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

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: A Plague on Both Your Houses by Susanna Gregory. An anachronistic title, seeing as the story is set in 1348 and that line wasn't written until 1594.

But otherwise it's shaping up into a nice mystery set just before the Black Death killed almost half the population in England.

I don't think it's a spoiler to mention that the Black Death actually reaches Cambridge (where the novel is set) during the course of the novel.

An excellent historical mystery. Although I would have appreciated a note about which characters were historical and which were made up.

Next up: The Magic Casement by Dave Duncan. Fortuitously, the first in one of his fantasy series. I got them they were on special offer last year.

Looking like a slightly above average fantasy at present. Mediaeval to renaissance technology and some magic.

[ReadingManiac]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I don't think it's a spoiler to mention that the Black Death actually reaches Cambridge (where the novel is set) during the course of the novel.

An excellent historical mystery. Although I would have appreciated a note about which characters were historical and which were made up.

Next up: The Magic Casement by Dave Duncan. Fortuitously, the first in one of his fantasy series. I got them they were on special offer last year.

Looking like a slightly above average fantasy at present. Mediaeval to renaissance technology and some magic.

Ooh, this could be interesting! I'm still working my way through the Rivers of London series.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I don't think it's a spoiler to mention that the Black Death actually reaches Cambridge (where the novel is set) during the course of the novel.

An excellent historical mystery. Although I would have appreciated a note about which characters were historical and which were made up.

<SNIP>

Any similarities to Connie Willis' Doomsday Book?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

Any similarities to Connie Willis' Doomsday Book?

Only in that the both describe events during the Black Death.

The Doomsday Book is SF with (IMO) weak characterisation and plotting.

A Plague on Both Your Houses is a historical mystery, with a (possibly overly complicated) plot and good characters.

I think it's rather better in its depiction of the Black Death.

I much preferred this one to the Connie Willis book.

[Dngrsone]

Finished Intruder. Now working on All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Only in that the both describe events during the Black Death.

The Doomsday Book is SF with (IMO) weak characterisation and plotting.

A Plague on Both Your Houses is a historical mystery, with a (possibly overly complicated) plot and good characters.

I think it's rather better in its depiction of the Black Death.

I much preferred this one to the Connie Willis book.

I didn't particularly enjoy the Connie Willis book, although I have liked a number of her other books.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Still reading The Compleat I hate to cook book.
Though why does someone that hates to cook have a double boiler?

I think Peg Bracken is a wonderful writer, funny and incisive. I recently reread the cookbooks and her etiquette book as well.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Only in that the both describe events during the Black Death.

The Doomsday Book is SF with (IMO) weak characterisation and plotting.

A Plague on Both Your Houses is a historical mystery, with a (possibly overly complicated) plot and good characters.

I think it's rather better in its depiction of the Black Death.

I much preferred this one to the Connie Willis book.

I've read The Doomsday Book and I rather enjoyed it. I thought the characters for enjoyable. Not weak at all. The plot was good as well.

A Plague on Both Your Houses is one I've never read so I cannot comment on it.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by issybird

I think Peg Bracken is a wonderful writer, funny and incisive. I recently reread the cookbooks and her etiquette book as well.

Upon farther reading, the double boiler makes complete sense. And she made me want one.
I am loving the book and 99% of the recipes sound fabulous.
I always pictured a double boiler as a fancy cooking pot. Let me state right here and for the record, "my thinking was W R O N G."

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by issybird

I think Peg Bracken is a wonderful writer, funny and incisive. I recently reread the cookbooks and her etiquette book as well.

Now the book I gave up on was Julie and Julia by Julia Powell.
The reason was the author's potty mouth.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I thought the characters for enjoyable. Not weak at all.

I don't want to get into a long discussion of the book here (there's a bookclub thread for the book if anyone's interested in a variety of opinions)

But I'd like to note that I said the characterisation was weak, not the characters. I didn't believe that the characters as depicted would act in the way depicted.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

Reading a short a day out of the Oxford book, and then finishing my evenings with Margot Lee Shetterly's Hidden Figures: The Untold True Story of Four African-American Women Who Helped Launch Our Nation into Space.

Sill doing the above, but read "The Answer Is Never: Rewriting The False Narrative Of Childlessness" by Sabine Heinlein via Longreads this morning. As someone who does not want/ever intend to have children, I enjoyed it. Though I thought the essay went a little off course about 3/4 of the way through.

[HarryT]

Just finished "The Road to Damascus", by John Ringo and Linda Evans. I bought this in 2004 from Baen. I read it at the time and enjoyed it. On a re-read it has to be one of my all-time favourite SF novels.

Baen description:

When a ruthless political regime seizes power on a world struggling to recover from alien invasion, a former war hero finds herself leading a desperate band of freedom fighters. Kafari Khrustinova, who fought Deng infantry from farmhouses and barns, finds herself struggling to free her homeworld from an unholy political alliance, headed by the charismatic and ambitious Vittori Santorini, which has seduced her young daughter with its propaganda and subverted the planet's Bolo, using the war machine to crush all political opposition. To free her homeworld, Kafari must somehow cripple or kill the Bolo she once called friend. Unit SOL-0045, "Sonny," is a Mark XX Bolo, self-aware and intelligent. When Sonny's human commander is forced off-world, Sonny tries to navigate his way through ambiguous moral and legal issues, sinking into deep confusion and electronic misery. He eventually faces a dark night of the soul, with no guarantee that he will understand—let alone make—the right decision. And caught in the middle of this volatile battlefield is Yalena Khrustinova, Kafari's young daughter. Will she open her eyes in time to save herself—and millions of innocents—or will Santorini's relentless brainwashing campaign continue to blind her while the tyrant engineers the ultimate destruction of a helpless and enslaved population

Superb book. I can't recommend it highly enough. Do read it if you haven't done so.

[Wearever]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I don't want to get into a long discussion of the book here (there's a bookclub thread for the book if anyone's interested in a variety of opinions)

But I'd like to note that I said the characterisation was weak, not the characters. I didn't believe that the characters as depicted would act in the way depicted.

Thanks for the book club link. I also enjoyed The Doomsday Book, but I agree it seemed more sci fi. to me also. I'm also interested in Plague On Both Your Houses. I'll add it to my reading list.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Just finished "The Road to Damascus", by John Ringo and Linda Evans. I bought this in 2004 from Baen. I read it at the time and enjoyed it. On a re-read it has to be one of my all-time favourite SF novels.

Baen description:



Superb book. I can't recommend it highly enough. Do read it if you haven't done so.

Hmmm. Sitting unread in my Calibre. Perhaps I should reconsider that.