Karlstar's (Jim's) Reading for 2020 Part 2

June 2020 and time for a new thread! New house, new thread!

Here's what I'm reading in 2020.
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Core by Peter V. Brett
Indomitable by Terry Brooks
Misspent Youth by Peter F. Hamilton
Empire Games by Charles Stross
The Waking Fire by Anthony Ryan
The Fall of Shannara: The Black Elfstone by Terry Brooks
The Pioneers by David McCullough
Jimmy the Hand, by Raymond E. Feist and S.M. Stirling

March Reading plans
I think it is time to re-read the Galactic Milieu trilogy while I am waiting for To Kill a Mockingbird to arrive from ABE.
Jack the Bodiless by Julian May
Armageddon Rag by George R. R. Martin (Valentine's Day gift)
Darkwalker on Moonshae by Doug Niles
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Diamond Mask, by Julian May
Magnificat by Julian May
Black Tide Rising by John Ringo and Gary Poole (short story collection)

April Reading plans
Armageddon Rag (started but not finished in March)
Port of Shadows by Glen Cook
The Traders War by Charles Stross (started, set down)
Sundiver by David Brin (re-read)
King of Ashes by Raymond E. Feist

May Reading plans
Legend by David Gemmell (re-re-read)
Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher
The Bards of Bone Plain by Patricia McKillip

June Reading plans
The Traders' War by Charles Stross, finally finished
Blackwing by Ed McDonald
Academ's Fury by Jim Butcher

July Reading
Line of Polity by Neal Asher
Puppet Masters by Robert Heinlein
Cursor's Fury, Codex Alera book 3, by Jim Butcher
Me 'n God in the Coffee Shop by Rene Donovan
The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough

August Reading
Insurrection by David Weber and Steve White
Crusade by David Weber and Steve White - abandoned, not reading
The Bell At Sealy Head by Patricia McKillip
The Legend of Drizzt: Homeland graphic novel
Warship by Joshua Dalzelle
20,000 Leagues under the Sea(s) by Jules Verne
Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams
Prador Moon by Neal Asher

September Reading
Prador Moon by Neal Asher
The Demon Awakens by R. A. Salvatore

I use a 1 to 10 rating system because I started rating books on the internet long before LT and because I like the additional granularity. Here's my rating scale explained. Checking my LT books, the 8 ratings stop right around book 500, so I'm consistent there, but I only have about 70 books rated 9 stars or higher, so either I'm being too tough or there just aren't that many 9 or 10 star books. I would guess my most common rating is 6, I like most of what I read.

1 - So bad, I couldn't finish it. DO NOT READ!!!
2 - Could have finished, but didn't. Do not read. This one means I made a conscious choice not to finish, usually about halfway through the book. Something is seriously wrong here.
3 - Finished it, but had to force myself. Not recommended, if you're a complete-ist and read it, you'll regret it.
4 - Finished it, but really didn't like it. Not recommended unless you have to read everything.
5 - Decent book, recommended if you have spare time and need something to read.
6 - Good book, I enjoyed it, and would recommend it.
7 - Good book, recommended for everyone. I may have read it more than once, and would consider buying the hardcover edition.
8 - Great book, I would put it in the Top 500 of all time. Read more than once, I probably have the hardcover.
9 - Great book, top 100 all time. Read more than once, if I don't have the hardcover edition, I want one!
10 - All-time great book, top 50 material. Read more than twice, I probably have more than one copy/edition.

My ratings also include the Slogging Through the Mud (STTM) rating/index. This goes back to one of Elizabeth Moon's Paksenarrion books where she spends WAY too much time actually describing how the army spent days slogging through the mud. If there is a lot of travel in the book and too much time describing the traveling, the STTM rating will be high.

Happy new thread! (And happy new home!)

>3 clamairy: Thanks!

Legend by David Gemmell
STTM: 2 - a little necessary travel, not the focus
Rating: 8 out of 10

This was a re-re-re-read, at least the 3rd if not 4th time I've read this. Here's my LT review.

One of Gemmells' best. Not a great plot, but Druss is the ultimate stubborn, old hero. Druss is an admirable hero without being cute, invincible or endowed with super powers. That doesn't mean he isn't tough, nasty, and able to kick butt early and often, which is where Gemmell is at his best. Definitely worth reading and a good introduction to the Drenai series of books.

Druss is an old hero, famous for holding out against impossible odds at Skeln Pass (Gemmell's version of Thermopylae) and questing across the world to rescue his kidnapped wife. He's old now though (60?) and retired, though he hasn't given Death the satisfaction of claiming him yet. When his old friend, the Earl of Bronze asks him to come and help defend the fortress of Dros Delnoch against the invading Nadir hordes, Druss realizes it is a lost cause - but the end isn't determined until the end, so he goes to join the siege.

In the other plotline, Regnak is a dilettante with a reputation for being a hero. He actually did save someone once, but he's always scared and not what he considers hero material. When he and a young woman, Virae, fight off some bandits, she asks him to also accompany her to Dros Delnoch, where she is going to join her father, the Earl of Bronze.

The rest of the book is about the siege. There's some magic and mysticism, as The Thirty, a sect of warrior priests who worship The Source also join the defenders.

Dros Delnoch is a mighty fortress, strongly built but there aren't enough defenders. It is a lost cause, but with Druss around, it is more about the spirit of the defenders than numbers.

>4 Karlstar: That review is tempting me towards a book that I had never considered before. Thank you.

BTW, I think your Touchstone needs correcting.

>5 -pilgrim-: Have you read any Gemmell before? Thanks for the catch on the touchstone, you'd think I'd have learned by now, but no.

>6 Karlstar: No, I don't think I have. I seem to have mentally categorised him as "epic quest" sub-Tolkien - and I have actually no idea where I picked up that impression.

>7 -pilgrim-: I would definitely not put him in that category! More 'low fantasy', I guess.

>8 Karlstar: Heh, strange how one can get wrong impressions stuck in one's head.

BTW have you ever read Ed McDonald?

>10 Karlstar: No, but that sounds interesting!

>6 Karlstar: I read one Gemmell and really enjoyed it. It might have been Legend. My kids love his work.

I had the pleasure of attending a reading he did in the 1990s. He was very entertaining and engaging. Someone asked how he felt if someone did not like something he had written. His response was:

"Mr & Mrs Gemmell brought up a very confident son. He knows that if he writes something and 10,000 people do not like it, then there are 10,000 very stupid people in the world."

This sounds very arrogant but it was not. It was delivered as a tongue-in-cheek response to what was quite a cheeky question. I think, like many, if not all, authors Gemmell had his own crises of confidence and if he did not develop a defence mechanism of some sort he could have been overwhelmed by self-doubt.

>10 Karlstar: Blackwing was one of my favourite fantasy reads of the year it came out.

(And I have just bought both sequels in the Kindle sale ;-) )

>12 -pilgrim-: I will put it on my list!

Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher
STTM: 1 - very little travel related substance
Rating: 7 out of 10

Having only read 1 Jim Butcher book before, one of the Dresden Files series, I really didn't know what to expect. This is book one of the Codex Alera.

I thought this was a great start to the series. At the start, we have 2 people on a mission to spy out a rebel encampment. One is an experienced instructor, the other a young lady named Amara, apparently on her graduation mission. Since the author just throws us into things, some of the terminology is strange. The experienced person is a 'Cursor'. They both have control of 'Furies', which are basically elementals.

The rest of the book follows, mainly, 3 people. Amara is the new Cursor with the ability to control a single air elemental. Isana is an older women, living in a frontier settlement, with the ability to control a water elemental. This gives her control over water, plus the ability to heal and the ability to sense other's emotions. Why water elementals give so much ability is not explained. The third character is Tavi, a teenaged boy who apparently cannot control any elementals. This is extremely rare and considered a disability.

The characters are caught up in the action of the rebels and interactions with the native Marat. The Marat people don't control elementals, they apparently have different gifts, including control over beasts.

There's a lot of action in this; also some, but not too much politics and a reasonable magic system. It actually reminded me of the Anthony Ryan Raven's Tower books in tone, though magic is much more common.

There were a few things I thought missing. The history and background is pretty much left unexplained. Isana, for one, seems to have a significant backstory that is only hinted at. At times this gets quite dark and there are definitely mature themes. That's not really a problem, just an observation.

>14 Karlstar: Glad you enjoyed it as much as you did. But have no fear, you'll get a lot of backstory :-D

When I saw Ryan's Raven Tower books, I was hopeful. Then I read the first book and never had the urge to read any more. I guess I'm a sucker for actual magic fantasy, not just faux-medieval fantasy, hahahahahaa.

