Steve's (swynn) thread for 2026

I'm Steve, 58, a technical services librarian at a medium-sized private university in Oklahoma, where I live with my wife, my son, and my running partner Buddy. This is my 17th year with the 75ers.

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

Projects

(A) The DAWs

For several years now, I've been reading through the catalog of DAW, the first American imprint exclusively devoted to science fiction & fantasy publishing. Last year I read only 4; I make no predictions for this year..

DAWs so far: 0
Next up: The Gameplayers of Zan by M.A. Foster

(B) RC2Me

Inspired by other LTers who have "book-a-year" lists going back to their birthdate, or to 1900, or earlier, I've been working the last few years on reading one book per year from the publication of Robinson Crusoe in 1719.

Here's a tentative schedule for 2026:

January: 1744 - The Adventures of David Simple / Sarah Fielding
February: 1745 - Automathes / John Kirby
March: 1746 - Dissertations upon the apparitions of angels, daemons, and ghosts / Augustin Calmet
April: 1747 - Clarissa / Samuel Richardson
May: 1748 - Roderick Random / Tobias Smollett
June: 1749 - Tom Jones / Henry Fielding
July: 1750 - Charlotte Summers / Sarah Fielding
August: 1751 - Peregrine Pickle / Tobias Smollett
September: 1752 - The Female Quixote / Charlotte Lennox
October: 1753 - Ferdinand Count Fathom / Tobias Smollett
November: 1754 - The Invisible Spy / Eliza Haywood
December: 1755 - A Voyage to the World in the Centre of the Earth / Anon.

(C) Perry Rhodan

For several years, I've opened the year with an increasingly long introduction to the German space-opera series "Perry Rhodan." I'm truncating it this year as follows:

Perry Rhodan is the hero of a weekly German science-fiction serial that has been continuously published since September 1961 in weekly novella-length adventures. The current issue is number 3359. I'm up to number 281. It would be nice not to get behinder, but history suggests I should limit my goal to just being more faithful about reporting on these reads.

Perry Rhodans so far: 0
Next up: Perry Rhodan 281: Kampf in der Tiefsee

(D) Kindle archive

I have thousands (and by "thousands" I don't mean "so many it feels like thousands", I mean thousands) of unread books on my Kindle, most of whih I picked up when they were free or just a buck or two. On a regular basis, I'm going through some of the oldest titles and asking, "Is it time I acknowledge I'm never going to read this? Or am I still curious about it?" and if the answer is the latter I'm reading it.

Next up: Well jeez your guess is almost as good as mine.

Welcome back, Steve!

>2 swynn: It never ceases to astonish me that Perry Rhodan is still going strong. The Germans are nothing if not tenacious!

New Year orisons, Steve.

Happy New Year, Steve. I hope 2026 is good to you and yours.

>2 swynn: Welcome back Steve. The DAW Gameplayers of Zan was a real favorite of mine when it was new. I hope it hasn't aged badly.

New Year greetings from Kuala Lumpur. My project is at least physically completed and an addition to the city scape.

Look forward to keeping up with you in 2026, Steve

>3 drneutron: Thanks, Jim! Thank YOU for hosting again.

>4 richardderus: Same to you, Richard!

>5 BLBera: Thanks, Beth! Very best wishes to you as well.

>6 RBeffa: Thanks, Ron! I remember liking The Warriors of Dawn so well that i considered charging right along to The Gameplayers of Zan, then thinking no, if I just keep reading the DAWs at a steady pace I'll get to it in about a year. Anyway, that was seven years ago now.

>7 PaulCranswick: Happy New Year to you too, Paul!

>8 swynn: I noticed your DAW self-challenge had lost some steam. I consider Gameplayers to be one of the very best science fiction novels I have read. I am looking forward to your reaction.

>9 RBeffa: Unfortunately, my sparrow-brain adores novelty over persistence. I'm very much looking forward to Gameplayers, though, so there's a good chance I'll read it soon

Happy new Year, Steve - may your year be full of happines health and joy - and of course - books.

A joyous new year to you, Steve!

>11 SirThomas:
>12 Dejah_Thoris:

Welcome Thomas and Dejah !

