So I finally decided I was not going to work until later and picked up the latest Murderbot. I am ride-or-die on this series, have read the other books multiple times, but this time . . .
The other books grabbed me right away, but I’m on page 26 and I still don’t have the slightest clue what’s going on. He said he’s on a rescue mission? but I don’t know who he’s rescuing, and that’s key. The biggest reader demand there is: Make Me Care. I don’t think Murderbot’s going to die, and I’m hoping we don’t lose Three, but I don’t know what the hell Murderbot is breaking into this place for, and I’m actually skimming at this point. What is this about, damn it? And then on page 38, he gave me a hint and said, “Now you know why this was such a big fucking deal.” Yes, Murderbot, I do . . . thirty-eight fucking pages in.
Bob and I have this argument all the time: Do not keep secrets from the reader. Really good authors do it all the time–Dick Francis did it once and I threw the book across the room, and I really love Dick Francis–but it’s always a mistake. Tell the reader everything the PoV character knows, anything else is a cheat.
Oh, yeah, and what did you read this week?
198 Responses
Yes, that was the main reason I was fed up with this week’s read – Paris Match by Kate Clayborn. The male protagonist obviously had something huge in his backstory that had shaped him physically and emotionally, which was kept secret for most of the book, even though much of the story was from his point of view. I did read the whole thing – it’s mostly a plug for the Paris tourist board – but it left me flat; and unconvinced the characters are going to enjoy their HEA.
Lessons in Timing by Sylvia Barry was better, but the four male leads are exceptionally neurotic, and the authors (it’s a pen name for two women) get the British one wrong. I kept confusing him with his American counterpart because his name was unusual for a Brit (Armand Demetrio – there’s no reference to his family background; his opposite number is Lucas Barclay, which sounds much more likely to be British). He’s supposed to be from the East End, but I’ve never heard a Cockney say ‘Aye’; and occasionally throwing in an ‘innit?’ was also distracting & unconvincing.
Very good point – make me care is the one thing I need to like a book. It doesn’t rven have to be objectively good (I don’t care for perceived “Lit” anyway), I need connection.
And yes, I don’t want to be kept in the dark – witholding info is a kind of cheating. Unless the MC has buried a formative experience/ important info etc that deep that she/he has no access to it themself.
Readingwise: book 3 in SE Harmon’s Spookology series ended in a cliffhanger (the big baddie has turned up at the MC’s home, easy to do if you’re a ghost, much more difficult to get rid of, too). I care for the series’ MCs, the author made sure of it. It also made me aware why I usually am not a big fan of mysteries – the victims of the big baddie serial killer were human beings with a LIFE and their deaths affected so many more people. They aren’t just props in a thrilling story.
Also, I’m still reading Fake Shot by CE Ricci. I care for one of the MCs, like a lot of the 2 people connecting scenes (not necessarily the over the top smut scenes that are too long anyway), but I get why the author is not on the hot auto-read list of this groups’ hockey readers. As it’s a sort-of-buddy read with kiddo, I will finish it.
Ah, and the adaptation of Off Campus has dropped yesterday Amazon Prime). When I had no access. Hubby agreed to do a binge session for Father’s Day today because all the tickets to the film we wanted to watch in our fav cinema today are sold out anyway. Who’d have guessed ” A Münchner im Himmel” (comedy) would be so sought after on its first day?
Or sometimes the protagonist tells the reader what’s going on, but in such a way the reader thinks some thing else is happening – and at the end there’s enlightenment. “The Raven Tower” was one of those books and it’s excellent but that sort of thing needs to be earned.
I do not want to be frustrated by my books!
Best read of the week was “Here Comes the Sun” by Bill McKibben (2025), a mix of optimism about climate action and recognition that it’s going to be hard which left me feeling energized and hopeful. Lots of interesting info, both historical and current, and I like that the final chapter is more of a faith themed chapter from McKibben’s perspective as a committed Methodist.
Brought my reading of the October Daye series current with #19 “Silver and Lead” by Seanan McGuire (2025). This continues to be a solid urban fantasy series, and even if this was a more low-key installment it was still enjoyable, with October, eight and half months pregnant, still being a Hero of the Realm, this time investigating the theft of dangerous artifacts.
Finished up “Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler” by Susana M. Morris (2025). I’ve always been intrigued by Butler’s work but never read any as I fear the body horror may be too much for me, and this book left me even more intrigued – maybe I can find some non-fiction by her at least. As a biography it’s also a fascinating story of a low-income black woman pursuing her dreams.
Best of the short fiction was “Laser Eyes Ain’t Everything” by Effie Seiberg (2025) which was funny, all too human, and pointed. Free at https://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-123b-laser-eyes-aint-everything-by-effie-seiberg/
Jenny, When I get downstairs and post my review, you’ll see my reaction to the Murderbot opening was similar to yours.
Where do you post?
Here to start (mostly; see mine below) although eventually I sometimes reuse the same reviews elsewhere.
Read three great books that are part of series’ :
Stray Trouble #2 in the Jessica Anderson series by D L Keur. Liked it so much that I bought #3 &4 straight after. This is a series that builds on the previous books and you get to know the characters and the town deeper. Though it did start by “holding things back” that is what drew me in. Just finished #3 Grim Track and decided to start #4 straight off – even though I have a pile of library books to read! It just keeps drawing me back wanting to know what happens. Thanks again for the recommendation Gary+Hayenga.
The other was #3 Dean Man’s Footsteps by Peter James (Roy Grace series). This was a great tense, suspenseful thriller. What keeps me going back though is not necessarily the excellent crimes but the camaraderie of the police characters and Roy Graces private life all of which bubble along in the background and make me care about the characters and their lives.
Saw the movie Looper at the library yesterday and it was … odd. Sci-Fi with Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Now I missed it at the cinema when it came out and love both those actors but somehow this move made them dull, boring and I almost didn’t stay to the end. It was all very arty – dark, so much so that you almost couldn’t see the action. The words were often indistinct (thank goodness for subtitles). Felt it was a waste of time and effort by everyone. Which is a real shame.
That said I am going to see The Sheep Detectives again with another friend on Monday because that was just the opposite. I am told the book is darker but this was just a delight, though there were some tears. Still waiting for my number to come up on the library waiting list.
Glad to hear your review of “The Sheep Detectives” – might see if I can rope in a friend and go see it.
And agree re Looper!
I went to see it on Tuesday and it was delightful. I still like the Aardman sheep best, but by the time I’ve seen this another 3 times I may change my mind.
I’m going to see it with my sister this afternoon, so yay!
I’ve not read the new Murderbot yet (I tried and gave up by page 5 because it wasn’t sticking, it was just words on a page, but I have brain fog and that happens sometimes). Hubby read it and wasn’t overly impressed with this one. He had it read in an hour.
Yeah, this was definitely not the strongest Murderbot and I am sad about that. It felt very fragmented, even at the end. Spoiler: I kept waiting for the other rogue unit to come into play and it never did. I am disappointed. I feel like several of my auto-buy authors have left me feeling this way lately and personally, I am already hanging on by my fingernails so please don’t push me closer to the edge… But I felt like this installment and most of the recent work from Ilona Andrews has focused more on action/plot rather than character, which is what I am showing up for. Is this a trend? Is everyone tired and character is harder to write? Sigh.
Question for those who recommended The Hands of The Emperor: is the series worth continuing? I was eyeing the audiobook for the second book, but it is full price and I think I remember reading that someone said it wasn’t as good? I wasn’t as invested in that conversation then and it was a while ago, so please correct me if I am wrong.
I tried a couple of things I had borrowed from the library but feel not urgency to pick them back up (me, not the books) and some rereading which I also didn’t finish. I am much more productive when I am listening to something with a good rhythm and need to plow through a fair pile of paperwork, so hopefully I find something new soon.
Undercover Miss Hong continues to delight. It turned into a heist, with a weird but loveable crew of found family taking down the bad guy. It’s the best Kdrama I have seen in a while by far. Still no love interest, which is fine since the other relationships are interesting and well built. Also, I didn’t know anything about the financial crisis in Korea in 1997, which features heavily in this storyline. Or how the people of Korea came together to do a gold drive to help with the national debt. It’s really hard to imagine anything like that happening in the US, especially now.
Not sure what to advise about Victoria Goddard. The subsequent titles do dissipate the spell of The Hands of the Emperor a little. I did enjoy them, if not quite as much. One or two are extremely short – bit of a rip-off? The next main story, The Return of Fitzroy Angursell, is pretty good, and probably necessary before reading the final long story, At the Feet of the Sun. Think I also enjoyed Portrait of a Wide Seas Islander, though it’s more of an optional add-on.
Agree with Jane. Hands of the Emperor is Goddard’s masterpiece so the others suffer a bit by comparison. That said, I like Goddard’s writing in general so I’m happy to read just about anything she writes. I think Jane has mentioned the best books for you to try next. Goddard writes both short form and long form so be sure to check the page numbers or word count so you know what you are getting.
Are they charging full price for the novellas? That’s not good. Do audio books usually charge based on length?
I confess, I am not really sure how audiobooks are priced. I think it’s more based on popularity rather than length and the prices do drop pretty quickly with time and sales. I am just stingy and don’t want to waste a credit on something I don’t want to relisten to multiple times. Hands of the Emperor was included with my audible membership, a rarity, so I listened to it for free, essentially. But it is the only book by her available currently. Feet of the Sun is coming out later, I think. The novellas aren’t listed at all, so I would have to read them instead of listening and I am very slow… I may wait on that since I am happy with the experience of Hands of the Emperor.
I think it’s probably a good idea to take a break – I had to, since the sequels hadn’t been published when I finished The Hands of the Emperor.
Re Nine Worlds – depends what they’re calling the sequel, because the Nine Worlds series is sprawling and not particularly linear.
