YouKneeK’s 2020 SF&F Overdose Part 2

Welcome to part 2 of my 2020 thread! :) Here’s my usual introductory info:

• I read mostly science fiction and fantasy, with a heavier emphasis on fantasy.
  
• I tend to read slightly older books versus the newest releases.
  
• I hate spoilers. Any spoilers in my reviews should be safely hidden behind spoiler tags.
  
• I prefer to read a series after it’s complete, and I read all the books pretty close together.
  
• I’m 44, female, and live in the suburbs of Atlanta, GA in the U.S where I work as a programmer.
  
• My cat’s name is Ernest and he’s a freak.

2020 Reading Index

Clicking on the Date Read will take you to the post containing the review.

   Date Read/
 # Review Link	Title				Author(s)		
 1 2020-01-06	This Alien Shore		C. S. Friedman
 2 2020-01-11	Honored Enemy			Raymond E. Feist and 
						William R. Forstchen
 3 2020-01-15	Murder in LaMut			Raymond E. Feist and 
						Joel Rosenberg
 4 2020-01-19	Jimmy the Hand			Raymond E. Feist and 
						S. M. Stirling
 5 2020-01-25	Jane Eyre			Charlotte Brontë
 6 2020-01-31	Talon of the Silver Hawk	Raymond E. Feist
 7 2020-02-02	King of Foxes			Raymond E. Feist
 8 2020-02-07	Exile's Return			Raymond E. Feist
 9 2020-02-09	Ubik				Philip K. Dick
10 2020-02-15	Flight of the Nighthawks	Raymond E. Feist
11 2020-02-18	Into a Dark Realm		Raymond E. Feist
12 2020-02-23	Wrath of a Mad God		Raymond E. Feist
13 2020-02-25	Memory of Water			Emmi Itäranta
14 2020-03-03	Rides a Dread Legion		Raymond E. Feist
15 2020-03-06	At the Gates of Darkness	Raymond E. Feist
16 2020-03-13	The Diamond Age			Neal Stephenson
17 2020-03-16	A Kingdom Besieged		Raymond E. Feist
18 2020-03-21	A Crown Imperiled		Raymond E. Feist
19 2020-03-29	Magician's End			Raymond E. Feist
20 2020-04-03	Starship Troopers		Robert A. Heinlein
21 2020-04-04	Bunnicula			Deborah Howe and 
						James Howe
22 2020-04-05	Catseye				Andre Norton
23 2020-04-07	The Great Gatsby		F. Scott Fitzgerald
24 2020-04-08	The Comedy of Errors		William Shakespeare
25 2020-04-14	The Bone Witch			Rin Chupeco
26 2020-04-18	Sphere				Michael Crichton
27 2020-04-25	The Snow Queen			Joan D. Vinge
28 2020-04-27	World's End			Joan D. Vinge
29 2020-05-16	The Summer Queen		Joan D. Vinge
30 2020-05-22	Song of the Beast		Carol Berg

Here are my stats from the first quarter of 2020. There’s nothing too exciting here, and this quarter isn’t indicative of any trends since most of the time was spent finishing up the very long Riftwar Cycle by Raymond E. Feist. From here on out I’ll be reading a combination of standalones and short to medium series, at least for the rest of the year and probably next year too. The semi-plans I detailed in this post in my last thread are so far unchanged.

New thread! Congrats and thanks for making a new, shorter one!

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread! I hope you will read some great books this quarter.

>4 Karlstar:, >5 quondame:, >6 Sakerfalcon: Thanks!

Love the stats and charts. (Especially the pie charts!)

Ha, how long can this thread last before it bloats up?
*gleefully rubs hands together*

>8 clamairy: Thanks!

>9 BookstoogeLT: LOL, uhoh!

Do let me know if it gets slow and I’ll start a new thread faster. It sounds like from >4 Karlstar: the last one was getting slow, but it seemed ok from my end.

>10 YouKneeK: Yeah, I wasn't noticing any issues with the previous thread. From my end, most threads are fine (even long ones) and it isn't until people start loading them up with pix that it slows down.

I just remember that time a year or so ago when several people were trying to get their threads up to a certain count so they could start a new one and I, along with several other people, did our best to totally pad them out. Fun for a good cause, but not something I'd do "just because" :-)

>11 BookstoogeLT: Haha, yeah, that was entertaining!

>10 YouKneeK: Just a little? I'm spoiled, waiting 2 seconds for the end of the thread to load really wasn't slow.

>13 Karlstar: LOL, I really didn't notice and I'm pretty impatient, but sometimes I multi-task while I'm reading threads. Just yell if it starts driving you crazy and I'll start a new thread.

Review: Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein



Hmm. I think this is one of those “mixed feelings” books. This is my third Heinlein book. I liked The Moon is a Harsh Mistress quite a bit. Stranger in a Strange Land annoyed the heck out of me, especially in the second half. This one falls somewhere in between, I think.

The story follows a recruit, Johnny, who signs up for the military on a whim. Humanity is fighting some inexplicable aliens they refer to as Bugs. We follow Johnny in a slightly non-sequential manner that covers the time just before he signed up through the point where he’s had a few years’ experience. Throughout this, we endure lectures on discipline, crime and punishment, who should be permitted to vote, and how the military should be run.

My main complaint is with the lectures! I had a similar problem with Stranger in a Strange Land, although this book wasn’t as excessive with it as that one was. Also, the lectures are of an entirely different nature. I thought Heinlein made some interesting points in this book, certainly providing food for thought and/or for discussion if nothing else, but he tended to beat each subject to death. I don’t know if he thought his readers were idiots or if he was just anxious to express every possible argument he’d ever thought of in favor of the viewpoint under discussion. Less would have been more. Give readers a little something to think about, then let them consider it in more detail on their own. It will be more meaningful to them.

Despite that complaint, I did usually enjoy the story. The non-lecture parts are written well, the action held my interest, and I was invested in Johnny’s progress. I’m not sure there was actually any sort of plot here, aside from a sort of coming-of-age tale for Johnny and a portrayal of a futuristic but still relatable taste of military life. There aren’t any real plot spoilers, but the following sentences discuss things we don’t learn by the end of the book, so I’m putting them in spoiler tags. We don’t learn anything about the Bugs’ motivations. There isn’t a resolution to the war, either good or bad, by the end of the book, nor is there really much of a sense that the events in this book led to a big turning point. We don’t really learn much about what happens to Johnny past the snapshot of time covered.

So I think I liked it. It doesn’t have a strong plot, but most of the story was interesting anyway. However, there were times when I might possibly have yelled out loud in frustration for the author to get on with it already.

Next Book
Umm… Bunnicula? No, seriously, that’s what I’m reading next. It’s kind of an April Fool’s joke, although more from last year than this year. The group I’m in on GR has had “fake” group read polls for April 1 over the past two years. Last year, Bunnicula won the poll. When the poll was put up for this year, I protested that I wasn’t voting because we never read last year’s winner. And, well… now I guess a very, very few of us are. ;) I’m pretty sure I read this as a child, but I don’t remember for sure. If I did read it, I remember maybe .005% of the story. I’m hoping it might be a fun, silly change of pace that will provide a bit of amusement. If not, at least it’s short!

If nothing else, reading this may help partially untangle in my head the various bunny stories that I think I was exposed to early in life: Bunnicula, The Velveteen Rabbit, and Little Bunny Foo Foo. (Apologies to anybody who now has the song for the latter stuck in your head – so do I.)

>15 YouKneeK: Well, I guess it's time to add this (Starship Troopers) to my re-read bunch of books! I could have sworn I had read it again since 2000 but looking at my calibre library, nope. It has been 20 years, aye yi yi! makes me wonder what I'll think of it now :-D
As for the lectures being done to death, I've always classed this book in with his juvie fiction (as opposed to his adult stuff like Moon or Stranger) and so assumed he wrote for that age group. Where you have to beat things to death to make any impression...

I remember reading several of the "The Celery Stalks at Midnight" books. Couldn't tell you a thing about them except I'm pretty sure there is a dog? Hope it turns out fun for you. Sounds like a great saturday afternoon relaxing book...

/edited for clarity

>16 BookstoogeLT: I’m curious to find out what you’ll think about it now, too!

For a second I thought you meant you were adding Bunnicula to your re-read list. ;) I’m definitely just stopping with the first book and pretending it’s not part of a series. So far I'm at 8% and I haven't even started chapter 1 -- I just read the short introductory material in my edition. So I'm not sure if this book is going to last me until tomorrow unless it makes me sleepy. I'll read at least some of it tonight before bed.

Review: Bunnicula by Deborah Howe and James Howe



Bunnicula is a cute little children’s book that I may or may not have read as a child. I was vaguely familiar with the story, but I don’t specifically remember reading it. Even as an adult it was pretty entertaining; it made a great change of pace and a fun diversion.

The story is set in the household of a family with a mother, a father, two bratty sons, a dog, and a cat. It’s told from the perspective of the dog. One night the human part of the family comes home with a bunny, but this bunny seems to have some alarming traits…

It was a funny story and made me chuckle several times. I particularly liked Chester the cat whose cleverness and strangeness only slightly surpasses that of my own cat. I was a little disturbed to see how much chocolate the poor dog was fed, and I can’t help worrying a bit that children reading the book today might be inspired to feed their own dog chocolate after reading how happy it made Harold. Parental guidance suggested. ;)

The edition I read had some brief and interesting details about how the book came about. It also had some artwork from various cover editions over the years, including the book covers published for other languages.

Next Book
Catseye by Andre Norton, the first book in the Dipple duology. I read Star Soldiers by Andre Norton about 6 years ago and I remember it as a fun read but very light on logic.

>18 YouKneeK: What? the authors talked about giving chocolate to dogs? I thought that killed dogs?

And just be aware that the Dipple duology isn't much of duology, more like 2 books pushed by the publishers. I read these as the omnibus edition Masks of the Outcasts and even back in '06 it struck me as middle grade or ya. I hope you enjoy them though.

>15 YouKneeK: I think Starship Troopers was Heinlein's 'get off my lawn' moment. I kind of just ignore that tone and enjoy the book. Andre Norton books I haven't read yet!! I'm curious to see what you think of those. I enjoyed her Witch World series back in the day.

>19 BookstoogeLT: Yeah, I was surprised by the chocolate and kept cringing whenever it came up. I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t as common of knowledge in the late 70’s that chocolate was poisonous to dogs?

Thanks for the warning on Dipple. Although I have both books in my schedule, I’m not sure if I’ll read both as I only have the first one on my Kindle. Only if I enjoy the first one quite a bit. I guess after reading a children’s book, maybe this will feel very grown up by comparison! ;)

The next few series on my list, including this one, are ones I’ve had low expectations for. I’m thinking I might knock them out quickly by only reading the first books unless any of them prove to be an unexpected surprise.

>20 Karlstar: Haha, there is a bit of a 'get off my lawn' vibe there.

>19 BookstoogeLT: I believe some dogs will happily eat it, others will get poisoned by it. The general advice is not to feed human chocolates to dogs, but stick to chocolate dog treats which are especially formulated for dogs.

Review: Catseye by Andre Norton



This was a middle-of-the-road read for me. I wasn’t engrossed by it, but I wasn’t bored either. It was a cute and moderately entertaining story that didn’t stand out to me in any way. I hardly even know what to write about in my review.

The story follows a young man named Troy who is unemployed and looking for work. He receives an unexpected job offer to work at an exotic pet shop, where he begins having unexplained telepathic communication with some of the animals.

To me it felt like the author had developed an interesting and detailed world to place her story in, but then she only skimmed the surface of it when she actually wrote the story. For example, I was very interested in the creepy alien ruins she introduced. We were given a hint of an interesting background story about the ruins and it served as a backdrop for part of the action, but the mystery surrounding that area remained a mystery. Even the main plot that Troy got caught up in wasn’t really fleshed out in much detail

I did enjoy Troy’s interaction with the animals, but there wasn’t a lot about this story that really grabbed me. It’s really short though, so it was a fast read.

Next Book
I’m going to get started on my second quarter classic reads. First up will be The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, followed by The Comedy of Errors by Shakespeare.

Review: The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald



If there’s such a thing as a soap opera set in the 1920’s, this book is what I imagine that soap opera might be like. It’s populated with liars, unfaithful husbands and wives, alcoholics, people behaving thoughtlessly, and just generally miserable people. Even though there’s very little in the story or its characters that I would expect to appeal to me, I somehow continued to grow more absorbed by it as it went on.

The story is told from the perspective of a young man, Nick Carraway, who moves to New York to get into the bond business. The small home he moves into in a less fashionable part of town happens to be right next to the huge mansion where Jay Gatsby lives. Gatsby throws elaborate parties every weekend that are very popular, but he has a mysterious past and nobody seems to know him very well.

I did like Carraway, the main character, reasonably well, although not with any strong attachment. Even though he was the one telling the story, he kind of faded into the background until closer to the end at which point I found him a little more sympathetic. Gatsby was interesting if only because he was ambiguous for a good portion of the story and so I was curious to learn more about him. I very much disliked the other characters, yet I couldn’t help but be interested in finding out how everything would turn out for them.

I found the end believable, though not pleasant. The characters who suffered the most were all people who weren’t born into that wealthy lifestyle, Gatsby included. I’d say most of that was well-deserved as they caused most of their own problems, but I also noticed they fared far worse than people like Daisy and Tom who suffered very little for the terrible things they did..

I’m giving this 3.5 stars because it held my attention surprisingly well, and there was definitely some depth there in terms of the characters’ beliefs and choices and the repercussions, but I’m rounding down to 3 on Goodreads because it’s not really the type of story that appeals to me.

