Steve (swynn) reads and runs in 2022: Lap 2

I'm Steve, 53, a technical services librarian at a medium-sized public university. I live in Missouri with my wife and son and Buddy, a Terrier-mix chaser of squirrels, rabbits, opossums, deer, and (alas) skunks. This is my 13th year with the 75ers.

My reading follows my whims, but is heaviest with science fiction and fantasy. I also read mysteries, thrillers, and horror. I don't read enough non-fiction, but when I do it covers a range of subjects including history, language, popular science, unpopular mathematics, running, library science, and shiny stuff.

I'm usually reading at least three books:
(1) something on the Kindle app, which I read whenever I'm standing in line or when the lights are off;
(2) a paperback, usually from my own shelves, which I read while walking Buddy; and
(3) something borrowed from the library, of which there is usually a larger stack than I can reasonably expect to finish and which I call "The Tower of Due." Here's what it looks like now:

(A) The DAWs

For several years now, I've been reading through the catalog of DAW, the first American imprint exclusively devoted to science fiction & fantasy publishing. It launched in 1972 under the editorship of Donald A. Wollheim (hence the name), and continues today, publishing new books at a rate faster than I'm catching up. Last year I read 17; this year I hope to aim for about one a week but realistically I think I can get 30.

DAWs so far: 6
Next up: The Immortal of World's End by Lin Carter

(B) Bestsellers

For the last few years, Liz (lyzard) and I have been reading through American bestsellers at a rate of one per month. Last year I caught up to Liz, and hope to stay that way through 2022.
Bestsellers so far: 2
Next Up: Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow

(C) Banned in Boston

Another project I've been co-reading with Liz is a list of books that were "banned in Boston." I'm behind on this one, but hope to catch up.

Too Hot for Boston so far: 1
Next up: From Man to Man by Olive Schreiner

(D) Kurd Lasswitz Prize

A new project this year is reading through the winners of the Kurd Lasswitz Prize for Best Novel. I don't have a good sense of how quickly I'll move through these, but with New Year's optimism I want to aim for one a month.

KLP so far: 0
Next up: Die Enkel der Raketenbauer by Georg Zauner

Diversity goals

Left to itself, my reading skews straight, white, and male. Wonder why. For the last couple of years I've tracked proportion of non-straight, non-white, and non-male authors in an effort to be more conscious of this. Last year I read: 18% LGBTQ, 22% authors of color, and 49% women and nonbinary authors. (Targets were 15, 20, and 50.) Targets this year are again 15%, 20%, and 50%. Recommendations welcome.

(E) Not Straight: 5 (14%)
(F) Not White: 8 (23%)
(G) Not Dudes: 16 (46%)

Other Good Intentions

Continue more series than I start. According to the spreadsheet where I keep track, I have started but not finished 309 series. My insufficient strategy for managing that number is to continue more series than I start and to finish a series every now and then. Last year I started 22, continued 18, and finished 7.

• (H) Series started: 6

The Hate U Give series by Angie Thomas
Kioga by Wiliam L. Chester
Nero Wolfe by Rex Stout
Renegade X by Chelsea M. Campbell
Rudder Grange by Frank R. Stockton
The Three Investigators by Robert Arthur


• (I) Series continued: 4

Death on Demand series by Carolyn G. Hart
Dray Prescot by Kenneth Bulmer
Twin Pines series by Louise Penny
Year's Best Fantasy series (DAW)


• (J) Series finished (or up-to-date): 0

1) What White People Can Do Next (FG)
2) The Book of Eels ()
3) Stone and Steel (EFG)
4) The Warmth of Other Suns (FG)
5) The Tides of Kregen (AI)
6) The Man Who Didn't Fly (G)
7) The Book of Accidents ()
8) The Wife Upstairs (G)
9) The Secret of Terror Castle (H)
10) The Year's Best Fantasy Stories: 2 (AI)
11) The Echo Wife (EG)
12) The Cruelest Month (GI)
13) The Wrong End of the Telescope (EF)
14) Jonathan Livingston Seagull (B)
15) The Rise of Renegade X (G)
16) Daughter of the Bright Moon (G)
17) Earth Factor X (A)
18) The Prophets (EF)
19) A Whiff of Madness (A)
20) Underbug (G)
21) Dreamland Burning (G)
22) Sant of the Secret Service ()
23) Oil! (C)
24) The Hate U Give (FGH)
25) A Home for Goddesses and Dogs (G)
26) These Toxic Things (FG)
27) Checkmate in Berlin ()
28) Something Wicked (GI)
29) Wholehearted Librarianship ()
30) Fer-de-lance (H)
31) Felix Ever After (EF)
32) Rudder Grange (H)
33) Interstellar Empire (A)
34) Centennial (B)
35) Jesus and John Wayne (G)
36) Kioga of the Wilderness (A)

Perry Rhodans so far: 8
Next Up: #179 Notlandug auf Beauly II

Introduction to the Perry Rhodan saga: https://www.librarything.com/topic/338133#7700316

The last Perry Rhodan update brought us to episode 173. The Terran/Arkonide empire is on the brink of war with the Blues, a race of saucer-headed blue-furred beings who have built an empire on the east side of the galaxy. The Blues are aggressively expansionistic: when they encounter an inhabited world suitable for colonization, they use all-consuming monsters called Hornschrecken to destroy existing life, then move in when the feeding is done. As a bonus, the Hornschrecken excrete molkex, an incredibly hard substance that the Blues harvest for use in spaceship armor. The molkex armor is so effective that Terran weapons cannot penetrate it. The Terrans have been desperate to learn how the Blues work with the molkex, because such knowledge could be used to develop a counterweapon. Episode 173 brought that breakthrough, when Terran agents Lemy Danger and Melbar Kasom learned that the Blues use a solution of hydrogen peroxide and hormone B, a chemical excreted by juvenile Blues, to make the molkex pliable for manufacture. This discovery not only solves the mystery of how the Blues use molkex in manufacturing; it also explains the Blues' aggressive expansionism: to build spaceship armor, they need hormone B. To get hormone B they need to produce more newborns. But newborns grow up, so the Blues need to colonize additional worlds. Which requires more spaceships, more molkex, more population, more worlds, etc.

But now that the Terrans know the secret of Hormone B, can they turn it into a weapon in time? After all, Perry Rhodan has limited access to baby Blues.

         

Perry Rhodan 174: Die Panzerbrecher = "The Armor-Buster" by William Voltz
A team of Terrans travels to the barren planet Tauta to test a weapon built from a very small supply of hormone B. The weapon gets a more rigorous test than R&D was expecting when a Blues spaceship discovers their activity.

Perry Rhodan 175: Wettlauf gegen die Zeit = "Race Against Time" by Kurt Brand
The new armor-busting weapon works against molkex shields, but Terrans have nowhere near enough hormone B for the kind of volume they'll need. Researchers scramble to find a way to synthesize more. Meanwhile the Akons, who have been in a fragile alliance with the Terrans and Arkonides during the Schreckworm threat, lend support to the Blues for a preemptive attack.

Perry Rhodan 176: In letzter Minute = "At the Last Minute" by Kurt Brand
Even with synthetic hormone B, the Terrans still have to find a way to mass-produce the volatile chemical and the armor-busting weapons. Meanwhile, Akon-supported Blues attacks heat up.

Perry Rhodan 177: Der Untergang des 2. Imperiums = "The Fall of the Second Empire" by Clark Darlton
With new armor-busting weapons, the Terrans turn the tide in the war against the Blues. But empires are large, and wars long. To secure a rapid and decisive victory, a Mutant Corps team travels to the Blues' homeworld, on a mission to sabotage the Blues' reserve of molkex.

Perry Rhodan 178: Die Todeskandidaten von Akon = "The Condemned of Akon" by Kurt Mahr
Three Akonish criminals facing execution get a reprieve in exchange for undertaking a secret and suicidal mission: destroy the Schreckworms' homeworld with super-nuclear bombs. When explosions damage a Terran transport ship, Terran survivors and Akonish agents must work together to get off the planet in time.

36) DAW #209: Kioga of the Wilderness by William L. Chester
Date: 1976 (originally serialized in Blue Book 1936)

A derelict ship is discovered in the arctic, all hands frozen stiff. Documents found on board tell a fantastic story about the adventures of Kioga, a Tarzannish hero whose parents shipwrecked on a the shore of a wold land and died shortly after his birth; who was raised by natives; who reached peak physical and mental condition through fresh air and outdoor adventure; and who eventually traveled to civilization but found he preferred the wilderness. So, Tarzan. Except instead of Africa, Kioga's wilderness is Nato'wa a lost world above the Arctic Circle, a lost homeland of Native Americans.

It turns out that this is not Kioga's first adventure. That, I've learned, is Hawk of the Wilderness, not reprinted by DAW, in which Kioga grows up and makes his way to civilization. In this one, he leads a group of Native Americans to Nato'wa; meanwhile a scientist organizes an expedition to Nato'wa, carrying the white woman who loves Kioga. Pulpy adventure follows: it's full of incident, with evil shamans, tribal warfare, pirates, perilous injuries, miraculous cures, and lots of lots of hunting. Very much of its time with cringey references to "red skins" and "savages," so TW for casual racism.

**RUNNING POST**

Miles last week: 9
Total miles: 120
Longest run: 3 miles
Fastest mile: 9:38

Soundtrack: Gaddaar by Bloodywood
BPM: 105

Kind Sir: In an effort to get your not-straight not-white not-male reading kickstarted, howzabout you get your eyeballs on Mage of Fools by Eugen Bacon? She's African-Australian lesbian SF writer. The book's about women trying to make life work when they literally can't go into the sunshine for fear of cancer. It's got such a...peculiar...vibe that reading it ceased to be optional within an hour.

And it's just under 200pp!

Happy new thread, Steve.

>7 richardderus: Be-Kobo'd. It'll be the next ebook up after this Perry Rhodan adventure. Thanks for the rec!

>8 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul!

Happy new thread, Steve!

Happy new thread, Steve!

>10 BLBera:
>11 ArlieS:

Thanks Beth & Arlie!

Happy New Thread, Steve!

I think we're caught up on Boston, aren't we? Anyway, since the reopening of my academic library, hallelujah!, I finally have hopes of getting my hands on a physical copy of From Man To Man and plan to read it next month.

(Apparently it was originally released in two volumes so we might be doing the 'Hooray for finishing big books' thing again.)

According to the spreadsheet where I keep track, I have started but not finished 309 series

Feh. Amateur.

>13 lyzard: The edition I'll be reading is 463 pages, says the library catalog record. It's on its way to me, so I haven't yet seen the type size.

At least we're dealing with a manageably-sized bestseller next month.

37) Alternate Routes by Tim Powers
Date: 2018

A government agent and an ex-agent team up to deal with ghostie-things that inhabit a parallel universe along the nation's highways. It's light, supernatural-thriller fun and I'll probably read some more.

>15 swynn: It sounds like a great antidote to heavy reading. I'll go look it up!

>16 richardderus: Hope you like it Richard!

>15 swynn: I will have to see if I can find that one. I have read several of Powers' books and enjoyed them.

Happy new thread, Steve!

>17 swynn: I have a DRC! I get to try it risklessly.

38) DAW #210: The Immortal of World's End by Lin Carter
Date: 1976

Fourth in Lin Carter's Dying-Earth series Gondwane (or third, depending on how you count). In this one, our heroes deal with an invasion of brown-skinned barbarians. Shall I cut Carter some slack since almost every character has some unusual skin (or pelt) coloring or some unique physical feature? No, I shall not: I've read enough Carter to know he doesn't deserve it. Not as creepy as the third book, with its eugenical breeding plot, but not fun either: besides the cringey premise it's meandering, has multiple instances of deus ex machina, and tries to be humorous but only succeeds in being unfunny. On the other hand, it's short.

>18 alcottacre: Hope you like it Stasia!

>19 richardderus: My favorite price! I look forward to your thoughts.

39) Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica
Date: 2021

A teenage girl escapes from her kidnapper's basement after an 11-year imprisonment, and an cluster of old cases is reopened: a murder, an apparent suicide, and the girl's disappearance. The opening is gripping, and the story develops well, but the resolution burst my disbelief-suspenders.

I should add that my opinion on this seems to be a minority one.

I am catching up, after a week away. So belated happy new thread, Steve!

>23 FAMeulstee: Thanks Anita!

40) Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
Date: 2021

A group of twenty-something friends go to a haunted house in Japan for a destination wedding. (What could go wrong?) I've seen mixed reviews for this and the criticisms are valid: the characters are unpleasant and the writing is sometimes overdone. But it worked for me, it's atmospheric and creepy and the characters' emotional issues are appropriate for the horror they confront.