“The Return of Fitzroy Angursell” is gorgeous and I loved it, even though I miss Cliopher. It’s followed immediately by “The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul” which is less enjoyable because it works through some difficult emotions but still good. “At the Feet of the Sun” follows Cliopher instead and once again I loved it. It starts concurrently with TROFA and ends well after TRPA. There are also some worthwhile novellas along the way – including “Portrait of a Wide Seas Islander” which is Tovo’s visit in THOE from Tovo’s POV.
Not sure if that helps?
Agree with Yuri. I have a harder time warming up to Pali Avramapull and her sisters; she isn’t very likeable sometimes, as opposed to Cliopher and Fitzroy.
I like Pali better in the prequels, and I loved Sardeet. I thought Goddard did a good character study of misplaced anger in TRPA and it does resolve: I appreciated it but it wasn’t joyful like the other books, except towards the end.
Ok, fair enough, Sardeet, lol. Not saying the Avramapull stories aren’t good, or worthwhile to read. They are. Just that I love the Cliopher/Fitzroy stories more. I also like the Jemis series.
Absolutely agree – I haven’t even gotten around to reading all the Avramapul stories yet. And I also like Greenwing & Dart – the first book in that sequence is good, and then books 3 & 4 were very good.
Not having any issue with second person POV (!), I think the only things I’ve found disappointing by Goddard was the “In the Realms of Gold” collection of early stories.
I read Pretty Reasons which was infurating because it was written in SECOND PERSON. Yes, I am shouting. Yuck.
Ewww. Why?
Why would anyone write in second person?? It was never intended for a narrative voice. She must have been feeling clever. Bleh.
I actually read a book in second person a while ago where it worked. Usually I hate it with a passion and agree that the author is just trying to clever. But this one was fine. Can’t remember what the book was though! 🙂
“You go into the corner market to pick up something for dinner, round the end of the aisle, and bump into somebody you hooked up with once. After a few awkward words of recognition, you realize you’ve started flirting. The next thing you know, you’re back at home with somebody you thought you’d forgotten all about and your pants are off.”
No, I’m not, and no, they’re not. It *can* be done but this is not how I want to draw someone into a story, much less be drawn myself. Empathy, yes; transference, no.
I seem to recall that I once read a Fred Pohl short story where 2nd person worked. I don’t think I could take an entire book, but then I once thought the same thing about books in present tense, but in the latter case I got used to the style after a while and now don’t really notice it. Come to think of it 2nd person narratives are usually also present tense ones, as in chacha1’s example.
Come to think of it, a lot of songs are in the 2nd person, where the singer is addressing a specific person, not the reader/listener. “You Came a Long Way From St. Louis” is even mostly in the simple past or the past perfect, not the present tense.
Also epistolary novels – every letter is addressed to the reader. Or Jane Eyre – “Reader, I married him”.
I think strict second person would be difficult, but even “Petty Treasons” is Artorin relating to Cliopher how he felt on their first meeting so is a mix of first and second person if I remember correctly.
Best second person story I’ve read would be the excellent “If you were a Dinosaur My Love” by Swirksy: https://www.apexbookcompany.com/a/blog/apex-magazine/post/if-you-were-a-dinosaur-my-love
Yuri, I don’t think you really mean epistolary novels (collections of fictional letters between two specific characters, such as Sorcery and Cecelia, in a mixture of grammatical persons) and I can’t figure out what you do mean.
Gah, I did not remember correctly. It’s Artorin talking to himself, the other half of himself, not Cliopher. Sorry – I should have checked before posting!
I guess what I was thinking is that every first person narrative is addressed to someone, the reader either implicitly or explicitly (Jane Eyre), another character (e.g. epistolary novels), or their older selves (e.g. diary form). And sometimes they use second person to do it, and as long as they do it effectively I don’t mind. I might not even notice, as demonstrated (argh!)
Or large chunks of “They’re Coming to Take Me Away,” if folks still remember it:
“Remember when you ran away and I got in my knees and begged you not to leave because I’d go beserk …”
https://genius.com/Napoleon-xiv-theyre-coming-to-take-me-away-ha-haaa-lyrics
Lian, I am now quite interested to hear what that book was so you must remember!
Chacha! – that’s pretty much what the entire book sounded like. You must have been there.
Conversations like this are fascinating even for a non author like me
… hadn’t thought about songs.
‘You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive
Well you said that we made such a pretty pair and that you would never leave
But you gave away the things you loved
And one of them was me
I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee and
You’re so vain …’
Actually, “They’re Coming….” doesn’t really fit the topic gramatically. The speaker is addressing “you,” but mostly uses the first person to state what _he_ did, not describing in the second person what “you” did, beyond running away. My mistake.
Lupe, do the Goddards have to be audio? Because I remember picking up a whole bunch of Goddard ebooks at the Smashwords July sale a couple of years ago. That might be the cheapest way to go if they’re on sale again in July.
I am also feeling brain foggy (I’m sick) and struggling to get dug into a book. I got about 40% of the way through THE SPACE BETWEEN WORLDS by Micaiah Johnson, a science fiction multi-verse that is based on a cool idea and very well-executed. It is, however, relentlessly dark, and eventually I had to put it down. I am listening to THE INHERITANCE by Ilona Andrews while knitting, but I need to find something new to read – preferably something not grim, not stupid, not cringy, and not machine-generated. Do I sound cranky or what?
I really liked both Micaiah Johnson books but brain needs to be 100% for those I would think!
Maybe “The Hands of the Emperor”? Or “Of Monsters and Mainframes” by Barbara Truelove? Or “Running Close to the Wind” by Alexandra Rowland?
Thanks, Yuri. I will look these up. I am also intrigued by your review of HERE COMES THE SUN. Maybe I need a bit of optimism.
Hope it works for you.
I haven’t read the new Murderbot and now I won’t be in a big hurry. I remember reading Gone Girl and getting to a point and finding out the beginning was just a bunch of lies. Now, if a description says “for fans of Gone Girl” I steer clear. But I guess those are considered unreliable narrators so not sure if that’s the same.
Still on comfort reads of old favorites. I’m waiting for the new Annabel Monaghan book later this month and JAK has a new one coming. Maybe those will help me break the reading desert.
I broke my usual rule against reading books recommended by TV-host book clubs and read ‘Gone Girl’ because everybody was like “omg it’s so good.” And my takeaway was “omg it’s so annoying.”
I’m such a snob. I assume that anything that gets super popular is mediocre to bad. I am going to try ACOTAR though, because I have liked Glass’s writing in the past. I am just scared it will be too dark for me.
I thought the same thing!
Does anyone else also dislike the ever increasing marketing tool of “for fans of…xy”??
I just checked out the Burrow’s book recommended by Jan and of course it says “perfect for fans of Bridgerton”.
And of course any hockey – no, make this sports – romance now is “for fans of Heated Rivalry”.
I know this has been around for a looong time, but it seems the label gets stuck on an ever-growing number of books regardless if they fits the label.
And it’s so often a disservice: you read the book against the “model” and that’s rarely fair.
I dislike that tool, especially when they say it’s like x crossed with y. One, no its almost assuredly not and two, it usually means it can’t stand on its own. Oh, my. I am so snobby and judgey today.
I feel like they do this for surface similarities only when the feel is nothing the same. Granted really good stuff doesn’t feel like other stuff, so it’s a losing battle. Jenny’s books feel nothing like Susan Elizabeth Phillips no matter how many times they are held up next to each other.
It often puts me off reading a book that otherwise might have interested me, if it’s perfect for readers of x, y and z and I’ve never heard of x, y or z or don’t like them, I get spooked and move on
Totally agree with Carrie and chaccha1 regarding Gone Girl. Also felt the same about a Janice Hartlett (can’t remember which one, sorry) where I got almost to the end and found everything was a lie. Infuriating. Refuse to read anything else by an author who does this. It is not smart, it is not clever, it is not “arty” it is a Big Lie and I abhor that.
I agree – Gone Girl was so irritating. I did finish it but when I finished & she didn’t get what she deserved I couldn’t throw the book across the room like I wanted to cause it was a library book.
Thanks for the head’s up on the new JAK. Just reserved at the library and am first in line for it! Thanks Carrie.
Yay on being first in line!!
Carrie, Platform Decay is as good as some other Murderbots (although not the best). It just has an unfortunate start with a long action scene before we know enough to care.
Carrie, I also steer clear of ‘for fans of Gone Girl’. It was one of the few books that I truly loathed. When I got to the end I felt as if I needed to take a shower, the characters were so revolting.
I think unreliable narrators are great if the reader can tell they’re unreliable. My memory of Wuthering Heights is foggy, but I remember that one starting with narration by an obvious asshat, snobbish and stupid, so that when he started giving his opinions which were all wrong, not lies just stupid, I started thinking the opposite. It was a good way, as I remember, to put the reader on the side of the people he was slanging. As in, if this jerk doesn’t like these people, I want to see more of them, I bet they’re great.
Jenny, I’ve mostly seen “unreliable narrator” mostly used for narrators who we as readers would at first sight expect to trust but who are consciously lying about the facts or who have false memories for some reason. Gene Wolfe had a reputation for being a master of that format (a lot of what he was doing was too sophisticated for my brain, which I say more in awe than in dismissal). If I ever read Wuthering Heights I have completely forgotten it, but it sounds like the narrator there is doing something different from the way I’ve seen “unreliable narrator” used.
However, the he Wikipedia article shows that some critics have defined unreliable narrator broadly enough to cover the Wuthering Heights situation, despite what I remember seeing myself.
•Martha Wells, Platform Decay, 2026. Murderbot Diaries, Book 8 (not counting 3 unimportant short works)
The Murderbot series is best started not here, but from the beginning, since there’s a lot of background to absorb. MINOR SPOILERS BELOW! After previous installments but before this novella opens, some of the members (ones little known to us) of Dr. Mensah’s group marriage had been kidnapped by faction A, through diverting the ship the victims were traveling on, seemingly in an effort to exert pressure on Mensah for political reasons. The victims already have been semi-rescued by faction B, which is willing to free them under conditions to be negotiated. The factions live on a huge torus forming a solid ring in orbit around an evidently unpopulated planet. Think of Ringworld writ small, although we only learn such details of its size and layout as prove necessary to the action, so a lot is left to conjecture.