Next Book
The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare.

I'll add the touchstones later -- they aren't working right now. (Edit: They're fixed now.)

>25 YouKneeK: I've noticed a lot of touchstone woes on the threads I'm following and I think it's a data base problem because I can't do book or author searches, but can follow links on pages or wikis.

>25 YouKneeK: I reread this one a few years ago, and I realized that though I liked Gatsby himself quite a bit when I read it the first time as a teen, he seemed mostly neutral to me during my reread, though still definitely worthy of some sympathy. I appreciated the writing much more the second time.

>25 YouKneeK: I wondered when I re-read this one why it is still considered a classic. It is good, not great. I liked your description of it as a soap opera, that is an apt description.

>26 quondame: I think I remember reading that touchstones don’t work when the search function is down, which would make sense to me because the touchstone process would have to perform a search to find the book to link for the touchstone.

>27 clamairy: There was some introductory material (which I waited to read after finishing the book fortunately, since it was full of spoilers!) talking about how Gatsby often appealed to teenagers but that adults usually saw him differently. My curiosity about him kept me interested, but I had mixed feelings about him as a person. I did feel bad for him that he was killed for something Daisy had done. I felt less sympathy regarding his feelings for Daisy. I thought he was being willfully naïve to revolve his entire life around a married woman, one who had chosen to marry somebody else instead of waiting for him even though they were in contact via mail at the time. If nothing else, that should have made it clear her feelings didn’t run as deep as his did.

>28 Karlstar: I’m not really sure either. Maybe because it does paint a vivid picture of what life in certain circles may have been like back in the 1920’s? I could also see the characters’ behavior, motivations and fates spurring a lot of discussion for schools or book clubs.

>25 YouKneeK: I don't get along with most 20th century classics and Gatsby is the quintessential example of the genre as far as I'm concerned.

Best of luck with Comedy. If it's the one I'm thinking of, I had a real hard time finding the humor in the situations.

>30 BookstoogeLT: The Comedy of Errors is actually one of the few Shakespeare plays I have fond memories of from my teenage years. We saw a college performance of it for a high school field trip. It was done very well (or at least, I thought it was, though I'm hardly an expert!) and made me laugh hysterically.

I’ve read the first two acts and I am finding some humor in it, but the scenario is completely unrealistic. Surely two sets of twins who have grown up in different areas are not wearing the same clothes and have differences in how they speak. Differences in how they've spent their lives also would surely affect how their bodies look. Even if they're physically identical, there must be pronounced differences that people who know them well would notice when talking to the “wrong” twin. And since most of the characters are aware that there are long lost twins, one would think the strange and confused conversations might provide a possible clue!

But I’m working very hard at ignoring the illogic of it and just going with the flow of the farce.

>29 YouKneeK: Yes, the first time I saw him as a tragic romantic figure, and the second time I felt that he viewed Daisy more as an ideal object to acquire than as the flawed selfish woman she actually was.

>32 clamairy: That’s a great way of putting it!

Review: The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare



The Comedy of Errors is a farce and, as such, it makes absolutely no logical sense whatsoever. I had seen it as a college play when I was in high school and I thought it was hilarious at the time, so I’ve remembered it fondly from that presentation, but this was my first time reading the play.

I’m not sure how I can explain this story intelligibly for anybody who’s curious, but I’ll make an attempt at it. A set of twins and their parents are separated during a shipwreck. (Sound familiar? I read another Shakespeare comedy with a similar beginning last year.) Coincidentally, another set of twins had been born around the same time as the first set, and these twins were bought to serve as slaves for the first set of twins. Each member of the slave twins ends up tied to one of the members of the other twins, so that we have two sets of identical masters and slaves who lose all touch with each other. The father is rescued along with one of the sets and he (in)conveniently renames them with the same names as the other set of twins in their memory. So now, many years later after the twins have grown up, we have two men named Antipholus and two men named Dromio who look identical and are running loose in the unsuspecting world. One set lives in Ephesus. The other set grew up in Syracuse but they arrive in Ephesus near the beginning of the play. Chaos ensues with mistaken identity after mistaken identity.

Reading it a good 30 years after watching it in high school, I was a bit more bothered by the complete illogic of it, but I did mostly manage to go with the flow and I did laugh at some of the silliness, particularly those that reminded me of watching the play. It sure was silly, though! How can two people who grew up in different places and lived different lives not be wearing different clothes, have different accents and manners of speech, have different muscle tone, and just generally be so identical that even people who know them extremely well can’t tell them apart? One can’t ask such logical questions while reading this play. ;)

I was happy to see the excorcism scene was actually in the written play. I had assumed that was artistic license. The college play portrayed that scene so hilariously that I remember barely being able to breathe from laughing so hard. The actual written play read to me as being a bit more toned down, but reading it brought back some fun memories. I suspect I wouldn’t have enjoyed this as much if not for that high school experience. I think the illogical premise and the excessive silliness probably would have grated on my nerves more. I’m going to rate it with an extra nostalgic half star and give it 3.5 stars, rounding down to 3 on Goodreads.

Next Book
The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco, the first book in a trilogy. I don’t know what this is about, but I remember seeing some unfavorable reviews for it among some people whose reviews I follow. I’m therefore going into it with low expectations, but I have it on my Kindle so at least I’ll be able to knock it off the TBR list. If I’m pleasantly surprised, I’ll read the rest of the trilogy.

>34 YouKneeK: That does sound like the one you reviewed last year!

>34 YouKneeK: The more I read of Shakespeare's plays, the more I wish I could have seen them as plays first. Glad you were able to enjoy this as much as you did.

>35 Karlstar: Yeah, last year’s book was Twelfth Night. Even though it was a completely different story, there were some similarities in the premise -- starting off with a shipwreck where a set of twins were separated, and some mistaken identity shenanigans.

>36 BookstoogeLT: This did make me question my stubborn insistence on reading the plays first before watching them, since I had fun doing this one in the opposite direction. But I still really prefer having a chance to create my own interpretations using my own imagination instead of reading it with somebody else’s interpretation stuck in my head.

>30 BookstoogeLT: The definition of "Comedy" used in Shakespearian times is the Greek one, and does not directly relate to how funny a play is. I forget the technical details, but basically a tragedy is a play which concludes with moral retribution (suffering/death) on protagonists for their misdeeds, and a comedy ends with a positive solution (everybody doesn't die).

Greek theatre used tragedies to teach moral lessons (having their origins in religious assemblies) and comedies were the lighter interludes.

So a "Comedy of Errors" is a play about mistaken identity which ends well. There is a lot of humour in it, but it doesn't aim only to amuse. There are serious points being made too.

I enjoy it, anyway.

For once, I was annoying the cat instead of the other way around…

"Is she really going to disturb me while I’m laying in my favorite sunny spot?"


<4 pictures later.> "Ugh. If I don’t look at her, maybe she’ll go away."

>39 YouKneeK: Score One for the humans!

>39 YouKneeK: Love those photos LOL

>40 BookstoogeLT: Haha, yep! Although I have to admit he puts up with quite a bit from his human. Not as much as I put up with from him, though. ;)

>41 Narilka: Thanks! :)

>35 Karlstar: Avoiding pictures, that's my kind of cat!

>43 Karlstar: He’s a bit unpredictable as far as whether he’ll pose for the camera or make things difficult!

>39 YouKneeK: >43 Karlstar: Little Jinni, on the other hand, loves pictures, especially the ones hanging over the fish tank. You see, they're a favourite hiding place for geckos, and then they're easy to hunt.

>45 hfglen: Haha, Jinni sounds clever! Ernest has been known to attack pictures and other things hanging on the wall, but I don't even store edible creatures behind mine. ;)

(He did in fact break something my grandfather gave me that I was quite attached to by knocking it off the wall a few months ago, the little scoundrel.)

>39 YouKneeK: He is gorgeous.

>46 YouKneeK: On no! Was it reparable?

>47 clamairy: Thanks! I haven’t tried to repair it yet, but I think it’s possible. I’m not very craft/handy, so I’ll probably see if somebody else can repair it for me when life is a bit calmer. I haven’t been in a big hurry to deal with it because I’ll not hang it up again in the near future anyway. He’s too likely to break it again! He’d always had a tendency to bat at it, so if I’d been smart, I would have put it up a long time ago considering how many other things he’s broken. Surely the day will come eventually when he mellows out a bit in his older age, and then I can go on a redecorating spree. ;) He turns 6 at the end of this month, so I probably (hopefully) have a while before that happens.

>39 YouKneeK: Oh, this is exactly why I love cats! Thank you for making me laugh :-)

>49 Busifer: I'm very happy it made you laugh! :)

Cat pictures and anecdotes always make me smile! Thank you for sharing

>51 Sakerfalcon: The same for me! Lately I’ve been occasionally watching funny cat videos, a thing I normally avoid for fear of falling down the rabbit hole. I've been trying to strictly limit myself to 15 minutes, but a little bit of laughter and cuteness helps a lot when I need to de-stress a little.

>52 YouKneeK: I enjoy following the Twitter feeds of the Downing Street cats. Larry who lives at no. 10, Gladstone the Treasury cat and Palmerston from the Foreign Office are all highly entertaining and suitably irreverent!

>53 Sakerfalcon: I don't have a Twitter account, but that sounds potentially entertaining.

Review: The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco



I think I probably start way too many of my reviews this way, but… I had mixed feelings about this book! It’s the first book in a trilogy and I was so undecided about whether to continue the series that I had to sleep on it. Usually I can decide easily, but I finished late yesterday evening, wrote down some initial thoughts, and waffled back and forth about trying the next book. I finally decided I was too exhausted to make such weighty decisions and put it off until this morning.

The main character, Tea, is a “bone witch” and practices death magic. She finds out she has this ability when she’s 12 years old and accidentally raises her recently-deceased brother from the dead. Oops! I can’t think of any books I’ve read where a main character practiced death magic and where death magic wasn’t a universally evil thing, so the premise appealed to me as being something different from what I’ve read before. There’s a “magic school” type setting for most of the book, since obviously the girl is out of control and needs some training. The magic school story was tropey but also a bit different from other versions I’ve read. I had mixed feelings about it in this book, although it’s something I often enjoy when I haven’t read too many of those types of books recently which I hadn’t in this case.

There was just something that felt off to me about the execution. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what I didn’t like. It was a combination of small things, I guess. The story seemed to lack meat. It never felt like a lot was really happening. It did, on the other hand, have a lot of clothes! If you enjoy reading descriptions of clothes, you need to start this book immediately! I, on the other hand, rarely even notice what people are wearing in real life unless it’s something completely outrageous. I wished I could have noticed it less on the characters I was reading about.

Despite our main character living in a sort of magic school, there was very little actual magic or magic training. I think we learned more about her dancing and singing lessons than we did about any sort of magic training she received. The magic itself didn’t feel fully-fleshed-out. There were some things that seemed clearly-defined – how many runes were known, which types of asha (witches) could draw which types of runes, how the way they were drawn affected how they worked, etc. I enjoyed that aspect although there wasn’t very much of it. Some of the other bits (the heartsglasses and the daeva particularly) felt more like the author made the rules up as she went along and needed a new rule for her story, like she hadn’t really thought out a consistent and logical system for it all.

I also never completely bought into the main character, Tea. There are brief sections at the beginning of each chapter that take place in the “present” when she’s 17, and the bulk of the story takes place in the “past” starting from when she was 12 and onwards. I had trouble remembering she was that young in either timeline because she didn’t read that way to me. It wasn’t because she was mature and made great decisions, so I’m not sure what it was. She read more like an early-20-something to me whose maturity level was under-developed for her age. It wasn’t only the age, though. I found her personality and motivations difficult to pin down. She occasionally said and did things that didn’t make sense to me no matter what angle I considered them from. Some of that ambiguity was intentional, but since she herself was telling her story it seemed like I should have been drawn into her feelings and thought processes more strongly.

The ending was ambiguous and unsatisfying, calling into question a lot of what had come before. If I had loved the writing and intended to jump straight into the second book as I normally do with a series I’m enjoying, I wouldn’t have minded. When I was already so undecided about continuing, it just added to the annoyance. It didn’t push me in either direction or, rather, it pushed me in both directions. I was curious what would happen next, so that gave me a slight push toward reading the next book. However, I wasn’t sure I liked the direction things seemed to be going in, so that gave me a slight push toward not reading it.

So, now that I’ve slept on it, will I continue or not? I’ve decided not. I’m not invested enough, and while the author’s writing probably improves, I also suspect some aspects of her style that annoyed me in this book will continue to do so. But since the death magic plot apparently has some appeal for me (who knew!), I might have to keep an eye out for other such stories in the future after some time has passed. I’m rating this at 3.5 stars and rounding down to 3 on Goodreads.

Next Book
Sphere by Michael Crichton. I’ve never read anything by Crichton before and, while I don’t know anything about this book, I can’t imagine it’s the best starting point since I never hear anybody talk about it. However, it’s the one on the list I often choose my books from and I got it on sale recently, so I’m going to give it a try.

>54 YouKneeK: I don't have a twitter account either but you can view other people's thread anyway. Which is one reason why I don't intend to join up myself - lack of privacy.

>55 YouKneeK: Bone Witch sounds very YA. I hope you enjoy Sphere. I haven't read it yet and am looking forward to your review. I do like Crichton's other works.

>55 YouKneeK: I've only watched the movie Sphere but while it was pretty action'y, I suspect the book is a lot more boring. Much like a lot of his other movie adaptations...