41) The Black Flame by Lynn Abbey
Date: 1980

Second in Lynn Abbey's fantasy series featuring Rifkind, a warrior-healer-priestess who has a telepathic link with her sort-of-horse. In this one, Rifkind defends a magical well from attack by an evil sorceress in league with a chaotic god.

The story leaves some threads open that seem to promise a continuation, although volume three did not appear until 2006. And yes, I'm just now getting around to re-reading volumes 1 and 2 so that I can read book 3. This one, I find, holds up pretty well.

42) Mage of Fools by Eugen Bacon
Date: 2022

Here's a good one, set in an African kingdom with a toxic government, where stories are outlawed and men have mostly disappeared, and near the seat of power lurks a mad scientist who may not exactly be human. And oh reader the lovely vivid expressive prose. Eugen Bacon is good, and I'm glad to have discovered her.

And by "discovered" I mean "followed Richard's reliable advice." Thanks for the rec, Richard!

>25 swynn: Glad you liked it! Your comments pretty much match up with my thoughts on it.

>27 swynn:, >25 swynn: Yay! you liked 'em both!

>28 drneutron:
>29 richardderus:

Thanks for reccing that one!

I should have added that Jim and Richard both warbled #40, which encouraged me to try it despite some others' less enthusiastic reviews.

43) A Complicated Love Story Set in Space by Shaun David Hutchinson
Date: 2021

Three teenagers wake up in or around a spaceship with no recollection of how they got there or why. Worse, the ship is damaged, seems to be a target of continuing sabotage, and they have no background for repairing it. When functioning properly, the vessel has everything they need: food, medical care, entertainment, product endorsements ... It's humorous and moves fast and I enjoyed it despite occasional excess of YA angst.

This was another from the list of books Matt Krause wants removed from libraries, this time apparently because its titular love story involves two guys.

>31 swynn: You're much, much more tolerant than I of Adolescent Angst, Steve. This week I Pearl-Ruled a perfectly acceptable NA book because I.Just.Can.Not.

Matt Krause, however, convinces me to go buy one whether or not I ever read it. P.O.S. person.

Come visit the new thread!

>32 richardderus: The Krause list is heavy with YA (of course it is, Steve, it's aimed at school libraries) which will probably affect the number of books I read from it. But I'm still pissed enough to read & raise the signal of a few more.

44) Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M. Valente
Date: 2021

Here's a good one. It's difficult to say much without giving away things you really should discover for yourself. It starts out in Stepford Wives territory but then gets weird, veering into the underbrush of folklore, mythology, and religion that creeps over my aesthetic liminal spaces, maybe yours too. It's about trust and misplaced trust and discovering that you're not who you thought you were and how sometimes the gods play favorites and you're not one of them. It left me with my guts on the floor and you really should read it too, it won't take long.

NOT RUNNING UPDATE

Other than moving for life requirements, I've been sedentary the last couple of weeks. Which, you know, is part of the cycle and I'll get back on the road again soon. In the meantime, here's a soundtrack selection that isn't especially a running track but which has been haunting my thoughts for the last few weeks. For some reason or other.

It's a 2020 recording of a 1986 antiwar song by German singer-songwriter Reinhard Mey. Mey is the sort of artist who is both loved and loathed depending on one's taste; his signature is a whispery voice delivered over fingerpicked acoustic guitar. I usually dig him, others emphatically don't, but this track is not his usual style, in that it features an ensemble of rock and metal musicians, as a benefit for Friedensdorf International ("Peace Village International"), which provides aid to children affected by war. The song is good, the cause is righteous, the voices are powerful, the video is simple, stark and effective. It also has English subtitles:

Soundtrack: Nein, meine Söhne geb' ich nicht ("No, I Will Not Give My Sons") by Reinhard Mey and Friends

(Mey is the singer with a scruffy beard, John Lennon glasses, and a solo at 4:00.)

>35 swynn: Thanks for sharing the Reinhard Mey and friends song, Steve.
The English subtitles were a bit confusing to me. My brain can't proces two foreign languages at the same time ;-)

>34 swynn: Oooh, this one sounds good! Adding it to my list.

>31 swynn:

Talk about plus ça change. :(

Do you have an actual list that you're working from, or are you just doing this on a case by case basis as books crop up?

It seems insane that you might have a 2022 list to go along with our 1928 list.

>5 swynn: I am fairly certain that if I had ever seen that book I would have given it a go. Years ago that is. I admire your continuing DAW efforts.

>36 FAMeulstee: Hi Anita! I agree that subtitles can be distracting when you know both languages. I think the translation for this video is not bad, but still: the performer sings, "Das ist mein verdammte Vaterpflicht," but the subtitles say "It's my damn duty." I stop to wonder why they didn't translate "Vaterpflicht" as "father's duty"? Except that "It's my damn father's duty" doesn't work, so how about "duty as a father"? And oh dear now I've missed the next line.

>37 scaifea: Hope you like it as well as I did, Amber!

>38 lyzard: I have a list. If you're curious, you can find it here:
https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/94fee7ff93eff9609f141433e41f8ae1/kra...

So yeah, I kind of have two banned-books lists going at once. But I don't really see the Krause list as a long-term project. It's over 800 titles long, much too large for me to realistically expect to finish it before the current censorship cycle plays out, especially since I'm no longer YA and am finding that even excellent YA titles can be difficult for an increasingly old dude to engage with. But the current round of attacks on school and public libraries make me very angry, and one thing I'm able to do is call attention to some of the banners' targets. So I'll probably continue for a little while.

But ... "insane"? Is it weird that I'm kind of flattered you would think so

>35 swynn: Thanks for sharing that Steve. I had never heard of him to be honest but his causes are very worthy.

>39 RBeffa: If you like(d) Tarzan, then I expect you wouldn't have been disappointed. It hasn't aged well, but it's also not as painful as some of its peers, not even Tarzan I'd say. Chester writes action scenes well, and packs them in. I will read others in the series, and currently have the actual first book, Hawk of the Wilderness in the Tower of Due.

>43 PaulCranswick: You're welcome! I'm partial to his messages of peace and simple joys.

>42 swynn:

I'm not calling *you* insane - certainly not for having A List! - rather the fact that in 2022 there can be this degree of book banning going on.

I don't even blame you for baulking at the {Numbers x YA Quotient} aspect. :D

>46 lyzard: Ah. In that case I have to agree with you. These people are insane, and the book-banning efforts aren't even the half of it. Here in the states, there is a significant overlap between the crowd who wants to ban books and the crowd currently screaming "Free Speech" the loudest.

>47 swynn: AFAICT, they have a somewhat idiosyncratic definition of "freedom". David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed may be relevant.

>48 ArlieS: I'll have to add the Fischer book to the Swamp.

I am convinced that in some contexts, "freedom" means the right for (some population with whom the speaker identifies) to impose whatever rules they please upon everybody else, without fear of being subject to any rules themselves.

45) Cultish by Amanda Montell
Date: 2021

This is a popular account of how cults use manipulative language, and how the same techniques are used by groups that you might not think of as cults, like Amway or CrossFit. Or maybe you *do* think of Amway or CrossFit as cults -- if so, you'll find arguments here to confirm that position. There is nuance here: whatever Amway's sins, it is not a nascent Jonestown, and Montell's intent is not to equate them. Instead, her project is to call attention to how both groups use manipulative language. Montell has a background in linguistics, but the text is less linguistic analysis than it is language journalism: Montell identifies a set of rhetorical techniques used by shady speakers (e.g., us/them rhetoric, loaded language, thought-terminating clichés) and documents how the techniques have been deployed by various agents from Jim Jones to SoulCycle gurus. It's tremendously enlightening and even entertaining, thanks to Montell's sly voice and sense of a good story.

Micky (MickyFine) and Jim (drneutron) both brought this to my attention, so thanks!

>50 swynn: Glad you liked it! I've even noticed some of that language being used around here by management. 😀

>26 swynn: >27 swynn: >31 swynn: >34 swynn: You got me with those!

>50 swynn: Already in the BlackHole or I would be adding it again.

>50 swynn: Yay! I'm glad you found it an interesting read.

>51 drneutron:
>53 MickyFine:

Thanks again for the rec!

>52 alcottacre: My, but I've been busy. Of course I hope you find & like them all!

Hey - I've just added Ragtime to the 1970s challenge but noticed you have another book there: I'm okay with movig it to the compound noun challenge if you'd rather not double up?

The 2022 Hugo nominees have been announced. It's a good list. The full list is here:
https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2022-hugo-awards/

Here are the most interesting categories for me:

Best Novel: I've read the Weir and the Parker-Chan, and both of them were very good. I picked up the Martine on Kobo when it was on sale a few months ago, and am looking forward to it since I liked the first book (which won top honors in 2020) very much. I'm also looking forward to P. Djeli Clark's book, but I know almost nothing about Ryka Aoki. And alas, I seem to be immune to Becky Chambers' charms.

* A Desolation Called Peace / Arkady Martine
* The Galaxy, and the Ground Within / Becky Chambers
* Light From Uncommon Stars / Ryka Aoki
* A Master of Djinn / P. Djeli Clark
* Project Hail Mary / Andy Weir
* She Who Became the Sun / Shelley Parker-Chan

Best novella: I just said that I'm immune to Becky Chambers' charms, but I *did* read Psalm for the Wild-Built and liked it best of all the Chambers I've sampled. I've not yet read the McGuire, but have enjoyed all the Wayward Children books up to it, and expect that I'll like it too. The Bodard is currently in my Tower of Due, and the Harrow I have on Kobo.

* Across the Green Grass Fields / Seanan McGuire
* Elder Race / Adrian Tchaikovsky
* Fireheart Tiger / Aliette de Bodard
* The Past is Red / Catherynne M. Valente
* A Psalm for the Wild-Built / Becky Chambers
* A Spindle Splintered / Alix E. Harrow

I don't recognize any nominees for novelette or short story.

For best series, I've read most of "Wayward Children", and it's my favorite of McGuire's series; I've read book one of Ada Palmer's "Terra Ignota" when it was nominated for best novel in 2017. I thought it was very good, but never continued the series. I have the first book of "The Kingston Cycle" on Kindle.
* The Green bone Saga / Fonda Lee
* The Kingston Cycle / C.L. Polk
* Merchant Princes / Charles Stross
* Terra Ignota / Ada Palmer
* Wayward Children / Seanan McGuire
* The World of the White Rat / T. Kingfisher

I don't recognize much from "Best related work", but I do want to get to Charlie Jane Anders' Never Say You Can't Survive. I think the Felapton is a revisiting of the "Rabid Puppies" culture war of a few years ago, which I would be fine to revisit never, though if it must be done I have no reason to think that the nominated work would fail to do it justice.
* Being Seen / Elsa Sjunneson
* The Complete Debarkle / Camestros Felapton
* Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985, edited by Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre
* How Twitter can ruin a life / Emily St. James
* Never Say You Can’t Survive / Charlie Jane Anders
* True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee / Abraham Riesman (Crown)

For the Lodestar Best Young Adult Book, I want to get to Naomi Kritzer's Chaos on Catnet and Charlie Jane Anders's Victories Greater Than Death. I read the first book in Jordan Ifueko's "Raybearer" series, and that was enough for me though it may just have been too YA which really shouldn't be a handicap in this category. The others I don't recognize.
* Chaos on CatNet / Naomi Kritzer
* Iron Widow / Xiran Jay Zhao
* The Last Graduate / Naomi Novik
* Redemptor / Jordan Ifueko
* A Snake Falls to Earth / Darcie Little Badger
* Victories Greater Than Death / Charlie Jane Anders

>56 lyzard: Actually, I've already doubled up the 1970s challenge with two DAW books that fit nowhere else

My chances of getting a sweep or sweeplette aren't worth talking about. If that changes then I have Amanda Montell's Wordslut in the Tower of Due, so if I really need a title for the compound noun challenge, I'm ready to go.

Which is to say, I support putting it where it works best for you.

>58 swynn:

Thanks! I don't have another 70s work ready to go, though I could find one if necessary, so that suits me best.

>50 swynn: Already on The List, so no need for me to add it again.

>51 drneutron: That's what I was thinking, except that not having read the book, I was merely wondering if the things I used to hear from the employer I retired from, and to a lesser extent its predecessor, would feature in this book.

>60 ArlieS: Yay for more readers of Cultish! I liked it so well that I immediately requested Montell's first book WordSlut

46) DAW #211: The Florians by Brian Stableford
Date: 1976

irst in Stableford's "Daedalus" series, named for a ship whose mission is to visit colony worlds after a crisis on Earth cut off contact for generations. In this one the Daedalus crew visit a planet which at first seems to be a paradise and in no need of Earth's aid. In fact, while other extraterrestrial colonies have struggled to survive, Floria's resources are so abundant that the Florians have evolved larger bodies, and the more sedentary are morbidly obese. But Alex Alexander, the Daedalus's biologist, suspects something amiss; and while Alexander investigates an environmental threat, the crew's very presence ignites a political one.