The story so far:

Episode 281 finds us toward the end of the "Masters of the Island" story cycle, which began with episode 200. Terrans have discovered star-powered gateways that take them to the edge of the Andromeda galaxy, which is ruled by the mysterious and secretive "Masters of the Island." Through most of the cycle, Terrans have been in conflict with the Masters' proxies, such as the methane-breathing Maahks and the eerily human-like Tefroders. With intermittent progress and occasional setbacks, the Perry and the Terrans have overcome trials, escaped traps, and foiled the proxies' plans; finally they have secured the attention of the Masters themselves. In Episode 280, the Masters launched a plot to undermine the Terran empire: by flooding the economy with counterfeit currency. (Yes, they still use cash in 2404. Innat cute?)



Perry Rhodan 281: Kampf in der Tiefsee = "Battle in the Deep Sea" / H.G. Ewers
Date: 1967 (Jan 20)

When Perry asks finance minister Homer G. Adams for a strategy to deal with the currency crisis, Adams' response is such an obviously bad idea that Perry suspects that either Adams is fatigued, or that he has been replaced by a duplicate. Urging Adams to take a vacation, Perry sends him to an undersea spa resort on Earth. He also orders Jean-Pierre Marat and Roger McKay, the two detectives who discovered the counterfeiting plot in episode 280, to accompany Adams and observe his every move.

1) Black Religion in the Madhouse by Judith Weisenfeld
Date: 2025

Weisenfeld, a professor of Religion at Princeton, discusses how white psychiatrists pathologized Black religion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her research draws heavily on access to patient records from mental health institutions for Black persons diagnosed with "insanity," "mania", "dementia praecox", or some other status of mental incapacity justifying institutionalization. Recordkeeping standards of the time required that a cause for the condition be listed, and one frequent cause was "religious excitement."

"Religious excitement" was not exclusive to Black patients, but psychiatrists assigned it to Black patients in much higher proportions than to white patients. Weisenfeld describes the popular culture and professional discourse affecting that analysis: how psychiatrists accepted a myth that Black patients were racially prone to emotional excesses, and turned to racist theories which held that Black citizens were psychologically unable to deal with the stresses of "civilization." Consequently, white psychiatrists (typically mainstream Christians with restrained habits of worship) were more likely to discover "religious excitement" in Black patients than among their racial and religious peers. Even when white patients were diagnosed with "religious excitement", it was treated as an individual deviation, rather than assumed to be rooted in a collective racial weakness.

Weisenfeld's analysis ranges widely among systems, and her story ties in threads of popular cultures (both white and black), new religious movements, changing social and economic conditions, and the work of other scholars. The intended audience is academic, so there are charts and copious footnotes and the reading is not as easy as it might have been: a couple of times I had to stop and diagram a sentence to be sure I caught its meaning. But the effect is still disturbing. Happily, Weisenfeld includes a chapter discussing how views and practices shifted in the mid-twentieth century, largely through efforts of Black psychiatrists, religious leaders, and social workers.

Thank you for another BB last year, Steve - I really enjoyed Lord of Lights.

>14 swynn: I will dive into Perry Rhodan soon again.
>15 swynn: That sounds like a very important book...

>15 swynn: Racism's long-lived bite still fangs us...policing is now the home of this farrago. It explains the huge overresponses to Black demonstrations of (justified) rage.

>16 SirThomas: Happy to hear that Lord of Light has found another appreciative reader! Looking forward to your PR reads, Thomas!

>17 richardderus: Indeed. It's despairing to watch current events that seem to reverse the retreat of these racist myths.

2) Drei Abenteuer fuer junge Meisterdetektive = "Three Adventures for Young Master Detectives"
Date: 2017

Kindle archive read. This collects three juvenile mysteries:
1. The Stadtpiraten and the Coffin from Hong Kong / A.F. Morland
2. The Stadtpiraten and the Dead Witnesses / A.F. Morland
3. Attack on the Dragon Ship / Alfred Bekker

The first two are adventures of the "Stadtpiraten", literally "City Pirates," but I'm pretty sure (based on memories of a Wolf Maahn song from the mid-1980s) that "Stadtpirat" is a slang term for someone who gets around town. But I'm not finding an authoritative definition in LEO or in random Google searches. Maybe my German-speaking visitors can help out?

