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

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

I finished Frederik-without-a-C Pohl's 1975 memoir The Way the Future Was [...] and it was excellent.

Yes, I really enjoyed that book too. I've just finished Jem, and I didn't like it much at all. Hopefully the next will be back to his usual high standard.

Originally Posted by DixieGal

It was a Discworld book, but it STUNK! It was "The Amazing Maurice..." Long title, but more interesting than the story.

Sorry to hear that you didn't like The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents. I liked it a lot, although his Tiffany Aching books (starting with The Wee Free Men) are certainly better.

[WT Sharpe]

I just finished reading His Robot Wife by MobileRead member Wesley Allison ("HistoryWes"). This book continues the romance between Mike Smith and Patience begun in His Robot Girlfriend. I liked the first book, but I loved this one. This time around the couple must face discrimination as a proposition is on the ballot forbidding marriage between humans and robots. While struggling with this issue that could endanger the legality of their marriage, Mike also wonders why Patience mysteriously resists upgrading to the latest operating system that the company touts as necessary to fix glitches in the older software, and why is the couple being followed by yellow company cars? Very satisfying, but I thought the ending came a bit too quick.

I hope to see a continuation of this series.

[taosaur]

I'm reading A Farewell to Arms--loves me some Hemingway, and I've hardly read any of his novels. I know I'm stating the obvious, but that bare-bones prose of his is so evocative somehow, it's frigging magic! Wizard! Burn the wiza--I mean, read his books

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Yes, I really enjoyed that book too. I've just finished Jem, and I didn't like it much at all. Hopefully the next will be back to his usual high standard.

Yeah, sometimes with the older "classics", you kind of have to be selective. Something which was a decently serviceable but nothing-really-special read back then can turn out to be unfortunately too stilted or outdated to still qualify as good nowadays.

Myself I think I'll pick Starburst (blurb says expanded from award-winning novella) or The Demon in the Skull (blurb just plain looks interesting) for my next Pohl read after I'm finished the Best of story collection.

Incidentally, the title Jem makes me picture a planet settled by 80s neon-haired soft-punk musical cartoons. Who have a toyline. This will probably not help when reading the actual story.

As for me, finished Gingerbread Cookie Murder, a set of three Xmas-themed novellas by cozy mystery writers Joanne Fluke, Laura Levine, and Leslie Meier in their respective Hannah Swenson, Jaine Austen, and Lucy Stone amateur sleuth series.

This was a gimmick cozy, with recipes accompanying each story*.

Of all the stories, I think that Fluke's worked out best, but I actually enjoyed Levine's a bit more, even though it was kind of over the top with the apparently telepathic pet cat and the eccentric parents (the kooky cast kind of reminded me of those Tamar Myers' Den of Antiquities cozies, actually). Meier's story, I'm afraid, did absolutely nothing for me; maybe it was just too smugly suburban and judgmental of people who didn't fit that mold.

I must say that I rather like the cartoony dead Santa-frosted gingerbread cookie on the cover. And I notice that two out of the three authors have mysteries which are exclusively titled with formulaic strictly applied theme titles like "The Strawberry Shortcake/Cherry Cheesecake/Key Lime Pie Murder" and "Back to School/Valentine/Father's Day Murder".

Which seems, I don't know, kind of limiting. I mean, it does give you an excuse to centre a new mystery around a new un-murdered dessert/holiday. But then you have to come up with excuses to involve said murders around said dessert/holidays.

And if your series goes on for long enough, you eventually run out of the obvious ones.

I'm kind of wondering if this kind of object/event theme naming is typical of North American series mysteries alone or if British writers come up with stuff like The Spotted Dick Murder (plot centred around the mysterious spread of venereal disease and raisin pudding), The Toad in the Hole Murder (something to do with algae blooms and disappearing pond life being an Important Clue), The Bubble and Squeak Murder (I'm envisioning an infestation of mice, or maybe plague rats and buboes as the means), and The Cornish Pasty Murder (this one must happen in a strip joint with almost-topless waitresses that also doubles as a pub).