Murderbot successfully infiltrates the torus, in part thanks to a diversion staged by Three, a SecUnit freed from its governer module back in Network Effect and now working with Murderbot. Upon arrival at a safe house, Murderbot learns that faction B, who may actually have indirectly engineered Mensah’s family’s kidnapping in the first place, want to strike a deal whereby Murderbot exfiltrates from the torus not merely Mensah’s family, but also the members of faction B, which turns out to consist of another group marriage. Then matters are on the one hand simplified when an attack on faction B kills all its adult members planning to escape, but on the other hand are made more complicated, since now Murderbot and Mensah’s family have the responsibility for faction B’s young children, and also have weighing on their consciences the dying request of their mother to get them to safety. In yet another complication, the torus turns out to be divided into separate environments, effectively separate nations, meaning that besides the sheer distance between the preplanned infiltration and exfiltration points, there are multiple guarded borders to cross. Further surprise revelations and character growth for Murderbot and Three come later, although action scenes predominate.
We don’t know any of the background as the novella opens, and instead go through a long and rather undermotivated infiltration scene. To my mind this seems a mistake, although admittedly the alternative of a long and potentially boring scene to set things up looks equally unpromising. Curiously, the torus is of very old human construction and its sheer size and continued operation over millenia seems to imply that, to a much greater degree than was ever hinted before, human civilization in the Corporate Rim and vicinity must have slipped back from nearly godlike heights of power, if perhaps not of wisdom or virtue. It’s rather late in the series to be learning this, especially if, as Wells has speculated (but not promised), the next Murderbot story may end the series. I would call this installment a good but not great addition to the series.
•Lois McMaster Bujold, The Adventure of the Demonic Ox, novella, ebook and audiobook both 2025 . Adequately read by Grover Gardner.
By internal chronology this is the latest-set Penric story except for Darksight Dare. Giving his very pregnant wife a break from the children, Penric, with his son and two daughters, takes a short trip to investigate a reportedly possessed ox and to visit Penric’s brother-in-law on his bridge building project. Complications ensue, this time ones free of human or supernatural malice, and eventually all ends well. The subplot involves career choices.
Penric’s society is a somewhat prettified version of the late Middle Ages, and hence it is normal for children to be settled into a career track (at least as regards its general direction) by the time they are 14 or so. In the real Middle Ages, I think that the choice of career (for girls often meaning an early marriage) was largely made by their parents, except in highly exceptional circumstances (the latter mostly for children stubbornly holding out for a religious vocation). Penric’s society tries harder than the Middle Ages to accommodate the actual wishes and talents of children, including girls. One wonders how well it works out to have 14-year-olds making relatively independent life choices at least as constraining as those we expect young people to make at 19 or 20. Recommended, naturally.
•Spencer Quinn, Dog on It, 2008, Chet and Bernie no. 1; audiobook narrated by Jim Frangione, 2009. Bernie Little is a PI, and Chet is his dog, who flunked out of the K9 Academy just short of graduation, thus giving Bernie the chance to adopt him. The series is narrated by Chet in a slightly modified classical noir style. In really short sentences. Mostly sentence fragments, actually. However, Chet does tell us a bit about his interior thoughts and feelings, so it’s not all action and dialog as in classic noir. Chet is not anthopomorphized quite so far, as, say, the cat Midnight Louie was in Carole Nelson Douglas’s mystery series. Chet understands more English than any real-life dog does (probably), but does not comprehend everything, and he easily gets distracted and easily forgets things, unless smells remind him again. The reader often grasps more than Chet does, but we have to work a bit to put the picture together from the clues that Chet provides us. Nor is Bernie precisely the stereotype PI, although he can give that impression, being divorced, careless in dress and office organization, perpetually short of money, struggling to quit smoking, and too fond of bourbon. He’s actually also fairly well read, a West Point graduate, a loving father, and an environmentalist. In the present caper, Chet and Bernie persist in trying to rescue a kidnapped teen even after her parents tell him that he’s off the case. Penelope on this site clued us into this series and others have already posted their pleasure in it. Recommended.
Glad you enjoyed it, Patrick. I adored Chet.
Thank you Patrick (and Lian) – just got my copy from the library and am about to start it. Didn’t read all your post because I want to make up my own mind – but did skip to the “recommended” so will let you know next week.
Which Dick Francis? Asking for a community.
I read Double Cross, which I thought would be a history of all the deceptions that led up to the invasion of Normandy in WW 2. It was mostly about the double crossing spies. It was interesting but not as compelling as Operation Mincemeat and I’m not sure why. I hadn’t realized that the British caught every German spy and either turned them, incarcerated, or killed them. That let them feed lots of false info to the Germans that they could not have if there were real spies among them contradicting it. But that was only one part of the total deception plan, along with things like Patton leading a fake major army preparing to invade the south of France. I guess I would have liked to learn more about the planning of the whole deception. But it’s still worth reading.
I read the new Penric, which I liked because I liked the characters but the plot wasn’t that compelling. Always fun to see the saint.
And I had to revisit Gideon so I am almost done with The Foundling.
I need to read Heretic before the library takes it back.
I realized reading this over that I am reading much more diverse content than I was during the pandemic when I was also going through a work crisis. A good sign I think.
•David Rosenfelt, Andy Carpenter series, audiobooks 2009 to, as far as I’ve read, Book 14, 2016 (as of Monday May 11); the corresponding print books [unseen] ran from 2002 to 2016). I wrote up the first book in the Chet and Bernie series in part because I thought I would give the series a rest before continuing, there being only so much noir narrative style that I can take at once. Then I decided that in fairness I should do something with the Andy Carpenter series, in which I’m much farther along. I haven’t written those audiobooks up partly because I’ve been moving too fast through them and partly because they’re a lot alike, almost as stylized as the old Perry Mason TV show, and I thought a more general treatment would suffice.
Like the Chet and Bernie series, they feature dogs. Criminal defense lawyer Andy Carpenter’s retriever Tara is, in Andy’s estimation, “the best dog in this or any other universe,” but she’s not anthropomorphized like Chet and her talents lie entirely in the domestic sphere, not in helping to solve cases. In one novel, I thought we had a “the dog did nothing in the night; that was the curious incident” situation, one where Tara knew the person who had broken in. But no, she just was too friendly to bark at the intruder. Andy does use her as a sounding board when taking her out for walks. In all or nearly all of the books, one or more other dogs also play major roles. When Carpenter, hitherto modestly prosperous, inherits a fortune, he uses some of it to help establish the Tara Foundation, which rescues dogs from the pound and finds homes for them. Some of the dogs featured in the novels come in by that route. Others are owned by clients or by murder victims.
I recall one case where Mason’s client was actually guilty, although Mason retained his unblemished record through a technicality that I won’t spoil here. Similarly, one Andy Carpenter client defended in a novel was guilty. Reportedly Andy has lost other cases offstage. But in the other novels, Carpenter’s clients are always framed, mostly by planted physical evidence, although sometimes also by forged documents or computer records. Carpenter is the kiss of death or near-death for one or more characters per novel, poking into attairs that get them murdered, in early books sometimes for associates, and later mostly for witnesses whose demise is unregrettable in itself, but which comes just before they can testify for the defense. It takes a lot of work to organize a frame-up not involving corrupt cops, as these mostly do not, and to protect the frame by further murders, so not surprisingly, the frames turn out to form parts of vast conspiracies. The bad guys sometimes decide to take out Andy himself, which should be easy since he has no combat skills and tends to freeze up in an emergency. On rare occasions he manages even so to save himself, but mostly he is rescued by someone else, often his ex-cop wife or his fearsome bodyguard. In the Real World, if not long dead, Andy would be in jail for various crimes including habitual use of information illegally obtained on his orders through hacking. He routinely gets a sopoena for the information once he knows it exists, establishing a suspicious pattern that someone should have caught onto by now.
The series displays considerable seeming inside knowledge about criminal defense, so I was a little surprised to learn that Rosenfelt, before taking up full time writing, had been not a lawyer but a motion picture executive. I also learned that he founded a real-life Tara Foundation.
I just did a retrieval that indicated that this series started getting mentioned on this site before my time here and then several times afterwards before I picked up on it. Belatedly, I strongly recommend it for what it is.
I discovered the Andy Carpenter series last year, and have now read it all the way through—although I didn’t even finish the first book of the K-Team spinoff. I’m doing the print books of the Andy series—large print when available. I prefer “old-fashioned” mysteries with a single (or perhaps a small group of) villains, so I get tired of the conspiracies, but I so enjoy Andy and his sense of humor that I still love the books. Plus, Rosenfelt’s written more than 30 Andy stories at this point, so if he can keep coming up with workable plots, I can put up with complex conspiracies. I like spending time with these people. I like a narrator who keeps me smiling and occasionally laughing aloud. Two more are scheduled for release this year, and I’m eagerly waiting.
I’m glad you mentioned these, Patrick, even if we’re both later to the party then other readers of this blog.
I recently discovered the series too and have really enjoyed those I’ve read.
I liked the last Murderbot but I agree with your impatience. The beginning is bad. And keeping secrets from the reader is unacceptable.
•Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination, 1956.
Gully Foyle, in the 25th century, had been an undistinguished mechanic’s mate 3rd class on a Terran cargo spaceship when it was wrecked in the war between the human colonies on the satellites of Jupiter and of planets and farther outward on one side, and Earth and colonies farther inward on the other. With hitherto unsuspected resource, he has managed to survive for 170 days on the mostly airless hulk. Then another ship comes within visual range and Gully sets off distress signals. The ship clearly sees them but deliberately passes him by. An overpowering thirst for vengeance against the ship’s crew, plus great luck, enables Gully to rescue himself and seek out those who ignored him. We then get pretty much the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo played out as fantasy badly disguised as science fiction.
