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

[HarryT]

Just finished "Bare Bones", by Kathy Reichs, the 6th book in the Temperance Brennan series of mysteries about a forensic anthropologist. In this one, Dr Brennan becomes involves in an investigation involving the smuggling of endangered animals in South Carolina. Very good, as always.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams. It hasn't grabbed me yet. More me than the book, I think. Techno-dystopia just isn't something I enjoy.

Abandoned. It's not bad, it's just not for me.

Next: Analog SF Magazine, July/August 2016.

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

[Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams.] Abandoned. It's not bad, it's just not for me.
.

That's in my queue... we'll see how it grabs me.

[cadele]

Just finished Lord of the Silent (Amelia Peabody 13) by Elizabeth Peters. Wonderful series that I am eking out bit by bit. A very enjoyable read.

Currently reading Turning Point (Sholan Alliance 1) by Lisanne Norman on the rec of another Mobilereader. Liking it so far.

Annoyingly, books 2 - 5 in the series seem to be unavailable in e, although the later ones are, which I have also purchased.

*Kicks* @dawbooks for not making these available

On a side note, I love reading this thread, but it is costing me a fortune!

[drjd]

Originally Posted by drjd

Next up in the line, The D.A. Cooks a Goose. Fifth book in the series.

Finished The D.A. Cooks a Goose by Erle Stanley Gardner. Here the D.A. learns quickly that where there’s a will, there are relatives — and murder, with the help of City’s chief of police, who seeks glory for himself and humiliation for the DA. To further complicate the matter, there are two more lawyers, a prominent but crooked criminal lawyer who never drops his best courtroom manner, and a comely Portia who tries to keep the D.A. from cooking his own goose. Interesting read, recommended.

Next up : The D.A. Calls a Turn by the same author.

[HarryT]

Finished "Heirs of Empire", by David Weber. This is the final third of the Baen "Empire from the Ashes" omnibus, and is set a number of years after the events in "The Armageddon Inheritance". Colin MacIntyre is now ruling the Fifth Imperium as Emperor, when his two teenage children become stranded, after a failed assassination attempt, on a planet of the Fourth Imperium which has reverted to water-powered technology and is ruled by a powerful theocracy intent on suppressing all technological advances in case "the demons from the stars" should return. The book alternates between events taking place on Earth and the Imperial capital world, and the story of the lost children. Truly excellent military SF and highly recommended. It's evident, BTW, that Weber recycled the idea of a planetary theocracy deliberately suppressing technology for his later "Safehold" series, which bears many similarities to the "lost children" portions of this book.

[covingtoncat73]

The Fireman by Joe Hill!

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Finished "Heirs of Empire", by David Weber. This is the final third of the Baen "Empire from the Ashes" omnibus, and is set a number of years after the events in "The Armageddon Inheritance". Colin MacIntyre is now ruling the Fifth Imperium as Emperor, when his two teenage children become stranded, after a failed assassination attempt, on a planet of the Fourth Imperium which has reverted to water-powered technology and is ruled by a powerful theocracy intent on suppressing all technological advances in case "the demons from the stars" should return. The book alternates between events taking place on Earth and the Imperial capital world, and the story of the lost children. Truly excellent military SF and highly recommended. It's evident, BTW, that Weber recycled the idea of a planetary theocracy deliberately suppressing technology for his later "Safehold" series, which bears many similarities to the "lost children" portions of this book.

I'm currently reading the first in the omnibus, and I'm quite enjoying it. While there are traces of some of his later excesses, they're really not a factor yet, and the writing is much tighter than on his more recent books. Thanks for the recommendation.

[ATDrake]

In a fit of nostalgia since I decided to finally start learning to do proper programming, I re-read Rick Cook's Wiz series, about a computer programmer kidnapped to save a fantasy world. The first two were originally offered as part of the early Baen Free Library, and Baen has since been reprinting some of Cook's older, long OOP titles in recent months, including the 5th Wiz book, which was unavailable for over a decade. And Cook seemed to have added more sections to the unfinished and unpublished 6th novel which he put online with disclaimers a while back; or at least there was more of the story there than I remembered reading years ago.

They were as enjoyable as ever, though binge-reading them as I did, it was interesting to see the development from mostly light-hearted humorous fantasy with touches of deeper serious issues novels to outright farcical zany screwball comedy in the later installments. I did rather like the trip to Comdex and the fake-consulting gig, although I was surprised that for whatever reason, the line of APL code that was part of Wiz's "riddle" was missing* from the Wiz Biz II: Cursed and Consulted omnibus (no longer available, but probably slated to be on Baen's reprint schedule at some point). I suppose it doesn't actually change the comprehensibility of the plot point in Chapter 6, but it's disappointing when ebooks are lacking images that were originally part of the story. Hopefully Baen remedies that whenever they get around to doing the reprint.

Recommended if you enjoy the intersection of humour and adventures about computer programming as magical spellcasting language fantasy. Which seems surprisingly uncommon in fantasy, come to think of it, when it probably ought to be more popular. I've really only encountered it in the Wiz series, Charles Stross' Laundry series, Barbara Hambly's Windrose series, and Margaret Ball's Mathemagics stories.

In another fit of nostalgia since it was offered in the current-but-soon-to-be-replaced Humble Book Bundle from Small Beer Press, I re-read Kate Wilhelm's Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writer's Workshop, a memoir cum writing advice guide which I still own as a hardcover, but now have an e-book version of.