As for the rest of Codex Alera, will you read them all in a row or space them out between other reads?

>14 Karlstar: I’m glad to see you liked this. Between you and @BookstoogeLT, I’ll have to try to fit it in sooner rather than later. Next year might be a possibility.

>15 BookstoogeLT: I'm out of Amazon credits and I plan on reading book 2 on the Kindle, so I'll either be waiting to earn some credits or get some Amazon gift cards.

>16 YouKneeK: I was happy to see that the magic system is straightforward and not ridiculous. It may lean towards 'super powers' a bit, but we'll see in the next few books.

Going back to a conversation that was from my previous thread and a whole 9 days ago, I think I found the box with the original copy of Sundiver in it. Of course, that box was at the bottom and back of the pile of book boxes and the very last one I just moved to make room for the bookcase. It is also the 3rd marked 'Paperbacks B Library'.

>18 Karlstar: Nice!

I finished The Bards of Bone Plain, review soon! I also picked up The Traders War again, it is going along quite well, though sometimes I still wonder why I'm reading it.

>20 Karlstar: Looking forward to your review...

>14 Karlstar: this review gives me hope that Jim Butcher might be worthwhile after all. I read the first one of the Harry Dresden ones, and it was fun but not enticing enough to convince me to get another. Then I tried The Aeronaut's Windlass and found it impenetrable. I re-read the first 50 pages three times and still didn't know what was going on. Maybe that one takes more patience than I possess, but it turned me off of Butcher.

>22 Darth-Heather: I'm glad to hear it. I found Furies of Calderon to be almost nothing like the Harry Dresden novel I read. Not in tone or substance.

The Bards of Bone Plain by Patricia A. McKillip
STTM: 1 - just a little travel for education purposes, mostly set in 1 location
Rating: 8 out of 10

This is a rare 8 out of 10 on the first reading. Thanks very much to the many of you who got me restarted on reading McKillip! I'm already looking forward to the next one, whichever that may be.

This really is a great book. It made me laugh, snort, mutter to myself and maybe groan once or twice. I also love this edition and the cover art, though I'll soon wish I had a hardcover version.

This book is all about bards, poetry and music and the magic behind the words. It mostly concerns two young bards, Nairn and Phelan. It takes place in the same location, but in two different time periods.

Nairn is the bard of the past. He becomes famous as a pig-singing farmboy and sets off across the lands learning the songs of the people, until he runs into an actual bard and his life takes a turn for the serious.

Phelan is the bard of the present. He is both a tutor and student at a school for bards, started back in Nairn's time. By now, Nairn's name has mostly faded into myth, though Phelan comes to study the same time period for his master's paper.

In addition to those two, there are several other major characters. Princess Beatrice, a contemporary of Phelan's, is obsessed with digging up artifacts buried underneath the city that has grown up around the bard school tower. Zoe, a friend of Phelan's is also a master at the school and a fantastic singer.

Eventually, both Nairn and Phelan get caught up in the search for the magic in bardic music, something that is just a rumor to most ordinary bards. There's also another mystery concerning some mysterious people, but I don't want to give more away, this is not a mystery novel.

Bards is extremely well written, though like most books that deal with two time periods in the same location, it gets a little confusing at times. However, McKillip's fantastic prose more than makes up for it. It is just a pleasure to read.

I feel like one of the judges on a cooking show that has just consumed a masterpiece, but has to find something to negative to say. So, my one negative thing about this book - Bards! Bards! Bards! Bards in the morning, bards in the evening, bards at suppertime. All bards, all the time. The title is really accurate. Still, that's not really a negative, just a comment about the subject.

>24 Karlstar: I'm snorting... So it's got an excess of 'bardage.' Thank you for this. It's going on Mount Toobey.

>24 Karlstar: Excellent! Another convert for McKillip. Welcome brother, to the fellowship ;-)

If you care, Kinuko Craft is the cover artist. You can find the full art by googling her name and the books title. Her stuff is just so gorgeous...

>26 BookstoogeLT: I've been a fan for a long time, but I really do appreciate you folks getting me started again. Thanks also for the tip on the cover art, I love good covers!

According to LT, my paperback copy of The Riddle-master of Hed is a DelRey first edition from 1978. I'm not sure that's when I picked it up, it was probably 1980. Several of the characters in Bards reminded me of Deth, the High One's harpist, though maybe that was just because they were both bards.

>27 Karlstar: I think McKillip uses "character types" throughout her books rather liberally. For me, I always read her characters as embodiments of ideas she was trying to get across, so it never occurred to me to compare character against character across her books.

I picked up The Traders War again, I'm almost done. I'm enjoying it, but sometimes I wonder why.

The Traders' War by Charles Stross
STTM: 3 - lots of instant world hopping, one train ride
Rating: 5 out of 10

This is the 2nd book in the Merchant Princes omnibus editions of this series, including books 3 and 4 of the original series. I read the 4th omnibus book recently (7 & 8) but not book 1, so I sort of knew what to expect, though I really expected it to move along faster.

This series is ultimately about conflicts between people who can world-walk across alternate universes and the governments of those worlds. At the start of this book, there are 3 known Earths. Ours, one where a there is roughly a 1900 level of technology in New Britain and one with a more 1700's level of technology. All are set mostly in the eastern USA, as the world-walkers always go to exactly the same location in each world.

Miriam Beckstein, her mother Iris and grandmother are all world-walkers. Originally from the lowest technology world, but the one where The Clan was the first (only?) to have the world-walking talent. The Clan uses this talent to run a criminal racket in 'our' timeline, smuggling drugs, buying advanced weapons, stealing advanced weapons, that sort of thing. When the Feds find out about this, they immediately start trying to infiltrate.

Miriam isn't a criminal, she was raised in our timeline, recently discovered her heritage and was brought to the lower tech world, the Gruinmarkt, by her mother. Her mother and grandmother immediately start a power struggle with Miriam as the pawn. While that goes on, there is politics in both Gruinmarkt and New Britain, where Miriam has a research company, using stolen/free patents from our timeline.

This book was interesting and dragged me along, I wanted to read it. I often kept asking myself why. Is the author going to set up an alternate world that is better than ours, using Miriam's technology plans and the benefit of her knowing what not to do? That seems like a very ambitious project and neither of the other two alternate worlds seem like they are headed in the 'better' direction. I did wonder why Miriam would do such a thing, since her mother and grandmother are on different sides and neither one seems like a great example.

I guess I'll have to read the next couple of books to find out! Apparently there are 9 books currently available and the 10th is due next January, so the last 2 will have to be in the non-omnibus editions, or I'll have to wait for the combined edition.

Just finished Blackwing, I did enjoy it, review soon. Not sure if Line of Polity is up next or something else, it might be time for a non-fiction.

>30 Karlstar:

Thank you for reviewing this. I read one of the Merchant Princes books back in 2009 - probably The Hidden Family, going by the covers.

I always meant to return to the series, but never urgently enough to actually do so. Hopefully I shall now discover whether it would, in fact, be worthwhile to do so!

>31 Karlstar: And I am glad to hear that you did enjoy this.

>31 Karlstar: Line of Polity ..... Line of Polity ..... Line of Polity .....

Not that I'm a huge fan of Asher's or anything ;-)

>32 -pilgrim-: I really am curious to see if his goal is building a better world or something else. Thanks also for the recommendation of Blackwing.

>35 Karlstar: It has been a couple of years since I read Blackwing. My copy is not where I am, and I am currently in lockdown here. I recently acquired both sequels in a Kindle sale.

So I shall unashamedly be using your review as a way of reminding myself of the situation, before beginning them. I am looking forward to it! ;-)

I'll take that as a hint!

Blackwing by Ed McDonald
STTM: 6 out of 10. The Misery may not have much mud, but there's definitely some slogging
Rating: 7 out 10

The cover blurb describes this as a mix of China Mieville and David Gemmell. Fast paced, not too complicated adventure/battle fantasy. I would say it leans more towards Gemmell than Mieville, it has some unique aspects but it just isn't funky enough for Mieville. There are also cannon and guns involved, at least primitive ones, so this may venture into gunpowder fantasy, though there are no traditional fantasy creatures, really.

Ryhalt Galharrow is a Blackwing (the only one we meet in the book), a sort of special forces commander who is beholden only to Crowfoot, a super wizard guardian of the Range, the boundary lands holding back the undead drudge hordes of the Deep Kings. Next to the Range is the Misery, a magically destroyed area that has very strange terrain, strange creatures and a non-normal sky, created in some past magical catastrophe that was a last ditch defense. I really wanted to write The Range and The Misery, but that was just in my head, 'the' is not capitalized in the book, it just felt that way.

