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

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Loosheesh

On a side-note, do you plan to read The Monogram Murders? I want to, but I'm thinking I should read more (or all) of the Poirot books before I do, just to be in a better position to judge whether Sophie Hannah did a good job. What do you think?

I hadn't come across it until now. Certainly looks interesting.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by alansplace

Wow! What an exciting and highly enjoyable ending that was to Kim Harrison's The Hollows series!

Agreed. And now, back to the Star Trek: Myriad Universes books - four short novels down, five to go.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next: First Action by G. Harry Stine. From one of my most recent books to one I bought 10 years ago. My oldest unread purchase, from 24 September 2004!

And going to remain uncompleted. It's a near-future SF novel involving the USA navy moving to large submarines as aircraft carriers to avoid attack by orbital kinetic weapons.

We have one of these carriers going to an ex-Indonesian Island for a 'Force Projection', i.e. intimidate the locals because, although it's not got into the media yet, 100 US citizens visiting the island (including children and young couples (well, one of young couples)) have gone missing over the past six months!

Ok, no way that would happen. If two US citizens disappeared on Island while on holiday it'd be big news, let alone 100 in multiple incidents!

And then we have the serious discussions as to whether the disappearances are because of slavery or cannibalism.

And a brief discussion of any possible food shortages on the Island, which there are none, and an in-passing mention that the majority muslim population have no dietary restrictions because they're muslim! In among a discussion involving pigs!

Justly abandoned. I'll pick my next one on the way home.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by alansplace

Wow! What an exciting and highly enjoyable ending that was to Kim Harrison's The Hollows series! Now back to Aric Davis' Tunnel Vision!

Tunnel Vision turned out to be an exciting, interesting and entertaining reading experience!

Next up The Murder on the Links (Hercule Poirot #2) by Agatha Christie.

[ATDrake]

So, I finished some more Agatha Christie, including The Big Four, but I'll do a separate post on that later since I needed some time to let it percolate through the little gray cells exactly in what ways I thought it not only failed as a mystery/thriller in general, but as a Poirot in particular. I think I have it now, but I might as well get the easier write-ups on the next few Poirots I read (in part to help determine if it was just my prior expectations, or was TBF really and truly incongruent with the overall feel of the series as well) out of the way first.

Anyway, read The Mystery of the Blue Train, Peril at End House, and Lord Edgware Dies in short succession after The Big Four.

Of the lot, the best was Peril at End House, which had a very clever setup in which Poirot (with the assistance of Hastings) is called upon to try and protect a young lady who's been having mysterious attempts on her life from the anticipated next.

This had a rather good walkthrough of Poirot's techniques, as he draws up the lists of the suspects and their various possible means, motive, and/or opportunity and tries to reason out who's got the conjunction of such which would make them the best candidate, only to have to keep revising it as he re-examines the evidence.

While the most probable motive is pretty much spelt out in the story, the actual whodunnit was both surprising and ingenious (though I did manage to guess a piece of the puzzle, involving one of Christie's frequent mistaken identity tricks).

I also own this in the GN adaptation done by Didier Quella-Guyot with art by Thierry Jollet, and overall it's a decent but bland interpretation, which omits a few of the most helpful hints (I suppose technically not crucial to solving the case for the Gentle Reader if they're very attentive/suspicious of the other stuff, but they do make the solution seem more obvious in retrospect than the few remaining ones). The art is not outstanding, but nice enough, and the pacing is overall good, but it does cram the revelations of the last portions of the book into the few final pages (ah, 48-page album limit), and makes a minor change to the fate of the culprit.

Recommended in the novel version. A very unexpected use of Poirot, with an excellent setup and surprising outcome.

The Mystery of the Blue Train is another one that I also own in GN, but is not one of the better novels, IMHO. There was just so much obvious misdirection is obvious pointing at certain suspects that it became obvious that the primary culprit for the main crime was someone else entirely (whose identity I did guess, if not the particular means they ended up using or their motive for actually commiting murder instead of achieving their goal by other means).

