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

[HarryT]

Just finished "Children of the Storm", by Elizabeth Peter. This is the 15th book in the "Amelia Peabody" series of Egyptological mysteries.

The Great War is over, and the Emerson family are gathered in Luxor for what they hope will be an uninterrupted season of excavation. A series of attacks on their extended family and friends, though, makes them suspect that perhaps one of the many criminals they have brought to justice in the past is out for revenge upon them. Extremely good, as always.

[MickeyC]

Just finished John Sandford's Gathering Prey and it was a typically excellent Sandford read.

[din155]

Originally Posted by Apache

He has maps at the beginning every chapter. They show the disposition of armies and their direction of movement that will be being described in that chapter. Also, he includes pictures of paintings of the battles and the major characters at the end of each chapter. The eBook is fully illustrated and you will not have these aids with the audio book.
Apache

Thanks, I will see if I can get it from library.

[Hampshire Nanny]

Yesterday, instead of reading on the flight, I listened to an audiobook and played Bejeweled on the in-flight entertainment center in the American Airlines 787. That allowed me to finish The Hit by David Baldacci, the second in his "Will Robie" suspense series. I will be continuing to listen to this series -- spending another Audible credit to get the next book.

Also finished reading The New Year's Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini. That leaves me reading The Pilgrim of Hate by Ellis Peters, 10th in the "Brother Cadfael" series, and The Black Lung Captain by Chris Wooding, 2nd in the "Ketty Jay" series.

[bfisher]

Just finished "Zoo Station" by David Downing. I've been reading Alan Furst's Night Soldiers series which has lots of great atmospherics for Europe in the late 30's and the Nazi occupation, and wanted to read a thriller set inside Nazi Germany (in Furst's books the action usually takes place in Paris or in eastern Europe capitals - Budapest, Bucharest, ...). Not bad, lots of action, although not quite as good as Furst's best. Good enough to have a bash at the sequel, "Silesian Station"

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by alansplace

I just completed reading Another Me which I enjoyed ot a lot! Now on to my May selection of a freebie from the Amazon lending library, The Living Bomb (Ed Noon #12) by Michael Avallone.

Originally Posted by alansplace

I finished reading Boneshaker yesterday. It was very intrestingly set in an alternate reality paralleling ours but with quite interesting differences. This reality was also quite different form the one where Tales of the Ketty Jay take place. I liked it a lot!

Now on to my June selection of a freebie
from the Amazon lending library,

The Bedroom Bolero (Ed Noon #11)
by Michael Avallone.

Because of some confusion on my part where in some listings The Bedroom Bolero is listed as #11 and in other listings it's #13 and #11 doesn't seem to exist at all!! Anyway, because of this I read The Living Bomb (Ed Noon #12) before reading The Bedroom Bolero (Ed Noon #11 or #13). This oops is significant because in The Bedroom Bolero Ed moves to a new apartment, rents a new office, and hires a new secretary whereas in The Living Bomb nothing has yet changed! Oh well!

I liked The Bedroom Bolero a whole lot (the best of this series that I've read so far).

Next will be...

Steampunk Holmes: Legacy of the Nautilus by P.C. Martin.

In an alternative Steampunk universe (c.1885), the plans for Captain Nemo's mysterious Nautilus submarine have been stolen from the British Secret Service. There is only one man who can solve the case, Sherlock Holmes. With his bionic side-kick Doctor Watson, and his brilliant and lethal sister, Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock unravels a mystery that will shake the foundation of the British Empire.

Adapted by P.C. Martin from the short story, 'The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (c.1912), 'Steampunk Holmes' is a convergence of one of Doyle's favorite Sherlock Holmes stories with Jules Vern 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea' (c.1870)

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Fearless by Jack Campbell, the second in his Lost Fleet series.

Which was a good continuation of the series, and although it did have a story arc of its own, clearly will only really work as part of the series. So I'm tempted just to binge on them.

But I resisted long enough to start The Two Moons by James P Hogan. But it dragged a bit, with overly technical descriptions of how the internet might work, and how automated traffic control might work. Rather reminiscent of the way early pulp novels would explain every wonder of the described future age. It doesn't work well at the best of times, and even worse when actual technology has caught up with the story. We don't need a description of video chat.

