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

[Loosheesh]

Originally Posted by MickeyC

Next up Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman. I know in advance this will be a very good read because of all the recos from MobileRead members who NEVER get it wrong.

Great choice! (All of us can't be wrong )

[drjd]

In the last 10 days of travelling, I finished three books, as I had enough time spare on my hand during nights I stayed at various hotels.

1. The Sanctuary by Raymond Khoury.
As the power of the a myterious symbol comes to light, revealing the centuries of destruction left in its wake, one unsuspecting woman stands at the center of a conspiracy that could change the world forever. Raymond Khoury delivers the rapid-fire suspense and provocative scholarship in this thriller.


2. Maharaja: The lives, loves and intrigues of the Maharajas of India by Diwan Jarmani Dass

Exciting stories that capture the magic, romance, secrets and sensuality of Princely India. Tales of love and betrayal spread over the magnificent decades of the Maharajas, with their harems of Indian and European Maharanis and Mistresses, Palaces, Horses, Rolls Royces, Tiger Hunts, Feasts and Darbars. An invaluable insight into a bygone era of opulence and extravagance. This book is an intimate and fascinating insight by Diwan Jarmani Dass who rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous. A brilliant recounting of first - hand experiences, it reveals tales of chivalry and sacrifice, of love and betrayal of the Kings and Princes under the British Raj and their eventual decline. Maharaja is his most famous book, followed by Maharani.

3. Maharani by Diwan Jarmani Dass.

A sequel to the bestseller Maharaja. A rare treasure of true stories that offer a deep insight into the glamorous and sensuous Lives of the Indian and European Maharanis of India. Intriguing as well as valuable. Maharani is at once a historical romance and a sociological document, as it vividly recounts a bygone era, an era perhaps never to return again. The author served Indian Maharajas for over 50 years accompanying them on their amorous trips to private retreats in India and abroad. He brilliantly recounts the extraordinary lives of the Maharanis of the richest Men the World has ever seen.

Next up, The Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku.

[Dngrsone]

Finished Forbidden Knowledge: The Gap into Vision by Stephen R. Donaldson and As You Wish by Cary Elwes. Both worthwhile reads.

Now working on The Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum. I will likely stop here on the Bourne series, but I don't know... maybe I'll pick up the next depending on how well I like this one. I need to queue up the next Gap book, and I need to resume my re-reading of the Foreigner series.

[ATDrake]

Finished The Boy in the Suitcase, Invisible Murder, and Death of a Nightingale by Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis, #1-3 in their mystery series staring Nina Borg, Intrepid Would-Be World-Saving Dysfunctional Danish Underground Nurse, which I got during a recent Soho Press sale and started reading during a bus trip to drop off some library books (and pick up even more).

These were surprisingly good and worthy of the Barry Award nomination which SYKM says that the 1st received in translation. The plots are twisty and intricate as one would expect, but actually have very unexpected motivations for what would seem to be rather standard crime thriller setups, which gives a decided touch of novelty to the cases, which make good use of the ongoing tensions between Eastern European refugees and Middle Eastern immigrants and native Danes, as well as former Soviet bloc history and current conditions.

The amateur sleuth is also interesting, being a rather emotionally dysfunctional but professionally highly competent figure, similar to Sarah Lund in the Danish TV series Forbrydelsen (The Killing), in a way that's usually reserved for male sleuths. I like that sometimes when it comes down to hard choices between her personal life and her desire to help others—both at the refugee centre where she has an official day job, and in the underground network which treats illegal residents of Denmark who cannot obtain official healthcare without risking deportation—what would seem to be the typical domestic resolution isn't always taken, and that what she's doing significantly impacts her relationship with her family and friends, sometimes in very negative ways that can't be smoothed over by the successful closing of a case or even committing to devoting more time to her personal circle.