Also, shoehorned-in unconvincing True Love™ at first glance which ends up being A Clue®. I hope that character makes him sign a pre-nup. Not to mention jolly old English stereotypes about criminally-minded histrionic mercenary French demimondaines and faux aristos who latch themselves onto their Anglo betters.

The GN adaptation of this, written & illustrated by Marc Piskic, is much better than the actual story merits. The art on this is really quite atmospheric and imaginative, with dynamic panel layouts and cinematic "camera" changes, and really nifty visual touches like a conversation between two characters being linked across panels by the telephone wire from one going to the receiver of the other, and a number of pages with the action set on the train having across the top a station timeline showing all the stops on the route. It does make the relatively young character of Katherine Gray look rather middle-aged, though, perhaps as some sort of subconscious callback to Miss Marple, who's also a St. Mary Mead resident?

Frankly, this seems like a skippable novel in the series. It's not actually terribad, but there's insufficiently well-done in either the case, or the characters, or even the storytelling, to recommend seeking it out unless you're a completionist. The GN is pretty nice, though, and worth a look if you can get it from the library.

Lord Edgware Dies actually does have a really clever setup and unfolding of the case, except that it tries to mislead you as to that in such a way that for much of the book, it looks considerably more boring and paint-by-numbers than it actually turns out to be.

That ended up making it a bit of a slog, as not only did everything seem to be so obvious, and yet so obviously wrong (and Poirot even goes so far as to tell Hastings* so, multiple times) and everyone evidently chasing down the wrong trail again and again, that the overall effect is clumsy, rather than as deft as it should have been, until just about near the end, when it starts to pick up a little before all is finally revealed.

Mild recommend for the curious. This does have a very clever case in it, which is worth seeing for the sheer twisty audacity of it, but it's let down by the execution of the storytelling which is just slightly off and doesn't quite seem to get on track soon enough.

* Incidentally, this seems to be the second Hastings novel in short succession in which he's been admiring attractive women with nary a mention or even reminisce about the lovely young wife he'd been so desperately in love with and willing to do anything to save from uncertain death just a short few books ago, as if he'd never been married at all, much less left their apparent home in the Argentine to assist with murder investigations in England once more.

I kind of wonder now if something unfortunate happened to "Cinderella" in some sort of intervening short story I haven't read the way one of Watson's wives died between Holmes' cases, or if, say, she'd just gone and filed for divorce at some point, naming Poirot as a co-respondent in the suit citing her husband's desertion, and is now living happily ever after in South America, with or without a new Prince Charming, and Hastings is too embarrassed to acknowledge this, so stiff-upper-lips it in his narrative by pretending none of it ever happened.

[crich70]

Watson's wife once refers to him as James if I recall correctly while everyone knows his name is John. Perhaps she was misled by Prof. Moriarty and was a victim of one of his plots against Holmes.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

First Action by G. Harry Stine.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Justly abandoned. I'll pick my next one on the way home.

I decided to go for The Saviour by Tony Daniels and David Drake. From last month's Baen bundle. A sequel to the continuation of the General series. (Hmm... that sounds more complicated than it is!)

I wasn't as impressed with the first one as I'd hoped, but this one seems to be better (or I'm in a better mood).

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

I am also reading This Side of Paradise for my shorter windows of reading time during the day.

Finished Fitzgerald last night. Still working my way through Bring up the Bodies and have now started Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven completely on a whim. I mean, how often does a dystopian/post apocalyptic novel start in the middle of a performance of King Lear?

[Stitchawl]

I've just begun reading 'March Upcountry,' the first novel in the science fiction series of the Empire of Man by David Weber and John Ringo. Not my usual fare, but quite enjoyable so far. I'm only about 100 pages into the book, but it's keeping my interest. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.


Stitchawl

[Yapyap]

I didn't get either a lot of reading time or a lot of Internet time in during my ten day holiday trip to the UK (England, Scotland and Northern Ireland), although I most definitely spent more time in actual physical bookshops than in all of the previous year put together. Going to three Derek Landy signings in three different cities and spending a total of about 10 hours queueing between the aisles played a considerable part in that.