>56 Sakerfalcon: Ah, I’ll have to check into that then. (The viewing, not the joining!)

>57 Narilka: Yeah, it was pretty YA. It didn't have much angsty romance which is something I usually associate with YA, but it fit in other ways. And there were some hints that the angsty romance was coming.

>58 BookstoogeLT: I didn’t even know it was a movie until somebody commented on my status update over on GR that he loved the book and hated the movie. I think the only Crichton-based movies I’ve watched were the Jurassic Park movies, although there may have been others that I didn’t realize were from his books.

I re-read The Andromeda Strain by Crichton fairly recently and found that it didn’t stand up too well. The science was always dodgy anyway. I remember seeing the film back when it was fairly recent (that is, roughly when dinosaurs really did roam the earth) and enjoying it at the time.

>60 haydninvienna: As often as I’ve heard that title, I’ve somehow never read it or watched it. I can understand enjoying a movie with dodgy science back when dinosaurs were roaming the earth, though. I would imagine the science of dodging was very important in those days!

>60 haydninvienna: I remember reading that in middle school and loving it, but I haven't read it since then. Hmm. At the time, I remember really liking the ending. It had solid bones, like a mystery story, even if some of the science-y details were clearly being fudged a bit.

Sphere is the one under the ocean's surface, right? I remember liking that waaaay less than The Andromeda Strain, although I don't remember anything else about it (another bad sign).

I like Crichton's writing. But he is using science as a vehicle to make a social point. Occasionally he gets the science wrong, this is annoying but not the point he's trying to make*. Sphere is more wrong than many, but the social points remain valid.

*Pirate lattitudes is not an anti-climate change book.

I read a bit of Crichton in my teens and twenties - I recall The Andromeda Strain, and I think I read a few others around that time but don't recall which. Beyond that, I was never much into that style of thriller so never bothered with any others.

>64 Maddz: So did I. I think I've actually read Andromeda Strain twice, still don't remember a single thing about it. The same with Congo, which I think was vaguely Indiana Jones-ish?

>62 Kanarthi: Yep, that’s the one!

>63 reading_fox: I’ll keep that in mind if the science starts to bug me. I’m not usually too bothered by bad science – my introduction to SF was Star Trek, so I’m kind of used to ignoring random technobabble that doesn’t always make much actual scientific sense. ;) I’m not much of a science buff anyway, so many things will go over my head just because I don’t know any better. Bad computer science, on the other hand, will annoy me sometimes.

I only had time to read about 50 pages yesterday, but so far so good. The writing style has held my interest easily, and I’m curious to find out more about what’s going on.

Review: Sphere by Michael Crichton



This was an exciting and very fast-paced read, and for the most part I enjoyed it. It was my first time reading anything by Crichton, although I had watched the Jurassic Park movies several years back.

The story opens with our main character, a psychologist named Norman, being flown to a remote location in the Pacific Ocean where he expects to encounter a plane crash with survivors that need counseling. Instead, he finds that he’s going to be part of a team of scientists who will be going more than 1000 feet down to the ocean floor to investigate a large, mysterious object that is believed to be an alien spaceship.

The story unfolds in a very movie-like way, or at least it kept reminding me of the horror movies I enjoyed in my youth, around the same time this book was published in 1987. Not so much because it was scary, although there were some creepy and tension-filled moments, but because of the story-telling techniques. The main characters all have very distinct and rather cookie-cutter personalities, and they naturally clash with each other in their cramped and isolated environment. There are various twists as the plot unfolds, some of which I found obvious and some of which I didn’t. There’s a sense of tension almost from the beginning that slowly mounts and mounts, and naturally people start dying left and right. Then we end with the typical “is it really over?” style ending in which it’s blatantly hinted that Beth didn’t actually forget about the Sphere. We really can’t be 100% sure about Harry either.

As I mentioned, I don’t think this is really a scary story, but there was definitely tension for me as I read it. Part of it was the underwater environment which for some reason tends to creep me out, more so than stories set in space where the atmosphere-related dangers are similar. There was also often a “noooo, don’t do that!” feeling when characters did things that weren’t always necessarily stupid, although sometimes they were, but that I was sure would lead to a bad end.

The story had some gender and racial stereotypes that made me uncomfortable at times, in part because I wasn’t sure what the author was trying to say, but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was trying to raise awareness of how the stereotypes and prejudice that people can be inundated with may harm (generic comments, but might be kind of spoilerish if one were planning to read the book soon) their mental health and their self-perception.

So it wasn’t without its issues. There were some eye-rolling moments, and I wasn’t too crazy about the end, but I think mostly I just enjoyed being so absorbed by the book while I was reading it.

Next Book
The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge. Depending on whether I enjoy it, I may go on to read the other 3 related books.

I had read The Raven and the Reindeer last December, a standalone fantasy based heavily on The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson, which I ended up reading also. In the discussions we had in my thread at the time, I was told this series by Vinge was not very strongly based on the fairy tale, but opinions about the book itself seemed mostly positive. I was looking for a smallish series to pad my reading schedule out with and decided this might be a good choice while I still remember the original story well enough that I might appreciate whatever small connections there happen to be.

(Edited to fix "plain crash". Seriously?!)

>67 YouKneeK: The 2 main books - The Snow Queen and The Summer Queen are 2 large paperbacks in my library, so I wouldn't necessarily call them a short read.

Oddly, we've just checked them out - one of the things we badly needed to do when we both started working from home was to sort out the library. (We now have several stacks of books in the porch to go to the charity shops when they re-open.)

>67 YouKneeK: I've found that every Crichton book I've read had at least one, if not more, eye-rolling moment. I watched the movie back in highschool (I think?) and was suitably impressed. Probably had more to do with it being the first rated R movie I'd ever watched though...

Interesting discussion on Crichton. I've never read any of his books, even though son own and has read at least Jurassic Park: he loved the first movie and it was a good way to get him reading (I will admit to having watched all of the movies, several times, when son has wanted to watch one of them for family film-time). I've always regarded Crichton as dodgy at best and hadn't thought of the social rather than scientific focus. May sound daft, but I excuse myself by not having read him.

I remember Jurassic being the highlight of a mid-90's ACM SigGraph conference, were the sf/x team proudly disseminated how they had managed to make the dinos look like they actually touched the ground. I remember being piqued to switch field, back then. Never did, though.

>67 YouKneeK: Crichton, to me, is sort of the Jeffrey Archer or Ken Follett of pseudo-scientific fiction. Fast-paced, easily digested, but ultimately not very satisfying fare. I too really liked The Andromeda Strain, which I read as a kid when it was first published. The movie was cool too, at the time - but I have a feeling neither one holds up too well so I don't plan a re-visit any time soon.

Regarding Vinge: I have not yet read book #4 but I greatly enjoyed The Snow Queen, World's End, and The Summer Queen. I actually liked book #3 marginally better than #1 - but that may be due to most of the world-building happening in the first book, leaving room for more actual story in #3.

>68 Maddz: Yeah, World's End is much, much shorter than Snow & Summer! If you stack them up, the three books form a sort of 'Novella sandwich'. ;-)

>68 Maddz: Well, it's short compared to the 31-book Feist series or Wheel of Time or something like that. ;) The four books total only about 1700 pages, and I tend to classify anything under 4000 pages as a “short” series, although 4000 would have been a good bit larger than what I was looking for in this case. Because of several recent fast reads as well as skipping the second Dipple book, plus since I intentionally underestimate my average pages per day in my calculations, some of the books on my tentative reading schedule were falling earlier than when I really want to read them. Whenever that happens, I look at it as a golden opportunity to “surprise” myself by slipping in an unplanned short series to push things back out.

>69 BookstoogeLT: I could imagine one's first R-rated movie getting a slight boost in one’s esteem if only for that fact! I think my first R-Rated movie was probably Return of the Living Dead, watched during a slumber party at a friend’s house when I was in 5th grade. I quite enjoyed that at the time, although I don't think I really considered that I was watching an R-Rated movie until I mentioned what I'd watched to my parents and they raised some eyebrows but I guess decided I didn't appear to have been scarred for life and didn't make much fuss.

While I was reading Sphere, I kept having flashbacks to my experience watching The Abyss at the movie theater when I was about 13. I remember almost nothing substantial about it because I spent the whole movie feeling freaked out. Apparently, despite having watched several R-Rated horror movies by that age without the slightest issue, movies that took place underwater were a problem for me. I managed to sit calmly (outwardly, anyway) through the whole movie, but after we walked out of the theater into the glorious sunlight, I had to sit down on the curb before I could walk to the car because I got light-headed and my vision started going black. My parents were completely bewildered when I said I thought the movie was scary. Someday I need to watch it again if only to find out what it was actually about. ;)

>70 Busifer: I could definitely see a book along the lines of what I just read being a great way to get somebody reading. It’s very fast-paced, full of action, and with almost zero exposition, with some food for thought if one feels up to it. Even for somebody who enjoys reading, those kinds of books make a good chance of pace sometimes. Although I only have this one Crichton book to base it on, I do agree with >63 reading_fox: that the focus seemed much more social than scientific, helped by the fact we were seeing events through the eyes of a psychologist.

>71 ScoLgo: I might have to try The Andromeda Strain someday if/when I’m looking for another fast-paced sort of book. I’m looking forward to trying the Vinge books as it seems I’ve heard quite a bit of good things about them. I’m trying not to let my expectations get too high, though! ;)

>72 YouKneeK: I just looked on IMDB and Sphere is only pg-13. I have no idea now why I thought it was my first r-rated.
suddenly my whole childhood is uncertain! :-D

>72 YouKneeK: Your experience sounds a bit like me - I get motion sickness watching certain TV programmes or films but don't in real life except on rollercoasters (or Sea Cats in a storm). The classic experience was watching the start of David Attenborough's Life on Earth on my sister's wide screen TV. The swoop down from space to earth made me so queasy I had to stop watching.

>73 BookstoogeLT: LOL, are you sure you’re really you?!

>74 Maddz: That could make movie-watching a bit challenging if you’re never sure which ones might have scenes that will affect you! In my case it wasn’t motion sickness; I think I had just finally found something capable of pushing my fear buttons. My parents’ theory was that maybe I wasn’t breathing normally during the movie, maybe holding my breath a bit or breathing more shallowly. I vaguely remember characters panicking and going ballistic when they were made to breathe in some sort of fluid so they could breath under water. (Maybe? My memory of this movie is really bad.) I think that was the scene that first got to me and I remember nothing after that.

>75 YouKneeK: I'm beginning to wonder.
Maybe I'm just a Manchurian Candidate for the blogosphere? It wouldn't surprise me one bit if Xi Jinping set this whole thing up...

If you do watch The Abyss make sure you get the director's cut since the studio really messed up the ending in the theatrical release

>77 jjwilson61: Thanks, I’ll try to make sure I do that if/when I watch it.

>67 YouKneeK: The most important question though - does your version have the Michael Whelan cover or no?

>79 Karlstar: For those who are puzzled by >79 Karlstar: : this cover, which is the Michael Whelan one, or this one, which one commentator called "horrible"?

>80 haydninvienna: Ouch! That bad one is BAD. I shouldn't have clicked on it, but I wasn't expecting worse than the one that shows on the touchstone pop-up. I want to unsee it asap.

>81 quondame: Lots more bad ones where that one came from. The one that appears on the touchstone popup is apparently by Leo and Diane Dillon.

ETA: You were warned! I said it was horrible.

I flirted briefly with the idea of starting a GD thread about dreadful SFF book covers, but first there are other LT threads about covers, and second, Good Show Sir (in the second link in #80) is doing just fine already.

>82 haydninvienna: I'd also argue that we as a group might have quite different views of what is horrible? I, for example stayed away from the Foreigner series because I disliked the cover of the first book (and hadn't read anything else from C. J. Cherryh at that time so didn't know that it would be worth it regardless of cover design. (It's a Whelan painting.))

>83 Busifer: Not one of Whelan's better ones, I think. All the versions of the book seem to have that cover or variations of it. I agree though that GDers might well have different opinions about what makes a cover "good". But I've hijacked @YouKneek's thread enough.

>80 haydninvienna: LOL, thanks for explaining that. That other cover is most definitely horrible!

>79 Karlstar: I’m relieved to report that I have the Michael Whelan cover.

>84 haydninvienna: No worries about hijacking, that’s why I leave the keys in the thread while I’m away. ;)

I will be watching with interest to see what you think of The snow queen. I really enjoyed it when I first read it and have been contemplating a reread.

>86 Sakerfalcon: So far, at the 25% mark, I’m enjoying it quite a bit!

>82 haydninvienna: Well, I was warned, but there are lots of kinds of horrible and my knowledge of the book didn't prepare me for getting that shoved in my face. I guess I've got used to books written by women not requiring male bait covers.

>83 Busifer: Not that I've let anything by Cherryh pass me by for the last 30 years, and I see that the cover looks intense and promises a different sort of violence than the book delivers, but I don't see it as at all off-putting. I think the female warrior as big as the male might have pulled me in.

>85 YouKneeK: Phew! Good thing! Easy question - would you have picked up the book if the cover was the horrible one?

>80 haydninvienna: It was worth the click if only for the comments section. I LOL'd at a few of them.

>88 quondame: Yeah, no, she’s now one of my favourite authors, regardless of cover design.

>89 Karlstar: Actually yes, because it was on the all-important List. But it helps that I mostly read e-books so I don’t have to look at covers very much even when I do hate them. I might have thought twice about including it in my summary graphic with my review, though! But I probably would have anyway if only to make everybody share my horror.

