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Post by MRPs_Missives on Feb 7, 2024 15:29:53 GMT -5
Just picked this up this afternoon while at my lcs, seemed appropriate for me... I'll dive in soon when I've finished a few of my in process reads. -M
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Post by wildfire2099 on Feb 9, 2024 0:46:55 GMT -5
Planetfall Emma Newman
Even though I have a million books in my to read pile, I still can't escape a library trip without taking some out. In this case, I went to an out of town library to pick up the next book in the Billy Boyle series I've been reading, and grabbed this... when I got it home, turned out I had put it on my to read list at some point, so I guess I thought it looked good twice.
The premise is great... a group from a near future Earth founds a colony far away, thanks to 'the Pathfinder'.... a visionary (or Cult Leader) that figures out where to go from a weird plant.
The colony is a utopia founded on a dark secret. Sounds good, right? They have cool tech.. lots of bio-organic stuff.. living houses, they're all wired together, fun stuff. The dark secret is pretty clear from the beginning, but that's OK, surely the world will be interesting, and these things usually have an unexpected twist.
The main character is a brilliant engineer that at first seemed to just be shy and anxious but as the book goes on (and this is MOST of the book) she ends up being massively traumatized and broken... so instead of cool sci-fi, it's a decent into madness (but really she was already there, the reader just doesn't know it.
Then as the book progresses, it's time for the big secret... and it's exactly what you expect. No twist. The results are exactly what you expect. And the twist is Jeff vandermeer like in it's annoying nothingness (That is probably the last book I gave 1 star to.
Much like that book, the actual story isn't THAT bad, but the waste potential and level of annoyance it causes drops it quite a bit.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Feb 9, 2024 4:53:07 GMT -5
Blood on the MinkRobert Silverberg, 2012 The titular novel was originally published in a crime story magazine in 1962, although in the afterword Silverberg noted that he had originally written it sometime in 1959. It tells the story of a deep-cover federal agent who has to take down a counterfeiting ring based in Philadelphia. He does so by assuming the identity of a high-level mobster from LA who was traveling to Phillie to strike a deal with the counterfeiting mob to move their product on the West Coast (said mobster, Lowney, was quickly and quietly taken into custody by feds at the Chicago airport during a layover) As Lowney, our protagonist manages to convince everyone that he's on the up and up, and in the process also learns the whereabouts of the closely guarded engraver who’s making the plates for the fake bills. However, matters get complicated when the head of a New York counterfeiting gang contacts him on the side, asking him to steal the plates for them, while the leader of a rival Southern California mob who knows the real Lowney also arrives in town to strike his own deal. When you add in two femmes fatale, this one has checks off pretty much every box for a pulp story, and man, does Silverberg deliver: this is tightly plotted, fast-moving and suspenseful, pretty much everything you want from a good crime thriller. The book otherwise includes two of Silverberg’s short stories from around that same period that were also published in various crime story magazines, both of them sort of thematically tied to the main novel: “Dangerous Doll,” originally published in 1960, involving a courier for the Chicago mob delivering counterfeiting plates to a crime syndicate in LA; and “One Night of Violence,” originally published in 1959, about a travelling salesman who unwittingly stumbles into a mob-related kidnapping in a motel somewhere on the backroads of Wisconsin.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Feb 13, 2024 0:39:47 GMT -5
The rest is Silence James Benn It seems we are inching toward Normandy, and this one finds Billy in the midst of a big training accident. Benn goes nearly full Agatha Christie with this one, complete with a manor house and quirky family full of secrets. He even gets them all in a room for a big reveal. The mystery itself was pretty clear early on, and while there was a twist, it wasn't very significant, really more just a twist of the dagger to the bad guys. Benn seems to be enamoured of tossing surprise famous guests into the story, which is a different (and more annoying) was to abuse coincidence than having characters Billy had come across before cropping up again. These two particular guests were really fun though, so I give it a pass. This one even had a bit of a happy ending (though based on the summaries it seems it doesn't last.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Feb 13, 2024 14:37:51 GMT -5
Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi
Tom Stein is a rising agent in Hollywood with a client who has become a breakout star. Now his boss wants him to take on a new client as his primary focus. The catch...it's a race of aliens that want to be introduced to Earth. But they aren't cuddly aliens. They look like The Blob and smell like low tide in a rank estuary. So Tom has his work cut out for him. This was Scalzi's "starter" novel. Written to see if he could write a novel-length work it was then published on his website, as a short-run book and then through a traditional publisher. It has some hallmarks of a first novel. It's a bit rough around the edges. The premise is interesting, but not ground-breaking. But it's quite readable. It was actually going quite well until it took a turn in the third act that I didn't care for. Ultimately it worked out okay and I didn't hate the ending, but it was weak. It's worth a read if you're a fan of Scalzi's work. And if you want some fairly light SF it's not a bad option.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Feb 17, 2024 1:37:50 GMT -5