It's the first in a series, so background has to be established and Stableford generally does this through expository dialog, which occasionally becomes a bit much. But the series premise appeals to me, and this entry's story is interesting. One feature that especially appeals to me is his subversion of fat-shaming. One might expect a story about out-of-control weight gain to ridicule or degrade its characters -- take the Perry Rhodan "bacon moss" storyline for example. Stableford is not entirely innocent of this (on a couple of occasions he equates "fat" with "ugly"), but he also makes the social stigma part of the problem. The true cause of the Florians' phenotype changes turns out to be a cancer-like metabolic disorder with roots in Floria's plant chemistry -- a condition which threatens the settlement's long term viability and a cause which, Alexander notes, the Florians could themselves have discovered if they weren't so predisposed to dismiss weight gain as a personal failure.

Next in the series is DAW #230, Critical Threshold, and I'm looking forward to it.

47) On the Come Up by Angie Thomas
Date: 2019

This was author Thomas's follow-up to the terrific "The Hate U Give"; it riffs on similar themes, but focuses on a talented teenager trying to shape her own identity and relationships while also dealing with social pressures and prejudices, and trying to break into a predatory music industry. I found it powerful.

I listened to this on audiobook, read by Bahni Turpin, who is terrific.

48) The Women in the Walls by Amy Lokavics
Date: 2016

Warning: old dude reading YA, so take the following for what it's worth. Lucy lives with her father and aunt in a historic mansion, where the family's livelihood consists of hosting rich-people parties. Sometime before the book opens, Lucy's mother died on the mansion's grounds. As the book begins, the cook dies. Then the aunt disappears. Then Lucy's cousin starts hearing voices in the walls ...

It's very YA, with a first-person narrative from an "I" whose head I did not enjoy sharing; but the thing I found most frustrating was an ambiguity of setting: it's never clear where the house is located; several locations on the grounds are important, but there's little sense of the property's layout; there even seem to be conflicting clues about the time period. I half-expected the denouement to reveal that It Was All A Dream. Perhaps it was intentional, but the effect for me was a sense that if it wasn't a dream then it also hadn't been thought out well. But it does have some creepy moments, and the ending does deliver.

49) Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
Date: 1974

This was the bestselling novel in the US in 1975. It's a historical novel following events connected to a New York fireworks family in the early (prewar) twentieth century. Its loose plot covers the E. Nesbit sex-and-murder scandal and an invented scandal about the racist humiliation of a ragtime pianist and his revenge. This kind of loose plot usually annoys me, but Doctorow's careful prose and layered narrative won me over, as did his theme of middle-class white men losing their accustomed sense of control over the course of history. I liked it very much, and will seek out more Doctorow.

>61 swynn: Word Slut is great! I enjoyed it even more than Cultish.

>65 swynn: *aaahhh* one of my very favorite reads of that year. I hope it's the beginning of a bee-you-tee-full friendship between you and Doctorow.

Hugos...well...yeah. Fine. Really! But just...fine.

>66 MickyFine: Looking forward to it!

>67 richardderus: The Book of Daniel will be next on the schedule, though it may be a month or two ...

50) DAW #212: Brothers of Earth by C.J. Cherryh
Date: 1976

When Kurt Morgan lands on the planet of the nemet, he knows he'll be there for a long time. The sole survivor of a devastating space battle between the Alliance and the Hanan, Kurt can expect rescue from neither friends nor enemies. He is not the only human on the planet, though: in the wilderness there are clans of feral humans whom the nemet regard as mere animals, and one other: the Hanan exile Djan, who has somehow become ruler of the city near where Kurt eventually makes his home. Kurt's and Djan's relationship is complicated: as the only two (civilized) humans on the planet they are drawn to one another, but as traditional enemies with incompatible motives they cannot avoid conflict. Recognizing his fate, Kurt settles in to make a life for himself, even falling in love and marrying a nemet with surprising speed. But the nemet's rigid honor code makes it impossible for him to avoid political, and eventually military, complications.

It's an early novel, and creaky in spots. But Cherryh's talent for worldbuilding and exploring cultural conflict is already in evidence, as obviously the favorite theme of a lone human stranded in a bewildering alien culture. Looking forward to more.

News in the "American book banners are insane" category:

The public library of Enid, Oklahoma has canceled a program on sexual assault awareness, and canceled an adults-only bodice-ripper book club due to a new Library Board policy that prohibits sexual content in displays and programs.

https://theweek.com/civil-liberties/1012767/oklahoma-library-cancels-adult-roman...

Keep this story in mind the next time some Maga nut tells you they only want to keep kindergarteners from accessing porn. They are lying.

>70 swynn: They are always lying. Unnervingly often to themselves.

51) The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
(1937)

It's been about forty years since I read this last. Very happy to report that it holds up well, and I think I even appreciate it more now than I did then.

The Recorded Books version is narrated by Rob Inglis, who does a lovely job of it.

52) Slice and Dice
(2021)

This is a collection of 4 slasher novellas. I picked it up because the Jeff Strand story was recently nominated for a Bram Stoker award. It's easily the best of the lot.

Second Chance by Jeff Manapace
When a high school athlete's wrestling career crashes due to a knee injury he also loses his father's approval. But his father also likes slasher films, which gives the boy an idea for an alternative career to earn his father's love.

The Reckoning by Iain Rob Wright
In a near-future city, Ameie is a designer of "pods": custom automated apartments. An activist is convinced that the pods are unethical and toxic, and sets out to illustrate his point.

Billy's Blade by William Malmborg
A journalist narrowly escapes an attack by serial killer, and fights back by writing stories intended to provoke the killer into revealing himself.

Twentieth Anniversary Screening by Jeff Strand
Twenty years ago, the low-budget, all-but-straight-to-VHS slasher movie, "The Roofer" had a brief theatrical run, which inspired a copycat killer who tried to reproduce the film's death scenes during a screening. In the present day, the theater's new owner realizes the profit potential of a twentieth-anniversary screening to commemorate the event. The story is presented as an extended blog post on a horror-movie fan site, and what makes the story special is the sarcastic-enthusiastic-selfconscious tone of a fan, commenting on an especially incompetent film from a genre not typically valued for competence. It's a funny and affectionate tribute to slasher films of a certain age.

53) The Truth as Told By Mason Buttle by Leslie Connor
(2018)

Mason Buttle is a middle schooler with learning disabilities dealing with bullies, grief over the accidental death of his best friend, and a cop who suspects Mason is responsible for his friend's death. Mason is also completely charming.

54) The Ascent of Information by Caleb Scharf
(2021)

Scharf offers some provocative ideas about the "dataome": all of the information that humans have encoded (and are encoding) into our environment, and which, considered as an entity, has curious properties -- and maybe apocalyptic consequences. Discusses range from practical to philosophical: Is there a limit to Earth's processing power, and when might we reach it? What is our relationship with out data? Does our data serve us, or do we serve it? Is there a sense in which the dataome is alive?

I love the sense of wonder here, and am intrigued about possible research, but a lot of it feels like woo to me: too many arguments seem to me to rely on fuzzy definitions, shaky metaphors, and false equivalencies.

55) DAW #213: The Disciples of Cthulhu edited by Edward Berglund
Date: 1976

It's a collection of nine stories inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's work. I found it a bit disappointing: a few stories are duds, and even the ones I liked suffered from mannered prose which I assume intends to imitate Lovecraft's. I liked Lumley's, Campbell's, and DeBill's stories best.

The Fairground Horror by Brian Lumley
Sibling rivalry, greed, and an Old One beset a traveling carnival.

The Silence of Erika Zann by James Wade
A musical act at an experimental jazz club starts weird and gets weirder.

All-Eye by Bob Van Laerhoven
A professor goes myth-hunting in the wilderness of Quebec.

The Tugging by Ramsey Campbell
An astronomical columnist for a small newspaper dreams about a wandering planet that is approaching Earth.

Where Yidra Walks by Walter C. DeBill
A traveler finds himself stranded by floodwaters in a tiny midwestern town, where thrives a cult led by an impossibly beautiful priestess, worshipping the possibly-supernatural, possibly-extraterrestrial being Yidra,

The Feaster From Afar by Joseph Payne Brennan
An author looking for a secluded place to finish his book rents a remote home where he has weird dreams.

Zoth-Ommog by Lin Carter
Dear merciful Elder Gods, will Lin Carter never shut up? There's a ten-page story here expanded to sixty with taxonomies and genealogies of unpronounceable monsters and annotated bibliographies of books that don't exist.

Darkness My Name Is by Eddy C. Bertin
A researcher travels to a remote valley in Germany, where the populace performs mystical rites to keep a sleeping thing asleep. This one was pretty good until it blew the ending.

The Terror from the Depths by Fritz Leiber
The narrator moves with his family to Southern California, where he dreams about tunnels occupied by wormlike monsters.

56) Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune
Date: 2021

Wallace Price was a self-centered vicious acquisitive little turd. Then he died. Then he came to a place between life and the next thing, and there he learned how to live.

I appreciate what Klune is doing here, but my personal response is lukewarm. For my taste it's excessively sentimental -- but that's not so much a criticism as an observation of aesthetic mismatch.

57) A Song for Quiet by Cassandra Khaw
Date: 2017

Here's a good one, y'all. It's a novella about a bluesman dealing with stuff like they sing about in blues songs, when something from beyond mistakes his blue soul for an empty one and gives him a song with monsters in it. It's about justice and grief and the blues and the kind of weird dread that "Disciples of Cthulhu" should have been full of and wasn't. It's book two (and so far final) in Khaw's "Persons Non Grata" series, but it stands well on its own.

>78 swynn: One of my major grumbles about Tor is its predilection for doing two-out-of-three books in a series, then...*whump* dropping the idea. Adam Christopher's had two two-of-three series; Margaret Killjoy's had one; Ruthanna Emrys; on and on the list goes.

>77 swynn: I ain't big on these books, neither.

>76 swynn:, >74 swynn:, >72 swynn: Sooner I would die, thank you please.

>75 swynn: Oo! That sounds fascinating.

>73 swynn: ...maybe for that one story...library ho!

Huh, well, you got me with most of those!

>79 richardderus: I had not noticed this pattern, but I had noticed waiting in vain for another Margaret Killroy book. I guess I shouldn't cross my fingers for a third "Persons Non Grata." Rats.

>80 drneutron: Hope you like the ones you get to!

58) From Man To Man by Olive Schreiner
Date: 1927

Rebekah and Bertie are sisters raised on a South African farm. Rebekah, a bookish storyteller, marries a cousin after receiving repeated proposals and moves to the city. Younger and more social-oriented sister Bertie, meanwhile, is seduced by her tutor. Both women deal with betrayals by men they trust: Rebekah's husband turns out to be a serial philanderer who refuses her requests for divorce, while Bertie's tutor flees the country as soon as his conquest is complete, spoiling Bertie's future social prospects by leaving her with a reputation as a debauched woman. The women's experiences illustrate obstacles imposed on women by the white men in power, and Rebekah composes essays and long letters advocating for greater equity between men and women. Perhaps more surprising for a landowning white South African, she also advocates for greater equity among races. The exhortations do interrupt the story, though it's hard to disagree with Rebekah/Schreiner's points. The book is of its time, especially with respect to its use of race labels, but also very much ahead of it. The major disappointment here is not the story-stopping polemic, but rather its lack of an ending: Schreiner died before completing it, so we're left hanging just as the plot seems about to take a positive turn.

This was banned in Boston, probably for mentioning atheism or sex or divorce or some combination without also condemning them.

59) DAW #214: Elric of Melniboné by Michael Moorcock
Date: 1972

First (by internal chronology) in Moorcock's sword-and-sorcery series featuring Elric, the world-weary emperor of a dying civilization who would rather sulk over his books than lead a nation. (One sympathizes.) In this entry, Elric deals with a usurper, makes dangerous alliances with supernatural beings, and acquires the cursed sword Stormbringer.

I tried this series back in high school and bounced off. I don't remember why: it's a straightforward adventure with a broody atmosphere and a complicated hero. Man, I should have loved it -- I certainly liked it this time, and am looking forward to book 2, which is coming up in the DAW project very soon.

>82 swynn:

...or the greater equity among races thing...

As things stand we can't know whether Schreiner meant to leave the book in this form or whether, like her protagonist, she was working things out through writing first. On one hand it's a series of lectures; but on the other, my goodness...

I'm tempted to see if there's any way of getting access to the recent South African reissue, which seems to have more / different information on her plan.