Medium-high recommend if you think you might like this sort of series. Nina's work often revolves around children at risk, so that might be a dealbreaker for Gentle Readers who are sensitive about that in crime thrillers, but these are quite good stories which often incorporate a flavour of local history (possibly made up, possibly not) and culture into their cases. I'll be looking up the 4th from the library the next time I make a trip.

Also finished Kristina Ohlsson's The Chosen, 5th in her series starring Fredrika Bergman, Intrepid Civilian Liaison Investigative Analyst, which was one of my library pickups. This continues the move of the series from a simple elite local crime investigative unit to one with Swedish intelligence community ties, reflecting the author's actual former day job. It's okay on those terms, but I liked the older books more and was heartened by a hint that it may be getting back to its crime unit roots in the future.

Anyway, the story in this one involves murders at a Jewish community school, which is trying to figure out whether it's a hate crime, serial killer, or personally targeted, since some of the associated adults may or may not have deniable ties to sensitive Israeli government stuff. There's a whole bunch of spy versus spy surveillance in it, and the welcome return of a supporting character who got shuffled offstage a few books ago because reasons.

Overall a solid case, if a little on the everyone-is-implausibly-connected-to-it side, and it was nice to get the hinted backstory of an interesting supporting character introduced in #4. But the author once again succumbs to the tendency to do some highly emotionally manipulative melodramatic setup at the very beginning that a particular character will suffer a terrible tragedy by the end, in a not-particularly-skilled manner which falls really flat. Obvious fake-out is obvious and I managed to figure out who it was really supposed to apply to even before she started laying down the actual red herring trail in the main narrative. (Also, that particular trick worked a lot better in book #3.)

A decent continuation to the series thus far, and I'm still interested in reading further installments.

[HarryT]

Finished "Ring of Fire", edited by Eric Flint. The third book in the "Ring of Fire" series, and a collection of short (and not so short) stories by various authors set in the "Ring of Fire" universe that was started with the novels "1632" and "1633". Very enjoyable; there wasn't one of the stories that I didn't like. Bought from Baen in January 2004 - I've finally reached a new year in my "Read all my Baen back-catalogue" project .

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz. Bought 14 Oct 2016, with the next seven in the series, when the series was on special offer. I'm enjoying this first volume, so it looks like it was a good buy after all.

And it was indeed an excellent mystery with supernatural features. Highly recommended if you like that sort of thing. I'm looking forward to reading the others over the next months/years.

Next up: Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman. Also a recent special offer purchase.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Next, I'll finish David Weber's Dahak series with Heirs of Empire. I delayed reading this as the blurb really didn't grab me and at 544 pages there is an expectation of info dumps.

This was the silliest space opera book I've ever read. Very little made sense. Oh so many conveniences and inconveniences all to explain/unexplain the character's actions. All those needless deaths! Not sure what Weber's intentions were but a Dahak series this was not. Good riddance. Rated D [1 star].

Next, from the library, Beyond the Ice Limit by Preston & Child, the highly-anticipated sequel.

[ATDrake]

Today being 1121 (aka the other important X-Files-related numerical date), I spent the day reading The X-Files™: Secret Agendas edited by Jonathan Maberry, which is the 3rd in IDW's new series of prose short story tie-in anthologies with contributions from fairly prominent horror and comic book writers (according to their bio-blurbs in the back; I wouldn't know since I don't usually read horror), which I requested from the library after having read the 1st one on 1013.

They finally got it in just before the weekend, and it was another nicely entertaining read of more case adventures. A bit more on the continuity-heavy side this time around with more references to characters and stuff that appeared on the TV show, since three books in, these are more for hardcore fans rather than casual readers. I was a bit disappointed that almost all the stories were purely for Mulder and Scully this time around (1st anthology had two rather nice pieces focusing on AD Skinner), but there were some good guest moments from old supporting characters, which was nice to see.