Captain Galharrow is a mercenary and bounty hunter most of the time, doing what he can to make a living, until after a 5 year absence, Crowfoot starts giving him orders again. Galharrow has skeletons in his closet but while rough around the edges, he's generally a good guy. Along with his team of Nenn and Tnota, we first meet them in the Misery, chasing some deserters for a bounty. This is what they do. Nenn is a warrior woman with a lot of history with Galharrow and Tnota is his 'navigator', apparently navigating the Misery requires special skills. At Station Twelve they find an old acquaintance of Galharrow's, Lady Ezabeth Tanza, a Spinner. Human magic uses some component of the light of the moons, stored in batteries and used by Talents and Spinners in various ways.

The humans in this book are caught up in an eternal war between the Nameless and the Deep Kings. While the Nameless seem semi-awful, they are the monsters on the side of the humans, while the Deep Kings just want to turn everyone into Drudge. Galharrow and his team and Lady Tanza all get caught up in a conspiracy of who is actually on which side, which takes up the rest of the book.

One of the unique and interesting aspects is how Crowfoot, one of the 'Nameless' god-like wizards, communicates with Galharrow. When Crowfoot has something to say, Galharrow's crow tattoo becomes a read crow and comes out of his arm and talks to him. Soon after the start of the book, Crowfoot sends Galharrow and his crew off to Station Twelve, a fortress on the border, to save 'her'. Apparently crows possessed by god-like wizards don't communicate much better than normal crows. To me, the Nameless, who include Crowfoot, Nall, the Lady of the Waves, Songlope and a couple of others all sounded too much like The Taken from Glen Cook's novels, but it wasn't a problem.


Semi-dark but not too bad, there is a lot of action in this book and some good writing. A little over the top at times, but quite good. This book also pretty much stands on its own, while it is part of a series, it did not feel like I was missing something by not reading the next book, which I will do. One of the creepier aspects of the book are the opponents. The semi-undead Drudge aren't that interesting, but the Darlings, super sorcerors that look like children are pretty creepy, as are the Brides.

>37 Karlstar: Aghhh - I had forgotten the Brides!!

I am not sure that Galharrow's company are mercenaries exactly. In terms of the powers and authority they have to carry out their enquiries, they seemed to me to be more like a free-roving inquisitorial unit, but with a mandate focussed on finding treason rather than heresy.

The company seems to function like military companies during the Thirty Years War: the officer is a military commander in the pay of the Crown (or the Nameless, n this case), but it is up to him to recruit and pay his men however he can.

But unfortunately, your excellent review suggests that there are too many details that I have forgotten, and that a reread will be necessary. :-/

>39 -pilgrim-: I had to be vague to avoid spoilers, a lot of what I mentioned actually happens in chapter 1!

>38 -pilgrim-: I agree, they were military troops in a chain of command with him actually commissioned, but he did have to pay them and pay for his own booze and other debts not mentioned yet.

>34 BookstoogeLT: I picked up Academ's Fury and I'm already 60 pages in, so that's next!

>40 Karlstar: Yes, I appreciate that you were being spoiler-careful. It was more that your review raised questions that I realised that I used to know the answer to e.g. how the Nameless became the Nameless, how one becomes a Drudge, and Nenn's entire backstory!

I think that the resemblance to Thirty Years War military structures may be deliberate - after all it is a period with a similar level of tech (gunpowder, not that accurate), that was mired in a seemingly endless war. The effects on a country of being on a permanent wartime economy footing are really thought through in Blackwing and well, similar problems produce similar solutions.

I don't see having to provide for his men precludes them being an official unit: even in the 18th century, it was quite usual for a colonel in the regular British army to pay for his men's uniforms out of his own pocket, for example.

Will you be continuing with the series?

>37 Karlstar: When flintlock fantasy is done right, I love it. It's not a huge sub-genre yet though, so it has some chances to really shine.

>40 Karlstar: Well, I certainly can't fault you for picking that up over even Asher :-D

>41 -pilgrim-: Nothing about it would cause me not to finish! Thanks for the recommendation.

I've put so many bookshelves together lately I thought I'd start a thread with my thoughts, please add on!

http://www.librarything.com/topic/321906#

>31 Karlstar: I stumbled over Gridlinked back in the days, and enjoyed it enough to buy the next three books in the series. Then... I kind of lost interest? Sometimes I think I should pick them back up, and maybe I will: if you chose to read Line of Polity I'd be interested to hear what you think. Maybe it will re-kindle my interest?

>45 Busifer: I have been diverted, but Line of Polity is next up on the list.

>45 Busifer: While Gridlinked hooked me onto Asher's Polity Universe, it definitely is a debut work and one of his slower works. If you want high octane, try his Spatterjay trilogy. But the Agent Cormac series is a good place to start as he does a lot of world building for the Polity in those 5 books.

>47 BookstoogeLT: Well, it was The Voyage of the Sable Keech that had me stop getting his books on publication; haven't read one since.
Sometimes think that I might come back to the Polity universe and Asher's writings, but then I find something else to read instead ;-)

(ETA: I remember enjoying Skinner, though)

>48 Busifer: Oh, if you stopped with Sable Keech, then I guess I don't have much else to say, except, good luck :-D

Done with Academ's Fury, picked up Line of Polity again, but haven't gotten much farther in it yet.

I've picked up the pace in Line of Polity. Not sure what is next, I've found some books in the collection from the TBR pile.

What are our choices to vote on to bend your reading habits to our will? (not that I'm a raging egomaniac or anything)

>52 BookstoogeLT: No, "Dr Lord Bookstooge", of course you are not...

*steps carefully back*

>53 -pilgrim-: I am continually amazed at how much insight you have into my character and psyche :-D
If I didn't know better, I'd claim you were from Vespon Two, or some other planet filled with esp'ers who could only tell the truth about others.

>52 BookstoogeLT: Things that I've found on the list, plus some others that I noticed, but didn't feel compelled to read ATM.

Insurrection by David Weber and Steve White
A Heinlein Trio
The Web of Wizardry by Juanita Coulson

>55 Karlstar: I have not read anything by Coulson. In fact, I don't think I've even heard of her.

>56 BookstoogeLT: I did a search, she's a fan magazine editor and sometime fantasy writer, that particular book goes back to 1978.

>54 BookstoogeLT: Sssh! No one is supposed to know...

>57 Karlstar: Ahhh, a magazine editor. I've been into magazines, not even back in my comic days. Give me a book if you want me to read :-D

>58 -pilgrim-: I see nothing, I hear nothing, I say nothing.

Yeah.......... (especially that "say" nothing) :-D

I'm guessing that I can get through Puppet Masters pretty quickly, so I think I'm starting with that.

>60 Karlstar: I seem to remember it being a short book, typical of its time. So here is to hoping you race through it :-D

>61 BookstoogeLT: If by 'typical of its time' you meant, typical of 1951 Heinlein, you were right on! Though I'm starting to wonder if maybe he didn't have a slightly deeper point.

>62 Karlstar: You correctly interpreted me :-D

After much slacking the last 3 weeks, it is definitely time for a review!

Academ's Fury by Jim Butcher
STTM: 3 some cross country travel, but not for travel or word-count sake
Rating: 6 out of 10

This is the 2nd book in the Codex Alera series. I enjoyed the first one, my wife picked this one off of my wishlist for Father's Day, so I was on to book 2.

Unfortunately there's not much I can say about book 2 without some spoilers from book 1. If you haven't read book 1 and you are interested, skip this review!

This book picks up with the same cast of characters and picks up the plot at the same point as the end of book 1. This is actually a good thing, I'm glad to see the cast of characters isn't becoming huge and there isn't a lot of back and forth in time with the plot. I don't mind that, but sometimes the prevalence of it in modern fantasy gets tiring.

The realm is still under threat of civil war. The First Lord is still the First Lord, but no younger or less tired than in the first book. In this book, the action shifts more directly towards what is going on with the other Lords competing for rulership and what goes in the Calderon valley. That's one plot, which keeps some of the family busy, dealing with a new threat, the Vord, the ancient enemies of the Marat. What's good to see is that instead of treating the Marat like throw-away opponents, like orcs, Butcher has chosen to have them be able to forge relationships with the humans. The Vord are the new baddies, everyone hates the Vord, or should, the humans have never heard of them.

The rest of the action is in the capital with the First Lord. While there's a tiny bit of politics, that isn't really Butcher's style. He just uses the politics as a pause to throw in a few pages between the action scenes, of which there are plenty!