Continuing my leisurely reread of Tolkien, I finished the Two Towers last night. It's been so long since I've read the trilogy that the movies had come to dominate my memory palace of recollection about the trilogy, so the differences between the telling in the two mediums stood out large for me, in particular the battle at Helm's Deep, but in other places as well. I'm going to get to a few other things before starting Return of the King, but I will get to it this year sometime. I've read these often enough now that I don't need to focus my reading on what is happening in terms of the narrative or what is going to happen next, I can read it at a more leisurely pace and focus on the prose, mythology, and the craft of wordsmithing on display by the Professor. But it's nice to come back to these after a decade or more away. There's a bit of a feeling of coming home, as I read the trilogy almost yearly for the decade between jr. high and grad school, but only a couple of times since I finished grad school in '96. -M
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Post by wildfire2099 on Feb 17, 2024 23:33:29 GMT -5
A Swift and Savage Tide Chloe Neill This was another random one I got wandering around the library...it seemed like an easy win... a Naval book with magic? That's not a combo you see much. Much to my chagrin, it's mostly a romance, with very little naval action (the fights are just glossed through, and are all very easy for the good guys) and a whole lot of 'will-they-or-won't-they'. I didn't realize this was the 2nd book, but I don't feel as though I missed much.. the world is a very slightly disguised Europe in 1810, where the 'Gallic' emperor (and Napoleon stand in) was probably defeated in the 1st book.. this book he escapes his island prison and is trying to take back over. (though he never is actually 'on screen', just talked about). The really big question, though, has no answer... is Kit ACTUALLY blue like on the cover? I know its probably just the shadows, but sadly it was the most interesting thing in the book which was probably closer to a Regency romance with a twist than naval fiction. Based on where the plot stopped I expect there was the intent for more books,
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Post by wildfire2099 on Feb 24, 2024 19:14:53 GMT -5
Game of Brawl Bill Felber It's that time! Spring training has sprung, so a baseball book was on the agenda. I've been checking out Strat-o-Matic online (after many years of APBA) with the 1894 season, so this was just the book. As advertised, it's a general log of the season... focusing on the top two teams, Boston and Baltimore, who had both won 3 pennants each in the 6 years before. It's full of the crazy stories that make up the dead ball era. It also talked about Boston's Royal Rooters quite a bit... the first real organized fans in professional sports. I wasn't aware there was such difficult keeping umpires employed, which was really interesting. The writer (clearly more a fan of Boston than Baltimore) portrayedit as a clash of styles.. Boston's fair play and power hitting to the Orioles running, scrapping and 'kicking' (working the umps). It also gave me some nice info on alot of the players that will make my 1894 season more fun, which was definitely part of the idea .
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Post by EdoBosnar on Feb 25, 2024 18:25:59 GMT -5
Little Girl LostRichard Aleas (pseudonym for Charles Ardai), 2004 Well, this is the third time this book is being reviewed in this thread; the first time was by wildfire2099 and then by Slam Bradley. But what the heck, I’ll throw my hat into the ring, too. Anyway, Slam in particular summed up the basic plot pretty well, so I’ll just add that I agree with their general impressions: this is a very readable mystery novel – yes, I also figured out what the twist would be before I was halfway through, but even so, it’s a pretty good ride because it’s quite competently written, and Aleas/Ardai creates some good characters and sets up his world pretty well. I’d definitely recommend it for light reading. And I agree with wildfire: I wouldn’t have minded a follow-up story with Susan as the main protagonist.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,206
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Post by Confessor on Feb 25, 2024 19:03:37 GMT -5
Well, this is the third time this book is being reviewed in this thread; the first time was by wildfire2099 and then by Slam Bradley. But what the heck, I’ll throw my hat into the ring, too. I like it when books get reviewed by multiple members. It's always interesting to see what different people have to say about a given book.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Feb 28, 2024 8:48:17 GMT -5