60) The Sword is Drawn by Andre Norton
Date: 1944

This is a juvenile WWII thriller written during the war, after Pearl Harbor but before D-Day. It follows the adventures of Lorens van Norrys, heir to a Dutch jewel merchant's fortune. Lorens flees The Netherlands when the Nazis invade, then hops around the world while he works out his place in the war effort. He goes to England, then Java, Australia, and the U.S. before completing the circle with a covert mission in The Netherlands. It's an early work and suffers from a mild case of Mary Sue, but it kept me engaged and I'm looking forward to the next in the series.

>73 swynn:

what makes the story special is the sarcastic-enthusiastic-selfconscious tone of a fan, commenting on an especially incompetent film from a genre not typically valued for competence.

That sounds like me. I mean, that LITERALLY sounds like me. :D

I really must get back to my poor neglected film-blog...

>86 lyzard: I read your blog post about "Friday the 13th." (Which was excellent.) It really does sound like you, Liz.

>84 lyzard: I didn't know about the new South African edition, and am intrigued. I haven't yet read The Story of an African Farm, but I gather Schreiner's racial philosophy in that volume is somewhat different.

>85 swynn: The van Norreys books are the trial run for her Zero Stone Murdoc Jern stories. I loved those.

Happy week-ahead's reads, Steve.

>87 swynn:

Thanks! I've had a draft of Part 2 sitting around half-written for forever...

>88 swynn:

It isn't readily available, not at all here. It was released through the University of Cape Town Press and edited by Dorothy Driver, an academic who got access to Schreiner's papers. The text has been re-edited (removing the repetitions), the suggested ending is different, and I gather the whole thing has a certain shift in emphasis, though the themes remain the same.

I haven't read The Story Of An African Farm yet but I keep assuming my Virago reading will get me there sooner or later.

>78 swynn: That sounds interesting, I might give it a go, cheers!

In tidying up, I have added our shared reads to the TIOLI wiki, I hope that's okay? I haven't touched the meter, if you do that.

>91 feca67: Hope you like it, Sam!

>92 lyzard: Perfect, thanks!

Steve, Margaret Killjoy's story collection, We Won't Be Here Tomorrow: And Other Stories is coming from AK Press on 22 September. It's on Edelweiss+ if you want to snag a copy.

>94 richardderus: Noted. Thanks!

Apropos of something:

Abortion saved my life partner's life. Twice: once before we met and once while we have been together.

The one we experienced together went like this. She went to her Ob/Gyn with abdominal pains and was told that she'd need to terminate the pregnancy eventually, but it wasn't an emergency yet. She would need to come back when it was. Assuming she could judge that. Assuming she could make it to the emergency room in time. Or maybe not assuming those things -- maybe it would have been fine with them if she hadn't.

So exceptions "to save the life of the mother" don't satisfy me. Politicians and moralists are crap at medicine. Choices should be made by the person with the body, and all choices should be on the table. I am not persuadable on this position.

Just saying because I heard something.

>96 swynn: Nearly cost one of my sisters her life...the doctor told her she needed an abortion *right*now* because her pregnancy was ectopic. She went home to pray with her husband about it and damned near died.

>97 richardderus: So wasteful and infuriating.

61) Black Water Sister by Zen Cho
Date: 2021

Jess moved with her parents from Malysia to the United States when she was a toddler. Now Jess is a recent college grad looking for work, so when her father loses employment due to health problems she moves with them back to Malaysia. Complicating their relationship is Jess's long-distance same-sex romance, which she keeps secret from her traditional parents, though she knows she'll have to come out to them sometime. But coming out is the least of Jess's worries after her deceased grandmother, Ah Ma, starts talking to her. When Ah Ma was alive she was the medium of local goddess Black Water Sister, and also mixed up in organized crime. And now Ah Ma draws Jess into a conflict between spirits, gangsters, and forces of generational change in Malaysia. This is a good one, with a satisfying mix of supernatural thriller, domestic drama. and conflicts of generational and national cultures.

62) The King of Confidence by Miles Harvey
Date: 2020

James Strang was an American con artist, prophet, state senator, and self-coronated king in the early 1800s. Although his own religious convictions were -- oh, let's say, dubious and convenient -- he made a play to be appointed Joseph Smith's official successor as head of the Latter-Day Saints. Though he lost that contest to Brigham Young, Strang did lead a splinter group of Mormons at a colony in Wisconsin and eventually on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan. His own life was pretty wild, but he surrounded himself with collaborators just as colorful. This is an entertaining account of his career.

Jim (drneutron) brought this one to my attention. Thanks Jim!

63) The Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman
Date: 2021

It's a YA fantasy about a teenage girl who dies during a convenience story robbery. When she wakes up in the afterlife, she discovers that it has been colonized by Alexa-like AI assistant software. She resists assimilation, meets some (ex-)human rebels, and tries to think of a way for former humans and the AI personalities to get along. It's a lot like other YA dystopian fantasies: super-special viewpoint character, regimented world-building, love triangle with boys on both sides of the revolution ... there's just not enough fresh here to sell me on book 2.

But (and I seem to say this a lot) I'm not the target audience. It made the Locus Recommended Reading List for YA books of 2021, so take my opinion for what it's worth.

64) The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
Date: 1954

You don't need me to tell you about this. I liked it plenty. It has been at least thirty years since I read it last, and the suck fairy has kept its distance.

>100 swynn: Glad you liked it!

>83 swynn: I am glad that Elric was not a fail. I am sure I have said before that at one time Moorcock was one of my very favorite authors. I gave many of them away a dozen years ago but I probably had 50 of his books, at least, at one time. All because of a very random purchase of Elric by an old train station on the California coast circa 1975. I will reread it one day, i hope. I fell out of love with Moorcock at some point.

Apart from that odd...void...in spot #102, you've had a good run of good, pleasurable reads. Hoo-hoo-hipray!

>104 RBeffa: I'm certainly warming up to Moorcock: never got into him as a kid, but quite liked the Oswald Bastable books a year ago (or so). The DAW project will have me reading more Elric books and Hawkmoon, and based on what I've seen so far I'm here for it.

>105 richardderus: That is of course an unvoid at #102 but since your taste is otherwise so heedable, Imma let it pass.

65) Tower of the Medusa / Kar Kaballa by Lin Carter and George H. Smith
Date: 1969

Here's an Ace Double with one dud and one pleasant surprise.

Tower of the Medusa by Lin Carter

An interstellar jewel thief is hired to steal a stone that can maybe rule the universe, but first he has to avoid assassination by Death Dwarves, escape the clutches of a space temptress, battle science wizards, and meet a cosmic god who has been asleep for millennia. It's less fun than it sounds.

Kar Kaballa by George H. Smith

I don't remember ever hearing of George H. Smith so my expectations were low, which probably helped this be the fun read that it was. It's the first in a steampunkish series set in Annwn, a parallel Earth with late-19th century technology plus magic, connected to our Earth by magical gates. (Book 2 is next up in the DAW project.) In this volume, Annwn's version of England is invaded by a barbarian horde serving a soul-consuming god. Series hero Dylan MacBride teams up with a Celtic priestess and an arms dealer from Earth who offers a game-changing invention: the Gatling gun. The mix of action and humor hit a spot for me that hasn't been hit in a while, and I'm ready now for vol.2, which involves Martians.

George H. Smith wrote an *execrable* book, The Four-Day Weekend, that featured near-future LA with sentient cars, Malibu nudist beatniks, and a crank named Ender who spouts the absolute silliest claptrap imaginable about how capitalism and automation are killing the planet.

Landed differently in 1970 than it would today.

>109 richardderus: Yikes. I'm morbidly curious, but not enough to seek it out. I hope the Annwn series continues to be better, since I have 2 of those to go.

66) Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans
Date: 2021

Not my usual fare, so an explanation: earlier this year, I read K. K. Du Mez's Jesus and John Wayne, a work on the modern history and development of toxic masculinity in evangelical churches. When I first learned about the book, I started following Du Mez on Twitter, which led me into a community of progressive evangelicals, "exvangelicals", and people in-between. The people in between -- believers who value that elements of evangelicalism but find others unacceptable and are in the process of separating baby from bathwater -- often call themselves "deconstructing." Which, okay, I get that. I went through a religious crisis myself a few decades ago. At this point I'm comfortable calling my journey "deconversion," but I do remember the anxiety of belief and doubt, the feeling of trying to figure out what's essential, what's salvageable, and what goes in the dumpster -- man, I get that feeling, and I wish I'd had these fellow-travellers back when.

So when someone mentioned an online book group for deconstructing evangelicals, I asked to join. This is my first group read. And it's, you know, fine. Evans's version of the evangelical god is radically welcoming; indulges questions and doubt; and challenges believers to be as open to others as god itself is open to believers. I like this position, in fact it feels a lot like the Unitarian-Universalism where I eventually found a home. I'm less engaged by Evans's specifically Christian religious language, which does not speak to me in the way it would have done thirty years ago, and I wish I'd encountered it then. At this point I'm probably at the very edge of its target audience. It probably will appeal most to readers with at least a foot in evangelicalism and at least a wariness about its dark side. As with many group reads, the most enlightening thing for me has been listening to others' responses.

>111 swynn: Yay for a rewarding experience! And a social setting that allows for contributions to your ongoing self-discovery.

Hope the week ahead is a good one for your reads.

67) Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard
Date: 2021

It's a fantasy novella set in a land inspired by precolonial Vietnam. Princess Thanh of Bin Hai spent a chunk of her childhood as a sort of royal hostage in the palace of the more powerful empire of Ephteria, a childhood marked by the memory of a devastating fire which very nearly took Thanh's life. Returned now to her own country, where she is responsible for diplomatic duties that do not fit her temperament, she receives a visit from Ephteria including the Ephterian princess with whom she had fallen in love. Both girls wish to continue the relationship, but the stakes are now higher, the power balance is anything but level, and there's still the little matter of the palace fire and its cause. I liked this one a lot. The setting is intriguing, though vague on so many details that I'd really like a longer work to explore it in.

68) Playing the Cards You're Dealt by Varian Johnson
Date: 2021

Ten-year old Ant Joplin comes from a family of hard-core spades players, and he wants to defend the family reputation in an annual local tournament. But he's dealing with a lot at school and home: pressure to succeed academically, a father struggling with substance and gambling problems, and a new friend who may be a partner and maybe more than a friend. The plot touches on loyalty, responsibility, family, and addiction, with a generous helping of humor. I listened to this during a long drive with Mrs. swynn, who has played spades since she was younger than Ant, and we both enjoyed it.

69) The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
Date: 1954

Nothing insightful to say here. These settings and characters -- the Riders of Rohan, Treebeard, Helm's Deep, Isengard, the Black Gate of Mordor, Faramir's rangers, Shelob's lair in Cirith Ungol -- these have been part of my imagination almost since I realized I had one, and the suck fairy hath no power here.

>115 swynn: Yay!

>114 swynn: Ain't that a great surprise when a story can get into both y'all's heads.

>113 swynn: It sounds like she's got the series planning bug in that world, so another yay!

>116 richardderus: It *is* a nice surprise when we find one that engages us both. We have very different tastes, and even though there's some well-identified common ground we're usually happy when we find something that one of us enjoys and the other doesn't mind. When something is a win for us both, it's usually something so unusual that it's hard to say, "Another one like that please."

70) Trinity by Leon Uris
Date: 1976

The bestselling novel in the U.S. for 1976 was Leon Uris's historical novel set in in late-19th-to-early-20th-century Ireland, from the aftermath of the Potato Famine to the passage of Home Rule. Mostly it follows the increasingly militant life of Colin Larkin, farmer-turned-ironworker-turned-rugby-player-turned-revolutionary, with lots of episodes illustrating England's efforts to suppress Irish culture and popular power. I feel that I ought to have liked it more than I did, but it never engaged me the way that Exodus did. Part of it is the episodic narrative, which Uris seems to interrupt every time he builds up a little momentum; another part is the Colin Larkin character who feels too pulpy for credibility: he's not only an ironworker, he's a brilliant ironworker to rival the masters; he's not just a rugby player he's a champion athlete; he's not just a revolutionary he's a tactical genius. It's seven hundred fifty pages of okay prose that just never gripped me. Add to that its discouraging theme of glorious defeat, and it's just something that I needed self-imposed daily quotas to complete:

"The truth is ... we cannot win. We cannot defeat the British with arms in a hundred years, we cannot defeat them at a conference table and we can never reconcile the Ulstermen. Those are truths. Brutal truths that no wild-eyed revolutionary's fantasy can change. He came over the room to her slowly and gripped her arms hard. "All we can ever hope for is a glorious defeat. A defeat that may somehow stir the dormant ashes of our people into a series of more glorious defeats. Every man in the Brotherhood must defy, scream, kick, die hard, bloody, shake consciences. You see, the true job of the Brotherhood is not to expand to win but to sharpen its teeth to die hard."