Anyway, in this context the "Stadtpiraten" are a club of young detectives (ages 10 to 15 or so), who solve mysteries in an unidentified harbor town. In the first mystery they witness a coffin being unloaded from a ship, only to be stolen moments later by someone wearing an Albert Einstein mask. Investigating, they get involved in a story about a recently deceased gangster. In the second, one of the Stadtpiraten is invited to audition for a role in a film; but about the same time she receives threats from a menacing American.

The third story is a historical mystery about Gunnar, a young Viking man about to begin an apprenticeship to a shipmaker. His new master's most recent project is a burial ship for the recently deceased Jarl. Shortly after Gunnar's arrival, the ship disappears, along with all the treasure that the Jarl was supposed to be buried with. Suspicion falls on the shipmaker, and Gunnar must clear his name.

All three stories were just fine for the sort of thing they are. Diverting, not especially memorable, and no longer unread on my Kindle.

My background knowledge is rather incomplete here, so I asked a chatbot, and here is the answer:

The term “Stadtpiraten” is not defined uniformly and can have different meanings in different contexts. However, there are a few possible origins and uses of this term:

Subculture and resistance: The term “Stadtpiraten” is often used in reference to groups that oppose social norms and institutions. In this sense, they are a kind of “resistance fighters” in urban environments who fight against the “establishment” – in this case, against the state order or the prevailing culture. They could be seen as a kind of modern pirates who no longer live at sea but in the city, yet continue to fight for their freedom and against the system.
Youth movements: In some cases, the term is also used in reference to young, alternative scenes that form in urban areas, often as a kind of youth culture that lives its own brand of independence and freedom. These groups may oppose conventional labor markets or social norms, similar to pirates in the past who also rebelled against authority and the established order.

Punk and graffiti culture: The term also appears in the punk and graffiti scene, often in connection with rebellious, unconventional forms of expression. In this context, urban pirates may be young people who shape their environment in creative and subversive ways, whether through graffiti, street art, or alternative lifestyles.

Historical reference: The term could also have a symbolic connection to the pirates of the past who roamed the seas and opposed the established powers. Thus, “Stadtpiraten” could be a metaphor for resistance against urban authorities or an alternative way of life in the city.

Wolf Mahn's text is about a graffiti artist, so it could be appropriate.

>20 SirThomas: Well, here's an embarrassing admission: I did not know that the Wolf Maahn song was a graffiti artist. To the extent I thought about it, I thought "Er sprüht das Leben in die Stadt" ("He sprays life into the city") was metaphorical -- I'd imagined the subject as a sort of party kid. But with your explanation I found the lyrics online and ... well, yes, obviously.

The puzzling thing is that it doesn't really seem to fit the middle-schooler detectives in A.F. Morland's novels, who are not exactly counter-establishment. But as adventurous characters who seek out danger their parents would prefer they avoided, maybe?

Anyway, thanks for that insight, Thomas!

Perry Rhodan 282: Die Spur führt zu Jagos Stern = The Trail Leads to Jago's Star / Clark Darlton
Date: 1967 (Jan 27)

Andromeda's "Island Masters" have attacked the Terran Empire's economy with a flood of counterfeit currency. In the last episode, Perry's agents discovered and confiscated a cache of the fake cash, but the mystery remains how the Island Masters delivered the money to the Milky Way galaxy. When Gucky notices a report about Terran agents intercepting a Springer ship with suspicious cargo near Jago's Star, he asks to investigate. Perry does not share Gucky's supicions, but Perry's wife Mory Abro offers Gucky the transportation and supplies he needs -- and fortunately too because Gucky discovers a Tefroder* outpost, with a resident Island Master and a multiduplicator: a device that can be used to create exact duplicates of anything. Like cash. (Or Guckys, as in episode 263.) Peril ensues.

*The Tefroders are Andromedans under control of the Island Masters. They resemble humans to an eerie degree, and the Terrans have only recently learned that this resemblance is because Tefroders and humans are both descendants of Lemurians, a pre-human civilization that thrived on Earth 50,000 years ago. It's this whole story that happened in episodes 264-279 when Perry and the crew of the CREST III were sucked into a time trap and you probably just had to be there.

