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

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by ReadingManiac

I've been reading Faerie Tale by Raymond Feist. It's close enough to Halloween to start reading Horror books!

... and that's a good one. Gave me chills the first time I read it.

... actually, it's been 20-some-odd years since I have read it, perhaps I shall give it another go.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Next, is Dorsai! by Gordon R. Dickson another Hoopla borrow.

This book doesn't hold up well. To me it seems more like a 1950s comic book with short stories, little action, and lots of dialogue. A little philosophy was thrown in. I was waiting for the lesson the author teaches the reader, the moral of the story. Nothing thought-provoking. Rated C- [2 stars].

Next TBD.

[ATDrake]

Finished Pale Guardian, 7th and latest in Barbara Hambly's James Asher Vampire Novel series. This is apparently what Severn House has decided to call these historical paranormal espionage thrillers, which kind of gives the false impression that Asher is the vampire in them. Which may perhaps happen yet, as once again, the Edwardian ex-spy is threatened and tempted.

This one actually initially focused more on his wife Dr. Lydia Asher, who's volunteered as medical help in France now that we're far enough down the timeline that WWI is actually underway. And of course there's the obligatory stumbling across a nefarious secret government plot to enlist the powers of the vampires into their spy games. Which after having been toyed with for the entire series with needing to be thwarted before it leads to new and terrible forms of wartime destruction, is nice to finally see unfolded as an actual consequence, albeit relatively briefly before the obligatory thwarting happens yet again. And I liked seeing how the war affected the vampires of various countries affected, becoming refugees as the invasion advanced.

Anyway, although after a certain point the basic premise of the series has gotten somewhat repetitive (probably not as noticeable if you didn't just do a binge cram reread of the earlier novels like I did), this was an entertaining enough variation on the theme and a pretty decent continuation. Even if certain handwringing character beats about feeling bad about the relative ethicality of the human cost of not destroying their obligate human-killing vampire allies (TBH, I think they should angst more about the ruinous effect of their privileged British Empire lifestyle upon the downtrodden underclass and colonies exploited to support it) seem to be repeated yet again at unnecessary (and probably hypocritical) length, after just having had their own lives saved by said murderous allies.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Finished Pale Guardian, 7th and latest in Barbara Hambly's James Asher Vampire Novel series. This is apparently what Severn House has decided to call these historical paranormal espionage thrillers, ...

Those Who Hunt the Night has been on my TBR for a while, just hasn't ever felt like the right time to start it. I will probably start it this year though. I didn't realize there were that many though.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Those Who Hunt the Night has been on my TBR for a while, just hasn't ever felt like the right time to start it. I will probably start it this year though. I didn't realize there were that many though.

Originally, there was just the one (which is excellent and recommended, BTW, and won a couple of awards, IIRC), and then it got a one-off sequel many years later and that was it for well over a decade. But then Severn House revived the series alongside her Benjamin January mysteries, and apparently it sells fairly well, so now there's a new one out every year or two.

IMHO, the first two are still the best, and it would have been perfectly fine if the books had stopped there. But if you like the characters and want to read more about them, the newer novels are also entertaining and worthwhile, even if the basic premise and situations do get kind of formulaic, though she does try to vary the motivations and revelations a bit. (TBH, I'm not that keen on the newer vampire lore introduced in recent installments, which strikes me as more handwavy mystical than the scientific examination lens I really liked from the earlier books, but YMMV.)

Anyway, the 1st novel is still a really good read in its own right, which I hope you'll enjoy whenever you should happen to get around to it.

[pwalker8]

Just finished an indie, Immediate Dead by Blue Cole. A very good read. Basically it's about a detective who can talk to the immediate dead. I tried his first book, but didn't care for it, but this one, his second, is much, much better. I think this one was actually picked up by a small publisher.

[CRussel]

Just finished a re-read of Shadow of Victory, by David Weber. I'm not sure how I got started on this series of re-reads, but I've now re-read all the recent Honorverse books, including the parallel story lines. Definitely enough of that!

Moving to something very different, a walk through the Nero Wolfe books of Rex Stout. Starting with the second, The League of Frightened Men.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Moving to something very different, a walk through the Nero Wolfe books of Rex Stout. Starting with the second, The League of Frightened Men.

Is there a reason you're not starting with the first, as a matter of interest?