Of course, "difficult read" doesn't mean "bad book," and I think Trinity has qualities to recommend it: it has some engaging set-pieces, and I feel enlightened about a stretch of Irish history I knew little about (though also aware that the enlightenment is mixed with propaganda). I saw comments by one reader who said that this is the first historical novel about Ireland to portray the Protestant/Catholic conflict as something other than a holy war. I'm not familiar with the comparison novels, but it's true that to Uris the conflict is not primarily religious but rather political and economic -- and if Uris was the first to portray that then he deserves credit. I'm not especially eager for more Uris, but I would cautiously try another.

71) DAW #215: The Second War of the Worlds by George H. Smith
Date: 1976

Second in Smith's "Annwn" series set on a steampunk parallel Earth. In this one, the Martians whose failed invasion of *our* Earth was chronicled in a history by H.G. Wells, have regrouped, solved the problem of Earth bacteria, and are preparing to invade again. Only this time, they decide to invade Annwn instead. Why Annwn instead of Earth? It's not clear, but may have to do with their allies: a group of nihilistic theosophists who recognize the Martians as superior beings and want to help them conquer the Earth. The theosophists prefer Annwn because magic actually works in Annwn. The heroes from Book 1 team up with Sherlock Holmes and Watson to face off against evil Annie Besant, Koot Hoomi, and of course Martians.

It is just as nuts as it sounds, like a Wold Newton novel by A.E. Van Vogt. But it takes itself unseriously, has a weird momentum, and knows when to quit. (My response may have benefited from reading this while also reading Trinity, which lacks exactly those qualities.) There is one more in the series, and I'm looking forward to it though I probably won't get to it soon (it's DAW #298)

>118 swynn: I never got to sink into it, either. I thought I was just too cynically dismissive of Colin, not feeling able to invest in him as a character, but maybe not.

>117 swynn: :-)

72) A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee
Date: 2021

Felicity Morrow returns to Dalloway School after a year away. Dalloway is an upper-class girls' prep school with a witchy history, and when Felicity was last at Dalloway she was deep into a project investigating the witches rumored to haunt the school. She may have gotten *too* deep into the project, experimenting with magic spells and holding seances and just like that, Felicity's girlfriend was dead. But now Felicity is back, intending to work the program and leave the dark arts alone -- except that Dalloway now has a new student, brilliant and irresistably attractive, who makes Felicity into her own project.

This one surprised me. It's YA and angsty, and it has high schoolers who talk like graduate students. But it's a work that played with my expectations, and I enjoyed the game: the narrator is unreliable, the plot has some surprises, and I wasn't sure how it would end until it did. Nicely played, Author Lee.

This is another from the list of books that Texas legislator Matt Krause wants to ban from schools and libraries, presumably because Felicity digs girls. I think that by now it's pretty obvious that clowns like Krause have unreliable judgment about dangers facing schoolchildren.

73) City of Ghosts by V.E. Schwab
Date: 2018

First in a series about Cassidy Blake, who sees ghosts and is expected to help them pass out of this world and on to the next life. Problem is, her best friend is a ghost. In this one, she learns about her powers and duties and deals with a super-powerful evil ghost.

Here's one that I tried for a shared audio-read with Mrs. Swynn. It didn't really grip either of us, and only I was interested enough to finish it. It's fine, and I'd listen to another, but there are other books too ....

74) Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot by Robert Arthur
Date: 1964

Second in the Three Investigators Series. In this one, Bob, Pete, and Jupiter go looking for a missing parrot and soon find themselves looking for seven birds, each of whom holds a piece of the key to a greater mystery. I've enjoyed this series since I was in preschool, so it's difficult for me to read them critically. Fortunately, the stories hold up well enough that I'm not even interested in trying.

75) Mosquitoes by William Faulkner
Date: 1927

Faulkner's second novel is a satire aimed at the New Orleans art crowd. It's a sort of "ship of fools," in which a group of artists and hangers-on go on a yacht excursion on Lake Pontchartrain, then get stranded for a few days when one of their number unintentionally sabotages the boat. There are some good jokes, but it's mostly forgettable, evidenced by the fact that I read this in 2014 and mostly forgot it. I don't think it's going to hang on very long this time, either.

It was also banned in Boston, presumably for the vague lesbianism of a scene in which two women lie in bed together and talk about being virgins.

>118 swynn: I read Trinity when it was newish. Let's say about 1979 so any details of it are far from my memory. However, what I do remember is that it really opened my eyes to the English oppression of Ireland. I consider it a favorite mostly because later books that touched on the subject whether it was Lies of Silence by Brian Moore or Frank McCourt and many others, they all built for me a way to try and understand. I think Exodus was the only other Leon Uris novel I read (and roughly at the same time) and it impressed me also.

>124 swynn:

Yay for reaching the goal so early!

>120 richardderus: Good to have company. Too bad it wasn't more engaging.

>125 RBeffa: I can definitely see this as an eye-opener on Irish history, and one of the things I appreciate about it is how it dramatizes some of that history.

>126 richardderus: Thanks! Definitely time for another lap.

Wow, that's a lot of ground covered---well done!

First of all, yay for 75!!

Yes to Trinity, Colin was a big part of the problem for me too.

The Mystery Of The Stuttering Parrot was one of the ones I remembered almost verbatim from childhood so I'm even less critical than you are.

I'll be tackling Mosquitoes next month, so averting my eyes from that one.

Congrats!

>124 swynn: Congratulations on reaching 75, Steve!

>128 lyzard: Thanks, Liz! Looking forward to your thoughts on Trinity and Mosquitoes.

Our next read for the Banned in Boston project looks like it may be have availability problems. Anyway, it is not available from my usual sources, and my usual sources include several academic libraries with excellent collections. When you get to it, I'm curious about what availability is like for you. (BTW, I've edited this post from an earlier version which named the next read -- sorry if you happened to see it & I spoiled it for you.)

>129 drneutron:
>130 FAMeulstee:

Thanks Jim & Anita!

Congrats on reaching 75, Steve. Julia keeps raving about the Three Investigators, which I have never read.

Your comments on Mosquitoes make me wonder about being a completionist with Faulkner's works. That's one I haven't read. And I'm not sure I want to.

>133 BLBera: Thanks Beth! As for Mosquitoes ... it's probably interesting for a completionist as a snapshot of a moment in Faulkner's development. But it's unlike the rest of his oeuvre, or at least the works I'm familiar with: it's set in Louisiana, with a cast of urban sophisticates, no history-haunted southern gentry, no madness, no ghosts. It tries hard to be clever and often succeeds, but often doesn't. So you might sample it, but I think there's an argument for leaving it till last.

For what it's worth, anyway. I did not leave it till last: several years ago I set out to read All the Faulkners. I stalled out after Sartoris, which I suspect is exactly where he starts to get good. Must get back to that project.

Some banned books see a jump in sales:

https://www.slj.com/story/newsfeatures/banned-books-gender-queer-maus-antiracist...

Yay! But also deeper in the story:

In its analysis of recently banned books, NPD found that overall, only half received a sales increase.

So yay for visibility bump for the most contentious books, but I worry about the titles further down the list, which rely heavily on sales to the schools and libraries that can be intimidated into avoiding them (and books like them.)

Good point, Steve, about the banned books. Some voices are no doubt being silenced.

76) Sword in Sheath by Andre Norton
Date: 1949

Second of three in a series of thrillers featuring Dutch gem merchant Lorens van Norreys. In this one, which takes place shortly after the Japanese surrender, two American servicemen are charged with locating MIA soldiers who may be stranded on the islands of Indonesia. There they meet Norreys, who is rebuilding his trade routes. Together they explore the islands, deal with unscrupulous gem merchants, and encounter stranded soldiers both Axis and Allies. It's a satisfying adventure in an unusual theater, and I'm looking forward to the series' closer.

77) Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
Date: 2020

This one is a YA novel in verse, written from two perspectives: one a New York girl, and the other a Dominican girl, who learn they have the same father when he dies in a plane crash from New York to the Dominican Republic. I listened to this on audiobook with Mrs swynn on a long drive, and it was a pretty good choice: I liked it a lot, and thought the poetic format did justice to the girls' interior stories; Mrs swynn liked the story too, though she found some devices -- especially the poetic repetition -- artificial and excessive. We both liked the audiobook performance, which used two narrators -- the author and Melania-Luisa Marte -- for the two girls. Authors are not always a good choice for audiobook narration, but Acevedo is.

>136 BLBera: Hi Beth! I'd hoped that the book-banning efforts would die down after a brief flare-up, but it seems just to be heating up. We seem to be stuck in a worrisome cycle, and I hope we break out of it soon.

>137 swynn: I think the van Norreys books were the basis of my favorites of Grand Master Norton's SF books, The Zero Stone and Uncharted Stars, featuring Murdoc Jern (the van Norreys character) and Eet the Alien puddytat or whatever.

Happy weekend-ahead's reads.

>140 richardderus: I've read The Zero Stone and liked it, but don't remember the plot will enough to make the connection to van Norreys books. I'm working my way through the Norton oeuvre, though, so maybe this time around ...

Oh wow I did not remember that The Return of the King is one of those books that goes on for five chapters after the story is over.

>142 swynn: ...only five...hm

>141 swynn: It might be that, since you're going through them more or less chronologically, that will ring a bell when you get to 1967.

>143 richardderus: I pushed back against your LOTR-aversion a few posts back ... but nearing the end of ROTK I have to say, okay, that's fair.

Yeah, 1967 is far enough away and my memory is sufficiently atrophied that maybe chronological isn't the best way to do this. New plan: finish the Van Norreys books, then Zero Stone

>144 swynn: Well, in fairness, I think it's about 7,000 pages too long so I was never going to be a fanboy. We're all seeking different things from our reads, after all, and finding different things even in the reads we love in common. It's so much of the fun of reading for me!

I think you'll like that arrangement...The Zero Stone is such a huge part of what I fell in love with about SF that I'm always eager for others to get it in their brains, too. I hope it works as a read for you.

I'm late in saying it, but congrats on reaching and surpassing 75 books read!

Glad to see you enjoyed Clap When You Land (I love Acevedo's work), and mostly enjoyed your reread of The Lord of the Rings. I LOVED these books in high school but find them... very difficult to read now. Still, Tolkien spoiled me for liking fantasy with a rich depth and world-building to it.

>146 bell7: Thanks Mary!

I'm curious about what makes them difficult to read now. I mean, I can imagine a few reasons, but which ones affect your reading?

78) The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
Date: 1955

Well, the suck fairy finally caught up. The third book of the series has always been the least appealing to me: it's divided into two parts, "book 5" which follows the characters at Gondor, and "book 6," which picks up Frodo's and Sam's journey to Mt. Doom. On my first reading, I quickly tired of all the business in Gondor and skipped ahead to book 6. In subsequent readings, I muscled through book 5, but always found it a slog. I'm a few decades older now and expected to enjoy book 5 for the first time. I did not.

I think I *appreciated* the Gondor business more than in previous readings. I can better see what Tolkien is doing, but part of his project is ramping up the pageantry and the mannered language. Characters say "Lo!" and "Verily." And I get it, it's all part of the heightened manners of Tolkiens world. Really it's been happening all along, but there has been action enough that I didn't mind, and even enjoyed the mood. But I hit book 5, which begins with several chapters of characters coming and going and having feasts and getting dressed and oh my goodness please no.

On the other hand, we also get the battles of Gondor and Pelennor fields and I have no complaints there. Then book 6 arrives, Frodo and Sam complete their quest, and yikes we still have half a dozen chapters to go. Filled with what? "Lo!" and "verily" and "trothplighted," that's what. Until the last chapter, a tacked-on adventure which I remember not at all, in which a defeated Saruman seeks revenge by setting himself up as the petty dictator of the Shire. I get what Tolkien is doing: his ordinary-folk heroes defeat fascism in faraway lands, only to find fascism growing at home. Pretty timely for 1955. Or, you know, 2022. But Saruman in the Shire feels a lot like Martin Bormann becoming kingmaker of Grover's Corners as a consolation prize for failing at world domination.

79) For the Sake of Elena by Elizabeth George
Date: 1992

Fifth in George's series featuring Scotland Yard detective Thomas Lynley (I want to add: " ... and Barbara Havers," but I'm increasingly convinced that Havers is a secondary character in the series.)

In this one, Lynley and Havers investigate the death-by-bludgeoning of a Cambridge University student, who is also the daughter of a prominent professor on the verge of a coveted appointment; a member of the deaf students' union; and not at all the innocent naif her father willfully imagines. The detectives also try to juggle their personal lives: Lynley tries to convince his love interest to commit to a romantic relationship, and Havers must decide how to care for her mother with dementia. The investigation turns up the usual jealousies, but also thoughtful reflections on social expectations of relationships between men and women -- a theme that affects not only the suspects and victims but Lynley himself. The mystery is okay, but here as in earlier volumes it's less about the puzzle than about the characters' relationships, which makes for a more absorbing story.