Anyway, very, very mild recommend for the recipes if you like this kind of thing. Although I must say that I'm rather pleased that Levine calls the winter holiday season "Chrismahannakwanzaa", much like I do.

* Fluke's story had the most, and I think the pacing suffered from having a recipe after nearly each chapter, which broke up the narrative flow.

On the plus side, her recipes read the best, with helpful chatty in-character tips on how to make them: e.g. don't turn the mixer on HIGH when adding the cocoa unless you want cocoa all over your kitchen don't ask me how I know this.

[Iridal]

I just started reading The Last Four Things by Paul Hoffman. It's the sequel to The Left Hand of God, which was so good I finished it in a day. So I was really looking forward to this new book. I'm about 50 pages in, and I have to say I'm a little disappointed. Hopefully it's going to get better ...

[GraceKrispy]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I just finished reading His Robot Wife by MobileRead member Wesley Allison ("HistoryWes"). This book continues the romance between Mike Smith and Patience begun in His Robot Girlfriend. I liked the first book, but I loved this one.

It's good to hear your thoughts. I also liked the first book, but I'm glad to hear the next is even better!

Originally Posted by ATDrake

As for me, finished Gingerbread Cookie Murder, a set of three Xmas-themed novellas by cozy mystery writers Joanne Fluke, Laura Levine, and Leslie Meier in their respective Hannah Swenson, Jaine Austen, and Lucy Stone amateur sleuth series.


I must say that I rather like the cartoony dead Santa-frosted gingerbread cookie on the cover. And I notice that two out of the three authors have mysteries which are exclusively titled with formulaic strictly applied theme titles like "The Strawberry Shortcake/Cherry Cheesecake/Key Lime Pie Murder" and "Back to School/Valentine/Father's Day Murder".

Which seems, I don't know, kind of limiting. I mean, it does give you an excuse to centre a new mystery around a new un-murdered dessert/holiday. But then you have to come up with excuses to involve said murders around said dessert/holidays.

I have a thing for these types of books... they read like "brain candy." I do wonder how they can keep these themed series up indefinitely, and some titles do end up getting somewhat lame. They always remind me of "Murder, She Wrote." That Jessica Fletcher had way more relatives to visit than I could possibly imagine, and (conveniently) someone was always dying every time she went to visit someone. Now, for myself, I'd be crossing her OFF my Christmas party list by the time the 5th or 6th murder came along.

I especially like the ones with recipes. I don't follow recipes, as a rule (I think I've followed a few in my lifetime, but mostly I get bored or don't have what I need... I tend to use recipes merely as "inspiration"), but I love to read the comments that Fluke writes after the recipes like "Buster likes this one frozen, but I prefer to put breadcrumbs up my nose before swallowing a piece whole."

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by GraceKrispy

That Jessica Fletcher had way more relatives to visit than I could possibly imagine, and (conveniently) someone was always dying every time she went to visit someone. Now, for myself, I'd be crossing her OFF my Christmas party list by the time the 5th or 6th murder came along.

And just imagine there were 12 seasons of the thing and 4 or 5 tele movies.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I just finished reading His Robot Wife by MobileRead member Wesley Allison ("HistoryWes"). This book continues the romance between Mike Smith and Patience begun in His Robot Girlfriend. I liked the first book, but I loved this one.

Thanks for this post. I had heard the second in the series was not as good as the first, and was not going to bother. On the strength of your recommendation, I'll give it a go.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer.

Well, that was a fun quick read. Bella does seem to be a magnet for supernatural happenings. And there seem to be some hints that their mutual attraction has an uncanny origin, which would make the story make more sense.

Next: Analog SF, July/August 2011, the latest issue.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by GraceKrispy

Now, for myself, I'd be crossing her OFF my Christmas party list by the time the 5th or 6th murder came along.

I think someone once crunched the numbers for the tv series Midsomer Murders and found out that the place had a murder rate which should have depopulated it within a few seasons had there not been a continual influx of new victims every episode.