I probably was not ever as taken with this novel as some people were, since I’m not sure that I ever reread it after my first reading in my early teens, but I did enjoy it, and I had indeed fairly recent reread Bester’s other famous novel, The Demolished Man, and enjoyed it. I knew in any case that The Stars My Destination (British title Tiger! Tiger!) was widely regarded as a classic. I was thus more than a little taken aback to find, upon rereading the novel for my sf book club, that in my mature opinion, the novel is a piece of flimflam, all flash and no bang, and of lasting worth only for introducing a number of gimmicks and tropes that later authors borrowed and put to better use.
Gully himself is repellent, wicked or at best amoral, up to the point near the end where he undergoes a sudden and poorly motivated conversion, one that eventually sends him on a proto-psychedelic head trip and anticipated transformation offstage into a superhuman, in a trope probably borrowed by Clarke and Kubrick for the film 2001. With the possible exception of the future versions of a few characters, with whom Gully is in brief telepathic contact, and who evidently underwent a moral conversion eventually triggered by Gully’s own, no one in the novel is more than slightly better than Gully, and their whole society is a wretched dystopia ruled by evilcorps. Nor is the other side in the war, the Outer System, any better. I found the whole thing repellent.
The genre rules for science fiction, at least in its classic form, require that a work either adhere to known science or explain the divergences away, at least by implication or allusion. (Thus, for instance, by convention an author by now does not have to explain how hyperdrive or the equivalent gets around relativity, but no author since early E.E. Smith has been able to get away with just describing Newtonian acceleration and ignoring Einstein. You have to evoke hyperdrive or the like if you portray faster than light travel.)
The fantasy element is not really the “jaunting,” or teleportation performed merely by wishing it. The researches of J.B. Rhine and others from the 1930s had appeared to demonstrate the reality of at least some intermittently functioning form of telepathy or clairvoyance, and for science-fictional purposes one could move from there to positing in the mid-1950s that other anecdotally reported psychic powers such as teleportation might be real and might someday be reduced to reliability. Bester makes an effort to show how this affects society, probably giving Larry Niven ideas on how to do it better (but using machine teleportation).
The fault, or, politely, the fantasy, stems rather from Bester’s abysmal ignorance of, or total disregard for, more pedestrian science. Bester can’t even do arithmetic. The second paragraph of the novel gives the population of the Solar System as “eleven million million.” That’s eleven trillion, or over one thousand times Earth’s present population, packed into what at the most optimistic can be no more than something like ten times Earth’s present surface area. There are ways to depict a Solar System with such an incredible population density, but instead Bester shows us a largely unchanged landscape on Earth. He pretty clearly meant only eleven billion, or “eleven thousand million,” about four times the 1956 human population. His absolute ultimate weapon, turns out, assuming total mass-to-energy conversion, as if it were 50% antimatter, to have in total less megatonnage than a normal bomb load of four B-52 bombers ten years after he wrote, or fraction under six times that of Castle Bravo test of 1954, already old news by 1956. Bester could not have known those exact figures, but he surely could have found information or experts to tell him that his “ultimate weapon” for five hundred years in the future was more compact than than what was currently available, but not significantly more powerful. In yet more of dubious arithmetic, an Outer System missile attack manages to get ten percent of its warheads past Earth’s antimissile defense for an estimated death figure of 10 to 12 million—compared to 60 to 85 million deaths in World War II, when Earth’s population was only about 2.4 billion. Yet an intelligence official says, “one more punch like that and Terra’s finished.” If there were a vigorous antiwar movement, this pessimism might make political sense, but Bester has shown us no sign of one. Incidentally, Newark was one of the cities hit, but no one in New York City even mentions a fallout hazard.
One character is so radioactive that in the real world he would be dead in hours at most, but in the novel he feels fine and is only inconvenienced by his need to limit his time in the presence of others. The telepathic message from the future indicates that he’s still alive 30 years later. Another character is supposedly blind to normal light, but can see infrared waves and microwaves. The normal eye is shaped wrong for these wavelengths, but hers are not abnormal in form. She is in fact remarkably beautiful. I could go on.
A maxim of literature is that an author can break any literary rule if they get away with it. Carl Sagan, per the Wikipedia, classed this story among those that “sweep me along before I even have a chance to be critical.” The novel swept me along when I was 14 or so. It did not do so 60-plus years later. I heartily disrecommend this book. Your mileage of course may vary.
I read both of those Besters back in the day when attempting to acquire a basic literacy in ‘classic science fiction,’ and I don’t remember hating them, but I also feel no desire to revisit. Thanks for taking that one for the team.
I have no desire to read this book but I am really happy to have read this review!
Since I enjoyed The Daugther of Time so much, I thought I would read more Josephine Tey. I cannot say which I have read, but I don’t think they have stood the test of time so well. I cannot get past the xenophobia or racism. I’m not sure I will read much more.
I tried to read the new Ilona Andrews and I quit. I found I really disliked the “oh, this is clearly so and so and they will do this” that occurred. I can’t describe why it bothered me, maybe because we didn’t learn about the characters and event organically? I won’t continue with the series. I had been hoping about more books about Ronan or “The Inheritance”. It seems unlikely.
Just don’t miss Josephine Tey’s ‘Brat Ferrar’. It is a stand alone and I would call it her best book. Perhaps I am fond of it because I read it first in my teens, and it has horses.
Totally agree. I also recommend The Singing Sands.
Lisa, I agree. Brat Farrar is wonderful.
Absolutely. I reread it last year and it’s brilliant.
I enjoyed “The Daughter of Time” purely as fiction, but I found the basic premise that someone’s face can tell you if they’re a good or bad person disturbingly reductive.
Very true! Only think of Ted Bundy
I kept (re: the new Murderbot) expecting this to be a scene followed by This is How We Got Here, which seems to be traditional of late, but instead it just started at 60mph and kept going. I had enough interest in Three (and Murderbot) to pull me along, but it follows traditional science fiction patterning rather than current patterning. Fascinating. The book rewards rereads, or maybe that’s just myself who reads fast the first time, for plot, and the second time (less anxiety now) for character development.
I read your books and then read on here how much you plan and put in, most of which I miss on first reading. And second. There’s stuff you mention about Min and David that I still don’t notice while reading Bet Me and only see in retrospect. Awed.
Oh, thank you. I really needed to awe somebody today (g).
I also finished, but did not get written up, Ada Palmer’s and Jo Walton’s essay collection, Trace Elements, 2026. I really liked some of the essays, others not so much. Unfortunately, I’ve about hit the ebook’s due date and I doubt if I can discuss it in detail before it comes up again for me on the library queue. In the meantime I’m noting that it’s out and worth reading. It discusses several genres, obviously sf and fantasy, but also romance, and manga as a medium plus sf manga in particular, among other things.
Question: how do people feel about The Murder of Roger Ackroyd? Speaking of keeping secrets, it was an early famous example. It was the unreliable narrator trick, and it did cause a lot of heated discussion when Agatha Christie released it. I personally think it is brilliant, especially when reread years later with foreknowledge of whodunit. So perhaps being in on the secret is more satisfying….
I am reading the newest Lawrence Block in the Burglar series, which are light goofy mysteries in which burglar and antiquarian bookseller Bernie Rhodenbarr has somewhat felonious adventures, many loosely themed around famous authors or philosophers. The Burglar who Studied Spinoza, etc., this new one is The Burglar who met Fredric Brown. Interesting premise so far.
In this novel, Bernie the in his bookstore owner identity sells a novel by Jeffery Farnol— if Georgette Heyer was the mother of historical romance, he could be considered the father ( says the web). Has anyone read him? He wrote a crap-ton of books!! If they are any good, new horizons open up before me!
If not, oh well. There is still the new Murderbot.
I read Roger Ackroyd years ago, but remember enjoying the experience. I think the unreliable narrator is ok because Christie plays fair. The clues are there if you are paying attention. It’s not a genre or trope I seek out regularly but Aggie really was much better at writing twisty mysteries than most and could pull it off whereas I think a lot of other authors attempt it so we see it coming and maybe haven’t done the planning that Christie did and then it feels like a gothca.
Is the Burglar series still going on? I remember reading a bunch of them years ago and then wandered off for some reason.
It hit pause for a long while and now there is a newish one.
I liked Murder of Roger Ackroyd. I also loved Mary Stewart’s The Ivy Tree – again, the author plays fair.
Yeah, I didn’t see that twist coming in Ivy Tree, which was very fun and doesn’t happen very often anymore. It’s giving The Lady Eve, but less slapstick.
I know I read Jeffrey Farnol as a teenager, but can’t remember any titles. I suspect he was one of the writers, along with Stanley J. Weyman, who put me off reading male authors, since their female characters didn’t convince me at all.
I liked “Roger Ackroyd” a lot. Amazingly, given how much I read, I’m just this year finally reading Christie. “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” was suggested as a good book with which to begin. It’d been decades since I’d encountered an unreliable narrator book, and Christie fooled me right up until she revealed the secret. It did occur to me a couple times that the narrator would have been witnessed certain things, but I still didn’t guess. Also, I’m delighted to know there’s a new Bernie Rhodenbarr; I’ll look for that immediately. If I’m I remembering corretly, Bernie does sometimes keep secrets—not cluing the reader in until his “classic explanation” scene near the end, with the detective finally explaining to the other characters and the reader exactly what’s been going on. It does irritate me, but I enjoy Bernie, Carolyn, and Block’s writing (in this series) enough that it’s worth it. Now I guess I better check out Jeffery Farnol. Thank you, Lisa.
That is very true, Bernie does keep some things up his sleeve until the grand denouement, I had forgotten that. He also has been known to do that Roger Ackroyd trick of ‘ I left the apartment, with a last glance around. Had I forgotten anything?’ Leaving the reader to guess what he did in the apartment.