>90 ScoLgo: I didn’t read all of them, but I did laugh at some of the comments also.

I encourage everyone to visit Good Show Sir as often as your nerves will stand. There’s some pretty good wit and snark there, and it’s a friendly place like GD. Even get the occasional author or artist popping in.

>93 haydninvienna: GSS is one of my favourite sites! I love it when I'm in a second hand bookshop and find something that has appeared on the site.

>94 Sakerfalcon: If I might be permitted a small brag, I have this book, with the cover pictured, which I bought in a secondhand shop. The occasion was notable because the shop was at the premises at Kloof, Durban, of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and I was there with @hfglen. (And yes, "Longtime_Lurker", in comment #20, is me.)

>95 haydninvienna: That was a day to remember, for all the right reasons! And I'm pleased to report that our Feline Overlords (there are now three) and the dog, are all SPCA alumni.

ETA: Not sure if @haydninvienna saw the sign on the SPCA property to the effect that the very best breed of cats, dogs, whatever is Adopted (with which I heartily agree). Kloof SPCA is also the only one I know with an important nature reserve on the premises -- Richard, I didn't offer to show you, as I can think of better ways of spending limited time than crashing through a swamp in the rain.

>96 hfglen: I did see the sign, and I believe you mentioned the nature reserve.

>95 haydninvienna:, >96 hfglen: That's a great book acquisition story!

>95 haydninvienna: I don't think I own any of those books in paper - I remember them fondly, but as I was librarian at the local SF club, my own purchases slacked off considerably. Between 1977 and 1988 I read pretty much every F&SF book by a woman that I could get my hands on.

>95 haydninvienna:, >99 quondame: I read some of Diane Duane’s Star Trek novels back when I was in that phase (late 1990’s, early 2000’s), but I haven’t yet tried any of her original work.

I can recommend her books, especially her fantasy.

Oddly, I picked up a discounted Star Trek novel recently - The Hand of Kahless (for the John M Ford), and read both novels. There was a huge difference between the two authors - John M Ford's bit (The Final Reflection was a deeply plotted political thriller (basically a cold war novel in the 23rd century) whereas Michael Jan Friedman's bit - Kahless read like a children's book.

I think Duane was writing early enough for there to be greater latitude in the guidelines; I recall owning The Romulan Way myself, although that one was an early cull. At the time, I was playing Star Trek: The Roleplaying Game and many of the alien races were based on those early Star Trek tie-ins.

>101 Maddz: I loved both John M. Ford's Star Trek novels, even though they are very, very different!

>102 -pilgrim-: The story I heard was that Paramount tightened up the guidelines after Ford submitted The Final Reflection (hence the awkward framing prologue and epilogue), so How Much for Just the Planet was written under the new guidelines.

Agreed, I love them too and am annoyed I am unable to get the second as an ebook in the UK. They are also about the only Star Trek tie-in novels I kept.

>103 Maddz: Do you happen to know what these guidelines were and are?

Off the top of my head, Paramount tightened the guidelines so that the novel had to contain at least one major TV show character in a major starring role in the novel.

It's mentioned in comment #3 here: https://www.tor.com/2012/01/24/pre-existing-universe-very-original-story-john-m-...

Also mentioned here: https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/12410990.html

However, I don't have details not being especially interested in the franchise. I kind of lost interest with ST:NG. I will admit some early ST:TOS novels tended to be better written than others - some read like gussied up fan fic (of the -bonk type). I recall owning Ishmael and The Romulan Way and possibly the sequel, and some others. At the time, the rpg was still in print and the Ford and the Duane were kind of canon for the Klingons and Romulans respectively. However, the only tie-in novels I kept are the two Fords, the others are long gone, and I didn't bother picking up the Duanes when they were in the 99p Kindle deal recently.

Another Tor.com blog post: https://www.tor.com/2012/03/26/worlds-apart-two-star-trek-books-by-john-m-ford/

Some background into why his work essentially vanished after his death: https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/john-ford-science-fiction-fantasy-books.html

>101 Maddz: I wasn't at all impressed with So You Want to Be a Wizard, but remember the two Door books fondly, they being new and shiny and not the usual back in that day.

>105 Maddz: Interesting articles! Thanks!

>101 Maddz: I might have to try Diane Duane’s original work at some point.

>102 -pilgrim-:, >103 Maddz: I remember almost nothing about the story, but I particularly remember disliking How Much for Just the Planet at the time. Maybe I would do better with it today (not that I intend to reread it) and appreciate whatever it was that Ford was trying to do, but at the time I was surprised and annoyed to find what I thought was excessively silly, slapstick humor in my Star Trek. I’ve never liked those “musical” episodes that some shows do to showcase their actors’ other talents because they come across to me as silly and inconsistent with their usual tone and the characters' behavior usually rings a false note that bothers me. I remember thinking this book felt like that but worse.

But at that age I also loathed the silliness of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Having more recently learned to appreciate some sillier humor like that in Discworld, I’d probably do better with that one if I re-read it. That is one I may actually re-read eventually.

>105 Maddz: Regarding gussied up fan fic… The Price of the Phoenix, maybe? :) That book and its sequel were a candidate for brain bleach if any of them were!

>107 YouKneeK: When How Much for Just the Planet came out, I recall not liking it as much as The Final Reflection. I wanted more of the Klingons and less of the Enterprise crew. I've re-read it a few times since, and come to appreciate it more. I very much suspect it was Ford cocking a snook at Paramount.

Incidentally, there's a release date of 29/09/2020 for the reprint of The Dragon Waiting which is close enough to my birthday I've dropped a heavy hint in the house. However, I wish there was a hardback edition as well as the paperback and Kindle editions.

Re The Price of the Phoenix, the authors ring a bell. I also seem to remember Margaret Wander Bonanno.

>108 Maddz: I hope the hint is picked up on!

I remember the name Bonanno, and some of her books definitely look familiar. I have vague memories of actually liking her Strangers from the Sky, but I’m not sure. At the time I was inhaling those books so quickly that I think they’re all just a big blur now, 20+ years later. I would check out a dozen or so from the library at a time and turn them back in well before their due date to get more. I was in my early 20’s and had time for such things. ;) Though I do in retrospect think I could have spent that time better!

In Cat vs Roomba news…

Quite some time ago, I discovered that I could allow my Roomba to remain in its rightful spot in my home office by keeping a folded blanket on top of it. It was just a silly idea that I didn’t expect to work, because I figured he would shove it off, but instead he just ignores the whole monstrosity. I thought if nothing else he might try to lay on top of it, but he’s shown no interest in it.

However, after operating the Roomba yesterday, I forgot to put the blanket back on top when it was done. Guess what woke me up at about 5:30am this morning? ;) I was on the opposite side of the house in my bedroom, so it wasn’t too loud and I just let it go and went back to sleep. I usually get up around 6am anyway, so at least his timing wasn’t too bad.

Here are pictures of the combatants.

   

>110 YouKneeK: I have to admit I am really shocked he doesn't just whack that blanket out of the way, but this will teach you to replace the blanket.

He is just so beautiful. Those eyes...

>110 YouKneeK: He looks like he's planning some mischief :D Echo what @clamairy said, he's a gorgeous cat.

>112 Narilka: Agreed, he does look like he's plotting something suitably cat-like.

I went out into the garden yesterday and discovered one of the local felines had decided to leave us a present in the vegetable plot. Time to get out the Get-Off!, methinks.

>111 clamairy: Me too! He’s drags and pushes and knocks over much larger things, and is usually very persistent when he wants to get to something. Maybe I should put blankets on everything I don’t want him to touch. ;) It might just be a short reprieve – it wouldn’t be the first time I thought I’d found a solution to something that he eventually started circumventing once the mood struck him.

>112 Narilka:, >113 Maddz: Haha, he is undoubtedly plotting mischief; it’s his favorite pastime.

>113 Maddz: That wouldn’t be the most pleasant surprise…

I’ve passed all your kind compliments along to Ernest and he offered you an ear flick in return. ;)

Yep, he is definitely scheming!

>115 Sakerfalcon: He puts great energy into it, all the better to torment his human!

>116 YouKneeK: I'm sure he's just trying to stop you from getting bored during the lockdown!

>114 YouKneeK: Blankets or anything folded is a cue for my cats to curl up on it.

>117 Sakerfalcon: Haha, he really doesn’t need to, I’m not having any boredom issues!

>118 MrsLee: Ernest is usually similar, but maybe he’s ignoring it because blankets = sleep and he doesn’t sleep in this room that much. This is his “torment the human” room, because I’m usually absorbed by a computer when I’m in here and not spending a sufficient amount of time admiring him and catering to his whims so it's necessary to force me to pay proper attention.

In other random, non-book-related news, today the CEO of the company I work for announced that those of us who can must continue to work from home through May 25. That was a relief to me, because I worry about the impact of my Governor’s recent decisions (state of Georgia) and would rather just continue to remain isolated.

I know I’m very lucky to both still have regular work and to be able to do it from home. I’m enjoying the daily WFH schedule more than I thought I would. Once I finally bothered to dig through my extra cables and hook up my work laptop to my very large personal monitor, I was back to normal productivity levels. Higher, probably, since it’s way quieter here than it was in the office and I can focus better. The cat is a menace of course, but at least he sleeps for a large part of the day! Sometimes he even sleeps in my lap, which is nice. I’ve also started enjoying a 30 minute Beat Saber “lunch” break. I eat the actual lunch while I work. I had forgotten how much better afternoon exercise works for me; it hasn’t really been practical over the last several years.

>119 YouKneeK: Every time I see WFH I try to think what dirty phrase it stands for. I suppose some people do regard that as a dirty phrase, but it isn't the one my brain is trying to come up with.

>105 Maddz: Thank you, those links were fascinating.

Your history with Star Trek mirrors mine with remarkable accuracy:

I watched TOS assiduously, bailed early on ST:NG - I didn't feel the eighties PC vibe meshes with the politically incorrect attitudes of the Federation that I had grown up with - and thereafter watched repairs of that and the ensuing series sporadically. I think I saw the first 4 films...

You have accurately listed the only 4 tie-on novels that I have read (with the exception of Mirror Universe: Obsidian Alliances, which I feels falls admirably within your fan-fiction-with-bondage categorisation).

My interest in the novels came partly through not the RPG but the tabletop game Star Fleet Battles, which l led to a certain interest in the political and social structure of the alien races (who are far more interesting to fight as than the Federation). There was some fan fiction within the game and its tie-ins, but as I understand it, the game designers were using the Universe novels (and hence John M. Ford and Diane Duane) as their inspiration and models.

As an intriguing digression: the design and capabilities if Klingon vessels compared to Federation (as determined from descriptions obtained via the plots of TV episodes), particularly the infamous closing device that the Klingons introduced from the Romulsns for some of their later vessels meant that the Klingons were more suited to long-term strategic planning, and the Federation to head-on, come in blasting, approaches - pretty much the direct opposite of how their races were portrayed in the TV series! John M. Ford's characterization of Klingon society did a lot to explain how this could have come about.

>120 MrsLee: Oops, I'm sorry, I meant to reply to this, but didn't have time at the time I read it and then completely forgot to come back. Your comment made me laugh though, because I can see how it would look rather dirty. Any acronym with an 'F' in it is always suspect! I'm not sure how well-known that acronym was before the pandemic, but it's one we've used in the department I work in for many years.

Review: The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge



The Snow Queen is the first book in the four-book Snow Queen Cycle, a science fiction series with some really interesting world-building. There were a lot of things I liked about this, and also some things that annoyed me. The first half went a bit slow for me at times despite being interesting, but picked up in the second half.

The setting is an interesting one. Although it’s definitely science fiction and there are science fiction explanations and back stories for everything, there are parts that have more of a fantasy feel. The story is set on a world called Tiamat which is caught in a cycle that makes it accessible to other inhabited planets for 150 years, then cut off for another 150 years. The story starts a few years before the end of the accessible part of the cycle. Tiamat has two factions among the native population – the Summers, who live primitive lives without technology, and the Winters, who embrace alien technology. Because Tiamat has a resource that they can’t get anywhere else, the people from other worlds keep Tiamat technologically repressed, allowing the Winters to share some of their technology while they can access the world, but ensuring that they can’t become technologically self-sufficient during their absence. The Winter faction reigns while their planet is accessible, but at the end of that period they’re forced to turn control over to the Summer faction. The current Winter queen, Arienrhod, naturally isn’t looking forward to the end of her reign, which will require her death, and she has a plot or two.

Although I liked some of the characters, I think the world-building and the story were the more interesting parts to me. I really enjoyed the concept of the sibyls, I loved seeing characters with minimal exposure to advanced technology suddenly getting a bigger taste of it than they ever imagined, and I wanted to see Tiamat become technologically self-sufficient while yet hating everything Arienrhod did.