Hello Steve. Happy New Year! I think I left this party 3 years ago. ;-P You are still at the Perry Rhodan and the Daw books. I expect nothing less. With some choice contemporary picks in between. I'm back for 2026 and hope to be reading more and participating on LT more as well. I hope things are going well for you.

Hey Brodie welcome back! Yep, Perry Rhodan and DAW although the pace of the DAWs has slowed quite a bit. I'll go find your thread and drop a star to keep up with your reads also!

>23 brodiew2: & >24 swynn: That does sound like the sort of series that once started.........

Have a good weekend, Steve.

3) From Out the Vasty Deep by Marie Belloc Lowndes
Date: 1920

Recently widowed Lionel Varrick throws a Christmas get-together for a few friends at his late wife's mansion in Suffolk. Among invitees are Helen Brabazon, a beautiful, eligible, and incidentally fabulously rich young woman who had become a close friend to Lionel during Mrs. Varrick's long illness; his longtime but emphatically platonic friend Blanche Farrow, and Blanche's niece Bubbles Dunston. Unknown either to Lionel or to Blanche, Bubbles has developed the gifts of a medium, which disropts Lionel's plans for the weekend. Shortly after Bubbles's arrival, a maid sees the mansion's legendary ghost, and on the first evening Bubbles holds an impromptu seance. At first the seance seems an edgy sort of lark, but Bubbles makes contact with spirits that some of the living company would prefer to remain deathly silent.

Marie Belloc Lowndes was an early twentieth-century author of mysteries and thrillers. This one was originally published in London as "From the Vast Deep"; I have no idea why the New York edition changed "from the vast" to the archaic "from out the vasty", but I approve. It's a gothic thriller that feels very much like a country-house murder mystery, though there is no obvious murder and instead of leading to a rational explanation of the apparently supernatural events the story doubles down on the supernaturalness. (That said, attentive readers will spot a murder long before most of the characters do.) But the characters' interactions, their alliances and rivalries all feel very classic cozy mystery. What is missing here is a real dramatic climax: the various plot threads resolve in a series of fizzles rather than in the dramatic high point you expect. But while the action is rising, it's much fun.

4) Still Waters by Viveca Sten
Date: 2008 (English translation 2015)

A body wrapped in a fishing net washes up on a beach on Sandhamn in the Stockholm Archipelago. Inspector Thomas Andreasson, who grew up on Sandhamn, investigates and thinks the mostly likely explanation is a tragic accident. But then the victim's sister also turns up dead, also on Sandhamn, very clearly a victim of violence. Offering unexpected assistance is Andreasson's childhood friend Nora Linde, a local attorney who also has roots on the island. This is the first volume in the Sandhamn Murders mystery series, which I understand has an enthusiastic following and has inspired a popular television series. Unfortunately, I'm not feeling the enthusiasm so many others have: the mystery is fine but Andreasson's tortured past and Linde's relationship issues feel like formula, and a couple of plot points seem needlessly tacked on. Either I'm missing something or they get better, very possibly both. But this is a Kindle archive read for me, I don't have any other volumes, and my public library (suprisingly) does not have the series in any format so I probably won't continue soon.

>25 PaulCranswick: Hope your weekend has also been a good one, Paul!

It's certainly difficult to maintain an "ideal" pace, but in the cases of DAWs and Perry Rhodan, I'm pretty much guaranteed lifetime projects.

>27 swynn: We read this series a few years ago in a group read. I enjoyed the series.

>15 swynn: Adding that to the BlackHole. Thanks for the review, Steve!

>26 swynn: I can read that through Hoopla. Woot! I am a fan of gothic novels :)

>27 swynn: Dodging that BB as I have already read it.

A Belated Happy New Year, Steve. Have a marvelous Monday!

>29 thornton37814: Welcome Lori! I found the thread for the group read. I'm more inclined now to continue the series; I think it could grow on me.

>30 alcottacre: I look forward to your thoughts on "Black Religion in the Madhouse" and "Vasty Deep" when/if you get around to them. Hope your Monday is marvelous also!