By the time I read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, I already knew the ending. It struck me as the sort of thing that could be successfully done once in the genre. Any attempt by any author to repeat it would be cheating. The same could be said for the gimmicks in some other Christie novels. If you get there first, you get to pick the low hanging fruit.
She was kind of lucky to be the first of her kind. But she had to make her own trail, as the first cross-country skiier does.
Considering Christie was the earliest to come up with a number of mystery book devices that are now considered classics, I would not use the phrase “low hanging fruit” to describe what she did. If it was so low hanging, someone else would’ve picked it earlier. It’s only easy in retrospect, right? 😀
True, but you could say the same of Plato and Aristotle in philosophy. Mystery fiction probably had only formed a genre rather than isolated individual examples since about the 1890s, and Christie started publishing in 1920. It helps to get in early (although lots of other mystery writers from those years are totally forgotten today).
I really enjoyed The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It was one of the few mysteries where I didn’t come close to guessing the outcome. Very satisfying.
Much of Farnol’s work is out of copyright in the US and is in Gutenberg.org. (Beware of repackaged versions sold on Kindle. ) On the other hand, none is in the public ebook libraries where I have cards, suggesting that his popularity has fallen off considerably. Nor do I remember ever having heard of him. I downloaded what the Wikipedia says was his first big success, The Broad Highway, but no promises on if or when I actually read it.
Awesome, thanks for the tip. You ought to publish a blog of your own reviewing books.
Loved Roger Ackroyd, thought the twist was great.
Speaking of good twists, Murder on the Orient Express?
Always seemed so implausible to me…
I think Christie played fair in Roger Akroyd. It was right there in the text if you were a careful reader. On the first page as I recall. It was as if he was explaining things to an interviewer or a cop. He controlled his narrative.
In the past week or so, we re-watched ‘Pretty Woman’ (holds up as a capsule view of the late 1980s, excellent performances, clever script, yes there is grotesque objectification of women) and ‘The Proposal’ (which I liked better this time because I now, post-Wrexham, understand Ryan Reynolds better (and I pretty much always love Sandra Bullock)); watched ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures,’ in which I saw the big twist coming a mile away but appreciated the humane ending; and ‘Butterfly in the Sky,’ a documentary about the long-running PBS program Reading Rainbow, which I never watched because it started when I was in high school. Loved it, find it, watch it. Now, on to the books.
1. [re-read] ‘The Road to Montepulciano’ by Garrick Jones, 1950-set MM+ suspenser starring an Australian ex-soldier who buys a decrepit Italian villa and is instantly plunged into intrigue. There’s mayhem, plus *a lot* of sex, and some period-credible cringey anti-German and anti-Japanese language.
2. ‘The Road to Pienza’ by Garrick Jones, 1960-set MM+ with the same main character, even more sex, even more mayhem, and – alas, because I respect this author – very little fun.
3. [re-read] my slow-burn MMMF novella ‘Falling,’ the one about a movie star recovering from a helicopter crash and the people he loves.
4. ‘Wedding Manner’ by C.G. Macington, which winds up his St. Jude Medical trilogy and is all about the lead-up and execution of the wedding of the MCs from book 1. MCs of book 2 are very present, the rich mother is a monster, the rich father comes out and runs off with a much-younger Mexican billionaire, and there is some nice bonding between the brothers & others. Not recommended as a standalone, but if you read the other two, you’d probably find this farce pretty amusing; I did.
5. ‘Grounding the Baker’ by Oliver Takely. Small-town English MM. MC1 is a landscape designer/installer who’s moved back to small town with his young daughter following death of his wife. MC2 is a 12-yrs-younger finance bro who’s back home from London, temporarily everyone thinks, to run his recently-deceased mother’s beloved bakery while his father is incapacitated by grief. All conflicts are right there in the setup. An inoffensive book with a cumbersome 10-yrs-later epilogue in which we get an unnecessary explication of everyone in the friend group’s happy endings.
6. ‘Demon Overlord’s Retirement Plan’ by M. H. Foster. Alt-hist hopepunk fantasy, “A Gentle Apocalypse Book 1,” and the book does end with “and then THIS happens’ so it’s not exactly a conclusion. Not exactly a cliffhanger, either. The MC Demon is a great character, the village he ends up in is another great character, and the changes he precipitates for certain reasons end up having completely unforeseen effects. Through vegetable-based resistance and transmutation of demonic magic by pure intent, villains are foiled. Enjoyed this.
7. [re-read] my Edwardian queer poly 3-in-1, ‘Sextette.’
8. ‘Blackmailer’s Delight’ by David Lawrence. 1795-set MM feat. the presumptive heir to a village’s richest man and the second son of the village’s most successful merchant. This near-farce, extremely true to late Georgian style but in a very readable way, hinges on confusion about two letters. One is written by the merchant’s son on behalf of his father, who wants to pair one of his daughters with the heir; the other is written by the heir’s previous lover, son of a lord & lady who are on the scene trying to help (in terrible though funny & ultimately fruitless ways) their son get his male lover back.
Succeeded in making me care, right from the off, by opening with the MC heir leaving his unfaithful lover, having a crisis at his valet, and then opening the letter telling him his much-loved uncle is desperately ill. The younger MC is then introduced being completely misunderstood by his upwardly-mobile family and trying to cope, without support of any kind, with his recent realization of his nature.
Resolution of the love story hinges on marriage between the heir and the daughter, who is in love with the rich man’s niece/cousin/something, who has come to assist as a caretaker and is invited to stay by the heir, who now also gets to stay forever and be the beloved of the son. Complicated? Yes. A lot of shenanigans, miscommunications, outright lies, and nefarious scheming, but in the end most people mean mostly well and the solution gets everybody (including the ex-lover) almost everything they want/need in a period-appropriate way. This was a five-star read for me.
Interestingly, I bounced hard off Lawrence’s book “Hugh: A Hero without a Novel,” which both KJ Charles and Alexis Hall raved about. I have his other Georgian novel “Blue Billy’s Rogue Lexicon” which they also liked, and I acquired mostly to support an author working in this uncommon time setting, but don’t remember reading. Someday I’ll return to both and see how they work with my brain in its current state.
Remarkably Bright Creatures was based on a book, which was also lovely, although sometimes sad.
I seem to recall some reader comments amounting to “the best character is the octopus.” Which, based on the movie: fair.
I loved that movie. I liked the human characters, too, though.
I enjoyed Platform Decay. I also feel that doing a re read of the series immediately before helped as there were not secrets kept that way- things were alluded to. But if I had not done the re read I would have missed tiny statements.
My critique of this is the length. I preordered a novella basically and paid for a full book
Most of the Murderbot books are very short and priced like full-length. I think the reading experience is worth it, although I did get on library wait-lists for some.
Alternate viewpoint re the new Murderbot book: I liked it. I didn’t mind hanging on to find out about its mission because I like hanging out with Murderbot – the funniest sci fi character ever written. I’m there for everyone of those parenthetical thoughts, especially the ones about toruses (who knew you could develop a hate-on for toruses??) and ‘juveniles’. Yep, no real character development and like Lupe I would have enjoyed seeing Three more and seeing that character develop but…maybe next time?
I doubled back on the Rachael Neumeier Tuyo series and read Keraunani which was satisfying as a fantasy, adventure and romance novel. Love the character of Esau, so blunt, action-oriented and rule-breaking, yet self-knowledgeable and secretly sweet. I also read Suelen, about the doctor who travels to the winter lands to help the 17 soldiers who’ve been left after the war with the warrior tribe because they were too injured to travel, and then has to deal with the tribe’s violent bias against his kind of medicine. Loved him as a character too. She really can write character which makes for the best fantasy. Well, the best books really.
Then I came down to earth by trying and failing to read Full Moon Faceoff by Max Walker. Hey, sue me, I keep thinking a mash-up of two favourite genres, shifter wolves and hockey, would work out well but…so far I’ve been disappointed in this aim. I remain: optimistic. Surely some writer will sort this out? Or maybe Rachel Reid and Charlie Adhara could partner up??
I MISS CHARLIE ADHARA SO MUCH!!!!!
And you are right, the new Murderbot isn’t terrible. I finished it, which is saying something for me, but I did get to the end of it and was confused. I thought my audible app just shut down. It just didn’t feel finished. I guess I just have super high expectation for this author? I will eventually do an in-order relisten and hopefully it will settle better. I haven’t gone back to the previous story either after the first read.
I actually thought the longer novel that was on the bad planet was a bit tedious. But not this one.
I am so glad you like the Tuyo series so much Tammy. If you haven’t started it yet, I am going to suggest you read Rihasi next.
I reread it recently and went straight back to the first Tuyo after it because I didn’t want to leave the world!
Too late. I started Tano and am loving that. You can’t drag me away from it. 🤪
It’s ok you can read it after Tano. Tano is good but quite harrowing. Rihasi is a perfect self contained romance with an uber competent heroine, just saying 🙂
Damn. I was going to read the next Tano book after this but now you’re tempting me. I shake my fist at you, LN!
I’m still waiting for my copy of Platform Decay to come from the library. I guess I’m less impatient now. I thought this was a full book, not another novella. I’m really irked by pricing novellas the same as full novels. I don’t do it with my own books.
I’m reading Meet Me in Italy by Brenda Novak. Romance/women’s fiction set mostly in Italy. It’s good, but not great. Still, at least the characters tell you what’s going on!
DNF one of my best friend’s new novels, coming out next month. (She sent me an e-arc to blurb.) It continues a series I absolutely adored and which she finally got the rights back to after the publisher ditched it years ago. I’m just confused and lost. It could be me (the brain fog is strong with this one). Or maybe I should have gone back and reread the other books again. I think there was a novella that came before this, and it feels like I’m missing a chunk of set-up, so maybe it’s that. But a book should stand on its own. It makes me sad. I’m hoping it’s just me.