I was a bit puzzled by the new competitors for land in Alera, the Canim. Why giant wolf-men?

There's also a bit more romance in this one. Sometimes I got the feeling the author would remind himself that he really wasn't writing a YA book, and throw in a somewhat adult scene. Not too often and not too much. The characters are still good and the action is still good. I don't recall many instances of poorly written sentences or awful grammar, it was well written and edited as well. Good, standard fantasy.

>64 Karlstar: Glad to see you're still enjoying this :-) The world is filled with other species so the Canim are just another in that line. You'll be getting to know a lot more about them too...

>64 Karlstar: A few days ago, I filled out my tentative reading schedule through the first half of next year and the Codex of Alera series made the list. :)

>65 BookstoogeLT: I'm looking forward to learning more about the mysterious Icemen! I still don't know why there are giant wolfmen, but it is better than catcusmen.

>66 YouKneeK: I think you'll enjoy it. This is well written, well thought out fantasy without being too epic.

Bandwidth restored! For the last 9 months or so, I'd been living with slowly degrading network performance on this computer. I'd first put it down to switching from hardwired to wifi when we moved last fall (I hate wifi), but after moving here with a brand new modem and brand new decent D-link wifi router, it just got worse and worse. Last week when I ran a speed test, it said I was getting .2 MBps.
I ordered a new Linksys 802.11ac wifi adapter and just got it hooked up and it works! I can actually load the group page in less than multiple seconds now.

>68 Karlstar: Just so you know, I don't think the Icemen play much of a big part until either the 5th or final book...

The Line of Polity by Neal Asher
STTM: despite this being 'space opera', there is still slogging through the mud on the planet
Rating: 5 out of 10

My LT rating was 3 stars, but I'm knocking it down to 2 1/2 for a couple of reasons.

This was very entertaining. Once I got past the really simplistic combat encounter at the beginning, it moved along and kept me engaged - except for one part I'll explain later. Not sure it really qualifies for 'space opera', I don't like how that term gets tossed around to make people think a book is something it isn't.

This is the 2nd book in the Agent Cormac series. We jump in while Cormac is raiding a 'Separatist' (aka terrorist) base where his old enemy the mad scientist has made an Alien/Predator combo monster. The scientists name is 'Skellor' and of course he escapes. I couldn't read this book without calling him 'Skeletor'. Sorry, I just couldn't do it.

It takes a while for the various plot threads to weave together. There are three main threads that eventually make one. We have Cormac and his anti-separatist, anti-Skeletor mission; a young lady Eldene on a moon of a gas giant who is a indentured worker/slave, forced to farm for a cult, and a young 'Outlinker' boy who lives on a very low gravity space habitat with his Outlinker community. The opponents are Skeletor and a religious cult on a Separatist world. After they are all introduced, the plot really takes off and becomes nearly non-stop action.

The religion aspect is one of the really weaker aspects of this book. Asher seems to be one of the current crop of scifi writers who thinks it is his mission in life to prove to us that religion is bad, invalid and wrong. To do that, he invents a bad religion that enslaves and exploits people and commits terrorist acts to stay out of the AI-ruled Polity. Congrats, to prove your point, you invented a bad religion, run by bad people. Since this is entirely an invention of his imagination, it does not prove his point. At the start of every chapter, he has a woman reading a religious fairy tale book to a young boy that is just terrible. I have no idea what the point was supposed to be, I completely stopped reading them halfway through the book, that was the non-engaging part.

Otherwise this was fun and the characters are good. You'll have to read it yourself to find out what happens to Skeletor.

>70 BookstoogeLT: I just finished book 3, I'm getting there! I'm reading Me 'n God in the Coffee Shop now.

I don't usually post pictures, but we recently took the opportunity to visit the American side of Niagara Falls, since there were no tourists!

>71 Karlstar: Asher was on a real anti-religion kick at the time. I believe his wife had been diagnosed with some sort of terminal cancer and they both knew she wasn't going to make it. I'm certainly not defending that stuff, not me of all people :-), but this was the worst in any of books and he tones it down after this.

Nice pix!

>69 Karlstar: Congrats on getting the Wifi situation sorted out. Slow internet connections are very frustrating.

>73 Karlstar: Very pretty! I haven’t yet made it to Niagara Falls, on either side. I bet it's much nicer without tourists.

>73 Karlstar: The falls are gorgeous. Looks like you had a lovey sunny day for the visit too.

Niagara Falls without tourists is much nicer, yes, though even with them, it's worth making the trip to see.

>75 YouKneeK: It took me a while to stop blaming wifi in general and realize it was the adapter in my PC, plus my computer's location in the opposite corner of the house.

Niagara Falls is always fantastic. Without crowds it is just more so. We can't cross the border into Canada right now, so that's all the view we'll get for a while.

On with the reviews.

The Puppet Masters by Robert Heinlein
STTM: none, everyone has flying cars!
Rating: 3 out of 10

I'm sure that back in 1951, this was received better than it is now. It probably inspired a Star Trek episode, but that is about all it has going for it. For me, a 3 rating basically means don't read this.

This is a first encounter gone wrong novel. The 'masters' are aliens from Titan who can 'ride' humans (and many other mammals) and possess them, as they are small, flat, pancake like creatures. I have a feeling that what Heinlein intended us to get out of this is that as humans, we are too likely not to believe something until we see it ourselves. In the case of the masters, they could conceal themselves under clothing and make people act natural, using our own radio and TV media against us to convince us that everything is ok. People don't investigate the flying saucer landings closely when the people in the area insist no such thing happened, and the masters get a good head start. Our heroes are the head of a top secret government agency, a male agent and a female agent, who of course fall for each other, etc.

Unfortunately, the book is full of sexism, domestic violence and other, unacceptable violence. Even for the 50's, I can't see why Heinlein would have two women co-workers punch each other.

>79 Karlstar: My experiences with Heinlein ended in the 1980s, I believe. I was annoyed with the sexism in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls back then, and I can't imagine too many of his books can have improved with age. It breaks my heart because I loved several of his books in the 70s, including Stranger in a Strange Land.. :o(

Glad you're connecting to the interwebs more quickly!

>80 clamairy: Stranger in a Strange Land was great, I think? I haven't re-read it since the 80's, so maybe I need to read it again. I thought it was at the time, but maybe it hasn't held up either.

>81 Karlstar: I wouldn't bet any money on that. After too many encounters with the Suck Fairy I have steered clear of the SciFi favorites of my younger days. We had a group read in here back in 2012 of Something Wicked This Way Comes and it was distressing for many of us.

@Karlstar, I posted this in the bargains thread, but I wasn’t sure how regularly you read it, if at all. You’d mentioned that you might be interested in picking up The Black Prism, the first book in that Lightbringer series I recently read by Brent Weeks. It’s on sale on the U.S. Amazon site for $2.99, today only, although it does go on sale pretty often.

>83 YouKneeK: Weirdly enough, I just got done glancing at that thread and came over here to this one! That is super tempting, but I just picked up 2 big history books from B&N an hour ago. Oh well, I guess Black Prism can sit on my kindle for a few weeks.

Finished Me 'n God in the Coffee Shop, now on to The Path Between the Seas

>83 YouKneeK: Darn it, I actually tried to purchase the book that day, but I see it did not go through.

Cursor's Fury by Jim Butcher
STTM: not much traveling, some flying
Rating: 7 out of 10

This is the 3rd book in the Codex Alera, which currently has 6 books listed in the series. As before, the plot is following the same, slow course, High Lords continue to maneuver for position and Alera moves closer and closer to full civil war. We see a lot less of the First Lord in this one, which just leaves more time for the same cast of characters - Isana, Amara, Bernard, Kitai and Tavi and their friends and allies. This time there is more pages spent on the Canim and less on the Marat, which is unfortunate, but not really a problem.

Like the first two books, this is big on action and low on politics. I did find it a bit weird that the book starts out with Tavi doing archaeology on a Roman site. Why Roman and not a made-up civilization just like the Romans? The author also goes overboard organizing his legions along Roman lines with Roman terminology. Not really a problem, it just felt a little weird. We still get large doses of Furycraft and new ways to use it along with both personal and military combat.

Well written, no complaints at all about editing or grammar and it was a very quick read. There are a couple of spots where the military battles seem a little off, but only in a very vague sense. Good stuff.

>87 Karlstar: The "werd on the street" is that Butcher wrote the Codex Alera on a bet that he couldn't write a mashup of roman legions and pokemon. If that "werd on the street" is legit, I'd say he completely won that bet :-D
Kind of spoilery, but not really, you find out later why things are based so closely on roman civilization...