My feelings about the characters were more mixed. I liked some of the secondary characters quite a bit once we got to know them more. As far as the main characters went, I mostly liked and sympathized with Moon, but I didn’t agree with some of her decisions. I initially liked and sympathized with Sparks too, but that didn’t last long. I hated him pretty strongly by the end. He was a wimpy, whiny, flip-flopping jerk. He became whatever the girl he was with wanted him to be and had no spine of his own. When they were young, he wanted to be a sibyl because Moon wanted to be a sibyl. As soon as he had sex with the queen, he decided he wanted to be the next Starbuck and essentially become all of the things he had believed were morally wrong. Then when Moon found him again they had sex and instantly he flip-flopped back to being good again, feeling guilty about all the things he had done and ready to do the right things again because that’s what Moon wanted of him. I never felt like he did anything because it was the right thing to do; he was driven by his emotions and what the people influencing him wanted. And so I was really annoyed at Moon for saving him and continuing to love him. I couldn’t understand how she could love somebody who had such a weak moral center that he would do the things he did, to the point of being complicit in the attempted murder of all of his people. Feeling guilty about doing horrible things doesn’t redeem you if you still did those horrible things when you knew better. Yeah, I think he made me a little angrier than I even realized until I sat down to write this review! :)

Aside from my spoiler tagged tirade about Sparks, I sometimes wished the story was a bit less romance-y. It wasn’t enough to really annoy me, because there was still a lot of interesting world-building and story to hold my interest, but there really was quite a bit of romance once you list it out. There were two connected love triangles, with offshoots. There was also a separate angsty romance, but it received very little page time. Moon-Sparks-Arienrhod make up one triangle, and Sparks-Moon-BZ make up another. Then you have Herne obsessed with Arienrhod and hints that Cress had a thing for Moon. Then Jerusha and Ngenet.

I always find it easier to rant about my complaints than the things I liked though, and the things I liked outweighed the things I didn’t by quite a lot. Although this book tells a complete story, I’m really looking forward to finding out what happens next on this world and plan to continue the series.

Next Book
World’s End by Joan D. Vinge, the next book in this series.

>123 YouKneeK: I'm glad you liked this. Thanks for pointing out that World's End is next, a long time ago I tried to read The Summer Queen after Snow Queen and it really didn't make sense, I didn't realize I'd skipped a book! That was a long time before LT, I'll have to go back and revisit this series.

>124 Karlstar: Yeah, sites like LT have made it a lot easier to keep series reading orders straight than it used to be. I hope it holds up well for you if you revisit it!

>123 YouKneeK: Well, with all that romance this is definitely NOT a book for me. Glad you had such a good time even with the rant inducing parts :-)

Isn't it funny how we can write twice as much about the parts we didn't like in a book but still rate the book highly overall? That kind of thing is why I'm still in favor of Ratings & Reviews :-)

>126 BookstoogeLT: While I agree there is romance, it's not like modern romance SFF novels; it doesn't take over the meta-plot, which is the transition from Winter to Summer, where Winter doesn't want to let go. Yes, it's there, and it's one of the principal drivers of the plot, but it's not the be-all and end-all.

It's been a good 15-20 years since I read it, and now I've picked up a copy of World's End (looks like search is playing up again) I'll read the series in order. I think I've read WE but can't be sure; the two that I've had longest are The Snow Queen and The Summer Queen, and I don't recall Tangled Up in Blue at all (it may have been Paul's copy).

I'm in the middle of tasks around the house and garden at the moment, but once things quiet down a bit (garden weeded and my seedlings planted out), and the house cleaned, I can settle down and read. At the moment I'm flipping between fluff (a Regency romance), scholarly (about the Benson family) and editing a digital version of The Dragon Waiting (which is being officially re-released in September - yay!) because I can't wait 6 months to get it.

(Edited for touchstones)

>127 Maddz: Unless this is Jane Austinesque in regards to romance, it's not for me.

>128 BookstoogeLT: There's not that much romance, but in some ways, Snow Queen does take itself too seriously in parts. While I enjoyed it and I think it is a classic, I do recall thinking in spots 'get on with it already!'.

>128 BookstoogeLT: I wouldn't have said it reminded me of Jane Austin in particular, but what I recall there was a feminist overtone in that the book focused on female characters, and what's more, female characters with agency. What you won't find is smut (or stridency for that matter).

At the time, SF was still very much in the ray guns and spaceships mindset, and to find SF written by women and focussing on female characters was very refreshing. My C J Cherryh and Jo Clayton collections stem from that time. (I'd moved to London in 1980 and used to haunt Forbidden Planet when they were in Denmark Street.)

>129 Karlstar: And I've experienced that kind of romance in books before so I know it's not for me.

>130 Maddz: DEFINITELY not for me then :-)
Give me my Neal Asher with "brutal SF action" (I think that was the blurb on the cover of his book I just read? Worked for me!)

>126 BookstoogeLT:, >127 Maddz:, >129 Karlstar: Although I didn’t feel like a ton of page time was spent on the actual romances, they overshadowed everything and influenced nearly everything that happened. They also led to a lot of behavior that I disliked. The biggest examples: Sparks going off the deep end because he couldn’t have Moon, becoming what he thought Arienrhod wanted him to be since she was the next best thing. Moon going back to Sparks and forgiving him for everything, after he had slaughtered the Mers that his people revered, after he had agreed to help murder all the Summers, and, oh yes, after he had punched Moon in the face because he didn’t want to have to face her knowing what he’d become. Moon would have been a much stronger and more respectable character for me if she’d ditched Sparks. It came off as too much of a "love and support your man at all costs" thing, even if he treats you like crap.

I really liked the story, but the romantic aspects led to several sour notes for me.

Oh, and I forgot one of the romances when I was listing them out, although it barely had any page time and was sort of a surprise, half-humorous, half-sad reveal near the end. I am of course talking about Polly the robot and Tor.

>127 Maddz: The Dragon Waiting as in by John M. Ford?

Yes, Tor is starting the releases on September 29th with The Dragon Waiting - Amazon UK has preorders already.

>134 Maddz: Excellent!

>135 -pilgrim-: As it's my birthday that month, I've dropped a heavy hint...

>124 Karlstar: If I ever knew that, and I certainly should have as the librarian of an SF club when World's End came out, I'd totally forgotten there were any other books than The Snow Queen and The Summer Queen.

>137 quondame: Glad to know it wasn't just me! I'm going to hold off on World's End until YouKneek's review. Nice to see touchstones working again!

>137 quondame:, >138 Karlstar: I’m over halfway through. I could probably finish tonight if I put enough time into it, although I’m not sure yet if I will. It’s a really short, fast read. There are fewer words on a page than The Snow Queen, judging by how quickly the “real” page #’s are incrementing as I page forward on my Kindle.

>139 YouKneeK: Yes, the 2 Queens are fat books, and the other 2 in the series are slim books.

>123 YouKneeK:, >132 YouKneeK: I agree with you 100% about Sparks. He is loathsome, and Moon should have ditched him, especially after the slaughter of the mers. But I think his character and the Moon-Sparks-Arienrhod triangle is where Vinge is following the titular fairy story, with which it all fits quite well. I will reread The snow queen and then carry on with the next 3 books, which have been on my TBR pile for some time now.

>141 Sakerfalcon: True, that aspect does follow the original fairy tale pretty well, down to a reference to Sparks having “ice in his heart”. I really hope to see Moon come to her senses in The Summer Queen, though!

Review: World’s End by Joan D. Vinge



World’s End is the second book in the Snow Queen Cycle. I enjoyed it quite a lot, although maybe not for the same reasons I had enjoyed The Snow Queen. It’s very different from the first book in both setting and style.

At half the length of the first book, this story is simpler and more focused. We follow one of the characters who had left Tiamat at the end of the previous book. (Character name only in the spoiler tags: BZ Gundhalinu.) He’s gone to another planet to muddle through his rather messed-up life. This planet has a location called “World’s End”, where people go off seeking treasure, but many never return. His brothers are missing after having gone in search of treasure themselves, and our main character goes off in search of them. Most of the book is told in the first person as the character recounts his adventures, with some framing chapters in the third person.

If you’ve read the first book, that description may make you wonder how it could possibly relate much to The Snow Queen at all. In many ways it just feels like a short, diversionary story about a pretty likeable character from that first book. However, there is a connection eventually, and it’s a big one that I expect to be very relevant to the next book.

The plot held my interest well and the pages in the book seemed to fly by. The first half is more of an adventure story, but things become increasingly more mysterious toward the second half. I did have some frustrations with the main character. I liked him quite a bit in the first book, but we didn’t really get to know him all that well in retrospect. In this book, I was often frustrated by how poorly he stood up for himself, and how gullible he was, sometimes falling for the world’s most obvious traps. I guess because he was an Inspector, I expected his training and experience to serve him better, but I started to feel like he really was rather incompetent. I liked his motives, especially toward the end, and some of his introspective thoughts, but I wanted him to be more competent.

Next Book
The Summer Queen, the third book in this series. This one is a bit longer, close to 700 pages, so it may take me a while to post my next review!

>143 YouKneeK: Well, it sounds like you're hooked :-) Glad this series is working out for you.

>144 BookstoogeLT: Thanks, yeah, I think so! Hopefully the 3rd book won’t prove to be a 686-page slog, but the little bit I found time to read before bed yesterday had a good start and one chapter left me particularly curious for more info.

Well, I've just finished The Snow Queen; I'll post a review in a day or so once I've had a chance to ruminate a bit.

What came through most strongly to me was that's it's a book about change vs stasis as well as the cyclical nature of history. The other vibe I saw was immaturity changing to maturity; I agree that Sparks was a pretty bad excuse for a human, but he was very immature at the start of the book and didn't really start growing up until Moon returned to Tiamat. Arienrhod basically did his thinking for him and, I think, purposely kept him from growing up, making him emotionally dependent on her because she was - and was not - Moon. He didn't start to break free until Moon returned and jolted him out of his self-pity. The one thing you have to remember is that men and women mature emotionally at different rates - women maturing faster than men. The time differential when Moon goes off-world gave Sparks time to 'grow' while she remained 'static' so that when she returned they had converged emotionally.

Anyway, onto World's End next.

I’m glad you enjoyed it enough to carry on with the series; I can’t wait to read what you think of World’s End!

I do agree and like the idea of the book being about change and cycles. I thought some characters gained maturity, but…

To me, the things Sparks did can’t be excused by immaturity. I’ll grant him “immaturity” for his early behavior when Moon became a sibyl. Getting angry and running off to Carbuncle was immature. The other things he did were terrible things that he knew better than to do, but he lacked a spine. Even immature teenage boys can and do have personalities of their own and will stick to their guns about things they believe in, though they might not always make the best choices or go about things in the best way.

I don’t think Sparks had improved by the time Moon returned. He had all that time, knowing he was miserable, continuing in his downward spiral, never taking the initiative to try improving himself or his situation. After Moon was back on the planet, he used that extra 5 years of maturity to punch her in the face for seeing him in a “bad” moment and then left her unconscious and unprotected. Near the end of the book he was still angry with her and nearly raped her, before she talked him down and turned it into consensual sex.

I can't buy into him truly changing just because Moon had sex with him. He acted as if a switch had flipped and he was suddenly ready to be a "good" person again, but he was just acting like the person Moon wanted him to act like because he was feeling all warm and loving toward her again. A person’s entire personality doesn’t change just because they had some good sex, although it might change their behavior for a while. The next time Moon makes him angry, or even does something intentionally or unintentionally to make him feel guilty, I would expect him to fly off the deep end. (From what I remember, BZ also suddenly decided his life was worth living after having sex with Moon earlier in the book. She’s really got something going on there!)

I do think the book had a theme also about how people can be influenced. We saw that the most with Arienrhod and Moon, too genetically identical people who were very different in their beliefs and behaviors because they grew up with different influences and experiences. Yet even Arienrhod, as horrible as she was, didn’t annoy me the way Sparks did. She wasn’t just a wishy-washy chameleon doing whatever somebody else wanted her to do. I would of course still hate her if she existed in real life, but as a character in a book she wasn’t as irritating to read about.

Ok, that got a little long. :) It’s always a good sign when a book gives me a lot of strong opinions!

Okay, the big paragraphs of spoiler text made me curious enough to put The Snow Queen on hold at my library. Something sparking this much conversation must be interesting....

>148 Kanarthi: LOL, I hope you’ll come back and post what you thought about it, either way!

I had meant to come post an update on my status with reading my current book (The Summer Queen), so I'll do that real quick while I'm here. I only read 240 pages in the last 7 days, which for me is quite a bit slower than my usual pace. I’m blaming it mostly on work; I was working longer hours last week and there was a day when I only managed to read 1 page. It also had a kind of slow start. Parts of it really interested me, but parts of it really didn’t, and I think I had more trouble pushing those through those latter parts since I was busy and tired. My interest is definitely picking up now, and I think this week will be calmer at work, so hopefully I’ll start making better progress. I doubt I'll be done before this weekend at the earliest, though.

>149 YouKneeK: This is the problem I had with The Summer Queen, but made worse by not reading the previous book.

I could see where missing World’s End would have caused some difficulties! It actually takes a while before there’s much reference to that story, but I think just knowing what happened in it would help one anticipate the relevance of some early sections in The Summer Queen that might otherwise seem to have come out of the blue.

I think I might be reading The Summer Queen for the rest of the year at this rate! I was around page 240 as of this past Monday. I’m all the way up to page 297 today.

I’m actually enjoying the book, it’s just that I’m having trouble finding time to read it. This past week ended up being even busier at work than the previous week. I have some stuff I still need to finish for work this weekend, plus we have our monthly system maintenance window and I have a small amount of responsibilities for that. Hopefully I’ll still find a good chunk of time for reading, but it’s unlikely I’ll finish the last 400 pages this weekend.