Reread a chunk of my own magical cozy, which is finally coming along (since I’ll be out of town on Monday, I’ll tell you right now that I actually managed to get a bunch of writing done, figured out another scene that I was missing, and hope to hit 50K before I leave town this afternoon). I don’t think it sucks.
Yes, I felt dropped into the middle by the latest Murderbot. I kept wondering if there was a prologue that was missing. By the time I figured it out, the story was nearly over. And a big reveal got such short shrift that I didn’t fully understand it. But I tend to prefer longer novels, instead of such short stories. It was still great to be back with Murderbot, just felt incomplete.
I also started and did not finish “The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels,” by India Holton. Just not for me.
I’ve been working my way through Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses. The MC has made choices, and now is paying the consequences. I’m within spitting distance of the end (just couldn’t stay up last night to finish), and I see the call for additional volumes in this series, but I don’t know if I have to read them.
Platform Decay is up next.
I never argue.
He says argumentatively.
Is that one of those statements like ‘I always lie’?
He never lies. He just annoys because he knows it teases.
Gesundheit to Bob!
It’s also the challenge with series. Not every book is going to be stellar.
I agree the reader should ultimately have access to the information the POV character knows or believes (or what they want the reader to know – good ol’ Unreliable isn’t telling), but when seems to be the bigger sticking point here. Was the info in the prior book and so the author thinks series readers already know and the reveal on p. 38 is a reminder/catch up for those just picking up the series for the first time? Or is Murderbot just being Murderbot and not doing the info share right off the bat? Genuinely asking. I haven’t read the series.
We definitely just got dropped into a non-sequitur kind of situation with this one with it not attached to any of the prior books and a new cast of characters who we didn’t know. 3 is the only person who we have met before for the majority of the story and while the early Murderbots tended towards episodic, there was more of a through thread/longer arching plot. I don’t really know where this one came from or is going in the overall story and am not really sure why Wells chose to tell it. Maybe if I reread I will find something that sets up a character arc for later? I was expecting something more tied to the last book.
See, I was like more: “Oh Murderbot’s on a mission – cool! It’s often on a missing and here’s another one. Imma gonna sit back and enjoy it, where’s the popcorn? I don’t really need to know exactly the nature of hte mission. Oh Three is there too, fun. I didn’t know toruses were so evil, good to know, I’ll avoid them. Hey, I really do need some popcorn.”
What Lupe said. Wells is brilliant with the technical stuff, but for me the technical stuff only matters when it’s attached to character, and nothing about that 38 pages told me anything new about Murderbot or Three (and Three disappeared and didn’t show up again until the end) it was just Murderbot dealing with technical things. And then we got to the rescue and didn’t know anybody so I was still not caring, beyond not wanting children to get hurt. I think it’s good to add new characters to a series each time to freshen things up, but the thing that makes that fun/interesting/important is the way characters I’m attached to react with the new characters, and there wasn’t any of that here. Interesting new characters, yes, but strangers, so when the gut punch reveal came, it didn’t have the impact that it would have if it had been, say, Amena. I’m invested in Amena.
And the gut punch reveal was still so puzzling. Why did the villain do what he did? What was the point of any of it?
I was fairly comfortable with that last ambiguity, since I could imagine plausible reasons and similar things happen all the time in police states. But I think we’re starting to get pretty spoilery for a recently published work.
Jenny – Nora Roberts as JD Robb does that really well in the In Death series. It’s why I read the first 40 books before I drifted away from them. She introduces more members of what becomes Eve Dallas & Roarkes community all the time. AND makes them interesting & likable.
I have started reading Melissa Cave’s Empire of the stars series. I am on book 2 and so far it’s been pretty good. It was recommended on Ilona Andrews ‘ blog in a recent post where readers were asked to give recs.
There were lots of recs for books we have discussed extensively here but also some I had never heard of. This series is on KU. The plot is pretty good. The world building is not bad even though some details don’t sound quite right: there are « page girls » and the fmc’s complete innocence doesn’t quite work for me. Also the language is a bit modern at times and the names are often French with one letter missing: Miche for Michel for instance. I find it quite distracting 🙂
I am selling it, am I, but in fact it’s quite gripping and I do want to know what happens next to all these characters!
I meant, I am not selling it, am I?
Sold, despite the caveats, thanks! I need something new to read and liked the sample. Plus the first book is $3.99. At that price I’m willing to take a risk.
Last week I tried a Kate Elliott and an Elizabeth Bear, both considerably pricier than $3.99. Neither of them grabbed me, though I’ll probably give them another go some time. Then I revisited Rachel Neumeier’s Black Dogs series, and reconfirmed that dark, violent, urban fantasy world isn’t a fun read for me these days, though I used to love Patricia Briggs. Really hoping that Melissa Cave will lift me out of my slump.
Some violence but much gentler than Black dogs!
I didn’t get much reading done this week as there was too much birding to be done: the warblers are only in town for a few short weeks…
I finally read ” Like Real People Do” by E.L. Massey – M/M romance between a “bro” hockey player with anxiety disorder and a figure skater whose Olympic dreams were cut short by a serious disabling car accident. This one got a lot of positive reviews here and it had been on my tbr for a long time. I quite enjoyed it but it was a bit too saccharine for me. There was skating and a lot of team dynamics which was fun, but everything was very a bit too sweet and easy for my taste.
My best read this week was “Finding Hester” the biography of the MI-5 administrative assistant who was part of Operation Mincemeat. I greatly enjoyed this book: it is a great example of how crowd-sourcing (over twitter) the research into a person about whom nothing was known managed to create a picture of this woman who never married, had little family and who never spoke about the operation after the war. The process of research and detective work was fascinating. That said, unless extensive research and investigation is your jam (it is mine) I think this book would probably lose much of its interest if one hasn’t seen the show or if one hasn’t read about Operation Mincemeat. Thank you Debbie, great find!
I’m so glad you liked it!
Yeah, I tapped out after the first one in the Massey series. Too saccharine and I think unrealistic in many ways.
I tore through This Kingdom Will Not Kill me and liked it so much that I nearly turned around and read it again; very impatient for the next already!
But! I also started new ADHD meds so some of that joy may just have been related to being able to sit down and read without distraction – ymmv
In regard to The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, published in 1926, it is remarkable that The Man in the Brown Suit, also by Christie, published earlier, uses much the same construct, and didn’t cause a ripple. I read both recently, found them charming as usual, and view racism and xenophobia in books in general as both unpleasantly notable, as an earlier poster wrote, but also as reasonably historically accurate signs of the times in which they were written, giving fuller pictures of their periods.
The Man in the Brown Suit is one of my absolute faves, and yes, the villain also writes an autobiography that leaves out a lot (5th amendment style). The villain is not the main character or narrator in this book though, and she mainly is truthful although doesn’t admit her feelings about the hero right away.
We could go back and take the casual racism and sexism out of the books, like the golliwogs out of Enid Blyton, but they do give a fuller picture of the period. Erasing the past mistakes may not be the way to learn from them.
“Erasing past mistakes” also a violation of the author’s moral rights. (That’s a legal term, not me being uppity.) To those authors, the past mistakes were truths they believed, and we don’t have the right to change their beliefs in retrospect. We can deplore them, but their thoughts and beliefs are their thoughts and beliefs.
Oh, that does sound uppity. Well, that’s me.
I think it sounds entirely reasonable. We don’t have the right.
As best as I can gather, as a legal term, moral right is not on very firm ground in the US, especially for anything out of copyright. I can see a good case for cleaning up classics for young children if we are going to continue to use them, but no moral case for doing so even with older children. Thus maybe Ten Little Indians (or some other word if even Indians vs Native Americans is too much) rather than the Ten Little N word version, but leave the N word in Huckleberry Finn.
The simpler solution is the vast array of excellent modern books for children.
Some of the things people dislike are integral to the book or play or written product (the sexual references in Shakespeare, or the very homophobic depictions of the characters in The Killing of Katie Steelstock come to mind) and any effort to rewrite those destroys the work. Others are casual asides. There is no way to know what an author would prefer in the latter case— people reading their work intact or not at all, or minor changes that keep the work being widely read. Personally as a reader I prefer the unedited version if only because it’s telling about the author. But I do wonder what Agatha Christie, for example, would really have wanted.
And I think the whole moral right argument gets fuzzy if the person making the changes is the author’s chosen literary executor.
Yuri, Maybe, but perhaps cultural continuity demands more. The Soviets either dropped or drastically rewrote all children’s classics to political correctness, leaving them with verses such as Mister Twister (a new composition) and Buryatino, an improved Pinocchio. I don’t think it worked out very well.
Patrick, I don’t understand the point you’re making? There are plenty of childrens’ books written in the last five years alone – no need to re-write anything.
Yuri, My example would have been clearer without bringing in the Soviet “improved” classics, but I see your suggestion of erasing the entire storehouse of children’s literature (as aimed at young children rather than as objects of adult study) as a more horrifying break with historical culture than anything that even the Soviet Communists attempted. Much, much better to change a few words to minimize the chances of instilling prejudices embedded in literary heritage until the kids get old enough to be reasoned with.
At work we occasionally fall into our book club discussion. I’ve got a Murderbot fan, and others here that generally go for fantasy or space opera. But yesterday they brought up two books I haven’t read which sound intriguing.
“Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore” by Robin Sloan – the blurb: “Clay Jannon, a recently unemployed web designer takes a night shift job at a mysterious San Francisco bookstore. He discovers the store is a front for a secret society that “checks out” ancient, obscure books, leading him and his friends on a quest to solve a centuries-old puzzle that blends modern technology with old-world mystery.” Relatively old, published in 2012
“Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter” by Heather Fawcett. The blurb: “about a type-A cat shelter manager in 1920s Montreal who must team up with a grumpy, infamous magician to save her shelter from a magical threat, leading to unexpected romance and adventure. ”
This one is relatively new – published in February
Anyone have any thoughts on either of these?