[fantasyfan]

I've always been interested in books dealing with some of the great mysteries of the world. One such is the Tunguska event of 1908 when an object exploded over the Central Siberian Plateau near the Tunguska River "a remote and empty wilderness of swamps, bogs and hilly pine and cedar forests." The explosion flattened 2150 square kilometres of the Taiga forest. Fortunately, the area is largely uninhabited so few if any fatalities occurred. Vanavara, a small trading station, was 70 km from the site and a trader sitting outside his house was knocked off his chair. "He had only a moment to note the size of the bright blue 'tube' that covered an enormous part of the sky". Reverberations were registered around he world and " bright, colourful and prolonged dusks" occurred in the northern hemisphere.

Astonishingly, no expedition visited the site until 1927 when Leonid Kulik, a Russian mineralogist, undertook the journey through very difficult terrain. He expected to find the crater of a gigantic meteorite. None was found. So what was the object that exploded with such devastating force?

That is the subject of The Mystery of The Tunguska Fireball by Surendra Verma. This book provides a very interesting overview of the mysterious Tunguska event. The event itself is thoroughly described and the various attempts to explain it are summarized with considerable time devoted to the necessary information (always quite interesting) to help the reader understand the scientific background of each. The final chapter gives an excellent and fair summary of the present state of knowledge and evaluates even some of the really bizarre explanations. A russian website asked its visitors to answer the question "What do you think the Tunguska object was?" They were limited to one theory. The results were:

A comet 31%
A Meteorite/asteroid 27%
An alien spaceship 9%
Other 33%

While the comet theory held the field for some time, Scientists have now largely rejected it and the rogue asteroid theory is the dominant opinion. And it is only an opinion as no explanation actually seems to cover all the events that occurred as a result of the cataclysm.

Other theories include:

A mini black hole that passed through the earth
An anti-matter rock that annihilated itself
a mirror matter rock that nobody could see
A Volcanic blow-out
A giant lightning ball that materialised from nowhere
An explosion from some unknown subterranean and atmospheric processes
A plasmoid surrounded by a strong magnetic field
A zap from an alien laser
An experiment of a death ray invented by Nikola Tesler


Published in 2013, The Mystery of The Tunguska Fireball includes some recent similar events which have occurred in Siberia. It is a fascinating read.

[orlok]

Thanks for the interesting summary of possibilities. I was wondering if British Gas were somehow involved?

[drjd]

Originally Posted by fantasyfan

Published in 2013, The Mystery of The Tunguska Fireball includes some recent similar events which have occurred in Siberia. It is a fascinating read.

Interesting read, added to my wish-list. Thanks, fantasyfan!

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

Finished the de Giovanni novel yesterday. The mystery was nothing special, but I enjoyed all of the characters. I found an interesting comparison between Comissar Ricciardi, who clearly cares little for the fascist government of Mussolini and Inspector Chen Cao and his discomfort with the Chinese regime. I read this in paperback from the library and will continue to the extent that they are available.

The second book, Blood Curse, was already at the library so I picked it up. I am also listening to the second in the Barchester Chronicles - Barchester Towers.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Is there a reason you're not starting with the first, as a matter of interest?

Read it a couple of years ago.

[poohbear_nc]

I was completely beguiled by Natasha Pulley's The Watchmaker of Filigree Street -- an enchanting melange of Victorian England, Japan, steampunk, magic realism, just plain magic ... I thought my reading taste had left fantasy far behind, but this book was magical to me ...

Victorian pseudo-science, suffragists, Japanese culture, watchmaking, Irish terrorists, romance, time travel, real & imagined history/geography/people, not to mention the octopus ...

I reveled in it ... and loathed to see it end ...

although the recent NYT BR of Pulley's second novel (which I have just begun) The Bedlam Stacks -- promises a trilogy, in which some of the characters from the first 2 novels will re-appear in the promised third installment.

Spoiler:

I hope the octopus is reincarnated!

[Rumpelteazer]

I finished the latest Vera Stanhope novel, The Seagull by Ann Cleeves, a couple of days ago. And although Vera is still Vera; she does exactly what she wants and feels necessary it seemed to me that she has mellowed a bit. The mystery has a personal connection this time, when one the group her deceased father stole bird eggs with approaches her about the disappearance of another man of the group.