And then I found it was the start of his ridiculous series that is a 'all the science and history we currently wrong is significantly wrong, but all current scientists are too blinkered to see it' which just rubs me the wrong way.

Abandoned.

I am going to binge of the "Lost Fleet" Series. Next: Courageous.

[HarryT]

Just finished "Martian Knightlife" by James P. Hogan, which I bought from Baen in 2001. Pretty good SF, although it does have the theme of "scientists too blinkered to recognise the truth" that pdurrant refers to in his previous post. Personally I don't mind this, but I can see how it could be annoying to some.

The book consists of two intertwined short stories featuring private eye Kieran Thane. In the first of them, the theme of matter transmission has a twist: a scientist has invented a matter transmitter and tested it on himself. The process involves "scanning" a person and then sending their genetic code and memory patterns to a receiver which "rebuilds" the person. The idea is then that the original person (put into suspended animation during the transmission process) is destroyed, but what if he gets scared prior to the experiment and decides that he doesn't want to die even if his existence does continue in another person? A very good story indeed. In the second story, Thane gets involved with a group who has discovered remnants of an ancient civilisation on Mars, but the site is owned by an industrial conglomerate who wants to build a spaceport on the site. Not as good as the first half of the book, but still worth reading.

Recommended.

[Dngrsone]

Finished Herland. Utopian speculative fiction about an all-woman "country" isolated from the rest of the world. Written a hundred years ago, it is interesting to note how little has changed in the way some men still think and relate to women.

Two thirds of the way through Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson and the Game that Changed Everything by Daniel Goldberg.

Man, the title is almost as long as the book. Fascinating story, though.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I am going to binge of the "Lost Fleet" Series. Next: Courageous.

Which was fun. On to Valiant.

[Dngrsone]

Finished Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson and the Game that Changed Everything.

I think I will try The Mermaid's Sister by Carrie Anne Noble.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Which was fun. On to Valiant.

You may want to pause at the end of the sixth book, where the series bifurcates in an unusual fashion. It's not a "split the cast to make two branches" approach, but "while this continues, we'll introduce a new cast that crosses paths with the continuation series."

In other words, sometimes you'll see the same event from two very different perspectives. As I recall, I found the branches to interweave best in an order different from publication date. The books still come out as 1-1-2-2-3-3, and I believe each new-branch volume is published after the corresponding old-branch volume - yet the books seemed to flow better when I read the new branch's installment first. This has the side effect that although the books are published six months apart, I tend to hold the first to read after the second - so the publication order ends up looking more like 1-2-3-4-5-6, then 8-7-10-9-12-11 and so on.

That's my opinion, though, and I'd be interested to hear from others on that subject. Some people may find publication order just peachy.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Which was fun. On to Valiant.

Also fun. Although I'm not convinced by some of the physics of his spaceships.

Next up: A break from the Lost Fleet - The Multiplex Man by James P Hogan again.

So far it's OK, but hints of his descent into weird science and conspiracy theory are in the story.

[Hampshire Nanny]

Originally Posted by Hampshire Nanny

That leaves me reading The Pilgrim of Hate by Ellis Peters, 10th in the "Brother Cadfael" series, and The Black Lung Captain by Chris Wooding, 2nd in the "Ketty Jay" series.

Finished The Pilgrim of Hate on Sunday and am concentrating on The Black Lung Captain since the loan via Overdrive expires tomorrow. The library notified me that The In Death Collection, Books 26-29 has become available in response to a hold I had placed at the beginning of May. So, before the loan expires in 3 weeks, I'll be putting a lot of emphasis on reading these four books. And lastly, I'm listening to The Target by David Baldacci.

[Rumpelteazer]

I'm currently reading Jefferson Bass's Flesh and Bone, the second book in the Body Farm series. I'm enjoying this series so far; the character feel somewhat real, the setting of the Body Farm and the university are interesting and different from many crime thrillers from the perspective of the medical examiner.

After this book it's time to tackle some of the samples that have been piling up over the last couple of weeks. Instead of just buying a book that looks interesting (and at times finding out it was a waste of money) I've been trying to download a sample first. But I don't seems to get to those.