Oh, I loved the Mr. Penumbra’s bookshop book! Also read the next one, something about bread, I think, and was less enthralled. I got the Mystical Cat Shelter book from the library (ebook), but wasn’t in the right mood to read it, and there were lots of people waiting for it, so I returned it unread after a day or two, so can’t comment on it. I did like the Emily Wilde series by the same author. (At least, I think it’s the same author. A little brain fog today.)
Definitely same author for Emily Wilde.
Re Mr Penumbra – is it one of those books that picks up pace or is the start pretty much like the rest of it? I found the beginning so boring I gave it away was wondering whether its worth re-attempting it or its just not the book for me?
I enjoyed Mr. Penumbra’s and Sourdough both! They’re both contemporary (for ~2012) San Francisco with tech stuff meeting speculative stuff. Both are quite short, but not novellas, and I liked the audiobook narrators.
I enjoyed Agnes Aubert. Cozy and relatively undemanding.
I was a little ungrounded at the beginning of Murderbot, but thought it was mostly just me having a distracted week and frustration over Amazon’s software glitch that didn’t let me download it to my kindle. It struck me that the structure is one that Wells has used before—the beginning of Network Effect has stuff happening, including someone unspecified getting shot, and then MB says something like, “Oh, don’t worry, the person who was shot was me,” and then catches readers up on backstory. It’s a shorter ungrounded chunk than in the current story though, which may explain the different reaction by readers in this book. (I saw the same critique of this book in a review somewhere, so it’s not just an Argher reaction.)
Trying not to be spoilery, but on the subject of the overall series arc, I thought there were some interesting hints on where Wells might be taking the character in the next (and possibly final) book, with the proliferation of rogue sec units. I hope so, at least, because I think it would be a lot of fun to pursue. There are quite a few rogues out there now!
Beyond that, I’m continuing my re-read (haven’t gotten to the point where I stopped reading the series the first time yet) of CS Harris’s Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries/thrillers. Kinda’ studying them for thriller structure, since I’m playing with an idea for a series of novella-length thrillers. (Love writing novella length, but all my other stuff is turning out to be epic length, so I had to try a new premise to see if I can keep it short and fast-paced!)
And if I may toot my own horn—for anyone looking for a cozy mystery, who missed it when it came out originally, I’m re-releasing the out-of-print Garlic Farm Mysteries, one a month, with a new fourth one after the re-releases (in August). The first one, SIX CLOVES UNDER, was released this week: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0GSXJPPGH
I think I am stuck on the moment when… spoiler…. Murderbot considers erasing its own memory to avoid saving the kids. It seems significant, but I am not sure of what. Obviously it didn’t do it, but after working so hard to win its autonomy and recover some information about that previous wiped memory it seems… odd? Was it just a throw away comment that I am attaching too much importance too? Or am I projecting my own feelings of detachment? Because I think the real problem for me in this book was that Murderbot didn’t feel very involved with the people it was saving.
Perhaps the distance is supposed to represent character growth for Murderbot. It went in to save people that neither it nor we knew well, just because they were Mensah’s family, so it’s sort of a transitive obligation. Then Mensah’s family make it clear that there is a further transitive obligation to save the other children because a) they had already promised to save that whole family, reinforced by b) a standing human obligation to save orphan children whenever possible, and c) the peculiar force that a dying request seems to impose on people.
But that was the premise of Network Effect, largely. I guess we could see it as Murderbot stepping away from the programing that saving people is its function and having to make that choice rather than a kneejerk response but it feels like a step away from what motivates the character rather than a step towards something knew. I can relate to the lost/tired feeling that Murderbot may be having, a crisis of faith/purpose but I would like that to be articulated more clearly because those values of helping people be they human or other bots is so central to the character. What are we left with otherwise? Snark, anxiety and depression for sure, but without the heart it feels like despair. Not necessarily a bad thing, but again I am not clear if that is Wells’ intent. Yeah, I am probably projecting.
Lupe, I read that part as Murderbot being tempted to make a risk-based decision that it knew would make it feel bad and erase the memory so it wouldn’t have to feel those feelings. (Basically, what the corporation had done to it in the past, to make it “functional”.)
That it decides instead to make a feelings-based decision with input from a human and to accept that feelings are part of that feels big for it to me. (But it’s not the first time it has made that type of decision, true.)
I don’t think Murderbot’s function was ever to save people as such. It was to protect its assigned _clients_. Murderbot after independence first stretched that into protecting its friends and people who had hired him, and sometimes other people when asked to by friends or contracted clients. Now that’s getting stretched to cover friends of friends and non-friends to whom the friends-of-friends feel obliged, and perhaps Murderbot itself is starting to feel the direct pull of obligation (or abstract duty, acting simply because that’s what a decent being does if raised outside the baleful influence of the Corporates). At least that’s my tentative theory.
It’s really, really angry. Right from the start. Just getting in touch with the deep rage it feels towards the people who kidnapped Mensah’s family members and towards the person who forced it to promise to rescue the other people.
You know it’s going to try to save those kids and wouldn’t really erase the memory. Part of its problem is trying to keep the people it was there for safe at the same time. It’s tempted to rescue its people and not go back, partly to keep itself alive – which the dying person didn’t actually care about.
Yeah, dying people who coerce promises out of other people are rarely caring about those other people’s well-being.
I’m not sure about that as a generalization (no clue about real life, probably against the data in fiction), but it’s certainly true in Platform Decay. On the other hand, unless Murdebot died at the last minute successfully holding off pursuers (a fairly improbable scenario), its death would do no good for the people the dying person does love.
No, I agree with you. Murderbot didn’t feel very involved with the characters so I didn’t either, but it was a weird moment.
St Cyr? I have to assume you are not looking at actual detection strategy since his always seems to be when stumped find another body. But as a non author I can believe there is plenty of other stuff to learn from it since they are well written.
Yeah, something I realized the first time through was that Sebastian doesn’t do a lot of the actual detecting. Mostly, he assembles a team that does the detecting — the autopsy guy, the kid who talks to servants, the girlfriends/wife, the actual professional detective, and others I’m sure I’m forgetting. Oh, his aunt who knows all the best on-dits. But as you surmised, there’s other useful stuff for a writer to learn in terms of plotting and pacing and structure and characterization. It’s helpful too to look at what does NOT work, as well as what DOES work. Or ways the author does things I generally don’t like (prologues) but makes them work.
Being hampered by lack of access to my books, including the TBR pile, I reread Grace Burrowes’ The Truth About Dukes. It’s one of my favorites of hers. A future Duke contracts epilepsy, and his father places him in an asylum for most of his youth and young adult years. He meets a young woman who hired on as a maid at the same asylum to escape her family, and she sees the horrible way he is being treated, and aids his mental and physical health. Later, they meet again, and we learn the reasons for their being at the asylum. It’s a fascinating exploration of social mores of the time concerning disease, incapacitating illness, and the fate of young women who have no protection. It has a very happy ending.
Yes, I agree about this Murderbot, I have paused listening because I don’t have the patience for suspense these days. Instead I turned to an old friend, and am re-reading/listening to the Liz Danger series. Oddly enough, I’ve had three cheeseburgers in the last week.
My favorite cozy fantasy was The Faraway Inn by Sarah Beth Durst. It’s a YA, but that didn’t affect my enjoyment. This is about a high school senior who goes to visit her great aunt who, unbeknownst to our MC, runs a mysterious but rundown bed and breakfast for magical beings. The great aunt turns MC away initially but then allows her to stay for three days, and in that time MC becomes indispensable and adventure ensues and secrets come to light …
Over the past 2 weeks, thanks to jenny’s further ponderings on series, characters and relations in long series, I’ve been rereading all 10 books in the Magical Bakery Mystery-series by Bailey Cates, starting with BROWNIES AND BROOMSTICKS. Easy comfort-read. I thought book 11 had a June-release, but yesterday I ran across a date in November, so I guess it must’ve been moved. That’s fine, just hope they’ll release it in audio too. Good to have a book to look forward to.
I also read THE SOMEWHAT WICKED WITCH OF BRIGANDALE by C. M. Wagoner, recommended by Kelly J a couple of weeks ago. I have a bit of mixed feelings about it. The narrator is great and the MC is also very good, but my brain checked out when it started being about politics, elections and the like. So, I did finish it, but I havent really made up my mind on what I think about it. I agree with Kelly J on the handling of gender roles and relations though, delightful! 🙂
Since a bunch of months back, Sven and I are reading Raymond E. Feists MURDER IN LAMUT (whose Dutch title would be translated as “The three mercenaries”, and I just can’t get over why they didn’t just translate the original title to its Dutch equivalent) and… Well. I love Feist in many ways, but this one is… not very compelling. We’re 68 % in, and except for the snark, I don’t really care much for either characters or plot. I do believe he wrote this one together with someone else though, that is perhaps at least partly why it’s not hitting the spot. We’ll probably finish it, but I don’t mind telling you that I’ve nodded off a lot during the read so far, and I don’t feel I need to go back and read what I missed…
I’m glad you enjoyed parts of The Somewhat Wicked Witch, Shass! I can understand politics getting in the way. I read that part as commentary on the fairytale trope of the true heir vs getting the right person for the job, so it didn’t bother me. But then, I was mostly reading for the characters.
LOL, that it deals with elections and politics just moved it up my tbr!
I LOVED George. Loved. Possibly relating a bit too much to his… predicaments of being/feeling invisible to everyone “that counts”. I thought our witch solved that very cleverly.
Good point on the politics and it was very well executed! I’m also happy the story took the turn it took – all’s well that ends well. Your perspective helps; it’s all in how you’re interpreting it, isn’t it, and the frame of mind you’re in. The glasses (or earbuds, whatever) you’re wearing when you read will change how you see the story, just like with how you interpret people’s text-messages.