This, too, was as entertaining as ever, with a lot of anecdotes about the early days of setting up the workshop and trying to fit 60s/70s sci-fi fan counter-culture in with assorted college administration which hosted the workshop, a few tales about assorted writers who attended the workshop and are now various degrees of famous or not, and useful advice about handling both the creative and practical sides of writing. Surprisingly, since Clarion is so strongly associated with a lot of sfnal award winners, I'd forgotten that the workshop is not actually an sfnal one (something which apparently a lot of attendees also had the impression of), and that they encouraged people to try their hand at writing in other genres and styles according to whatever market they were aiming for.

Best out of context quote:

You have to play fair and be honest, or take up politics.

Highly recommended. It's short, and the formatting of the e-book is a little wonky, but it's a good book which provides an interesting glimpse into a part of the early sf/f community alongside very cromulent advice, which is handily summarized and reiterated in a small appendix in the back of the book for easier consulting on the re-read.

For balance, since Wilhelm mentioned how the advice Clarion provided over the years shifted and why, and also how the instructors had different approaches to evaluating stories, I also got the late Damon Knight's Writing Short Fiction, now redundantly subtitled "The Classic Guide to Writing Short Fiction" out of the library to compare. Knight was Wilhelm's husband and also a co-founder of Clarion alongside her, and similarly mixes personal anecdote and advice, but with a lot more of the latter and a lot less of the former.

Rather niftily, there's an entire annotated short science fiction story by Knight included, where he details on facing pages what he's setting up and trying to accomplish with each beat of the story, and why, and the various storytelling methods he's using for that.

This has much more in the way of exercises and practical mechanics backgrounders sort of things that Wilhelm condenses in favour of an overall approach attitude. Much of the advice is in line with what Wilhelm gave, but some of it is indeed different, and it's all aimed at getting you into the groove of writing solid, publishable stories with comprehensible plots, characters, and prose despite any tendencies you might have to over- or under-do things in those areas.

Best out of context quote:

These remarks do not apply to comic books or television serials.

Recommended if you're into creative writing, or understanding the mechanics that lay behind many enjoyably readable stories. This is a much more specialized book than Wilhelm's mostly-memoir, but still interesting to look at if you're curious about Knight's complementary approach to teaching writing as a co-instructor at Clarion. And there's a "free" short story tucked inside, to boot.

* If anyone was wondering what they were missing, as best I can figure out from my ancient paperback, in Unicode's APL symbol set it should read as (spaces added between characters since it was originally a hand-written line that got typeset as an image): → ⎕ ⌶ ○ ← 1 + ⌊ ∣ - ⊖ ⍉ ⍎ ⌽ ⍕ ⌹ ⍴ ⍒ ⍋ 2 ⌈⋆○ × ! ? ~ ⍟ 1

[Dngrsone]

Finished Odd Apocalypse by Dean Koontz. Now I will read some more of The Linux Command Line, then probably Boys in Trees by Carly Simon.

[Rev. Bob]

I'm about a third of the way through Independence Day: Crucible, which bridges the gap between the original and new ID4 movies. Considering that's twenty years of backstory to catch up on, I'm glad I chose to read this before the new movie came out. I've already seen several places in Crucible that shed some light on the Resurgence promo clips.

[HarryT]

Two books recently completed:

"Trojan Gold", by Elizabeth Peters. The fourth book of the "Vickie Bliss" series, about a mystery-solving museum curator. In this one, Vickie gets involved in a search for the golden treasure Heinrich Schliemann discovered at Troy, which vanish from Berlin in the last days of WWII. Pretty good, but there are better books in the series.

Enjoyed this, so straight on to the fifth book in the series, "Night Train to Memphis". In this one, Vickie is employed as a lecturer on a Nile cruiseship in an attempt to track down antiquities thieves. Very good indeed. Highly recommended.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Two books recently completed:

"Trojan Gold", by Elizabeth Peters. The fourth book of the "Vickie Bliss" series, about a mystery-solving museum curator. In this one, Vickie gets involved in a search for the golden treasure Heinrich Schliemann discovered at Troy, which vanish from Berlin in the last days of WWII. Pretty good, but there are better books in the series.

Enjoyed this, so straight on to the fifth book in the series, "Night Train to Memphis". In this one, Vickie is employed as a lecturer on a Nile cruiseship in an attempt to track down antiquities thieves. Very good indeed. Highly recommended.

Do y'all get kick backs from Amazon or something?
Picked up a few books just from this page alone.

[HarryT]

I should add that "Night Train to Memphis" introduces some nice links to the "Amelia Peabody" series. In one scene, Vicky looks at her reflection wearing a safari outfit and comments that she looks like "Amelia P. Emerson", and a significant theme of the book is the (in reality undiscovered) tomb of Queen Tetisheri, which the book comments "was discovered by a husband and wife team of archaeologists at the turn of the century". The story of the discovery of the tomb is told in the book "The Hippopotamus Pool" in the Amelia Peabody series.

[WT Sharpe]

Just finished this month's MobileRead Book Club selection, The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind by Michio Kaku. A most interesting book, but since I generally make sciency stuff a regular part of my diet, I didn't encounter much that was unfamiliar. It was, however, an excellent overview of the state of the subject.

Now it's on to something a bit less taxing on the noggin: The Mummy Case, which is the third book in the popular Amelia Peabody series. I chose it because Harry's recent posts about Elizabeth Peters reminded me that a revisit with Amelia Peabody and her husband Radcliffe Emerson is long overdue.