I’ve been waiting for “elective” surgeries to start back up again in my area, and just got the word yesterday that my surgery date is May 28. (I need a full abdominal hysterectomy.) I had to laugh at myself a little bit, because as much as I’m dreading the surgery itself, and I’m not at all thrilled about spending time in a hospital during a pandemic, I was almost excited when looking forward to the recovery period. I may be in pain and exhausted, but at least I’ll get a “vacation” from work! ;)

And joy of joys, all surgery patients right now are required to get Covid-19 testing. The nurse who told me this wasn’t sure exactly what kind of test it would be. I’m worried it will be the stab-the-victim-in-the-brain-through-their-nostrils test which I'm rather terrified of, but I guess we do what we have to do. This is really my own fault for dragging my feet on having the surgery for months while I searched for alternative options because I didn’t want to have the surgery. If I’d sucked it up and done it sooner, it would have been over and done with before the pandemic. On the other hand, at least if there are any negative repercussions from having the surgery, I’ll know that I did my best to find a less drastic option and that it was truly necessary.

>152 YouKneeK: Whoa there Speedy, you need to slow down! This is a book we're talking about, not a bowl of instant ramen ;-)

Sorry to hear you have the need for surgery but am glad you searched out alternate options. Even if they didn't pan out, you took the responsibility. So with it being fully abdominal, will you be able to type and stuff during recovery or will you just have to lie there and watch tv and lament your brain turning to mush?

>153 BookstoogeLT: LOL, I know, I’m going to blow your reading numbers out of the water this month for sure! ;)

Thanks. I’m not too sure what to expect since I guess everybody reacts a little differently and I’ve never had surgery before myself. It’s likely I won't feel like doing much at first, but I think physically I’ll be able to type on my laptop or a mobile device and read and walk short distances. I just may not have much energy for those things in the early days. I expect I’ll probably be in pain (I’m a reluctant medicine taker and intend to avoid the narcotic stuff) and very tired, but I feel like I normally have a pretty good pain tolerance so I’m hopeful that will help me. I usually just push through a headache or other minor pains without taking any pain relievers, and pain has to get pretty bad and all-consuming before I normally take anything. I plan to take 2 weeks off work, then work from home for the next 4 and then decide from there. Supposedly the typical recovery time is 6-8 weeks. It sounds like people usually start feeling a little better by the 2nd week, and it continues to improve from there. At least all the “sheltering at home” I’ve done lately, I’ve had great practice with stocking up enough supplies to last me for a few weeks without having to leave my home!

>154 YouKneeK: Well, that is encouraging. I had images of you lying in a hospital bed, or at home, for weeks on end. Like a burrito or something :-D

Just rediscovered this thread after, apparently, misdirecting a red X. Best wishes for the surgery. From my own experience, such as it is, they will get you up and about as quickly as possible.

>156 haydninvienna: Good luck with the operation! Stock your Kindle well, in case during up to read a physical book puts too much stress on the relevant muscles.

>155 BookstoogeLT: They said I’ll be in the hospital for 23 hours after the surgery, but that it could be longer if there are any issues they need to watch me for. I’m hoping for the shorter time period. Either way, there probably will be much more lying around than I would like, but I hope not to be too burrito-like. ;)

>156 haydninvienna: Whew, thanks for rescuing my thread! Those x’s are insidious; I’ve done that before. And thanks for the best wishes. I’ll definitely be eager to get up and about as soon as possible.

>157 -pilgrim-: Thanks! I almost never read physical books, so my usual strategy when I’m going to be away from home overnight is to load several e-books onto my Kindle, my tablet, AND my phone so that I’m fully prepared if something happens to one of the devices. Despite all that preparation, I’ve never actually had to go to a backup device for reading, but I still do it just in case. :)

>152 YouKneeK: Hope all goes well. Like you, I've never had major surgery; that was my sister's speciality - she had her bunions done twice while she was in her teens, she's had keyhole surgery on her knee (why she had to give up running), and 4 pregnancies.

My worst experience was having all 4 wisdom teeth extracted at once when I was in my twenties, but that was day surgery at Guy's (6 week waiting list for day surgery, or 6 months+ for a full general and an overnight stay). I had a week off work to recover, and went back to work and a week later had the stitches out. The main issue was doing the salt gargles at work.

I recall my Mum having a D&C in the 70s and she wasn't allowed to lift anything for a couple of weeks. This was awkward as we were taking the boat train to France to meet my father in Paris and this coincided with a dock strike at Southampton (or Portsmouth - I can't remember). The captain and 1st officer of the ferry snuck on shore and got our suitcases aboard without being spotted by the pickets...

So yeah, factor in not being able to lift things until you're given the all clear - so best to ensure any bulk buys are done beforehand while you're still fit.

>152 YouKneeK: Good luck with your operation. I think you did the right thing, looking for alternatives first, even if it does mean you'll be in a hospital during the pandemic. Here's hoping you have a fast recovery.

>159 Maddz: Thanks! Hysterectomies seem to be a common occurrence in my family, at least on my mom’s side, although each of us for different reasons. I have read about the lifting restrictions and think I should be able to work around them pretty well by planning ahead. I’ll also have somebody by occasionally to help a bit, at least for the first week, in case there’s something I’m really struggling with. They’ll also handle the litter box cleanings and water bowl refills for me that first week as I think bending and crouching won’t be real doable at first, then I'll assess how things are going and decide what help, if any, I need for the second week.

I’ve had all 4 wisdom teeth extracted at various times, but I got off easy because they were all simple extractions and not an actual surgery. A couple of them were partially impacted, but not completely under the gums, so they were able to just use Novocain and pull them out, then I went home immediately afterward and was fine. A little pain maybe, but nothing memorable, probably because I'd been in more pain before the extraction.

>160 Narilka: Thank you! I was worried at first that it was being recommended to me because it just seems to be the “easy” solution women are often given, but the surgeon I worked with was very helpful in clearly explaining my options (which matched up with my independent research) and explaining which options were definitely out of the question and why, and she was patient while I worked through the options and made referrals where needed.

>161 YouKneeK: I had that procedure in 2008 and the 6 weeks off work afterwards were great, although I had a lot of trouble remembering not to lift things. It's hard to recall much at this remove but I was terrified going in and it was much less traumatic than I expected. Take it easy, and take care of yourself!

>162 tardis: That’s very encouraging to hear, thank you!

>152 YouKneeK: I hope the surgery and hospital stay go smoothly and your recovery is rapid and complete.

>164 quondame: Thank you!

I hope everything goes well with your surgery, and the Covid-19 test. And I hope that afterwards you will feel well enough to enjoy the recovery period. I'm glad you have planned for help with household chores so you don't have to struggle with that. Take care.

Strength, good luck and a speedy and complete recovery to you.

Like so many other have said: good luck with the operation - I'll be holding my thumbs for you. I haven't had that one so can't possibly comment, but I too try to stay off the narcotics post-surgery. I hate feeling dizzy, I rather have some pain than not being right in my head.
And good luck with the covid-19 test as well.

>166 Sakerfalcon:, >167 hfglen:, >168 Busifer: Thank you all!

>168 Busifer: I agree wholeheartedly about preferring pain versus a messed-up head! I’ve never actually taken narcotics before, so I’m likely imagining it to be worse than it is, but the descriptions I’ve heard have all sounded more unpleasant to me than pain. But then, I don't drink either, because I hate the idea of being drunk. I want my head on as straight as possible at all times.

>169 YouKneeK: I hear you, though I’m partial to a good wine or a nice G&T.
In my experience in post-surgery there can be a fine balance between manageable pain and the need for the odd extra-strong pain reliever. I mean, if one is out anyway one could just as well be it without being in pain at the same time.
That said the one time I’ve had real surgery I was warned ahead that this operation was extra painful on adults, with an expected pain surge about 7-10 days into recovery. I’m sure yours will be nothing close to that (mine was the tonsils).

Edited, because I’m on my phone, apparently with extra-fat fingers ;-)

Just catching up on your thread - hope your surgery goes well. I had a major surgery almost two years ago (for something completely different) and it was both better and worse than I expected. Pain was much less than I expected - all they gave me was tylenol, but I got tired so easily, and that lasted longer than I expected. Hope you are able to do lots of reading and relaxing while you recover.

>170 Busifer: Haha, true. I’ll probably fill a stronger prescription if they recommend it, just in case I really do need it, but will hopefully be able to avoid using it. I’d think it would be difficult to have worse pain to look forward to several days into the recovery. There will be some comfort I think in knowing that whatever pain I’m in just after the surgery, it will hopefully only get better, if not as quickly as I might want.

>171 NorthernStar: Thanks! I am wondering if I'll be too tired to properly read, but I'm hopeful. Worst case, there's always TV -- I watch so little of it that there's never a shortage of things to choose from when I do want to watch it.

>172 YouKneeK: I could read after the first day or so, and found my ereader perfect because it is backlit, so it didn't matter what the light levels were, and if I fell asleep it did too, and kept my place. The TV tended to go on without me, so shows that had no plot, like the home and garden channel were the best at first. Later on I binge-watched a few series on DVD that I borrowed, as I didn't have access to network TV.

>169 YouKneeK: If you've never taken opiates before, be warned you may have a bad reaction to them - it's quite common with opiates. I should know - I'm one of those people so I can't use certain over-the-counter pain relief like codeine or codeine co-formulations. If you start feeling nauseous, stop taking it and tell your nurse or doctor.

I found this out as a teenager - I got prescribed Solpadeine and couldn't understand why I spent three days trying not to throw up instead of 3 days doubled in agony (bad dysmenorrhea). Luckily a new prescription NSAID worked for me.

>173 NorthernStar: I hope that will be the case for me also! The lighting on my e-reader is one of my favorite features, although I’ve been known to write lengthy essays on all the many things I like about my Kindle. ;) I really struggle on the rare occasions when I read a physical book because I’m rarely satisfied with the lighting. Good point about TV going on without you if you fall asleep.

>174 Maddz: That’s good to know, thank you!

Best of luck to you with the surgery and recovery. I had to have a partial when I was in my early 40s due to fibroids. I only took the Rx painkillers for a day after a four night* hospital stay, and then switched to Aleve instead, because the meds didn't stop the pain, it just made me not care so much. I had two young kids at the time, (and a husband with MS) so I did a bunch of things I wasn't really supposed to, but I also spent a lot of time in a horizontal state with a pile of books. Keep us updated when you can.

*There was some post-op bleeding they couldn't account for.

>176 clamairy: Thank you! Oh wow, four nights in a hospital must have been unpleasant! It sounds like you were in a really difficult situation for trying to recover even after you got home.

Mine is for the same reason - fibroids. I have one that’s 11cm (“grapefruit sized” as they like to say), which is why most simpler options were discarded. I’d held out some hope that a UFE (Uterine Fibroid Embolization) might be an option as it’s a non-surgical procedure with a reasonably good chance of success for people who are good candidates to begin with, but the radiologist thought I probably wasn’t a very good candidate. One advantage the hysterectomy does have is that at least it’s a definitely a permanent solution. I likely would have had better options if I hadn't spent most of my life avoiding gynecologists like the plague so that the problem could have been detected earlier. :)

It looks like my surgery date may have changed from May 28 to June 11. Nobody called about it, but I received an e-mail yesterday with that date and my online account has changed to show June 11. I left both a voice mail yesterday and an online message today to try to get confirmation. I’m sure scheduling must be insane right now with “elective” surgeries having only just recently been taken off hold, but I’m hoping it won’t change again. I just want to get it over with, and trying to plan two months of my life around a moving target is challenging!

>177 YouKneeK: I had a 10 cm and it was pressing on a nerve so I was in a lot of pain. I'm sorry they're moving your scheduled date around. I'm sure you just want to get it over with. Hope that it happens sooner rather than later.

>123 YouKneeK: I just finished a re-read of The Snow Queen. Tiamat remained the star, Moon was pretty much a blank standard heroine with unusual attributes. Sparks was more human as were the Blues and some other more minor characters. And the story was much more fragmented than I remembered.

>178 clamairy: Thanks!

>179 quondame: There were some pretty interesting secondary characters and Tiamat was a very interesting world! I liked Moon, although I’ve gotten bored with her in The Summer Queen. Are you going to read/re-read the rest of the series?

I am making progress with The Summer Queen. I can’t remember the last time it took me this long to read a book! Back when I was traveling constantly for business, I guess. Finishing this weekend is a pretty strong possibility, although not guaranteed.

>179 quondame: I was planning to, but I'm diverted now with 75bpy group's TIOLI challenges - I pretty much take them all...

>177 YouKneeK: It must be so frustrating, having the date moved around like that.

When you initially wrote about the procedure I didn't check what "fibroids" might translate to in Swedish... (and it doesn't, not straight away. Your description (and @clamairy's) makes me think it might be what we use the more general term (uterine) "cyst" for?

I'm happy that mine are treated with hormones, and that the treatment actually seems to work (2nd year now) without me having any of the all too common negative reactions to it. Like you I have been avoiding gynecologists all my life. Finally found one, and got an appointment, when I just couldn't stand the anxiety of suspecting something was off and thinking the worst...

I'm holding my thumbs for the date to keep, so that you can make plans.

>181 quondame: Good luck with the challenges! I kind of like the idea of challenges, but mostly because picking books to meet various criteria seems rather entertaining. However, I never want to have to adjust my schedule to read things I hadn't already wanted to read. I just want to read what I want to read when I want to read it without any other constraints.

>182 Busifer: Thank you, I did get confirmation yesterday that the date was definitely moved to June 11. I have mixed feelings about it because I just want to get it over with, but with work so all-consuming lately, I was also stressing out about how I was going to find time to do all the things I need to do beforehand. Now work is calming down a bit plus I have an extra 2 weeks to prepare, so I feel a little more relaxed. As long as the date doesn’t change again!