>86 Karlstar: Oops! You’ll probably get another chance since I do see it go on sale pretty often.

>89 YouKneeK: I finally realized I tried ordering it when my wifi adapter was at it's worst. Most likely, while it looked like the transaction went through, Amazon was still considering it when I closed that browser tab, so it never actually completed. Next time!

>88 BookstoogeLT: Ah, that explains why all of a sudden in book 3, the furies are assuming forms. How was Captain's Fury?

>91 Karlstar: Every Codex Alera book for me this time around was 5 stars. I loved everything about it :-D
I think you'll get a bit of slogging in captain's fury....

Poking my nose in here, just to say "Hi."

I have a weird thing happen when I try to come to this group's page. It doesn't happen always, and I can't pin down any exact routine with it. The page won't load, so I click on Home page, it loads fine. I try to come to the group from there, it won't load, so I click on my own page, that loads fine, I try to click on the group from there, it won't load. So I click on the Groups page, loads fine, try to come here from there, no go. I go back to Groups page, click on the link here from the little box of my groups on the right, and this page loads immediately. The order of which page I go to and try to come back here can be completely random, and the successful link varies as well. So weird.

You got to hear all that because you mentioned your wifi trouble. :) Also to let you know your thread is being read by me, but I don't comment much. Take care.

>93 MrsLee: Happens to me all the time. Not just on my PC, but also on my phone and tablet. I think it might just be an issue with Chrome, because when I try to open it using FireFox it is fine. Weird, though.

>93 MrsLee: Thanks for stopping by Mrs. Lee! You too >94 clamairy:. Now that my wifi problems are fixed, I'm back to using Firefox, which has always been well behaved with GD, except for those odd pictures which don't show, sometimes. I always get to here by going to my 'Your books' page (my browser home page), opening Groups in a new tab, then Your Groups, then the Green Dragon page. Always works, though sometimes the load time is a little slow.

>93 MrsLee: I have not experienced that with groups but, occasionally a similar thing happens when trying to load a work page. It won't load unless I go through 'My Books'. Waiting a while also seems to clear it up, which leads me to believe these types of transient issues are probably bugs in the LT interface/database system as opposed to anything users or their browsers are doing. Having done a bit of database work in the past, I know that they (databases) need to be 'repaired' now and then to avoid huge crashes/data loss. So, these behaviors could also be caused by staff running database maintenance in the background.

>95 Karlstar: "I always get to here by going to my 'Your books' page (my browser home page), opening Groups in a new tab, then Your Groups, then the Green Dragon page."

Interesting how many ways there are to accomplish the same task. I keep the 'Talk' widget on my LT home page sorted by unread. That way, newest posts are always at the top for any groups where I am a member. Clicking on the 'unread' link loads the discussion thread and auto-navigates to the 'jump to first unread' link. All that with a single click, and it works nearly 100% of the time. Firefox is also my browser of choice.

>96 ScoLgo: I do the same thing in regard to having the ‘Talk’ module on my home page. It’s at the very top-left of my home page and I always have my LT home page open in a tab on my browser. I do sometimes click over to the main “Talk” page from the menu at the top if there are a lot of threads with new posts. I like to see them all on one page instead of having to click “next” because it’s easier to make sure I don’t miss anything when brand new posts shift the unread threads down, plus I can get a better picture of just how much I have to catch up on.

Regarding weird behavior on LT, the only slightly weird behavior I regularly see is when I open a book page for any book. It takes a really long time to load the first time, but if I then open different book pages soon after that, they all load pretty fast. It’s just that first one that’s slow. I haven’t paid enough attention to quantify “slow” since I usually click to another browser tab and do something else while I wait for it, but maybe 30-60 seconds.

>96 ScoLgo: Excellent point about the database maintenance possibly being the cause.

>96 ScoLgo: >97 YouKneeK: I should be ashamed for how little I navigate around LT these days! I stumbled across the talk page recently, then promptly forgot about it again!

Me 'n God in the Coffee Shop by Rene Donovan
STTM: zero, unless you count spiritual journeys
Rating: 5 out of 10

This was an interesting story. It is the story of a woman and a small group of friends who have a spiritual awakening, specifically a pagan one. The story is told from the point of view of the author of the story and main character and set in the recent past.

One day while at the local coffee shop in a New England coastal town, god, in the form of Walt Whitman, sits down and has a conversation with her, about the power of life and joy and the power of the individual. He also talks to another woman and four men at the same time, individually.

This starts them on a spiritual journey of rediscovering old wisdom. 'Walt' keeps reappearing to them at the coffee shop until they get the point. Along they way they are confronted and eventually attacked by a 'Christian' minister. They also have another spiritual guide, Grandmother, a former Native American wise woman.

This was short and quick to read and interesting. While I disagree with most of the theology presented, it wasn't offensive, though the shallow, evil Christian minister was really out of place. I can't say much more without violating the principles here of discussing religion, I think.

Path Between The Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
STTM: 10 out of 10. So much mud moved!
Rating: 8 out of 10

Not sure what struck me as needing to read this, I think I was inspired by watching The Crown and watching the episode of the takeover of the Suez Canal, which lead me to start thinking about canals, then to this book.

This really is an excellent history of the building of the canal, starting with the French attempt. Yes, the French! Lead by Ferdinand de Lesseps, one of the masterminds of the Suez Canal, a French company was formed, stock was sold (and sold, and sold again, and sold some more, then there was a lottery) and surveys done and equipment shipped. The first and most momentous decision was - where to cross the Isthmus. There were 3 prime candidates - Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama. The path through Nicaragua was preferred by many, as there is already a large natural lake to supply the water and the climate is better. However, the route is nearly twice as long and locks would be required. Like the Suez Canal, the French were determined to build a sea level canal, not a lock canal. Eventually their attempt failed, but not until after 20,000 - 25,000 workers died.

After the French attempt failed, the United States got involved, buying the French assets, the rights to the land and helping create the country of Panama, which was previously a province of Colombia. After years of more study and more arguing over Nicaragua vs. Panama, the last of the leaders of the French attempt was able to gain enough political support to get the US to try again in Panama.

The US attempt would have failed also, except for three things. By this point, there was a solid theory that yellow fever was carried by the Anopheles mosquito. Sending a yellow fever expert to Panama first, they were able to first control, then eradicate yellow fever, by eliminating the Anopheles (and only Anopheles) from the canal zone. They were also able to substantially reduce the incidence of malaria, which is carried by a different mosquito, nearly impossible to eliminate. They also had better equipment, but most importantly, the engineers gave up on the idea of a sea level canal and settled on the current lock canal plan.

The book is well written and engaging, even the parts about financing (particularly French) and politics. Strangely, while the canal was by far the biggest expense in US history up to that time, $325,000,000, there's no discussion about whether that was a political problem or not. Some time is spent on the aftermath of the French attempt, when it was discovered that in order to get financing and approval for the project, basically everyone got paid. Journalists got paid to write articles, representatives got paid to vote for the project, bankers got paid, ambassadors got paid, lobbyists got paid, basically everyone but the engineers who worked on it and most of them died of disease.

Everything is covered, from the management of the project, the engineering involved, the ridiculous amount of material that had to be dug; the giant locks, that if stood on end, would be a building taller than the Eiffel tower; the climate, the disease, the politics of Panama, everything. The story ends when the canal opens in 1914.

Most of the books are finally unpacked! I think I'm down to 4 or 5 boxes. We picked up a Saunders 5 shelf bookcase second hand for $30, so that helped. Two more bookcases should do the trick. I still haven't found my nice bookends though, I thought they were in a box with books, but they haven't turned up and I have at least looked in all of the so far unpacked boxes.

All that being said and looking back on my reading list for the year, I realize it is lacking in classics and I don't think I have any hiding in my books that I've forgotten about.

What Dickens, other than Tale of Two Cities would you recommend?

What other pre-1950 classics should I consider?

>101 Karlstar: ALL THE DICKENS!!!!!! Hahahahaaa. Seriously though, I'm currently writing a review for Little Dorrit. It's getting my "Best Book of the Year" tag. I can't really pick out one that I love more than the others. I'm a huge Dickens fan though. But I can't stand his non-fiction and travelogues, bleah!

The complete Jane Austen, you can't go wrong with that!

I had a link somewhere about the 100 classics you had to read (or were recommended or something). I'll have to see if I can find it...

>102 BookstoogeLT:, >101 Karlstar: I am not a Dickens fan, but seriously second the Jane Austen. Although the context is romantic, they are deliciously evil social satire.

More recommendations will follow.

>102 BookstoogeLT: >103 -pilgrim-: Good recommendations. I think I've read some Jane Austen in the dim past, I do not remember which.