The one thing that bugs me here is disappointment in George's treament of Havers. For me, the working-class Havers is an important counterbalance to Lynley's upper-class ... mm, let's call them *issues*. But book 4 omitted Havers almost completely, and here she is not up to her game as a foil to Lynley. Instead, she repeatedly latches on to the most obvious suspect and argues for immediate action like the thick-headed sheriff in a private eye novel. Havers deserves better, and I hope she gets it.

>147 swynn: mostly the language being so old-fashioned and stilted. And all the songs and poems breaking up the action. I know it was on purpose and it didn't bother me 20 years ago, but I've read so much more modern fantasy now that it gets a little...much.

>150 bell7: Yeah, those formal qualities are what wore me down in TROTK. They've been there from the beginning, of course, and to some extent I enjoy the mood they establish. I expect the line between "enough" and "too much" depends on the reader. More modern fantasy has probably adjusted my expectations too, as has a preference for stories where things happen.

Anyway, on to the reason for the reread: 1977's bestseller, The Silmarillion

>151 swynn:

I'm about halfway through The Silmarillion and honestly I'd be glad of some "Lo!" and "verily" and "trothplighted." :D

This sort of high fantasy really isn't my thing and while that's okay, I can work outside my comfort zone, the density of the writing is something else. I'm trying to go to bed a half-hour or so earlier each night to get in some solid reading time, because this really isn't appropriate for tired eyes and interfering cats!

Finished this one a couple of weeks ago, but apparently never logged it.



80) The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout
Date: 1935

Second in Stout's mystery series featuring detective Nero Wolfe. In this one, Wolfe is hired by a group of men who fear for their lives. Long ago when they were in a college fraternity, they all were involved in a college prank gone wrong, in which the victim of the prank was crippled for life. For (plot reasons), the men now believe they have been targeted for assassination by their former victim, who has gone on to some success as an author of thrillers but has not forgotten his tormentors.

I love the banter in this series between Wolfe and his partner Archie Goodwin, and the setup and solution are clever. But I'm less a fan of the thirties misogyny.

>152 lyzard: Yikes, that's kind of what I feared. I'm hoping it will be somewhat easier for me than it sounds for you -- it *is* my sort of thing after all -- but that does not bode well.

>154 swynn:

But absolutely YMMV, so don't let me put you off. I will be interested to know how it works for a comfort-zoner, though. :)

>151 swynn: I'll be interested in your thoughts on The Silmarilion. I read it years ago (college age, probably) and wasn't inclined to read it again then, but thought it was kinda interesting if approached as a history rather than a story.

>153 swynn: The misogyny rises up like the Rockies in 2022, doesn't it. Like homophobia and racism. Things I'd overlook I can't unsee now.

>156 bell7: Hoping to start it this weekend. Also hoping that "hoping" is the right term.

>157 richardderus: I know, right? Everything is going along chucklingly until someone says, "Well that's how women are, you know? Allow me to pontificate," and it all screeches to a halt.

81) Yesterday is History by Kosoko Jackson
Date: 2021

Andre is a black, gay, teenage cancer patient who receives a liver transplant and discovers that the new organ comes with the ability to travel through time. In 1970s Boston Andre meets a dreamy young man and falls quickly in love, while in the present-day he meets the organ donor's smoldering brother with whom he slowly builds a more complicated relationship. The premise is fun, and I appreciated its nods to differences (and similarities) in gay men's lives in the 1970s versus 2020s, and on the intersection of Andre's black and gay identities, but for me the book's attention was too fixed on romance. OTOH, it made Locus magazine's 2021 Recommended Reading list, so others have loved it.

>159 swynn: If I can find a copy, I will give that one a shot. Thanks for the mention, Steve.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

82) Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire
Date: 2021

Sixth in McGuire's series of novellas about refugees from portal fantasy worlds. This one introduces a new character, Regan, an intersex teen transported to a world of unicorns and centaurs. Humans in this world are expected to have a world-changing destiny. But Regan has finally found a world where she can indulge in her love for horses and not be a weirdo outcast and, well, destiny? She'd just prefer not.

It's not one of my favorites in the series, and felt a bit didactic in parts. OTOH, I listened to this on audiobook and disliked the narrator, so that probably didn't help.

>160 alcottacre: Hope you like it if you find it, Stasia!

>161 swynn: I love the Bartleby-ness of it. Such a good acknowledgment that not everyone craves A Destiny!

Happy week-ahead's reads.

83) Body Becoming by Robyn Henderson-Espinoza
Date: 2022

Several posts back, I mentioned that I've joined an online group of readers interested in "deconstruction," in the sense of sorting out one's spirituality while emerging from religious indoctrination, especially white evangelicalism. I won't rehash my own journey here, but it continues to be a conversation of interest to me. Last month was the first month I participated, and we read Rachel Held Evans's Wholehearted Faith, but also felt light to me. I should have been careful what I wished for because y'all, this month's read is heavy. It's about embodiment, community, and building democracy, from the perspective of a queer, trans, Latinx, PhD, public theologian. I'm especially grateful for sharing their experience of being separated from their own body -- thus needing a process of "embodiment" in order to feel fully in the world. But the idea is not just about personal development; it's about recognizing that there are bodies which are socially designated as not fully human, and that reality must change for democracy to realize its ideals. I'm very sympathetic to these insights to the extent that I grasp them, but I struggled to follow the text which is heavy with abstract jargon and very light on definitions and concrete examples.

With two deconstruction reads complete, I feel a bit like Goldilocks: one chair too soft, one chair too hard, and now I'm ready for one just right.

>163 richardderus: Yes. I appreciated the theme, and liked the resolution which was very "You've been waiting for me to save you but maybe y'all need to work on saving your own selves." Still, it just didn't click with me the way some earlier entries did.

>165 swynn: That makes sense to me. It fits with what I know of the author's worldview, as well. As to clicking, we all know how fragile our pleasure is in some passages...

>164 swynn: ...like this one! Oof. Lotsa work, not a lot of reward, is my characterization of that.

Guess what! Now that we've learned "Latinx" and how to pronounce it, the community has decided that "Latine" is their preference! Because it's rooted in the Romance languages' almost-universal absence of the letter "x" at the end on any word. And it's pronounced "lah-TEEN-eh" not "ee".

It's tough to keep up for an old fart like me but having a trans-grand and an ace niece makes it urgent.

>166 richardderus: Thanks for the heads-up about "Latine"; I knew that there was controversy about "Latinx", but used it in the review because it's the term Dr. Henderson-Espinoza uses.

I sympathize with keeping up with terminology. Old dude here too, and have recently spent a weekend trying imperfectly to retrain my vocabulary in a way I'm not entirely free to talk about, so I'm 100% there on wishing the grey cells weren't so ... grey. But I also feel that trying to use the terms preferred by the entermed human beings is the very least I can do.

Well this is a surprise. After avoiding the Silmarillion for 40 years, I decided to muscle through ... and I kind of dig it.

Yay, magic of low expectations!

>168 swynn: "yay"

*shudder*

>168 swynn:

:D

I’m about halfway through - I’ve been reading a chapter a day at lunchtime. Don’t tell Richard, but I’m enjoying it too.

>168 swynn: I read it about 40 years ago. All I remember it was no easy read, and I liked it. Never had the urge to reread, wich I did many times with The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

The thing is that it's not meant to be a story like LOTR or The Hobbit. It's a collection of background material, so is meant to add depth to the world and help create that fully-fleshed-out feeling we get in LOTR especially.

>173 drneutron: Yes, it is almost "non-fiction" kind of fiction, the history of Middle Earth.

>164 swynn: If you ever find one that is "just right," Steve, let me know. I am interested as well.

>170 lyzard: I expect our reviews will be quite different this time, and I'm looking forward to yours, Liz!

>171 drneutron: That seems like a good pace. Even though I'm enjoying it, it's still a lot of very much. I'm topping out at 30-50 pages a day.

>172 FAMeulstee: "No easy read, but I liked it," is a nice summary of what I'm likely to say about it.

>173 drneutron:
>174 FAMeulstee:
Yes, exactly -- it's not so much a story as it is a chronicle, like the sources Shakespeare used for his history plays or the biblical books of the Kings and the Chronicles. It's a different genre and is designed for different expectations.

>175 alcottacre: You'll see it here if I do, Stasia!

>166 richardderus: As a certified old fart (TM), I'm always tempted to play the agism card when someone gets angry at me for using language that was polite back in the day, rather than keeping up to date on the latest-and-greatest.

This urge gets particularly strong when it's demanded that I stop using some newly offensive term to describe myself ;-(

I also recall an epic fail involving earnest young things at some college trying to interest alumni in some project of theirs involving one or other QUILTBAG group. The term used in their outreach, perfectly polite to modern teenagers and twenty year olds, was experienced by their elders as offensive, and they stayed away in droves.

Editted to add: by all means use whatever terms your grandchild and niece prefer, when talking to them or referring to them. That's common politeness, much the same as using the form of their name they prefer, and changing if and when they change that preference.

>177 ArlieS: Thanks for this, Arlie. One hundred percent, the most important people are the people you love; using the terms they prefer is just social skills 101.

Very disappointed to note that it turns out, if you wanted civil rights you should have been born a gun.

>179 swynn: Disgusting.

>177 ArlieS: There is absolutely no pleasing everyone, and it's a doddle to offend almost everyone no matter what one does or tries.

Heads up! New Tolkien incoming..

>181 richardderus: Yeah, I'd seen that -- it's not clear to me how much of the material is new and how much is excerpted and rearranged from already-published stuff. Which is fine, I guess, but I'm not going to be standing in line for it.

Status on the Silmarillion: about 80 pages left, still enjoying it but also very ready for it to be over.

>182 swynn: Your stamina is impressive.

>183 richardderus: Reading Tunnel 29 at the same time is helping a lot.

>184 swynn: I can see that it would! Taking agency, leaving restrictive lifeways, getting away from constant and intimate surveillance would counterbalance the doom/fate/social pressures in Tolkien's world.

Last weekend I visited my mother in northeast Iowa, in part because my sister & BIL were also visiting, whom I haven't seen since fall 2019.

Nice visit, and a long drive. Long drive means audiobook:



84) Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be by Nichole Perkins
Date: 2021

It's a collection of personal essays about the author's experiences as an HBCU-educated black woman, cultural critic, and writer of the Internet age. It's very frank sexually, which for me was sometimes TMI, but I admire her stance on owning one's own body, one's own pleasure, and one's own story. There are also essays on her affection for various pop-culture properties ("Frasier" and "A Different World" get thoughtful commentary); on her place in the world and the place the world wants to put her in; and on her love for her family. For this father of a young man with developmental disabilities, her fiercely loyal words about her brother with autism reach my soul. For that alone it's a pick.

After the Perkins, I started another audiobook, on the very enthusiastic recommendation of someone whom someone in my family is trying to impress. I was introduced as the \relative\ who "reads a lot." Which, I guess, is fair. So sure, I'll entertain a recommendation. But oh dear: it's romance and that isn't really my thing (I may have mentioned). More precisely, it's "inspirational romance," which is garlic-draped crucifix to my inner vampire (I probably didn't need to mention). But ... family, you know? And:



Sweet merciful god of the printed word. It's like Gor for white evangelicals.

Not sure I'll finish.

It's like Gor for white evangelicals.

But how could you NOT?? :D

>187 swynn: But how could you NOT??

To be fair, I will not fall asleep while listening to it, so finishing does have a functional purpose.

>187 swynn: Ick!

>186 swynn: Cool!

Happy driving.

>187 swynn: Eek!

>190 richardderus:
>191 ArlieS:

I see that Librarything and Goodreads are heavy with positive reviews, so it is probably a mismatch between my personal tastes and genre expectations. Still.

>192 swynn: Decidedly NOT you. I read the sample from Ammy and, considering there's 514 pages of that treacly bilge...no way, no how.

>193 richardderus: Thanks for the confirmation, Richard.

We'll see what I'm feeling next weekend, which is the next scheduled long drive.

85) The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien
Date: 1977

This was the bestselling book in the U.S. for 1977. It fills in the worldbuilding back-story to the Lord of the Rings: how that world was sung into being, its god and sort-of demigods, the lives of the elves and how they came to Middle-Earth, and the arrival of humans. It tells about the evil adversary Melkor/Morgoth and his plots to rule the world, and the development of Morgoth's disciple Sauron. It supplies more detail for stories told in LOTR, and also tells stories for events mentioned there in passing.