Perry Rhodan 283: Flucht vom Giftplaneten = "Escape from the Poison Planet" by Kurt Mahr
Date: 1967 (Feb 3)

In Episode 281, the Terrans discovered that finance minister Homer G. Adams was an impostor. The real Adams had been replaced by a “Duplo”: a duplicate manufactured by the Island Masters to infiltrate Terran government. So where is the real Adams? We find out in this episode, and it turns out Adams is being held captive with several other kidnapped Terrans on a secret Tefroder base on planet Grahat. Grahat is home to a Duplo production facility, so Adams and the other prisoners are there to be duplicated. It's an unescapable prison so of course we get a prison-break story complicated by the presence of duplicates indistinguishable from our heroes.

5) The Prodigal Judge by Vaughan Kester
Date: 1911

Old-South melodrama, set mostly in Jackson-era West Tennessee. When the land-rich General Quintard dies, he leaves behind significant debts and also Hannibal Wayne Hazard, a 10-year old child of mysterious provenance. The boy is taken in by Bob Yancy, a crusty old hillbilly bachelor and the two soon bond. A year later our villain arrives: Captain Murrell, with an aim to separate Hannibal from Yancy. When it becomes clear that Murrell has the law on his side, Yancy and the boy flee to West Tennessee where a second plot begins, involving a landowning fair maiden and the men competing for her hand and incidentally -- more incidentally in some cases than others -- for her land. We also finally meet the "prodigal judge" of the title, a Falstaffish slacker who practices law only slightly more frequently than I do. And nipping at their heels is Murrell, who has an almost supervillainish scheme of achieving conquest through fomenting a slave rebellion. It's all cartoonishly unlikely, but is delivered with a gentle humor that provoked a few chuckles from me. This was a popular novel in its day and it's easy to see why. The biggest hurdle for a modern reader, though, is something that was probably an endearing feature when it was new: its nostalgia for plantation life and for the slavery it required. (Ah, who am I kidding? This is still an endearing feature for a distressingly large audience, the one currently licking the boots whose tread it used to complain about.) At their most charming, I wouldn't have missed any of these characters if they had accidentally walked off a cliff. It doesn't help that they rarely rise to charming, and the events that seem intended to redeem the prodigal judge's prodigality make him even more unlikeable to me. It's more interesting as a historical artifact than it is satisfying as a story.

This one has been unread in my Kindle account for almost ten years. I don’t recollect why I originally got it, but it was almost certainly when Liz and I were reading American bestsellers. This was the second-best selling book for 1911, behind Jeffrey Farnol’s odd but vastly more appealing The Broad Highway. Either I must have finished Farnol early and thought I’d go on to the second-place title, or I must have read something about “The Broad Highway” that mentioned “The Prodigal Judge.” Anyway, it won’t be haunting my Kindle archive any more.

6) Out of the Air by Inez Haynes Irwin
Date: 1921

In alternating chapters we get the stories of, firstly, David Lindsey, an aviator returning from the Great War and realizing that he no longer fits into his own country. In search of a purpose he sets out to write a biography of his favorite writer, revisiting an enjoyable research project from his college days. His research leads him to the author's former estate, which is not only for sale and not only within the buying power of a recently-discharged veteran (Hello, 1921? Can we borrow your real estate market please and thank you?), but also home to the author's lingering spirit; and secondly, Susannah Ayers, a young and inexperienced woman starting out in New York City, who accepts a position as a business correspondent for a small stock company. By the time Ayers learns that the company's business is actually fraud, she is in too deep to extricate herself without consequences. The dual plot threads join eventually of course, where Lindsey's need for purpose meets Ayers's for rescue, with a little help from the spirit world. Lindsey's half of the story is less engaging than any story about ghost encounters ought to be, but Ayers's is an effective piece of paranoia as her former employers track her every move and attempt to corner her into further compromise. It's not likely to be a favorite, but it has strengths: there is also some lovely descriptive prose, and a surreal fever-dream sequence at the peak of Susannah's peril. And it's pleasantly short.

>34 swynn: sounds interesting. The setting if not some of the themes are familiar to me after having read To Serve Them All My Days by RF Delderfield. A young World War I veteran with PTSD ends up taking a job at a boys school in England. It is beautiful novel that spans the years between World War I and World War II. If you're in the mood for something similar, down the line, check it out.