I read a couple of other reviews on David Weber's 'Starfire' series I started reading and discovered that they are based on the Starfire computer game. Looking into this a bit further, I found this:

"STARFIRE's unique combat system allows players to build their own fleets of starships and annihilate those fleets in only a few hours play time. Fans of 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) games will enjoy that STARFIRE has a campaign system that allows you to build an alien empire, control every facet of its development, and attempt to conquer a galaxy full of players and/or non-players alike."

Apparently he was also responsible for some of the game development. Talk about shameless promotion.

This explains the total callous disregard for casualties and the giant space fleet combats. I think I'll be stopping with book one and drop book 2 entirely. I did find it a little amusing that one of the alien races are called 'Orions', which feels like a reference to the old Master of Orion video game.

>104 Karlstar: So that list of classics I mentioned earlier? I found the bookmark, only to find out the page is gone. So no curated suggestions from me.

You can always search my library here in LT by classic and sort by rating. Some of the classics I read from 2005'ish and before might not be rated though.

>101 Karlstar: If it’s of any usefulness, I sometimes refer to this list here on LT for ideas about classics to read. The list apparently came from a book as per the notes at the top. There are a lot of other interesting things missing I'm sure, and I haven't picked exclusively from that list when choosing my classic selections, but it has occasionally helped jog my memory on titles I feel like I ought to have read, or read as a child and might want to try again.

>105 BookstoogeLT: >106 YouKneeK: Thanks! My wife has nicely fixed the problem of what to read next. I was going to pick up another unread space opera I had sitting around, but she gave me The Bell at Sealey Head, which will hold me until I can pick a classic or two.

>93 MrsLee: and forwards, on browser/LT behaviour:
Except for when there's something going on that affects everyone I've not had any loading issues. I'm on Chrome, so if it's a Chrome issue it's probably one that needs one more factor to show, fx connection speed/reliability, security settings managed by the ISP, or somesuch?

>69 Karlstar: et al: Good to hear that you got the connectivity issues sorted! I had some similar issues with a slowly degrading modem/router-combo some years ago. Since then getting new hardware is my first measure when reboots etc no longer work.
With wifi it's also the issue of not placing the sending station (router, in most cases) too close to strong electromagnetic emitters, plus to be sure to having antennas placed on approximately the same level, where the signal is the strongest. Our present flat is tricky, so I have ended up spending on a strong sender (would want hardwire, but that's not an option given the layout; did drill a hole through a wall to hardwire son's gaming computer, though).

>71 Karlstar: I don't think I'll reread Line of Polity anytime soon. But I will probably get around to it, eventually. Have no real memory of the anti-religious aspects of it, which intrigues me: maybe it's only that it has been such a long time since I read it, and maybe it's that we get triggered by different things (I could not read one more of Brandon Sanderson's books after I had finished Hero of Ages for much the same reasons that you cite, only inverted).

>107 Karlstar: McKillip! Can't go wrong :-D :-D :-D

>108 Busifer: I could almost run a cat6 cable to my PC across the basement ceiling from where the cable modem is hooked up - almost. Unfortunately the ceiling right below me is actually finished and I don't have access to it in that area.

>110 Karlstar: I feel you. I’d need some pretty elaborate and labyrinthine cabel-work to get a cat6 anywhere except to the room just adjacent to the entrypoint. And only way to get a cable into the living room is through the door opening: no connected walls (except the bath, and I’m not going to drill through a bathroom wall in a rented flat. So wifi it is.

Done with The Bell at Sealey Head and The Legend of Drizzt: Homeland (graphic novel version), on to Warship by Joshua Dalzelle. Warship is next up on the list as it was a gift.

>112 Karlstar: Oh, Warship and the rest of the trilogy were a lot of fun. I didn't care for the follow up sequel trilogies so much though.

Are we going to get a review of Sealey Head?

>113 BookstoogeLT: Ah ha, that probably explains how Warship ended up on my Amazon wish list! Of course there will be a review, as soon as I quit being a slacker.

The Legend of Drizzt: Homeland
STTM: zero, it's a graphic novel, weeks worth of travel takes 2 panels
Rating: 7 out of 10

I am not a graphic novel or comic book collector or expert. I am, however, a big fan of the the novels that inspired this graphic novel. I put this on my wish list recently and my daughters were nice enough to buy it for me.
I found this graphic novel treatment of the Homeland novel to be excellent. It covered all of the significant points and the graphics were excellent. I did wonder how people who aren't familiar with the story would manage to keep up with all of the characters and plots involved, but it seemed to flow really well.
The large number of characters were a small problem in this format, I wish the illustrators had gotten a bit more creative with how they drew them, often it was too difficult to tell them apart, but it was possible to keep track of the major characters. The other creatures, like goblins and deep gnomes were really well done. I might have to get the next one and re-read the original novel soon.

>87 Karlstar: - I really didn't get on with Furies. He invented this great world in book 1. And just didn't do anything I was interested in with it. Minor There was wonderful ambiguity of morals, than went obviously black and white, there was adversity and the underdog that became over powered, there was ever inventing of ever more powerful opponents just because new opposition was needed, there was gender balance and acceptance that got ignored. It all started so well and just didn't do anything new.

>116 reading_fox: How far along in the series did you get?

The question of which classic to read has been temporarily answered. My wife gave me a 3 novel Jules Verne collection and I've started 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

>118 Karlstar: How abridged a translation is it?

I learnt the hard way that, although Jules Verne actually wrote good, hard SF, a lot of his translators did not really understand the scientific stuff, and certainly did not care about it, so they simply didn't translate it. The result is an improbable adventure story, with all the philosophical, speculative fiction stuff missing.

>119 -pilgrim-: That is a good question. It is the Everyman's Library version and it is quite long, 340 pages.

>120 Karlstar: Unfortunately, I read the "wrong" version and was deeply unimpressed by Verne. It was only when I started discussing him with a French friend, and finding they had a completely different view of his scientific competence, that I learned of the problem.

As far as I could find out, all the translations except the recent ones have this problem, to a greater or lesser extent.

Basically, we have a science fiction writer bring translated by people who wanted an adventure story, often for a youth market.

The degree to which "translators" actually simply excise from books passages from books that they either did not understand, or simply found boring, was a horrifying revelation to me, when I did discovered it. (I have seen books lose over a third of their content like that!)

>121 -pilgrim-: I wonder if that's part of why I didn't enjoy Verne when I tried him out a couple years ago.

>121 -pilgrim-: According to the book, this is the 'original' translation by a Henry Fritch. It probably has the problem you've referred to, but I would have no way of knowing.

As a kid I loved Jules Verne's stories, though 20,000 leagues under the sea was above my head, at that time. I came to appreciate it the more later, not least after having read The Mysterious Island and The children of Captain Grant: these three intersect.
Part of my enjoyment of it was the technical and engineering stuff, so clearly those parts survived in the Swedish translation, even as the books could be found in the YA section of the library.
Especially The Mysterious Island reads like a pamphlet expounding on the virtues of science and engineering, with practically no character development going on (except for characters brought in from his other stories, but to experience their journey one has to have read those books first).

>123 Karlstar: Is that a typo by you, or by the publisher?

The original translator is Henry Frith.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Frith

It seems that he did have some of the necessary background, but given that he also wrote adventure stories for boys himself, my guess would be that he was aiming his translation at the juvenile market.

>125 -pilgrim-: Totally a typo by me! I did look up a more 'official' translation that is available on the web and so far, they closely match. I did find it curious that my version refers to the narwhal's horn as being like a 'halberd', which makes no sense; where the other translation uses lance. I've read up to the part where Verne explains water pressure in the depths, being fairly technical, so hopefully this is a complete translation.

Here's as section from the version available via Project Gutenberg, that almost word for word matches the Frith translation.

"“In business, Ned, but not in mathematics. Listen to me. Let’s accept that the pressure of one atmosphere is represented by the pressure of a column of water thirty-two feet high. In reality, such a column of water wouldn’t be quite so high because here we’re dealing with salt water, which is denser than fresh water. Well then, when you dive under the waves, Ned, for every thirty-two feet of water above you, your body is tolerating the pressure of one more atmosphere, in other words, one more kilogram per each square centimeter on your body’s surface. So it follows that at 320 feet down, this pressure is equal to ten atmospheres, to 100 atmospheres at 3,200 feet, and to 1,000 atmospheres at 32,000 feet, that is, at about two and a half vertical leagues down. Which is tantamount to saying that if you could reach such a depth in the ocean, each square centimeter on your body’s surface would be experiencing 1,000 kilograms of pressure. Now, my gallant Ned, do you know how many square centimeters you have on your bodily surface?”