No particularly standout stories this time around, but there were some entertaining casefiles with Sherlock Holmes tributes, another look at how bizarre and dysfunctional the entire concept of the X-Files and its investigating agents seem from an outside perspective (I always love those), an interesting speculative follow-up to some major mythology plot points from the show, and “Kanashibari”, a story about a Japanese folktale which just happened to share its title and concept with a rather good issue of the old tie-in comic book series, which I was interested in to see how this version would do a take on the same concept, and turned out to be a rather nice alternative.

Overall pretty enjoyable and recommended if one likes the X-Files mythos and would like to read more set in it. All the stories were of at least decent professional fanfic quality and had perfectly cromulent cases. Although some of them suffered by having been grouped too closely together for the ones which happened to have similar concepts/culprits in them, inviting immediate comparison after reading in a short span of time, and a few of them felt shaky on characterization grounds (I think I'll have to agree to disagree with one particular author on what Mulder's 1st person POV narrative internal voice would sound like, although the other author who did Scully POV felt mostly okay) and a certain frustrating tendency towards case cut-offs lacking in closure (to be fair, that is pretty typical of the X-Files), although the cases themselves were fine.

Maybe it's just the nostalgia goggles speaking, but I rather like these and hope that IDW will keep putting out more (and the library will keep getting them in, if IDW apparently continues to not make them available as e-books outside of Humble Bundle, for some unfathomable reason).

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I just now cracked Senlin Ascends. First in the "Books of Babel" series by Josiah Bancroft. A self-pubbed venture (two books released so far) that seems to be making a bit of a splash here and there.

No one mentioned that you needed the patience of Job before the story actually got going.

Many readers are (apparently) willing to overlook an author boring them to sleep for half of a book (or whole books) in the name of great setup for later parts (of the same book or later books). I'm not one of those readers. Mainly because I've read authors who who are able to make their early setup material interesting in its own right. For me, the "Ends" (great as they can be) do not justify an early slog endured. Not one of any length, anyway. You don't have my permission to test my endurance.

I almost quit on this one before the author decided to begin the story. But it WAS a great ending, and I AM interested in seeing what happens next, so I'll give the next book a shot. But I'm not going to spot the author another half-a-novel to get the story going. My patience is not that of Job's.

[DrNefario]

I've heard others say that about Senlin Ascends. I didn't get it. I wondered if the book had been re-edited since then. I liked the start.

I've got Arm of the Sphinx waiting, but I have some other books I need to crunch through first.

[drjd]

Originally Posted by drjd

Next up, The Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku.

Finished The Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku. A book that covers varied topics keeping the brain / mind as the central theme. Reads like a science fiction theme with a third eye view of what is possible, what is not, if so, by when will we achieve and what are the short falls. Very interesting read.

As I have still not made the 'mood' to read my pending Egyptology books, now I will go for a lighter read, a murder mystery Yellow Room by Mary Roberts Rinehart.

[WT Sharpe]

Having just finished Brave New World by Aldous Huxley last night I started on yet another Perry Mason novel, The Case of the Baited Hook by Erle Stanley Gardner.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman. Also a recent special offer purchase.

Which was good, but I prefer his longer works to his short stories, and of the novellas in here, I had already read a couple.

Next up: Rogue by Michael Z Williamson. Mil-SF in his Freehold universe.

[AndrewMowere]

I've recently started picking up two fantasy e-magazines:

1- New Realm seems to be here and there. Not bad, I just don't know if they're staying in genre. Tried one edition, and there was some good stuff.

2-Fantasy scroll magazine is affordable and despite being just one story in, I love it. It was called "Sundark and Winterling". Just for that one, I would recommend this issue:

http://fantasyscrollmag.com/article/...anne-j-willis/

[HarryT]

Finished "Bones are Forever", by Kathy Reichs. The 15th book in the "Temperance Brennan" series about a forensic anthropologist. In this book Temperance gets involved in a case of a woman who has left a series of dead babies behind her, and the investigation takes her to the far north of Canada. Enjoyable.