I talked about this some above, and don't really have much to add: it's a long book with designedly dense prose, more interested in creating a certain atmosphere than in maintaining the reader's interest. It was composed from manuscripts that served Tolkien as a "Bible" for his world, and "Bible" is the reading experience I felt -- especially the history books like the Kings and Chronicles, together with a mannered imitation of the Authorized Version's 17th century prose. Which is okay, really. When it works -- which is often enough -- it carries the sense of heightened reality that it's trying for It's not the sustained dramatic narrative of the Lord of the Rings, which is what I expected forty-something years ago on my first failed attempt to read this thing. But that's also something it's not trying to be. It's a history for the determined LOTR nerds; it's a mood piece for readers who consume the Prose Edda for fun; and when it works it's almost hypnotic. Also, there's an awful lot of it, and its style makes it feel like at least twice the 300 pages that its page numbering tells me it contains. Even more for those who read glossaries. (Um ... I skipped these Liz, and I assume you did too because three hundred was enough, right?) It's not bad, much better than I dreaded, and I'm also glad it's over.

86) Tunnel 29 by Helena Merriman
Date: 2021

Expanding on a BBC podcast, this tells the story of a group of students in 1962 who escaped from East Germany, then built a tunnel under the Berlin Wall to help others escape. When they ran out of money, they got some assistance from NBC television, who offered financial support in exchange for the opportunity to document the project. The story shows its podcast roots in its vivid scene-setting and sharp pacing. It's the sort of nonfiction that "reads like a thriller," so if that's your thing ... yeah, mine too.

You can find the podcast here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009jkb
You can find the 1962 NBC documentary here: https://youtu.be/_aOIhpxBloE

>195 swynn:

I didn't read it, but I did use it---because I kept losing track of which bunch of elves we were dealing with and who was the son of whom.

That was my problem with it, that I had to keep interrupting myself to check details and would lose the thread while doing it.

>197 lyzard: There were a lot of names to keep track of, for sure.

I look forward to your thoughts about it.

Happy week-to-come's reads, Steve.

>199 richardderus: Thanks Richard!

Perry Rhodan update:




The last Perry Rhodan update brought us to episode #178. The war against the Blues has ended with the Blues' unconditional surrender. Meanwhile, an Akonish suicide squad has destroyed the Schreckworms' home planet, taking all(?) of the Schreckworms with it.

Momentarily, everything looks peaceful. Of course it's not. The Terran/Arkonide empire has expanded rapidly, and has its discontents. Now, with the Blues poised to join the empire, the seams begin to burst.

Perry Rhodan 179: Notlandung auf Beauly II = "Emergency Landing on Beauly II" by K.H. Scheer

Perry, accompanied by Melbar Kasom, meets Atlan at a secret rendezvous near the center of the galaxy for a private talk about the empire's inauspicious future. Atlan tells Perry that the Terran Empire will soon fall apart for lack of authoritarian leadership. Either Perry must immediately and decisively suppress insurrections, or accept the empire's dissolution, and withdraw his forces to defending the interests of the Solar System. Perry accepts the analysis, which he had reached independently, and indicates that he has no intention of becoming the galaxy's dictator. Their strategic planning is interrupted by a distress call from a Terran super-battleship, which leads to an emergency landing on Beauly II, where Perry and Kasom fall victim to an intelligence-suppressing energy beam, leaving Atlan to locate and neutralize the beam alone.

Perry Rhodan 180: Der gnadenlose Gegner = "The Merciless Foe" by William Voltz

Events of the last chapter leave Perry, Atlan, and Melbar Kasom with three prisoners. The prisoners are apparently descendants of Terran colonists, but are uncooperative. Perry calls for help in interrogating the captives, and is soon joined by Reginald Bull and the mutant André Noir. Suddenly Perry's ship is attacked and forced to make an emergency landing on an unknown planet. Their attackers are descendants of a Terran colony on planet Plophos, who wish to break the power of the Terran-Arkonide empire. And capturing or killing Perry Rhodan would do much to achieve that goal. The manhunt ensues.

Perry Rhodan 181: Gefangen in Zentral-City = "Captive in Central City" by William Voltz

Captured by Plophosers, Perry & friends are taken to Greendoor, a jungle planet crawling with predatory flora like the drenhols, quasi-intelligent ambulatory trees. Escape is not only impossible, but inadvisable: even if they can shake the guards, they will be trapped in Greendoor's single city because escape to the jungle would be suicide. To make escape even less attractive, the prisoners are injected with a serum which will kill them in four weeks unless they are injected with a counteragent. Nevertheless, the Terrans attempt escape.

Perry Rhodan 182: Drei von der Galaktischen Abwehr = "Three From the Galactic Defense" by Kurt Mahr

Meanwhile back on Earth, Terran authorities know only that Perry Rhodan has disappeared, likely killed in a spaceship crash. But bad actors from the colony world Plophos are suspected, so the Terrans activate Art Konstantin, a deep-cover secret agent acting as a chief of police on Plophos. Konstantin launches a high-risk operation to learn what he can about Perry's fate.

Perry Rhodan 183: Die Dschungel-Armee = "The Jungle Army" by William Voltz

Back on Greendoor, Perry, Atlan, Bully, and Andre Noir have been recaptured, and are reminded of their fate should they not be around to get the antidote to the poison in their veins. But Melbar Kasom escaped capture, by hiding inside the hollow trunk of a drenhol. Instead of dying in the jungle, Kasom makes contact with a resistance movement who soon realize what Perry Rhodan could mean for their cause. A daring rescue ensues.

Perry Rhodan 184: Gucky und die Blaue Garde = "Gucky and the Blue Guard" by Clark Darlton

Thanks to the sacrifice of Art Konstantin, the Terran authorities now know that Perry Rhodan is alive and being held captive by the Plophosers, at some location unkown. Gucky takes a team of mutants, disguised as a trade delegation, to Plophos. But the disguise is quickly seen through, and several of the mutants are captured. Miscellaneous hijinks later, the Terrans learn that Perry & friends have been taken to Greendoor, but when they go to Greendoor they learn that the prisoners have not only escaped, but have been taken off the planet by resistance forces.

Perry Rhodan 185: Flammen über Badun = "Flames Over Badun" by Kurt Brand

Having been rescued by resistance forces on Greendoor, Perry offers the aid of the Terran Empire in exchange for help returning to Terra. But the rebels have other plans. They smuggle the Terran VIPs to a base in Badun, where they are ordered to work for the rebels or die. Meanwhile, the Plophosers are hotter on their trail than the rebels suspect, and Badun is no safe haven. The story resolves with a deus ex machina: as the rebel base comes under devastating bombardment, Perry and friends, together with the rebel leader's fiery daughter, are transported away from Badun by mysterious forces unknown.

taking all(?) of the Schreckworms with it

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

I'm sorry, you probably said something else in that post but that's as much as my brain would process.

>202 lyzard: Yep. My feelings too: ooh, the war with the Blues is over, but the Schreckworms are still around: they're allies but it's complicated, and a delicate touch is required and I wonder ...

Oh. Blew 'em all up. Figures.

87) Hawk of the Wilderness by William L. Chester
Date: 1935

Back in March, I read Kioga of the Wilderness (DAW #209), which turned out to be the second book in a series. Here's the first book.

Cribbing from my comments in March, the series relates "the adventures of Kioga, a Tarzannish hero whose parents shipwrecked on a the shore of a wild land and died shortly after his birth; who was raised by natives; who reached peak physical and mental condition through fresh air and outdoor adventure; and who eventually traveled to civilization but found he preferred the wilderness. So, Tarzan. Except instead of Africa, Kioga's wilderness is Nato'wa a lost world above the Arctic Circle, a lost homeland of Native Americans."

That was the background to book 2, but the plot of book 1.

It's 1935, so you can expect cringey references to race, "savages," and "civilization," but really the most interesting thing about the book is its complicated, even self-contradicting, takes on race. In several passages, "white" is roughly equivalent to "civilized": Kioga will refuse to kill a helpless enemy for example because of his "white" ethics. On the other hand, the text will frequently interrupt some violent event to remind the reader of the battlefields of France and ask who, in fact, are the real "savages"? The text never resolves these contradictions, but then it's really more interested in tiger fights and bear fights.

>204 swynn: Where on Earth did you find that copy?! That image is, um, let's say it reads differently in today's landscape. *blink*

>201 swynn: *aaahhh* sudsy space-goodness!

>204 swynn: Borrowed it from a library in my consortium. I'm pretty sure it's the same edition, though it didn't have the dustjacket anymore. It looked more like this:



But yeah, it's an interesting cover image. The artist understands the architecture of men better than that of cats. As perhaps one should.

>206 swynn: Perhaps one should, but to display so much of it in the 30s seems, um, en avant de la culture. Well, it's not like I'll be huntin' it down any time soon anyway.

88) Into the Forest and All the Way Through by Cynthia Pelayo
Date: 2020

This is a collection of true-crime poetry: each poem is based on a different actual case (mostly unsolved) of a missing or murdered woman or girl. It sounds like a really bad idea, but it was nominated for a Stoker award in 2020, and I heard some good things about it so I picked it up to see.

I'm happy to report that it's not as bad as I worried. The focus is clearly on the victims as human beings, and Pelayo has a talent for vivid and efficient personality sketches. Still, I have very mixed feelings about this: almost every poem juxtaposes innocence against an almost formless evil -- which, okay, fair -- but in a series of a hundred-ish poems it becomes a repetitious monotheme. The feeling of exploitation is also difficult to shake, but I get that from true crime too -- one reason I tend not to read true crime. I'm also not a big poetry reader so I'm probably missing nuances.

Still, if the description sounds like your thing, do check it out. Others have rated it much more highly.

89) Bad Witch Burning by Jessica Lewis
Date: 2021

It's horror-ish YA about a girl with a difficult home life and a talent for talking to the dead, who discovers that she can actually raise the dead. Then she learns that short-term solutions are sometimes really bad ideas ... This was fun: good cast, good pacing, and one badass dog.

90) Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers
Date: 1991

Well, I finished it. Considered in its entirety, it's unfair to call it a Gor for evangelicals, but it's still an unpleasant read.

It's set in gold-rush California, and inspired by the Biblical prophet Hosea, whom God commanded to marry a "wife of whoredoms" in order make some sort of point about how He is faithful when Israel is not. The Hosea stand-in here is a long-suffering farmer whom God commands to marry a stunningly beautiful prostitute. He marries her while she is barely conscious and takes her to his farm. When she returns to the brothel, he retrieves her by force. She repeatedly tells him that she dreams of having a cabin of her own where she can live without any interference from men; he repeatedly tells her that she is his wife and he knows she will love him eventually because God told him so. This is "inspirational romance," so the farmer is correct, of course. Eventually there comes a point where the farmer allows the reformed prostitute to seek her own fortune, and waits for her to make her own choice, but it's only when he's pretty sure his hold on her is secure.

There is so much "No" here that my comments could be just one word long. The creepy farmer? No. The forced marriage? No. The Stockholmy relationship? No. The sanctification of rural life? No. The sermons? No. The language of "pollution" and "purity" and "ruin"? No. The expectation that the heroine will surrender her self for the love of the creepy farmer? No. The miraculous ending? Eye-roll no.

The inability to wrap things up? Give me Michener please.

There are lots of reviews on this and they are overwhelmingly positive, so take this FWIW. But if you ask me it's a no.

>210 swynn: What is wrong with you?!? Why in the name of all that's unholy are you reading Francine Rivers of all the awful, bad, stinky-stinky writers on this wide green Earth?!

Dude...digital self-harm is a real thing and I begin to wonder what the heck is up up there....

>210 swynn:

Give me Michener please.

Whoa, whoa, buddy: let's not get carried away! :D

>211 richardderus: Well, now I know. And I can't imagine circumstances under which I'd read another --- (Surreptitiously checks the bestseller forecast, and thanks goodness) -- ever again.

It's a rec that came up in the context of family conversations, and I felt obliged. Good news is I can comment intelligently on it should it happen to come up again, to wit: "Listen, if you ever meet a man who tells you he talks to God and knows your needs better than you know your own self, then Run. The hell. Away."

>212 lyzard: Compared to Francine Rivers, I stand by it.

Chesapeake status: p. 350, and on schedule to finish by the end of the month.

>214 swynn:

Had extra reading time last night which got me over the hump and well into the second half; expecting to get it wrapped today or tomorrow.

>215 lyzard: Nice. I am pacing it, though I'm consistently exceeding daily goals. I have at least a week left.

>213 swynn: I did that very thing from the women who said the same things to me.

I have never, not for a second, regretted that decision.

>215 lyzard:, >216 swynn:

...although that said I now feel like I've had 200 pages to go for the past two days... :D

>217 richardderus: As one should.

>218 lyzard: Yikes, the mysterious receding denouement. I hope it stands still soon for you!

**RUNNING POST**

I had a several-week slump, though few weeks with no running at all. I seem to be hitting a consistent routine again, so let's go back to doing this.