Ship of Ishtar by A. Merritt This is among the last of my big pile of sci fi books from a few years back (I'd say I'm down to maybe 20-30 of them from that big purchase). I hadn't read of the the A. Merritt books because I wasn't clear if they were a series or not.. it seems the are not. This is very much in the vein of the 'travelogue' adventure of the early pulps (as the time it was written would indicate)... the hook is that it is steeped in Babylonian mythology. The hero receives an artifact (a model ship) and it transports him back to that era, and smack into a conflict of the gods. The book has a bunch of fun (if stereotypical) characters and some good pulpy action. It's of course very dated and has some stuff in it that will strike modern readers.. the good guys keep slaves and have no concern whipping them, and of course the female lead is totally subservient, but as long as you get past that it's a fun book with a bit of Babylonian mythology info-dumped in. Not the smoothest read ever but worth the time for sure.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Feb 28, 2024 12:25:40 GMT -5
Nightfall by David Goodis
Who is Jim Vanning? He's a commercial artist in New York City. But he's also hunted by both the police and a number of underworld figures. Is he a thief and murderer? Or is he a man who was caught in the wrong place and wrong time leading him into trouble he didn't have a hand in making? He and those around him deal with these questions in this noir novel. This is early Goodis, his fourth novel, published in 1947 while he was still in Hollywood, before his return to Philadelphia. So we have Goodis still developing and it definitely doesn't have the hard edge that we would get from his later Philadelphia novels. I'd say it's weaker than Dark Passage, the best of Goodis' early novels. I think that the problem is that it just isn't quite noir enough. Vanning's problems are, at least partly, due to misfortunes of luck. Yeah, Vanning makes some bad decisions but, ultimately, Goodis gives us a cop-out ending that undermines what little everyman noir cred it might have. I feel like this was written with an eye toward turning it in to a movie that would be approved by The Hayes Code and that makes it weak tea compared to Goodis' best work. It's still a decent novel, but it's weak Goodis and it just isn't dark enough to truly be noir.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Feb 29, 2024 17:27:35 GMT -5
The Count of NineEarle Stanley Gardner (writing under the pseudonym A.A. Fair), 1958 This is the first Cool & Lam book I’ve ever read, and only the second book by Gardner (the first was one of the Perry Mason novels a long time ago). Our pal Slam_Bradley briefly mentioned that he’d read this one recently and found it a “fun, breezy, fairly light” read. That’s a pretty good description, as it’s a real page-turner. The basic story is that Bertha Cool is hired to do security at a swanky party in the penthouse of a rich world traveler named Crockett who’s worried about some of his valuable trinkets and knick-knacks being stolen – as happened a few weeks prior, when one of two tiny jade Buddhas disappeared. Low and behold, two items – the other Buddha and a unique blow-gun from the Amazon – still get stolen. Donald Lam is charged with finding said items, but then the plot thickens when Crockett is found dead – killed by blow-gun dart – in his private study, and the widow wants Lam to find out whodunit.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Feb 29, 2024 18:29:06 GMT -5
The Count of NineEarle Stanley Gardner (writing under the pseudonym A.A. Fair), 1958 This is the first Cool & Lam book I’ve ever read, and only the second book by Gardner (the first was one of the Perry Mason novels a long time ago). Our pal Slam_Bradley briefly mentioned that he’d read this one recently and found it a “fun, breezy, fairly light” read. That’s a pretty good description, as it’s a real page-turner. The basic story is that Bertha Cool is hired to do security at a swanky party in the penthouse of a rich world traveler named Crockett who’s worried about some of his valuable trinkets and knick-knacks being stolen – as happened a few weeks prior, when one of two tiny jade Buddhas disappeared. Low and behold, two items – the other Buddha and a unique blow-gun from the Amazon – still get stolen. Donald Lam is charged with finding said items, but then the plot thickens when Crockett is found dead – killed by blow-gun dart – in his private study, and the widow wants Lam to find out whodunit. This was during the prime period for this series. The very early books were great. There was a bit of a lull during the war. And then they came out blazing through the 50s, until they hit another lull in the early 60s. They are never less than a fun, easy read. But at their best they are compulsively readable.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 3, 2024 14:30:14 GMT -5
Shills Can’t Cash ChipsEarle Stanley Gardner (writing under the pseudonym A.A. Fair), 1961 Another Cool & Lam mystery; this one starts off as a case that possibly involves insurance fraud with an automobile accident – a nice, ‘respectable’ case according to agency owner Bertha Cool, but once Lam starts investigating, he finds that the whole situation is quite complicated, with the same shady charcters involved. And, of course, a murder then mucks things up big time. In some of his reviews of the other books in this series, Slam_Bradley notes that they follow a formula (as these series with recurring characters tend to do) and even though this is only the second I’ve read, I can definitely see some elements of that formula in play here. However, like the previous one I read, it’s an entertaining, light read with an engaging plot (and I’ll admit that I found the insurance fraud angle intriguing).
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