“I haven’t the foggiest notion, Professor Aronnax.”

“About 17,000.”

“As many as that?”

“Yes, and since the atmosphere’s pressure actually weighs slightly more than one kilogram per square centimeter, your 17,000 square centimeters are tolerating 17,568 kilograms at this very moment.”

“Without my noticing it?”

“Without your noticing it. And if you aren’t crushed by so much pressure, it’s because the air penetrates the interior of your body with equal pressure. When the inside and outside pressures are in perfect balance, they neutralize each other and allow you to tolerate them without discomfort. But in the water it’s another story.”

“Yes, I see,” Ned replied, growing more interested. “Because the water surrounds me but doesn’t penetrate me.”

“Precisely, Ned. So at thirty-two feet beneath the surface of the sea, you’ll undergo a pressure of 17,568 kilograms; at 320 feet, or ten times greater pressure, it’s 175,680 kilograms; at 3,200 feet, or 100 times greater pressure, it’s 1,756,800 kilograms; finally, at 32,000 feet, or 1,000 times greater pressure, it’s 17,568,000 kilograms; in other words, you’d be squashed as flat as if you’d just been yanked from between the plates of a hydraulic press!”

>126 Karlstar: And people wonder why Verne isn't more popular! ;-)

>126 Karlstar: That certainly want in the version that I read! Which was when I was under ten...

>127 BookstoogeLT: I'm liking it! I don't think I've ever read the 'full' version, I believe I read an abridged version a long time ago. This is much better.

>129 Karlstar: Yes, Verne's strengths do not lie in the psychology of his characters. His skills are in hard SF. Whether you like it that way or not. The adventure stuff is paper-thin without it.

>117 Karlstar: I finished it. Sadly. I kept hoping that things would pick up again. The first is good, and the rest just never quite match the same wonder. According to my reviews of the time, if you don't think about them too much they're fast-fun-filled-fantasy, There's lots of action - almost non-stop fight scenes. If this is what you like in a fantasy, then the series is for you. For everyone else who cares about a plot and the characters, find something better. https://www.librarything.com/catalog/reading_fox&deepsearch=furies

>129 Karlstar: Haven't re-read it for years. My version had long long passages describing different fish. I skipped over a lot of them.

>132 Karlstar: Sometimes I just need a fun filled fantasy novel! I just ran into one of the passages describing different fish. Not really exciting, but educational?

Time for a review!
The Bell at Sealey Head by Patricia A. McKillip
STTM: 0 - all takes place in one village
Rating: 7 out of 10



This one barely misses being an 8 out of 10 for me. I have a feeling that in a few years from now, I'll pick this up, remember very little about it except that I enjoyed it and will read it again and enjoy it again. I guess that makes it a 7.5 out of 10.

In the small village of Sealey Head, a young lady writer, Gwyneth, sits in her father's house and writes stories about the village. Some she stuffs under her bed never to read again, others she shares with her younger siblings and Aunt. Her father is the town trader, I guess would be the best term, his modest fleet of sailing ships brings back curiosities of all kinds, helping to inspire her stories. Other characters include Judd, the son of the innkeeper in the village and Emma, a servant in Aislinn House, the large manor where Lady Eglantine lives, the closest thing the village has to actual nobility. The Lady is dying of old age, which brings to the village Miranda Beryl, her distant niece and Ridley Dow, associate of hers and possibly a wizard.

About halfway through the book, I realized that 'Sealey' is a play on 'Seelie' and I wondered if I should have figured that out before I started the book. Some doors in Aislinn House, when opened by some people, including Emma, open on a completely different House, where Princess Ysabo lives a very ritual life, trapped in a role she can't even question.

There is a whole cast of other characters in the village that add life to the story and provide romantic interest, as there are several relationship triangles throughout the book. The characters are all plausible and interesting and the situation with Aislinn House is a magical mystery. This is not action packed and a little bit predictable, but very enjoyable to read. It is also fairly short.

A lobster hunt is on!

>132 Karlstar: I'm trying to think if any of McKillip's stories can be called action packed.

>134 BookstoogeLT: I don't think so, but they are all still great. They just aren't action fantasy.

I forgot I skipped a review.

Warship: Black Fleet Trilogy 1 by Joshua Dalzelle
STTM: 2 - there's no mud in space, but there is some travel time in the plot
Rating: 7 out of 10

Here's my LT review.

This is gritty military scifi combined with a first contact plot. The old destroyer of the Black Fleet, Blue Jacket, is headed out on a final cruise. The captain is hated by his superior officer and the entire Black Fleet is going to be disbanded after the cruise, a victim of peace and budget cuts. Combine that with a captain that is just barely hanging on to his sobriety, a brand new XO, a crew from the dregs of the service, a mystery mission involving a undercover spy and you have all the elements of a classic, true space opera. When the Blue Jacket encounters a planet where all the inhabitants have disappeared, the plot takes off.

I enjoyed this, it was short, the characters were a little thin but not objectionable and the action was realistic. There are a few physics issues, but not too bad.

The Good - it felt a lot more realistic than Insurrection, my last 'space opera' read. There were battles, there were casualties, they weren't just casually ignored. The weapons and the ship felt reasonable.

The Bad - not enough character development. There are really only 2 characters and they were not given enough life and detail. This made all the rest of the crew feel like redshirts.

While I am still reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, I am also reading Tailchaser's Song. Yes, that is exactly what it sounds like, a cat book, about cats. Well, fantasy cats anyway.

>137 Karlstar: I absolutely love Tailchaser - handsomest hero ever!

>138 Darth-Heather: Glad to hear it! While I can definitely tell this was Tad William's first novel, the intro was hilarious.

Done with Tailchaser's Song, which was good, back to reading about fish.

>136 Karlstar: Sadly, the first trilogy by Dalzelle is the best. The rest are pretty "indie". Dalzelle really tries, but he just doesn't have the writing chops, (hopefully) yet, to be able to write some top notch sf.

Glad you enjoyed Tailchasers song. It was NOT a book for me :-)

>141 BookstoogeLT: Are you a dog person?

>142 Karlstar: I am not an "animal" person :-)

>143 BookstoogeLT: I have to admit, while I'm a big Tad Williams fan, I hesitated for years before finally deciding to read Tailchaser's Song, I think it is the only Tad novel I hadn't read and didn't own. Good review of To Green Angel Tower, btw.

>144 Karlstar: Thanks! I'm not sure if I'll ever re-re-re-read the trilogy :-) I'm still waiting for him to finish the new trilogy so I can dive into that and check it out.

I think I read Tailchaser during my "read everything by this author" when I still thought he was better than sliced bread. I didn't hate it, but my star rating is even lower than what I gave to War of the Flowers and I seem to remember being disgusted by that. Yet nothing like that appears in my review. weird.

Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams
STTM: 8 out of 10 - this is a travel adventure, so this is to be expected
Rating: 7 out of 10

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am a big fan of Tad Williams' novels, but I hesitated over this one for a long time. Not only is it his first novel, but it is a novel about and starring cats. The cat equivalent of Watership Down, I guess. Tad created cat mythology and cat history, though both of them feel a LOT like one of Tolkien's stories, particularly the Luthien/Beren/Hurin stories.

The entire story is told from the perspective of a cat. First there is an introduction of cat mythology; which features a story about 'elder' cats, where one brother goes bad and goes off on his own into the depths of the earth. The mythology includes the story about how these elder cats created Ma'an and how Ma'an has served cats ever since. Tad's preface, which is hilarious, mentions how much time he put into thinking about cat history and cat mythology before writing the book. World-building is definitely one of his strengths and this one is no exception, but... cat mythology? He also creates cat language words for many things, but sometimes leaves us to figure out what they stand for on our own.

From the real start of the novel we follow the story of Tailchaser, a young cat of the Meeting Wall clan. When his friends start disappearing, an emissary is sent to the court of the Queen of Cats, but Tailchaser promises to find his young female friend on his own. Accompanied by an impulsive kitten, Pouncequick, they set off into the wide world.

Many adventures and a lot of traveling complete the rest of the story, which I will not spoil with spoilers. They meet lots of other cats and other forest animals and many dangers. I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would when I started, he really did a great job, but this is definitely a niche read.

>146 Karlstar: I think that's the only thing I've read by Tad Williams. I remember enjoying it but little else.

>147 Narilka: His Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy is classic epic fantasy, with really excellent world-building. I am also a fan of his Otherland series, which is more modern fiction about online gaming, which allows him to blend in a whole fantasy/scifi adventure. Really good stuff and still not out of date yet.