Yes, I believe those are either the same thing or very similar. Basically, non-cancerous growths in the uterus, very common for women but often undetected, especially if they’re smaller and/or don’t cause symptoms. This probably also explains why we’ve both experienced iron anemia, if I remember correctly. :)

>183 YouKneeK: Hopefully your surgery appointment stays put now so you can get it over with.

>183 YouKneeK: Yes, that sounds like it, and yes, also, on the iron anemia.
I have been told that they're non-cancerous but might turn that way if certain conditions are met, some of which I meet, and therefore the hormone treatment: precautionary, but as I experience only positive side effects I'm all for it :-)

I've been told I have a small fibroid. However, it's never really bothered me, and I think it was small enough that the doctor didn't do anything. I had a fairly early menopause, it it was discovered as part of the investigations to see what was going on, and as I went fully menopausal a year or so later, it was adjudged low risk, especially as I chose not to go onto HRT.

>183 YouKneeK: I was getting kind of same-same feelings from my selections and doing lots of re-reading because I read all the time and am both somewhat risk averse and have a high threshold of reluctance to read literary fiction as well as no great enthusiasm for non-fiction. Enter LT with BBs and challenges and I've read many books I wouldn't otherwise consider and found new ones in or adjacent to my usual pastures.

>184 Narilka: Thanks, I hope so too.

>185 Busifer: I’m glad the hormone treatment has worked so well for you.

>186 Maddz: I’m glad yours has stayed small and not an issue. I think that’s the case for many women, where they can just be left alone and/or they might not even know they have them.

>187 quondame: That makes sense. My main book selection strategy over the past several years has been to pick books from the group shelf of a SF&F group I’m in over on Goodreads. They use different themes to pick each month’s group read books, which results in a shelf with a good variety of subgenres. Their earlier picks tend toward the tried-and-true classics whereas the more recent picks tend toward the buzzy and trendy, but I read them all out of order based on Kindle sales and availability so it turns into a good mix that way. Since I’m more spoiler-adverse than most, not even wanting to read a book blurb before I read a book, this gives me a way to select books without knowing anything about them. The only research I do is to try to make sure it isn’t part of an incomplete series. I can often guess some high-level plot details from the title and/or the cover, but I enjoy the mystery of not knowing for sure what I’m going to get. :)

>188 YouKneeK: I mostly hate blurbs, but don't have problems with spoilers - I wouldn't put spoilers in my reviews, but often check the end of books after I've gotten far enough into them to have opinions of the characters. I don't read for suspense and twist ending type surprise. I like to be surprised by how things happen or what there is to observe.

>189 quondame: Haha, and I’m not sure if I’ve ever checked the end of a book in my entire life! It’s funny how we all have such different reading styles.

I like to be surprised all the way through – both about the journey and how it ends, although I should qualify that by saying I don’t necessarily enjoy a twist just for a twist’s sake. I’ve read books (I’m thinking of the Red Rising trilogy) where the twists were so formulaic that they became predictable, but I love it when I’m surprised by a twist and all the puzzle pieces start clicking in place in my head because I realize all the groundwork was laid earlier in the book and I just didn’t recognize it for what it was.

I have astonishing news! I have finally finished The Summer Queen! ;) I’m going to wait until to tomorrow to post my review though as it’s after 11pm here and past my usual bedtime.

Review: The Summer Queen by Joan D. Vinge



Whew, it took me nearly three weeks to read this! That’s unusual for me. For the most part, it wasn’t the fault of the book. I had two weeks of almost non-stop work, with very little down time. More often than not, when I finally sat down to read, some work-related issue would interrupt me and I’d have to put it back down. The third week was better, but still full of work-related distractions. It wasn’t entirely not the book either, though. It did have some slow spots. Combine that with both work distractions and personal distractions and some general restlessness, and there were times when it was difficult to make forward progress. My Kindle edition claims it’s 686 pages, but it took more Kindle page turns for the “real page numbers” to advance as compared to most of the Kindle books I read, so the edition these page numbers were based on must have had a miniscule font. The mass market paperback edition appears to be 949 pages.

This is the third book in The Snow Queen cycle. It picks up directly after the first book, The Snow Queen, and the first part takes place concurrently with the second book, World’s End. In many ways the story continues as you would expect, especially if you read the second book. There were some unexpected things though, and I think those were the parts I liked best.

I was least interested in the parts of the story that followed Moon and her family and had most of the expected plot threads. I still didn’t like Sparks, although I don’t think his behavior followed the natural progression I would have expected from the first book. He did do some interesting things by the end, but he still annoyed me as completely lacking in any personality or self-motivation for most of the book. I just really didn’t like him, and I think by this point there wasn’t much the author could have done to turn that around for me. However, I really enjoyed the chapters that focused on some of the new characters. Reede was especially interesting to me, even after I figured out what was going on with him. I tend to enjoy the troubled, ambiguous characters with a mysterious past. I also enjoyed most of the story surrounding a more familiar character, BZ Gundhalinu. Except when he was with Moon or mooning over her, which got tiresome. I especially enjoyed the parts where he was working with Reede.

I liked the end ok, but it felt a little anticlimactic and maybe a little rushed. I don’t know that it actually was rushed, but it felt that way in comparison with the pace of the rest of the story. All the characters were given a little bit of page time so that we’d know what was going on, and aside from a couple plot points that I never bought into, I felt like we had all the answers by the end. It just seemed like more than a few pages were needed to provide a proper wrap-up.

I did mostly enjoy the book, but it was a struggle at times. I think if I’d had fewer distractions, I would have enjoyed it more because I would have made it through the slower parts more easily. I’m rating this at 3.5 stars but rounding down on Goodreads. There’s one more book in the series, but I think I’m going to stop here. I went and checked the book blurb (a thing I usually avoid doing) and it looks like it’s a side story focusing on BZ and set during the first book. I’d probably enjoy it since I liked his character, but going backward in the story timeline doesn’t appeal to me right now and I’m ready to move on to something new.

Next Book
Song of the Beast by Carol Berg. I’ve read 7 of this author’s books in the past and loved all of them. Based on that, I usually proclaim that she's one of my favorite authors, but I hardly ever fit her into my reading rotation. I had decided that this year I needed to read at least one of her books, so I picked one of her standalone works. I know nothing about this one, but I think I saw it recommended somewhere.

>192 YouKneeK: I've started getting my page numbers from Kobo.com or Readinglength.com. I've given up using data from Amazon as they can't even get the paperback numbers correct when I have a copy in front of me. Kobo also has a rough word count, so I REALLY like that :-D

I am glad you are moving onto something else though. I've pretty much said nothing because nothing in these has appealed, or even strongly repelled, me and I end up thinking "What do I comment? I've got nothing to say!". which is unusual for me :-D

I'd never heard of Berg before. I just went and some a couple of reviews that compared her to Janny Wurts, so that might explain it. Is Berg an author that you totally adore her stuff, or just enjoy? Like me and McKillip?

>193 BookstoogeLT: You’re much better about finding things to comment on than I am. I find it very difficult to comment on any review about a book I haven’t read. I even have trouble commenting on reviews of books I have read if I don’t remember the book well or the reviewer doesn’t include many personal opinions. (The personal opinions are my favorite part of a review.)

Carol Berg is an author who, so far, makes me have trouble putting her books down, which isn’t that common for me these days. I haven’t read enough of Janny Wurts’ writing to compare the two, but I guess I might both compare and contrast Carol Berg with Robin Hobb. Both authors have a writing style that sucks me in more than most other authors, but there are both similarities and differences. Similar to Hobb, Berg writes characters that I really care about and friendships that I become invested in. She also tends to put her characters through the wringer, but maybe not as badly as Hobb does. In contrast, I’m usually satisfied with how Berg's stories end whereas Hobb’s endings tend to leave me unsatisfied and/or unhappy. Hobb likes to go for the bittersweet (at best) endings, but Berg puts less bitter in with her sweet.

Berg also tells her stories more concisely, I guess. Her books are a more average length (400-500 pages) and she writes smaller series and some standalones, so it's less of a commitment and I still get a satisfying story. Sometimes I'd like them to be longer, but only because I enjoyed them so much. I’ve also enjoyed that the ones I've read so far aren't too romancey – there’s usually a little bit, but it’s been minimal, secondary or "thirdary" to the actual story, and I don’t remember ever being annoyed by it.

I can’t think of anything I’ve read in any of Berg’s books that I think you definitely wouldn’t like, but it’s been a while since I’ve read them so I may have forgotten things that didn’t make much of a blip on my radar but that you might feel differently about.

>194 YouKneeK: The fact that you compared her to Hobbs tells me all I need to know :-D

>192 YouKneeK: I'm glad you didn't hate The Summer Queen. I think you're blaming yourself too much for how long it took to read, I think it is just not one of those books that drags you in and drags you along. A question I've been wanting to ask - have you read any of Vernor Vinge's novels?

>192 YouKneeK: I'm looking forward to your review of Song of the Beast. It's one I've debated trying for a while now.

>193 BookstoogeLT: is one of the rare standalone fantasy novels, I don't believe she's written anything else in that world. It's got good (eg well written properly powerful) dragons in it, but otherwise nothing particularly captivating. Berg is one of those authors I want to like more than I seem to.

>198 reading_fox: Thanks...

>194 YouKneeK: I have Song of the Beast picked as one of my WWE Women of Genre Fiction books for this year. I usually do 12 in the category and, having never read Berg, I too decided to choose a stand-alone. I'll be interested to scan your review when you post it here.

>195 BookstoogeLT: Haha, I suspected that might be your reaction since I remembered you didn't like Hobb. I had assumed it was due to content, but it sounds like it might be more due to writing style? I'm not sure it would be accurate to say that their writing styles are similar, only that they both have a way of grabbing me with their words and causing me to feel intensely interested in their stories and their characters.

>196 Karlstar: The Summer Queen is definitely a meaty book, but it doesn’t normally take me that long to read one. They just take more concentrated focus than what I was able to give to this one. I haven’t read Vernor Vinge yet, but I do have him on my list so I’ll likely get to him eventually. Is there anything you'd particularly recommend? The book he has on the list I use is A Fire Upon the Deep.

>197 Narilka: I’m about 70 pages in, and so far so good! I wouldn’t say it’s grabbed me as strongly as some of her other work that I’ve read, at least not yet, but it’s definitely holding my interest and getting more interesting as it goes.

>198 reading_fox: I’m not sure what it is about her writing style that works so well for me. I’ve definitely felt that way about other authors, though. China Miéville would be the first that comes to mind. Interesting ideas, but I always end up with mixed feelings on the execution and don't feel as enthusiastic about him as many other people seem to.

>200 ScoLgo: I hope you enjoy it once you get to it! I’ve always felt like she was a bit of an underappreciated author, or underpublicized or something.

>201 YouKneeK: A Fire Upon the Deep is excellent. It's book 1 in a series but works really well as a stand-alone, (I have not read beyond the first novel yet but didn't feel as though there were any loose threads left hanging). It's a long book that really shifts scope along the way. I won't say more because spoilers... ;)

>192 YouKneeK: Song of the Beast seemed heavily concentrated Carol Berg to me, but it does work. I prefer the two duets, which should be listed as part of a meta series, but aren't at present.

>193 BookstoogeLT: I prefer McKillip to Berg as I find her more original in vision, but less of a comfort read factor, which is odd because Berg is harder on her characters but maybe it's because I can keep enough distance from them that I then relax into the storytelling of a trusted author.

>194 YouKneeK: Song of the Beast maybe Is there a worse wringer than what Aidan goes through? ← answer when you finish!

>201 YouKneeK: I like China Miéville because he goes places other authors don't usually and his protagonists? seem more like real, flawed and limited people than most F&SF characters.

>201 YouKneeK: >202 ScoLgo: I agree with Scologo, A Fire Upon the Deep is excellent. I may have enjoyed A Deepness in the Sky a little more, but start with A Fire Upon the Deep.

>202 ScoLgo:, >204 Karlstar: Great, thanks, this may help me get around to him sooner.

>203 quondame: The Lighthouse and Sanctuary duets? I loved those. I also loved the Rai-Kirah trilogy which was my first introduction to her work. I’ve put a note on my spreadsheet to come back and look at your spoiler when I finish Song of the Beast.

We did a Green Dragon group read of Song of the beast a few years ago. When you've finished reading it you could go and see what we all thought! The thread shows up in the Conversations section of the book's page on LT. I remember not enjoying it as much as the other books by Berg that I've read but now I don't remember why.

Re Vernor Vinge: I loved A fire upon the deep and recently acquired a copy of A deepness in the sky, so I will read that soon.

>206 Sakerfalcon: Oh, that is great info, thank you! I’ve made myself a note to dig up the thread after I finish. It’s also good to get another vote for A Fire Upon the Deep. :)

>205 YouKneeK: I think the Rai-Kirah trilogy were the first Carol Berg I read - but before 2007 I have few clues except for books that I purchased as they came out or which made a huge impression on first read. And except for the purchase as released I wouldn't have a clue as to when I read them.

>208 quondame: I’ve often wished it had occurred to me earlier in life to keep track of my reading – what I read and what dates I read them if nothing else.

>209 YouKneeK: Same here! I've actually been using the Book Collector software for a few years before LT started and I tried using some other library software before that.

>210 Karlstar: I’ve heard of the Book Collector software, but haven’t seen it. My Kindle and all the free/cheap e-books I was collecting for it back in 2008-ish drove me to create an Access database so I could keep track. I started recording some very brief thoughts and giving books a star rating, but for some reason it didn’t occur to me to add reading dates to my database until I joined GR. It seems so obvious in retrospect; I really don’t know why I didn’t think of it.

