger, I think, because of the protagonist's age, but I have some of the other books in this series which were bought in paper from the library sale after I got this one from FW and they seem to be written for a regular adult audience.
Mild recommend as a promising start to what looks like a charming traditional fantasy-with-wizards-and-peasants series.