Done with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, now swimming over to Prador Moon. After what seems like the obligatory introductory fire-fight, it is off to an interesting start.

>149 Karlstar: Prador Moon is a very necessary book in the Polity Universe. The Prador continue to play a huge part and most of his newer trilogies involve a prador as a main character.

But seriously, how can one beat the sheer awesomeness of giant alien crabs with gatling guns welded onto their claws?

>150 BookstoogeLT: Giant alien crabs with vulcan mini-guns? Even more giant octopus aliens? Melted butter guns? I can think of lots of ways. :)

Done with Prador Moon. Very disappointed it did not include even one reference to Red Lobster! On to a re-read The Demon Awakens. I needed a break from all the space opera I've been reading lately.

>152 Karlstar: Do they even have Red Lobster in the UK though? I thought that was strictly an American thing?

>153 BookstoogeLT: I have no idea what you two are taking about.

>153 BookstoogeLT: You are correct. Red Lobster has not crossed the Atlantic!

>154 -pilgrim-: The book, Prador Moon, takes place in Neal Asher's "Polity Universe". The book is a first contact between the Polity (AI led star systems with humans) and the Prador. Who are giant crabs and xenophobic and ultra-violent.

Red Lobster is a restaurant here in the United States whose specialty is lobster. To me, lobster/crab, it's all the same :-D

And Neal Asher, the author, resides in the UK and/or Greece.

edited:

yeah, that WAS a lot of missing context for anyone not familiar with this! Hahhaahaha :-D

>156 BookstoogeLT: Thank you.

I had actually surmised a reasonable amount of paragraph 1, from earlier remarks! My crucial error, having never heard of the restaurant chain, was assuming Red Lobster had an actual existence in the Polity Universe, rather than in the USA (a different alternate universe ;-p )

>157 -pilgrim-: Apologies, it just struck me as amusing that for his antagonists in this book, he choose giant killer crabs. Then didn't even bother to tell us a single thing about their homeworld, physiology, environment, pretty much anything. Very convenient that they apparently breathe exactly the same atmosphere as humans!

Red Lobster is a very common restaurant chain in the USA, just for fun I did some checking and found multiple restaurants on both east and west coast, plus states like Kansas and North Dakota, about as far from the sea as you can get. Several times a year they advertise a 'crab fest' special. If the author had been American, I would have thought a reference to the restaurant inevitable. Also funny. My wife loves Red Lobster. It represents a dying breed of American restaurants, a national chain designed for average families that is not fast food or a hamburger place.

While I'm doing this, I may as well do the darn review!

Prador Moon by Neal Asher
STTM: 2 - one brief incident where the mud slogging is relevant
Rating: 5 out of 10

This is just purely space opera. According to LT, it is actually the first Polity book, chronologically, but the sixth to be published. That must explain why, having read only one other Polity book, it somehow had references to the only other book I've read, despite happening quite earlier. It just felt very familiar, which makes sense if he'd already spent 5 books documenting his universe.

The Prador are giant crab-like aliens that are, for all the information the author gives us, exactly giant land crabs, including breathing the same atmosphere humans do. How convenient and unlikely! The book opens with the first meeting with the Prador on a huge space-going space station filled with humans, an AI and the cyborg golems and AI sub-units. Within a page, a huge space battle ensues as does a battle inside the space station. Why are the Prador attacking the station? Who knows! Why are they attacking humans? Again, who knows, but apparently the humans are tasty, though later we find out that us humans are the Prador equivalent of fast food.

The rest of the book is spent on human vs. Prador battles, with some diversions for the Separatists (anti-AI) terrorists vs. the government. There are two main human characters, a government agent and a young lady who was a normal citizen until she got a supercomputer 'augmentation' unit and got pulled to the the conflict indirectly. Besides the Prador, there's a Separatist agent also.

Lots of action, lots of space battles and tech, not a lot of character development, plot or world development.

My copy is the Night Shade books copy, paperback, 300 pages, not counting the 43 page Cormac excerpt from 'Shadow of the Scorpion'. Strangely, while there are only 638 people on LT with this in their library there are 22 reviews, which is a fairly high percentage.

>158 Karlstar: I used to love Red Lobster when I was younger. It was almost always the place I chose when it was up to me, but the last few times I’ve eaten there (in a couple different areas), the food hasn’t tasted as good as I remembered.

In my teens and twenties, we started eating at Joe's Crab Shack (another seafood change) instead for reasons I don't remember. Maybe their food tasted better to me and that affected my enjoyment of Red Lobster when I tried eating there again as an adult, but I really don't know if it's me or the restaurant. I haven't eaten at Joe's Crab Shack in years, and now I'm hungry for crab legs -- thanks. :p

>159 YouKneeK: They do some things well, like the cheddar biscuits! My wife and daughter love the darn things. I like their new-ish dragon shrimp.

>158 Karlstar: You do learn a lot about the Prador throughout various books. But it is always in little tidbits that you have to be looking for.

I finished The Demon Awakens, on to The Demon Spirit. I like this series and maybe understand/tolerate his magic system a little more than I did after the first couple of readings. I also finished 20,000 Leagues, I'll get to a review soon, when I figure out what at least some of those fish were.

>162 Karlstar: I have now downloaded a copy myself. I don't remember fish in my original read....

Since it came up again, the review of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
STTM: 10 out of 10, with even some under-sea mud!
Rating: 5 out of 10

As mentioned before I believe what I read is a complete translation, not an abridged one and a fairly accurate translation. The title says it all, this is the story of a mostly undersea voyage around the world. Verne's speculations on submarine technology were actually quite amazing, he basically predicted the nuclear submarine about 100 years before one existed and the technology gap between his time and the craft he was describing was enormous, there were no functional submarines when this was written.

Mostly though, this felt like Verne went to the library, looked up every possible form of sea life - plant, fish, mammal, mollusc, coral, you name it and found a spot to put it in the book. He also cheated and invented an undersea canal to replace one that didn't exist yet, but that was a minor point. I also thought he was a bit of ahead of his time in mentioning the damage that humans were doing to many species.

A sample paragraph about sea life:

"These fish followed us in shoals, and furnished us with very delicate food. We took also a large number of gilt-heads, about one and a half inches long, tasting like dorys; and flying pyrapeds like submarine swallows, which, in dark nights, light alternately the air and water with their phosphorescent light. Among the molluscs and zoophytes, I found in the meshes of the net several species of alcyonarians, echini, hammers, spurs, dials, cerites, and hyalleae. The flora was represented by beautiful floating seaweeds, laminariae, and macrocystes, impregnated with the mucilage that transudes through their pores; and among which I gathered an admirable Nemastoma Geliniarois, that was classed among the natural curiosities of the museum. "

There are other similar passages about fish, sharks, corals, madrepores (something like coral), molluscs, plant life, etc. Most of the time, I was unfamiliar with the creatures he was talking about and wanted to look them up, but that would have meant stopping for an hour every few pages. I also was never sure if he was referring to fish I might recognize, but using names for them that have since gone out of date.

I enjoyed this, but it was a bit too much like a nature diary, rather than a novel. It is also a classic example of a novel about a journey, but in this case, that is all there is to it, just a really long journey. He created the mysterious Captain Nemo and his crew, but then mostly did not explain much about them at all.

I had some Barnes and Noble gift cards from my family and decided to get a Nook Glowlight 3 e-reader. While I don't mind buying books from B&N, I don't like hanging around the bookstore right now and their shipping is expensive. I figure this way I can use my gift cards on ebooks. I picked up Captain's Fury so I can continue that series.

>165 Karlstar: Just be aware, that B&N locks their ebooks up tighter than a bank safe. Everything I've heard about the gl3 is positive from a device stand point, but if you can, I highly recommend you educate yourself on drm and liberating your bn ebooks. Because otherwise, you're screwed in the future.

>165 Karlstar: I’ll be curious how you think the device and general e-reading experience compares to the Kindle once you’ve spent some time using it. I’ve never looked that closely into the other options out there since I was already pretty heavily invested in the Amazon e-book ecosystem before other comparable devices started cropping up. I'm unlikely to switch, but always curious what I might be missing out on!

>167 YouKneeK: So far, so good, very easy to read and flip pages, it has a button for 'next page', in addition to just swiping. The screen is a little small, since the whole device is the height of a mass market paperback. So far the reading experience is good.

>168 Karlstar: Good to hear!

I finished The Demon Spirit and I'm on to The Demon Apostle. These caught my attention when I was unpacking and I've never re-read them. I also don't remember them, at all. Looking at the printing dates, I'm guessing I read them before and during a previous house move.