>35 brodiew2: Hi Brodie, and thanks for the rec! The Delderfield looks interesting, and I"ve added it to the Someday Samp.

7) House of Stairs by William Sleator
Date: 1974

One of my many projects is one that hardly rises to the level of "project", more like "something I think about sometimes": reading "juvenile" science fiction and fantasy that was available when I was in the target audience but that I never read: stuff that either wasn't in the collections available to me, or that didn't resonate with me at the time, or that I just never picked up. Today's exhibit: William Sleator's "House of Stairs," which I remember being aware of but just never got around to.

Five teenagers are trapped together in a maze of stairs. They have no idea why they're there or what they are supposed to accomplish, if anything. Within the maze is a machine that dispenses food at irregular intervals. Whether the food arrives and how much is dispensed seems to be based on their behavior: if they perform certain actions they get fed. The machine does not tell them in advance what tasks it expects, but by trial and error they learn an increasingly intricate dance, which seems pointless but also harmless and the thing that keeps hunger away, so dance they do. But when the machine stops feeding them for dancing and instead rewards them for acts of cruelty against one another, the teens have to decide whether being fed is worth becoming awful. Sleator's warning about systems designed to reward cruelty is pessimistic and heavy handed but also seems pretty prescient for having been written in 1974, long before social media showed up and demonstrated that he wasn't nearly pessimistic enough.

>37 swynn: sounds like Cube meets Lord of the Flies. Or something of the sort. Interesting. If you were the target audience in 74 you may be a few a couple years older than I am. But by the time Star Trek the Next Generation came around, I was already a teenager and reading the regular novels as opposed to the young readers. What about the Heinlein youth novels? Any good?

>38 brodiew2: ST:NG came out when I was a college undergraduate, so I'm probably a little older, though not a lot. In 1974 I was probably still a little young for House of Stairs, but that just means it was available during the entire window that I was in the target audience and I just never read it. But the "Cube" movies: yes, it's pretty much that vibe.

I read a couple of the Heinlein novels when I was in the target audience: I remember Have Space Suit, Will Travel and Rocketship Galileo fondly. When I moved to Tulsa I checked the public library's collection, only to discover that Heinlein is represented in their collection only by Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. There are a few others available through Hoopla, but it looks like I'll have to rely on ILL (or used bookstores or online options) to scratch that itch. Have you read any/have favorites?

>39 swynn: Sadly, I've only read Starship Troopers. I attempted the Moon is a Harsh Mistress sometime ago, but didn't get very far. At some point I'll try that again.

Years ago, I listened to a couple of his Lazarus Long books: Time Enough For Love and The Cat Who Walks Through walls. I wasn't sure what I was getting into but it was kind of a ribald science fiction comedy. After two books I had had enough.

>40 brodiew2: I haven't read many of his later books: I muscled my way through The Number of the Beast when I was, I don't know, maybe 13 or 14. I didn't get it but really wanted to. I tried The Cat Who Walks Through Walls a couple of years later but bounced off. Some fans would probably revoke my SF fan card for how few Heinlein novels I've read, but here I am. I do have a vague idea of working my way through the entire oeuvre, but that seems decreasingly likely to happen with each passing year. I do still want to read more of the early juveniles though.

>41 swynn: I'm sorry to take us down to Heinlein rabbit hole. I've read only a handful. I was just curious.

>42 brodiew2: No worries -- it's my thread, and I go down the rabbit holes I wanna.

8) What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher
Date: 2025

Third and most recent in the Sworn Soldier series, one I am enjoying much. In this one Easton travels to West Virginia where a friend's cousin has disappeared down an old abandoned mine. Easton and friends go right down the mine to figure out what happened, and quickly discover clues pointing to eldritch horror. And if you think that might scare them off then this is not the series for you. I'd seen some disappointed reviews for this one so adjusted my expectations ... and happily needn't have done, because the creepy and the claustrophobia worked very well for me. Hoping for a fourth soon.

I've been lightly exploring early Heinleins the last 15 years, esp the juveniles. I do not care at all for his later novels. Of the ten or so that I read 'recently' I would suggest Red Planet, Orphans of the Sky, Have Spacesuit Will Travel and The Green Hills of Earth. I can usually find the books for pocket change. I plan to try the Moon is a Harsh Mistress this year, later.

