John Helfers

Anthology of sf crime short stories from the prolific book packager Martin H Greenberg. I normally like the anthologies Greenberg puts together, in both sf and mystery, but I've got a bad case of "it's not you, it's me" with this one. I can see why other people might like it, but it doesn't quite work for me, and I think it's because I'm not quite keyed in to the relevant genre conventions. Half way through, and I still haven't encountered a story I'd regret not having read, and have read show more one or two that left me feeling I'd just wasted a small piece of my life -- even though I know and like the work of several of the authors (and indeed, bought the anthology specifically because it included a short by one of my favourite authors). I've finally learnt that I don't have to finish a book just because I've started it, so I'm bailing at this point -- but even so, I think this one could work for a reader with slightly different tastes to me. show less

I like the books Mercedes Lackey writes, she is good at creating a believable world and people to populate it. While her writing is not the strongest I do find it engaging ang and enjoyable. I like a series I can live inside of and her books are ones that have characters I feel invested in and a world I believe could exist.

Really liked 2/3 of this book - an omnibus edition combining 3 mystery anthologies. The stories in Murder Most Romantic remind me why Romance is a genre I generally avoid. Even with added murder I only liked a few of these stories, mostly the ones by authors I'm already familiar with like P. N. Elrod. "The Show Must Go On", by Neesa Hart, was a particular favorite. The SF entry "12 Days" was an interesting concept but the tech did not age well from 2001's version of 2010. The 2nd collection, show more Murder Most Medieval - now here's what I like, my favorite subgenre of historical mysteries. Five stories are set in series I read, including an Ellis Peters "Cadfael" I hadn't read before. The 3rd collection is Murder Most Devine - all mysteries in religious settings. More medieval stories here, including a Margaret Frazer Dame Frevisse tale and a P.C. Doherty story. Others have contemporary settings, even noir like Richard Connell's "Brother Orchid" and fantasy in Neil Gaiman's "Murder Mysteries". Huge book, but worth reading through. show less

(The copy I read had a signature---pages 26 to 51, IIRC---missing and what looks like the corresponding pages from War Games by Christopher Anvil in its place. Since the most interesting material was toward the beginning of the book, those missing pages might have bumped my rating up to 4 stars. Maybe.)

The Vorkosigan Companion includes a few interviews with Bujold, accounts by a childhood friend and her brother, the introductions (by fans) to four of the novels, essays about aspects of the show more series and its fandom, a pronunciation guide, a concordance (list of characters, places, and items with brief explanations and indications of which books include them), a map of the wormhole routes between systems described in the series, and the series chronology (book listing) included in every book in the series.

Of these, the interviews and friend-and-relation reminiscences were interesting and well worth reading; the book introductions were more or less the same, except that they were either essays I had already read with the books in question, or retreads of material I had read or gathered from elsewhere. The essays about the series were hit-or-miss, and except for the genealogical analysis at the end of the volume relied too much on plot summary. The essay on the Bujold fandom made me wish wistfully that I had time to start reading The List again. The map and its accompanying explanation were reasonably good, but I've seen better "Nexus maps" online, and from mentions of "maps" (plural) I had expected a map of Barrayar, Beta Colony, Komarr, or one of the other polities in the Nexus. Finally, the concordance and pronunciation guide are probably the best reason to keep the book around once we've got it, but are needlessly duplicative (why not just include pronunciations in the people's and places' entries in the concordance).

I recognized the names of several of the contributors from my years reading (lurking on) The List, but that also made me wonder why other prominent listees, whom I know to have written better scholarly analyses in similar veins, were not also represented.

So, all in all, The Vorkosigan Companion isn't by any means bad, but it doesn't meet my expectations. show less