Given my own love of statistics, I thoroughly enjoyed >3 YouKneeK:!

Thanks for the warm welcome to the group.

>211 YouKneeK: Eh, what's obvious to us now wasn't then, nor will what is obvious in another 10 years be obvious now. I hope you have made peace with your past and not allowed the follies of your book youth to tear you apart inside!
*snicker*

>211 YouKneeK: >213 BookstoogeLT: Seriously, who thought of keeping track back then? I just read everything the library had that looked remotely interesting.

>212 PaulCranswick: Welcome to the group!

>211 YouKneeK:, >213 BookstoogeLT:, >214 Karlstar:

I started keeping monthly lists - what I was reading that month, when started, when finished - back in the nineties if not earlier.
Started with WP files, moved to spreadsheets, never got as far as DBs.

So, more data collecting, less technology. Where did that put me on the nerdiness scale?

>212 PaulCranswick: I usually post my year-to-date numbers at the beginning of each new quarter. There are a few other people around here who post regular statistics too, some of them monthly, so you should get your fill around here!

>213 BookstoogeLT: I would have been more ashamed, but I’ve been feeling pretty good about myself in comparison with a certain person who I found out loves those nasty maraschino cherries! ;) Because one person's food choices are totally comparable to another person's book logging choices... (At least now I can use the correct name for them. I should probably be even more ashamed about not knowing that.)

>214 Karlstar: That sounds pretty similar to my strategy up through my early 20’s, at least.

>215 -pilgrim-: Hmm... I'd say at least moderate nerdiness, and lots more "forsightfulness" than most of the rest of us! I think @BookstoogeLT started pretty early too, if I remember correctly. Creating a database is time-consuming, and doing such a thing when a spreadsheet would work well enough for most things is possibly a bit obsessive, so I do think DB creation is indicative of some extra nerdiness.

(Edited to remove a stray 's' so I don't look like I ain't got no knowing of grammar.)

>214 Karlstar: That is still my basic plan! Occasionally trumped by "I need to read this for research".

My reading lists mark trails of where I have been in, they are not maps directing where I am going to wander next.

>216 YouKneeK: :-D :-D :-D

>216 YouKneeK: "... who I found out loves those nasty maraschino cherries!"

I can only assume that you mis-typed tasty there? ;)

>219 ScoLgo: Oh no, not another maraschino cherry lover! ;) (And no, I most certainly did not!)

>220 YouKneeK: but... but... what else can you put into the holes of the pineapple slices on the ham?

>221 Darth-Heather: Oh, man! I wish you hadn't done that! I've begun craving good foods. All I can manage is drive-thru.

And what else do you plop into the bottom of a glass of orange juice for the grandkids?

>221 Darth-Heather: Wow, reminds me of culinary gems from the 1970s. I recall the non-steak offerings at steak houses were usually gammon and pineapple.

I prefer the more traditional cloves.

(Makes evil avert sign for whatever that was in post >221 Darth-Heather:)

>224 Busifer: :D

Bravo >219 ScoLgo: & >221 Darth-Heather:!!!!

I applaud your good taste in the finer foods area...

>216 YouKneeK: See, we are Legion and we are sweet!

>221 Darth-Heather: Crab apples.

>221 Darth-Heather: Wow, LOL! If it weren’t for the maraschino cherries, that would look rather good, and I’m not even that big a fan of ham.

>224 Busifer: Because of the maraschino cherries, the ham, the pineapple, or the toothpicks? ;)

>226 BookstoogeLT: Legion, maybe, but sweet…?! ;)

I feel the need to find out just how many maraschino cherry lovers there are lurking around here, so I offer you this anonymous poll. For anybody not familiar with the term, maraschino cherries are not nice, glorious, fresh cherries. They’re these nasty, horrible things processed in some mysterious manner to make them taste as disgusting as possible. Often found lurking on top of ice cream sundaes, and apparently ham too. (Um, not that I want to bias the poll or anything. You can probably guess how I voted...)

>227 quondame: No! Apple Crabs are much too cute to eat...



>228 YouKneeK: Regarding maraschino cherries... I actually can take 'em or leave 'em. Just couldn't resist the 'typo' comment since you were only a single character off. So, not really a legionnaire. Instead, I am your first 'undecided' vote, (sorry @BookstoogeLT).

>221 Darth-Heather: Looks delicious! Count me in the maraschino cherry camp, but only in certain ways, like on that ham. I don't eat them straight (ick?) and I don't put them in drinks. I would eat them with a ham, I would eat them with some spam...

>228 YouKneeK: I don't want them near my ham, but they are tasty on certain flavors of ice cream.

>228 YouKneeK: What you describe is no more a maraschino cherry than American cheese is cheddar. But have you ever had a real maraschino cherry?


>229 ScoLgo: Well in my day... Gosh that's cute. Well, my mom used crab apples in the pineapple rings. I guess they are pretty rare now.

>228 YouKneeK: Sweet as a pretty pretty princess riding a unicorn that flies!
hahahahahaa....

I love cherries, but I prefer (black) cherries in kirsch to maraschino. I associate them with Babycham in the 70s.

>228 YouKneeK: Yikes, as of right now it’s 8 vs 2 in favor of maraschino cherries, with 2 undecided. At least I’m not completely alone with my “no” vote, but it's looking a bit scary out there! ;)

>229 ScoLgo: That apple crab is adorable!

>230 Karlstar: Spam and maraschino cherries…? Thanks, now I’m starting to regret eating breakfast. :p

>231 clamairy: Ice cream is really the only place I’ve encountered them. Nobody in my family has ever bought them to use in/on anything. I don't even know how my family feels about them, actually! I think my mom likes them -- I vaguely remember giving her mine whenever we went out for ice cream.

>232 quondame: It’s probably safe to say I haven’t had that brand, although I’ve never known what brand I was eating the very few times I ate one. Every now and then, mostly in the folly of my youth, I would think “It’s a cherry, I love cherries, how bad can it be?” And then I’d be reminded that they taste nothing like cherries.

>233 BookstoogeLT: If >230 Karlstar: hadn’t already made me sick, that would have! ;)

>234 Maddz: I don’t think I’ve ever had those. I love fresh cherries. The only non-fresh type of cherries I've ever enjoyed are the ones in cherry pie with all that syrupy, sugary, cherry goodness!

>235 YouKneeK: I was with you on the "Maraschino cherries? Heck, no!" But now you try to tell me that cherries themselves are acceptable? That is a slippery slope, my friend.

>235 YouKneeK: Oddly, I had a slice of cherry pie for lunch today. Paul had walked into town to pay in a cheque, and toured the market. He got me a slice as a treat.

Incidentally, you're not confusing maraschino cherries with glacé cherries, are you? I'd expect to find the latter in ice cream not the former.

I added to your "no, never" tally, in spite of loving the Shirley Temple cocktail i used to have in restaurants when my parents were drinking something with more kick to it. I never ate the cherry though, and putting one on top of ice cream is a good way to ruin a bowl of ice cream.

>232 quondame: I have a bottle of this that I received as a gift, and I have been nursing it along for over a year. It's exquisite.

I am currently eating a small bowl of cherry amaretto icecream and chortling away as I read this thread. Polls are a great thing for enlivening a discussion!

Good stuff!

>239 clamairy: Now that looks like something worth pursuing....

I'm not really a cherry fan but I have a weakness for

>236 -pilgrim-: LOL, sorry, I’m afraid I do find fresh cherries entirely acceptable. I don’t really eat them that often though, as I find the pits to be a nuisance and I tend to make a mess with them. I'm more likely to go for strawberries, blackberries, or blueberries.

>237 Maddz: Mmmm cherry pie! It’s one of my favorite pies, except for maybe rhubarb. Or rhubarb cherry pie! Ok, now that I’ve Googled glacé cherries, it’s entirely possible I’m confusing the two. However, one search result I found indicated that glacé cherries (also called candied cherries) are maraschino cherries that have been even further processed “by cooking them in thick flavored syrup”, so I guess technically I’m still talking about maraschino cherries either way, but now I have no idea which one(s) I’ve eaten. The beginning of the article did refer to maraschino cherries being on top of ice cream sundaes, so maybe it’s more common to use them that way here in the U.S.

>238 MrsLee: Woo hoo, another “no”! This makes me feel better to have a little more company in the "no" camp, and I totally agree with you about them ruining ice cream. ;)

>240 BookstoogeLT: Food seems to help, too. The last time my thread blew up this much was when we were talking about biscuits and cookies and muffins and such.

>242 YouKneeK: Ahhh yes, that great discussion where we nuanced greatly the difference between biscuits, cookies and muffins, depending on what country you were from.

And I just realized, this thread is already almost at the 250 mark! Holy smokes....

>243 BookstoogeLT: Haha yep, that was the one! I was debating whether to start a new thread with my next review, which will be probably be tonight since I just now finished the book. I’m leaning toward no, as I’d hate to risk cutting off the lovely cherry conversation prematurely, although it may have just about run its course anyway. I'll definitely start a new thread by the next review, but if anybody think the thread is slow (@Karlstar?) I’ll be happy to start it sooner.

>203 quondame: I can answer your spoiler-tagged question now. ;) Not very many, that’s for sure! In terms of hour-for-hour misery, Aidan probably has even Robin Hobb’s characters beat, but Carol Berg’s books tend to end on a more hopeful note which affects how I remember them.

Review: Song of the Beast by Carol Berg



Song of the Beast is a standalone fantasy novel set on a fictional world with dragons. I haven’t read tons of fantasy books with dragons, but I have read several and this book wasn’t like any of the ones I’ve read, at least not in any significant way. The story opens up with a character named Aidan as he’s being released after 17 years of imprisonment. He’s a mess, his fingers were broken repeatedly for years, he’s afraid to talk, and he doesn’t even know why he was imprisoned nor why he was released. He doesn’t get much of a chance to lick his wounds before his life is in danger again.

One thing I like about Carol Berg’s writing is that she starts off with what seems like a simple story, and I think I can see where things are going, but she keeps revealing new layers and I keep realizing that there was just a little more to what was going on than I had suspected. Her stories may not be super complex, but neither are they ever quite as straight-forward as they first appear, and I never find myself comparing them to other books because they aren’t full of tropes, or at least she doesn’t take them in a common direction.

Another thing I like about Carol Berg’s writing is that she can tell a full, satisfying story in a relatively short span of pages. This book was a little under 500 pages and is not part of a series. I’ve also read two very satisfying duologies that she’s written, and one very satisfying trilogy. I enjoy a long, epic fantasy series as much as the next epic fantasy fan, with characters who become my second family for months, but they’re a huge time commitment and they limit my ability to get to other books I’m also interested in. It’s great to be able to satisfy that craving in a smaller dose.

This book was a little more romancey than her other books that I’ve read, and that part was maybe a little tropey and angsty, but I didn’t feel like it overshadowed the story. I bought into it well enough and never felt annoyed by it. I liked the main characters, especially Aidan. I preferred reading from his POV, although I liked the other main POV well enough. I just had a little bit of trouble adjusting after I’d been reading from the first person of Aidan for most of the first 250 pages, and it switched to the first-person POV of a different character. Sometimes I forgot I was reading from a different POV when I first picked the book up after not having read it for a few hours. This wasn’t a big problem for me, just an occasional annoyance, and there were advantages to telling parts of the story from the POV of different characters.

This is the 8th book I’ve read by the author and I consider her to be one of my favorites. I enjoyed this book a lot, and it reminded me that I really need to fit her into my reading schedule more often. However, I did like the other 7 better. This one held my interest and I was always happy to pick it back up when I had the time, but I never quite reached that point where nothing short of a catastrophe could make me put the book down like what I’ve experienced with her other books. I’m giving it 4.5 stars, but rounding down to 4 on Goodreads.

Next Book
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. This will be my 6th book by her. Of the books I read previously, I liked 4 of them a lot (the Xenogenesis trilogy and Kindred) but was lukewarm on the other one (Wild Seed).

>242 YouKneeK: Did you know that Parkerhouse style ice cream is basically vanilla with maraschino cherry pieces?

Wishing you a lovely long weekend.

>246 Karlstar: I didn’t. I had in fact never even heard of Parkerhouse. It sounds like, if I happen to run across it, I should turn around and run in the opposite direction.

>247 PaulCranswick: Thank you, you too!

The poll in >228 YouKneeK: has held steady at 9 yes, 3 no, and 3 undecided for a few days. I think it’s safe to say the maraschino cherry lovers have won this battle, just please don’t contaminate my ice cream! ;)

>247 PaulCranswick:, >248 YouKneeK: Cross out the “you too”, because I just remembered you don’t live in the U.S., sorry about that! But I hope you have a happy Monday. ;) (The fireworks that are shot off in my area for every holiday and possible-holiday that ever existed were going off, which reminded me that tomorrow is a holiday, which reminded me of this exchange, which sent me running back to my computer to issue a correction.)

>248 YouKneeK: I have a longer holiday than you. It is the end of Ramadan here in Malaysia (and elsewhere of course). As it fell on a Sunday, Monday AND Tuesday are public holidays. It is our biggest holiday of the year.......yipppeeee

>250 PaulCranswick: Ah, very nice, I hope you enjoy the remainder of your time off!

I had to work for a few hours yesterday, but it was less time than I've spent working in other recent weekends and I’m hoping to have today completely off. (Well, I already logged in this morning to take care of something, but it was less than 5 minutes so I’m not counting it.)

Since I've finished my current book and will be posting another review in the near future, I'll be starting a new thread in the even more near future. Please see the link below (in a minute or two).