>33 swynn: & >34 swynn:

You are unearthing some "lost" gems there Steve.

The second one in particular took my fancy.

>46 PaulCranswick: me too!

>45 RBeffa: Thanks Ron! I've read Have Spacesuit Will Travel -- in fact I think I still have a copy in a box somewhere -- and liked it much. I may have read Orphans of the Sky -- it rings a bell but I don't remember anything about it. I'll add one of these to the mix soon.

>46 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul! Yes, the list is heavy with some vintage reads, and that will probably continue. If you get around to reading Out of the Air, I'll be interested in your thoughts.

The first two science fiction books I read - I think I was 8 - were ERB's A Princess of Mars and Heinlein's The Rolling Stones. Over the decades I've read and reread all of Heinlein's fiction. A while back, I read all of Heinlein in order, figuring out when each short story was published and reading it individually from what ever collection it was published in. Once I got to the novels, it was easier. I still haven't fished my chromological read through - I stalled after Friday. I have mixed feelings about many of the later books (I will never read Farnham's Freehold again), but I'll pick up with Job: A Comedy of Justice sometime this year. I've put it off long enough.

I have lots of opinions on Heinlein, lol. Perhaps you should try Double Star or Citizen of the Galaxy? There are so many options. :) The Green Hills of Earth and The Man Who Sold the Moon (the shorts stories) still make me tear up.

***I must correct myself. The Pursuit of the Pankera, an an unpublished alternate version of Number of the Beast, was realeased in 2020. I haven't read it, but I own it.

>50 Dejah_Thoris: I'm certainly building motivation to visit some Heinlein juveniles. I'll have to go through some boxes to see what I already have. My work library (an academic) actually has a few: Orphans of the Sky, The Green Hills of Earth, Double Star, Have Spacesuit Will Travel ... and a couple of dozen titles for restricted use in Special Collections, for some reason. I'll try to work one in next month. Thanks for the recs, all!

>50 Dejah_Thoris: I read Job: A Comedy of Justice once 20 years ago and enjoyed it. I wonder how it would land now?

Perry Rhodan 284: Anschlag gegen die Erde = "Attack on Earth" by William Voltz
Date: 1967 (Feb 10)

The Terrans have stopped the flow of counterfeit currency into the Empire, but the effects of the economic crisis linger. An empire-wide conference is called on Earth, where representatives of all 1,039 Terran colony worlds will meet to hold a vote of confidence over Perry Rhodan's leadership. So the stakes are already high when Terran security forces discover a plot by the Island Masters to smuggle weapons onto Earth. The plot involves sneaking pieces of the weapon, each piece harmless by itself, in the luggage of selected representatives. Once brought to earth the various pieces can self-assemble. And just as the security service figures out the plot, Atlan realizes that nah that's too easy: what if there is a second weapon whose pieces assemble while we're distracted by the first?

9) The Adventures of David Simple, and, Volume the Last by Sarah Fielding
Date: 1744

Our hero David Simple is a generous but naive young man, whose childhood is spent in close friendship with his brother Daniel. Afer their father dies, David is surprised to learn that Daniel is the sole heir but quietly accepts his status as houseguest in his brother's mansion. Then a sympathetic uncle discovers the truth: that Daniel had replaced their father's true will with a forgery. Restored to his inheritance but shocked by the betrayal, Daniel sets out to find true friendship, a quest repeatedly frustrated by hypocrisy and duplicity among the people he tries to trust. It's an episodic novel, a bit repetetive and prone to moralizing, but also very interesting for its psychologically layered characters.

This is Sarah Fielding's first and best-known work. It was immediately popular and for the rest of her career, Sarah's works regularly appeared as "by the author of David Simple." Only a few months after the first edition, David Simple went into a second one. The second edition contained a foreword and numerous changes by Fielding's more famous brother Henry. This second, Henry-Fielding-ified, edition was the basis of all commercial republications until the late 20th century.

