[drjd]

Originally Posted by drjd

I finished Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke yesterday. The first one third of the novel reminded me with the most similar situations and descriptions as in The Unearthing by Steve Karmazenuk, which I have read in February. However, the story turned more interestingly later on, and I particularly liked the mental indecisiveness of Commander Norton and his companion Lieutenant Rodrigo, while taking a crucial decision to deactivate the bomb launched to destroy Rama, by the Hermians of Mercury. The end of the novel was fascinating, with the sentence - 'The Ramans do everything in threes.'

Next I was planning to go for The Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson, which is this month's selection in MR book club also, but due to budget constraints, I may not buy it now. So next up from my TBR - good old Erle Stanley Gardner with his cozy mystery You Can Die Laughing.

Finished You Can Die Laughing. Detective Donald Lam clashes with a lying client, with whom he has a written contract to locate a certain woman.

Spoiler:

When Donald notifies the client that he has located her, the client drives all the way from Los Angeles to Banning, California, in record time, hoping to speak to the woman. When the client shows up, Donald rips a blanket off the nude, dead, and hideously bloated form of the woman - murdered by her husband and secreted in a dry well. After the client has finished vomiting, Donald tells the man to "come in tomorrow and settle up on your contract". The client ends up paying in full.

Next up : The Time Machine by HG Wells. A re-read after around 35 years.

PS: Can anyone please suggest me a publisher where I could buy the Doug Selby - The DA series by Erle Stanley Gardner, 9 books' set, at a reasonable price?