Anyway, reading-wise, on the plane on the way there I read The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Time Traveller, a short story by Joanne Harris in the Doctor Who: Time Trips series of short stories. In spite of my general problems with short stories, I had high expectations since it was a story featuring my favourite incarnation of the Doctor (Three) and written by a respected author, but while it wasn't bad and there was nothing particularly wrong with either the pacing or the characterisation, it failed to really excite me. An average read, I suppose.

I also started White Witch, Black Curse - the seventh in Kim Harrison's The Hollows series - and am still not quite finished (although should get there today). Quite honestly, spending 12 days on it says less about the lack of reading time and more about my feelings about the book - I could have made time if I was actually enjoying it. So far, my absolute least favourite in the series and a real effort to make my way through. If this was the first or the second book in the series, I'd drop it (and the series); as I've enjoyed the first six books reasonably well and have a bunch of the ones following this one already bought, I felt I should at least finish it, in the hopes that the next books will again be a bit more to my liking.

[covingtoncat73]

I was lucky enough to get The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson from my public library's Overdrive. I thoroughly enjoyed this absurd, picaresque story so much I finished it in about two days and returned it early. I am on the wait list for Jonasson's other book, The 100-Year-Old-Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared but I am only 2 out of 2, so it shouldn't be long. I did enjoy "Girl" so much I feel kind of bad about not purchasing either book.

Before that, I finished The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell. As with any Mitchell book, it is word-smithy, challenging, and genre-playing with a strong dash of philosophy. I enjoyed it and went through it fairly quickly. I really liked Holly Sykes, the main character in some chapters, a bit player in others but The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is still my favorite Mitchell.

In that vein, I picked up where I left off in Mitchell's Black Swan Green, which I had started but for some reason stopped reading awhile back. I read 20% just last night, so it is "sticking" this time and I'm really liking it. Sometimes that happens.

Anyway, I am thrilled that I appear to be on a bit of a roll with the reading.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

I've just begun reading 'March Upcountry,' the first novel in the science fiction series of the Empire of Man by David Weber and John Ringo. Not my usual fare, but quite enjoyable so far. I'm only about 100 pages into the book, but it's keeping my interest. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Word is that John's finally working on the fifth and sixth books.

[PurpleStar]

Finally getting to the Undead Pool by Kim Harrison. I know, I'm a bit behind! So far so good.

[bfisher]

Just read J.R.R. Tolkien's "Letters from Father Christmas". Amazing book, I wish we had had this when our kids were young.

Every year in the 1920s-30s Tolkien wrote a letter from Father Christmas to his children describing events at the North Pole while preparing for Christmas. The letters generally include the activities of the North Polar Bear, and sometimes elves. He included coloured drawings, and the letters (and envelopes) use a elvish-looking script, so it's best viewed on a tablet rather than eink.

Tolkien also wrote an illustrated book "Mr. Bliss" for his children, but it wasn't published until after he died (apparently it was too costly to print in 1936 because of the colour illustrations). Unfortunately, "Mr. Bliss" doesn't seem to be available as an ebook.

[Quake1028]

Finished: Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile by Nate Jackson. I gave it 4/5, pretty self aware and honest accounting of all sides and facets of being a professional athlete. Some good humor spread throughout, but also some thought provoking lines and passages about the seedy side of what they/we ask/demand of athletes to do to their bodies.

Finished: The Last Quarry by Max Allan Collins. I gave it 4/5 also, and would have probably gone up to 4.5 if GR allowed such a rating. A quick read that had more interconnecting plot points and characters than I expected going in. My second Quarry book, I had previously read Quarry in the Middle, which is also fantastic. I have a few more on my Kindle for later consumption.

Reading: Sniper Elite: One Way Trip by Scott McEwen. I think I am around 55% done, and I am having a like/dislike relationship with this book right now. The action scenes are well done, and the author knows his stuff, so that should be expected. The lows of the book right now are when the action stops and we are dragged into political scenes. Definitely written from the perspective of the "bureaucrats are desk jockeys who don't know what's going on in the field and the armed forces are the only ones who know what really needs to be done". Hopefully I will finish it up tonight, so we will see how I feel about the ending and whether I ever continue on with the next book in the series.