I'm frankly amazed that more amateur sleuths aren't openly shunned by the people who live in their area ("Every year, another dead body", as a character in the Amelia Peabody books keeps saying), though within the boundaries of mystery conventions, no doubt the shunners would end up as convenient corpses for the amateur sleuth to trip over and solve.

Originally Posted by GraceKrispy

I especially like the ones with recipes.

I have this terrible fondness for supplementary gimmick books. I'm a sucker for sf/fantasy which comes with fake language/culture guides in the back, and I kind of like those mystery/literary fiction books which have the recipes and the how-to-handicraft instructions and the occasional crossword puzzle* included as an extra, even if the novels otherwise aren't all that great.

Anyway, read the steampunk romance novella Photographs & Phantoms by Cindy Spencer Pape, which is a promo freebie from Carina Press, in order to determine if the tie-in novel was worth getting at 99 cents (currently on sale, along with several other unrelated 1st-in-series books) to support a DRM-free publisher offering a dirt-cheap discount in a genre I don't particularly care for.

The answer is "maybe".

It started off promisingly enough with the protagonists being put together to solve an ostensible series of mysterious deaths, and the world-building is very mildly interesting (a little too derivative Victoriana with magic and machinery additions, but I don't expect great imagination for a supergenre for which the setting is just an excuse to play out the genre conventions).

But the whodunnit was kind of obvious and contrived†, which made the story fall mildly flat if one is not overwhelmingly interested in the sexyfuntimes part of the story.

The setting is still mildly interesting and the sample for the series novel starts off with another murder mystery which looks like it'll have some attention paid to it, although I'll probably know exactly whodunnit well in advance of the official reveal if it follows the same cliché this-person-MUST-be-the-villain-just-LOOK-at-their-villainous-villainy trope.

* Apparently there is an entire series of gimmick cozies with just this bonus in each and every one; I've wondered if they've scattered Important Clues amidst the crossword ones.

† I've never particularly cared for the apparently moderately common romance trope that if there happens to be

Spoiler:

some character who is or imagines themselves to be a romantic rival for one of the protagonists

then they must automatically be

Spoiler:

the revealed-to-be-thoroughly-nasty culprit who's responsible for all manner of wickedness in retrospect and naturally resort to drastic and horrific last-minute emergency measures in order to thwart the course of Twu Wuv which naturally prevails in the end

because it's evil, EEVILLL, I tell you to even dare to present any vague possible obstacles whatsoever the Destined Couple and their Destined Coupling.

[pilotbob]

I just finished Catching Fire so I have to finish it up... so I will start Mockingjay today. I would recommend this trilogy... quite enjoyable thus far.

BOb

[orlok]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I just finished Catching Fire so I have to finish it up... so I will start Mockingjay today. I would recommend this trilogy... quite enjoyable thus far.

BOb

Just finished Mockingjay today. A fun series, I agree. So what next...?

[Aladyleyna]

I've finished the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and I must say, I was in for rather a shock, because it was very different from the Johnny Depp movie I watched a few years back. It definitely had a more negative ending, and the personalities of the characters were just as different. And I must say, from the description of Ichabod Crane, he certainly seemed a lot less attractive.

Am now reading George R R Martin's Game of Thrones, and I wish I had picked it up earlier. It is really very, very good, and I love the people and places described. American Tolkien indeed (and easier to understand too)! Though for some reason, I've been having an affinity to the more unpopular characters, especially Sansa and Catelyn Stark, as opposed to the characters like Jon, Arya, or even Ned.

And Ned blowing the horn of Gondor still remains as one of my favourite mental images. The subsequent arrows... Not so much.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by orlok

Just finished Mockingjay today. A fun series, I agree. So what next...?

For me, I have The God's Themselves queued up. It's the first available ebook I could find of join Hugo/Nebula winners.

BOb

[BearMountainBooks]

Juuuust finished the first in the Mrs. Pollifax series: The American answer to Miss Marple/Amelia Peabody!!! What a WONDERFUL read. I'm probably the last in the universe to read it; loved it! I'd categorize it as a cozy-thriller. It's too dangerous/vivid to be strictly cozy, but it's so heartwarming, it HAS to be!!!