Miles last week since last post: 62
Total miles: 182
Longest run: 3 miles

Soundtrack: Resist by Janis Ian
BPM: 96

Yes, Rammstein has released a new album since my last running post. But so has Janis Ian. And I've been in more of a "Resist" mood than a "Big Tits" one. For some reason.

>213 swynn: Anyone who "knows your needs better than you know your own self" is probably trying to groom you for an abusive relationship, whether or not they talk about God. With some exceptions if you are very young, and they are your parent or guardian. Though even then this can be a red flag. With exceptions for routine family conflicts generally involving short term gratification.

>220 swynn: That is a powerful song by Janis Ian. Thanks for sharing, Steve.

>219 swynn: It occurs to me that the point was that "I-know-you-better-than-you-know-you" predators can be of any gender. I agree.

>221 ArlieS: I also agree that predators can be of any faith, or no faith at all. I do think that throwing gods into the mix complicates things, as it increases the authoritarian pressure on victims, and rhetorically absolves the predator of personal responsibility.

>222 FAMeulstee: Glad to share!

91) Forced Perspectives by Tim Powers
Date: 2021

Second in Powers's "Vickery & Castine" series featuring a couple of ex-federal agents based in L.A. who investigate apocalypses related to the ghosts who live along America's highways. The apocalypse in this episode involves ancient Egyptian sorcery, Hollywood occultists, a supernatural groupmind, and lots of ghosts. It sprawls, spends way too much time on driving directions, and I don't find the series' characters or plots as engaging as my favorite Powers novels (this could be age speaking). Still, it's fun. There is one more in the series so far, and I'll probably read it soon.

92) Wordslut by Amanda Montell
Date: 2019

Earlier this year I read and enjoyed Cultish, Montell's language-journalism take on religious and quasi-religious movements. Somebody -- I don't remember who, but maybe Micky -- called my attention to Montell's earlier work, this popular introduction to feminist linguistics. Whoever it was: thank you! Informative, engaging, and even a lot of fun. My only complaint is a lack of bibliographical references. I often wanted to look up a study she described, and in a couple of cases to check the justification for a claim that didn't sound quite right to me. (Particularly: she says that "I am well" is a grammatically incorrect response to the question, "How are you?"; and that it is a case of hypercorrection. I doubt both claims.) But the complaint about references just indicates how well it engaged me. Highly recommended for language nerds.

>226 swynn: That was definitely me. Glad to see you enjoyed it!

>227 MickyFine: Thank you for it, Micky!

Odd DAW Books fact: They've just been bought by Astra Publishing House. Secure future, ho!

I'd seen that, and want sure how to read it. I saw that most of Astra's other imprints are for a much younger audience. I also see that they're keeping the managing editors, which seems like a good thing. My sense is that your ear is closer to the ground than mine on the publishing industry, and I gather that you read it as good news, so yay?

>230 swynn: I think Astra has a particularly curatorial, conservationist vision for literary production. Look at their imprints! These are people who are publishing behind the trend, after others have failed, and will learn from it.

>231 richardderus: That does sound encouraging.

93) As Far As You'll Take Me by Phil Stamper
Date: 2021

Gay seventeen-year-old musician Marty goes to London, escaping his homophobic Kentucky hometown and his parents' religious condemnation. His parents think he has a music scholarship to a London academy and will be staying with his aunt, who is insufficiently religious in his parents' eyes but at least he'll be safe, they think. What they don't know is that the music scholarship doesn't exist, and the aunt will be traveling for work, leaving him and his also-gay cousin a larger degree of freedom than Marty has ever known. Marty knows that his cover story will only last for a short time, but he hopes it will be long enough to set up a local support system and find work so he can leave Kentucky permanently. The plan becomes more complicated when he falls in love with the guy his cousin sends to pick him up at the airport.

It's not my usual thing, but I found it sweet and affirming.

This is another title from the list of books that Texas representative Matt Krause wants removed from school libraries.

94) At Swords' Points by Andre Norton
Date: 1954

Third and last in Norton's series of thrillers featuring Dutch gem merchant Lorens van Norreys, though in this one Norreys has only a small part. Instead, we follow Quinn Anders, a reserved historian whose brother is killed while searching for a treasure that went missing in WWII. Anders picks up where his brother left off, and adventure ensues. It's great fun, and reminds me of Eric Ambler's everyman-in-over-his-head thrillers.

>234 swynn: Forgive me if I've said this before, but the van Norreys books read like the Murdoc Jern series's first drafts...The Zero Stone, y'know...and for that reason I've got fond memories of them. But wouldn't re-read 'em.

>233 swynn: Oh, that sounds delightful. I'll go get one just to screw over that idiot ban-er.

**RUNNING POST**

Miles last week since last post: 9
Total miles: 191
Longest run: 3 miles

And in ... um ... honor .... of Matt Krause and his list:
Soundtrack: Woodburger by Die Ärzte
BPM: 99

Where do all the furious men come from
With their panic-stricken fear of anal sex
They look like they've always been furious (furious, furious, furious)
Furious at anything that's foreign to them
At anyone who is not combed properly
Full of desire for another one thousand years
It's always the same pattern:
They stir up hatred, they lie and then they change the topic
What do Boko Haram have in common
With right-wing populist parties?
Without fear and hate they won't survive
What makes them this inhuman?
Their inferiority complex or megalomania?
Do we really need these kind of people?
I've got a plan but it's not quite finished (not quite finished)
I'll join the AfD and then I'll be....
Gay, gay, gay, gay
Gay, gay, gay, gay
Super gay, super gay, super gay, super gay
So gay, So gay, So gay, So gay

(Translation lightly adapted from: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/woodburger-woodburger.html)

>235 richardderus: You have mentioned this, and I've bumped Zero Stone up to next of my Norton reads. I'm looking forward to it -- I'm pretty sure I read this one about thirty years ago and enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to revisiting.

>236 swynn:

I hope you sing along. Loudly. :D

So does Krause object to all gay-themed books or just the ones where gay people are happy?

>238 lyzard: It's a list with no apparent goals or method and I strongly suspect it was assembled by keyword-searching library catalogs for "gay," "lesbian", "BLM", "social justice", etc. It's a weird convergence of hate and just damn lazy, less about a vision for library collections than it is about anger-farming.

Some books on the list don't even have a gay or social-justice theme, but may for example have a secondary character who happens to be gay. (For example, Leslie Connor's A Home for Goddesses and Dogs, which I read in February.) The effect is that Krause seems to be objecting to the mere existence of gay people (or lesbian, or trans, or black, or brown, or friends of same). Which is on-brand, actually.

The Missouri Democratic Party is teasing a "Hawlin' Hawley 5K" and I very much want this joke to be real because I will be there.

>239 swynn:

Apropos of this conversation and other things---

Just getting around to writing up The League Of Frightened Men, and noting this quote towards the beginning:

"What good is an obscenity trial except to popularise literature?"

:D

I don't know if you're in for The Rubber Band this month, but we have it listed in the 'x' TIOLI challenge if so.

I also wanted to check with you about the next banned book, which is Ethel Mannin's Pilgrims. I need to read that in-library and will try to get that done in August; do you have access to a copy?

>241 lyzard: Yes to all. I have The Rubber Band in an omnibus edition with The Red Room, so I think I'm set for the next two reads. Unless we decide that TRR is not in fact the fourth book, in which case I'm set for two of the next three.

And I'm set for Pilgrims too, having bought a used copy when I found out that none was available in my library consortium.

I finished Chesapeake last night (hooray!) so am hoping to start the Nero Wolfe book this weekend.

>242 swynn:

The Red Box (not Room) is indeed the next one up, it turned out I was worrying over a non-series work (or not from this series, as Julia explained: it's complicated!).

Excellent! - though I'm sorry you're having to buy books. I've been lucky enough to avoid that for the last few in this challenge.

Well done!! Yes, do go and find a book to relax with, Nero or not, you've earned it! :)

**RUNNING POST**

Miles last week since last post: 9
Total miles: 200
Longest run: 3 miles

Soundtrack: Machi Bhasad by Bloodywood
BPM: 103

95) Chesapeake by James Michener
Date: 1978

Conversation at the dog park:
Friend: "I see you're reading Chesapeake. I love that book. I was so sad when it was over."
Me: "Oh? I have to confess, I wouldn't mind fewer pages."
Friend: "I used to live in Maryland, and I thought he captured it so well. I wanted it to go on and on. I don't even remember any of the plot, just the setting was perfect."
Me: "Have you thought of reading it again?"
Friend: "No. No I don't have time for it." (Pause, chuckle) "I don't know how much time I have left, you know?"

Chesapeake was the bestselling book in the United States in 1978, Michener's third to top the annual chart after The Source and Centennial. Like his previous top-sellers, it's less a novel than a collection of interconnected stories reflecting changing conditions, concerns, and mores in a geographic region. This time, it's the Chesapeake Bay, and the time period is the 15th through 20th century. We begin with unrest among Native American tribes, proceed through European colonization, the slave trade, the Civil War, Jim Crow, civil rights movements, and land in the aftermath of Watergate. Most of the stories center on three families: the respectable Steeds, Catholic tobacco merchants with a reputation for managing business shrewdly and slaves humanely; the pious Paxmores, Quaker shipbuilders who come to the conviction early that slavery is a moral evil; and the Turlocks, poor swamp-dwellers who produce naturally talented hunters and pilots. The fortunes and woes of these families touch issues ranging from religion, social responsibility, civilization vs. nature, and at some length slavery. And that's what I found most difficult about this on. The length didn't bother me much: yes it is too long, but I knew what I was getting into when I saw "Michener" on the cover and lifted it anyway. The prose is perfectly readable and the the nature writing especially is enlightening and engaging. But I found the theme of humans owning humans, at length, wearing. No doubt the characters' attitudes are historically accurate, and Michener has the conscience of a middle-class white liberal (i.e., pretty close to my own) so I think his intent is good, but I just didn't want to spend 850 pages with these people who, whatever their other qualities, feel that slavery is a question on which multiple reasonable positions can be discussed. I found myself strongly sympathizing with the activists late in the book: let it burn. (And faster, please if you don't mind.)

>245 swynn:

:D

Yes, Jim is rapidly recruiting me into the Life's Too Short brigade.

And yes again, it's too much within too much: he loses sight of his own topic in this one. Otherwise it could have been a book of reasonable length. Which makes me wonder if he was deliberately striving for unreasonable length?---as you say, The Brand.

Anyway...Ludlum will make a refreshing change, plus I can get that as an ebook for which my wrists thank me.

>245 swynn: I've had Chesapeake sitting around for... decades probably, as I have Quaker ancestry in the region and am not far removed geographically, but 850 pages... of print that gets smaller each year I procrastinate. Your review prompted me to pull it off a shelf.

>246 lyzard: Too long for sure. The Ludlum is 600-something pages. But I'm pretty sure it will go a lot faster.

>247 qebo: Good to see you Katherine! If you do decide to undertake Chesapeake, I'll be interested in your thoughts.

96) Hot Six by Janet Evanovich
Date: 2000

It's been a couple of years since my last Stephanie Plum, so I picked this up on audiobook for a long drive. In this one, the body is a mob boss's son, Ranger is a prime suspect, and Grandma Mazur moves in with Stephanie. It's a little wincey due to some ethnic humor based on a Pakistani character, which I hope the series gets past quickly. Other than that it passed the time as expected. I'll probably read another in a year or two.

97) United States of Grace by Lenny Duncan
Date: 2021

This is the latest read for the deconstruction group I've been participating in. It's the memoir of a queer black guy who experienced abuse, homelessness, addiction, and an unexpected call to Christian ministry. Multiple feelings about this, among which: (1) I love the many ways this subverts the genre of Christian memoir; (2) I'm puzzled and also delighted that evangelicalism has space for this perspective; but most of all (3) I love the message of inclusion and hope -- this is Whitman territory, and I am 100% here for it.

98) Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire
Date: 2021

Seventh and so far latest of McGuire's "Wayward Children" series, featuring Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, a sort of boarding-home for refugees from portal worlds. But Eleanor West's home is not the only institute for wayward children. There is also the Whitethorn Institute, which promises to help its students forget the worlds they visited, and become proper productive members of this one. Cora, a student at Eleanor's, requests a transfer to Whitethorn in hopes that forgetting will help calm her fear that dark gods are reaching out for her. But Whitethorn's approach is not so much an alternative therapy as it is a trap. This one is interesting more for what it promises than what it does. It sets up a couple of conflicts that one assumes future volumes will resolve, but is not satisfying on its own.

I've found that the Evanovich books work well as audiobooks, Steve. And since they are all similar, missing details doesn't really matter.

>252 BLBera: I agree Beth: the series is almost more a situation comedy than a mystery series, and a reader who gets the voices & timing right can make it as satisfying on audio as in print.