So all in all, now that we talk about it, I feel better about the book! I think perhaps my expectations on it were also different from how it turned out to be. That’s not a problem, just needs some adjustment. Perhaps I’ll go back and read it again at a later time and see how it feels. Thanks for your words on the subject, it truly changed my thoughts and feelings about the book. 🙂
That last Bailey Cates book pub date keeps getting shoved forward so I wouldn’t hold my breath it’ll be out in November. I’m waiting for it like I’m waiting for the latest Charlie Adhara book. Hope the writers are both ok.
Also trying to figure out what’s happening with the third Booksellers book by Garth Nix. I think that one is in indefinite limbo too.
Reading The Correspondent by Virginia Evans and loving it.
Also not a book but about books: listening to The Book Club. It is a podcast with one of the historians from The Rest is History podcast (love that podcast) and a producer of that podcast. You get a male and female viewpoint and they are different ages. There are books that I know I will not read (for various reasons) but I want to know more about them – the reading experience and the author. The Book Club podcast gives me that.
I agree with Jenny about the latest Murderbot, 100%. Secrets from the readers are a No-No for me. Still, it was a decent book, a solid adventure story. Action non-stop, with a vague danger constantly looming and enemies in hot pursuit, as Murderbot rescues his clients from a perilous situation. The plot is quick and engaging. The tension keeps the readers on the edge of their seats.
BUT… the characters are non-existent. Neither Murderbot nor any of the secondary characters have any personality at all. They are all plastic action figures with dialog embedded. I couldn’t sympathize with any of them – they were not there. Even Murderbot’s continuous inner monologue didn’t animate his flattened portrayal.
Despite that, as a plot-based sci-fi flick, it was immensely readable. I even enjoyed it. But I doubt I would ever re-read it, as I do regularly with Murderot’s earlier stories.
Debbie Johnson’s The Hopeful Hearts Bookshop was the author’s latest book, an F/M contemporary romance, and I enjoyed it, unlike many other books with the same premise. There is a whole category of them nowadays. The protagonist(s) go to a remote little town to heal, physically or mentally, and while there, they find a place to save (a bookstore, a bakery, a library, etc.). More often than not, they fall in love and forge new friendships. They admire nature and revive their wounded souls. Sounds familiar?
I have read a few such books lately, and they don’t often work for me. This novel belongs to the same category, but fortunately, it worked. It was a delightful tale about two older people (she is 40, he is 52) falling in love and restoring a bookstore together in a small Scottish town. This charming novel, faintly humorous and slightly idealistic, warmed my heart.
I remember reading her “Summer at the Comfort Food Café” back in 2021 and loving it. I hadn’t had much luck with books for a while and then I read that one and it was just right. I’m also starting to feel a bit satiated when it comes to the premise you describe, but I remember that one as absolutely lovely. It feels very promising to hear the bookshop-one is good too.
I also finished “Archangel’s Eternity,” which was a lines of happy ending for everyone ending to the entire series. Very little action, just checking in with all the characters and wrapping up in a pleasant way. Peaceful and calm ending.
That is nice to know. I haven’t visited that series in a while and missed the last few books, but I am glad she is letting them all have the HEA.
I wish I had more to contribute this GooBooThu. It’s all unfinished reads and listens, beginning with PLATFORM DECAY. I can agree with other posters that it just didn’t grab me. Also that I will finish it… soonish.
Everything else I started this week I will leave unreported.
Much of the week was consumed by YouTube
I really enjoyed Platform Decay (no surprise, given how much I love Murderbot!), but I am primarily reading for character, not plot.
That said, I think the parts with Three are the more important big picture parts (Murderbot worrying about being a good mentor, as well as the plot parts,) and I do care about those. If this were a Leverage or Star Trek episode, I think that’s the “main cast” season arc part, instead of the rescue-of-the-week. (And yeah, Murderbot will never volunteer information before it has to either, imo.)
Plenty of real people don’t want to recall the traumatic events that shaped them. A POV character refusing to recall the sort of thing a real person would avoid recalling is, in my opinion, fair.
On the other hand, a POV character refusing to recall something that a real person would think about regularly is cheating.
That reminds me of a time when a POV character claimed to have thought about a woman he loved many times over the last chapter–but she wasn’t mentioned ever once. I wanted to slap some sense into that author.
I read Olive Kitteridge for the first time. I liked it very much (except the child abuse which was referenced but not shown.)
I’m sorry you were disappointed. I loved it, but I had also just read the entire series when I got it.
The beginning was confusing and should have told the secret sooner, I agree, but I didn’t find it boring.
I just finished listening to History Lessons, by Zoe Wallbrook. It wasn’t perfect but I thought it was a good mystery. It has mixed reviews on Goodreads because it’s disjointed at times, but some come right out and complain about the “political” content, which is that power corrupts people – especially white men who are allowed to get away with terrible things.
My best read this week was a reread of Paladin’s Strength, which is my favourite of the Saint of Steel books. I love them all, but there’s something about the growing relationship between Clara and Isthvan – plus the whole thing with the bears – that really appeals to me.
Another reread was Murder Under Her Skin, the second book in Stephen Spotswood’s Pentecost and Parker series. Great series, wonderful characters. Parker as narrator is funny, clever and opinionated.
Worst reads this week were various academic papers. The semester is nearly over and I have a week to get the final assignment in. I shall breathe a sigh of relief when it’s done, and.I can get back to writing novels.
Has anyone read or is planning to read Ann Leckie’s latest, _ Radiant Star_?
I get everyone’s points about the latest Murderbot, although I’m such a fan that anytime I can spend with that character is time well-spent. I plan to reread it again soon.
The Murderbot series and Leckie’s Imperial Radch series were my go-to re-reads when work/life was less than fabulous. So….you’d think another Leckie book in the same universe (although she’s not reusing characters from that initial trilogy/timeline) would fall in the same “Whee!” hands-up-roller-coaster-thrills category.
It did not. I read, hoping that there was some hook I was missing, but I’ve now finished the book, and I’m wondering….why? Is it a start of another series? Similar to how some TV mystery series will have a weirdly padded episode so they can push the story into the next episode…. Although I don’t recall that happening so much in the Justice books. I don’t want to spoil the book, or even discourage others from reading, but I’d love to hear feedback from anyone who enjoyed it.
Anyway, I’m bummed. I’m bummed I didn’t love the latest Leckie, and I’m a little bummed there’s less than a hundred percent thrilled responses to the latest Murderbot book, but hey, that’s reality.
Which is, you know, another reason to read.
Radiant Star is in my TBR pile. I enjoyed Provenance and Translation State, but they were both different from the Ancillary books.
I have Radiant Star on order. Sorry to hear your reaction. But I had a similar reaction to the book just before that one. So, not looking good for this one then, hoping I’m wrong.
Oh damn, Radiant Star is on my TBR list and now it’s gone down in priority at least until I hear some other reactions.
You guys might love it. The world-building and characters are just as sharp as ever. I kind of hope you all love it.
Re the downloading issue with Kindle. I have just remembered that I had this issue constantly with a previous model but since I updated to a newer one, I haven’t had it at all. It wasn’t a super old Kindle but I can’t remember which model it was. I know they have stopped supporting some models.
Mine really isn’t that old – 18 months? – so it’d be annoying if they’ve stopped supporting it.
I am pretty sure my current one is about that age so it won’t be that 🙁
I think the not-supported models were in the 10-year-old range. Definitely more than five years.
Now that I can download to my phone, I’m kinda’ wondering why I would need/want an actual kindle, given that about 90% of my reading is audio, not ebook. I was already annoyed that they stopped having speakers in the kindle (at least the basic models), so I needed both the kindle and a separate speaker.
I noted above that prior to Platform Decay we had seen no indication that human civilization in the Corporate Rim has ever had the power to build a solid torus around a planet, a sort of mini-Ringworld. We are given no dimensions, but conservatively assuming a planet the size of Mars and an orbit 1000 km high (which might not be enough to keep it out of atmospheric drag), that thing is just under 24,500 km or about 15,200 miles, in circumference. Solid, in multiple levels. I strongly suspect that Wells recently thought of the idea rather than having withheld information from us since the beginning of the series, but the effect is much the same, and it seems to me to unbalance everything before it.
Also note that no character seems particularly surprised that such an enormous construction could exist, although we have seen nothing to match it previously from the present day or archeological remains, neither from humans nor from alien artifacts.
I read and am re-reading “The Last Lady B” by Elosia James. I’m not sure what I think about it, which is, in part, why I’m re-reading it. I burned through it the first time, so it has been great to pick up extra details that foreshadow things that happen later in the story. Generally, I’d recommend it. It is in first person from the heroine’s perspective, and she frequently breaks the wall and talks to the reader (that’s what’s in parentheses). The ending is twisty. It’s modeled like a gothic novel. A lord (70 years old) brings his 4th wife (25 years old) to an abbey where his previous wives all died. Their ghosts are rumored to haunt the place. The abbey is deep in Scotland, and they get snowbound. All residents are forced to stay due to the snow. There are secret tunnels. There is also a lot of humor in the story. Our heroine rescues a runt of a pig and adopts her as a pet. Keeping Peony the pig from becoming pork is a full-time job as is watching over addled Aunt Mima, teaching a 14-year-old girl how to behave properly, given she’s been in the abbey her whole life, and then revisiting the character of your spouse and what you really want in life, like the hunky, 30-year-old barrister in the room next to you. It’s interesting and entertaining.
“So, Gary J., what do you like to do for fun?”
“I used to like to collect the tattooed corpses of dead trees and display them in my room. Now I prefer ebooks and audiobooks.”
In further reading of Andy Carpenter, I find that a fairly important character dead in book 14 is back alive in book 18. Naturally numerous readers noticed, this and Rosenfelt admitted on his blog that it was just a mistake. The series was conventionally published. Too bad that that no longer means that books get even superficially edited. One less reason to pay print prices. If Rosenfelt has an agent or even beta readers, I don’t think they were doing their job either. One entry makes me wonder if this was rationalized in later books by making the living character the same-named son of the dead one, but I haven’t read that far.