Fielding followed up David Simple with two sequels. The first, published 1747,was a volume of letters as written among the principal characters. The second, "Volume the Last", published 1753, was a very different work. The original book was optimistic, in which Simple succeeds in his quest by finding a small group of friends who resolve to live happily ever after. But in 1753 Fielding wanted to show the friends' relationship faced with adversity. And adversity they face indeed: after a brief happy period in which the friends expand their families, they experience one calamity after another. First David Simple loses most of his fortune in an extended Chancery case (almost exactly 100 years before Bleak House). This begins a doom spiral in which the friends lose their homes, their health and, one by one, their lives. It's relentlessly dark, like the Book of Job withut the happy ending.

The version I read was a critical edition from 1998 based on the first (1744) edition, i.e., before Henry Fielding's extensive edits. Editor Peter Sabor calls attention to differences between the first and second edition and identifies several edits that seem to have been made solely to make Sarah Fielding's work conform to Henry's vision. This edition includes the 1753 sequel, but not the 1747 one.

10) Child of the Ghosts by Jonathan Moeller
Date: 2011

Kindle archive read. This is the opener to a high-fantasy series featuring a supercompetent teenager who becomes a secret agent protecting her fantasy homeland against menaces. This volume covers her education and her confrontation with the megalomaniacal and cartoonishly sadistic sorcerer who killed her father. It's standard YA stuff, but the prose and the plot chug along at a pace that keeps it fun enough for what it is. I have the next couple of volumes on Kindle, and am ambivalent about continuing.

11) Memoirs of an Unfortunate Young Nobleman, Return'd from a Thirteen Years Slavery in America, Where He Had Been Sent by the Wicked Contrivances of His Cruel Uncle by Eliza Haywood
Date: 1743

This is a fictionalized account of the life of James Annesley, who was kidnapped by his uncle and sold into "slavery" (i.e., indentured servitude) in America so that his uncle could claim his inheritance. In a twist made for a Robert Louis Stevenson novel, Annesley returned thirteen years later to demand his birthright. (I use the phrase advisedly: Stevenson's novel Kidnapped is believed to be inspired by the case.) The title page of the 1943 edition contained no byline, and it was widely believed to have been authored by Annesley himself, and this incorrect attribution has persisted until very recently. The copy I read is a facsimile reprint of the 1943 edition from 1975, a volume in J. Freeman's "Flowering of the Novel" series, with a half-title page that says "by James Annesley". But we know from copyright records that it was actually written by Eliza Haywood.

Wikipedia says the account of Annesley's life in America is "wildly inaccurate", and that judgment seems probable. In fairness, it doesn't really pretend to be an actual memoir: it refers to the titular nobleman in third person and he is named "Altamont" rather than "Annesley." But really, the book's readers knew the real subject. The volume was published just before the case went to trial and by feeding the public barely-plausible scandalous stories in a low-information environment, it sold very well. As such things do. I'm curious how closely they expected the fictional account to match its factual model, but that seems hard to measure.

For a piece of biographical fiction, it feels much more like amatory fiction, with scandalous hookups and stories within stories. Especially for the passages set in America, you do get the feeling that Haywood is just making stuff up. One subplot involves "Altamont" having to deal with the unwanted advances of his master's wife -- probably in a nod to the Pamela craze. Once "Altamont" returns to Ireland, the story beats broadly follow facts of the case: his marriage, his killing a stranger in a hunting accident, the accusations and claims by himself and his uncle, the legal maneuverings. Details, no doubt, are suspect and frequently the focus remains on turbulent romantic relationships over reportage.

It's not bad. I expect there's plenty here for scholars to mine but as leisure reading it still mostly works. Haywood rarely lets the pace lag and she is still more interested in telling a story than in moralizing. As fact-based drama it's heavier on drama than facts but I come from a generation with no standing to point fingers.

Perry Rhodan 285: Die dritte Waffe = "The Third Weapon" by William Voltz
Date: 1967 (Feb 17)

Representatives from 1,038 colony worlds have come to Earth to discuss matters of import -- not least, whether the recent economic crisis warrants replacing Perry Rhodan as Grand Administrator of the Terran Empire. Last episode, Terran security discovered a plot by the Island Masters to sabotage a summit conference on Terra, whereby component pieces of a weapon were being smuggled to Terra with the intent that the pieces could self-assemble at the conference into a destructive whole. Atlan & team discovered and disabled the parts to two such "fragment weapons," so problem solved. Well maybe not so fast: Terran agent Al Aboyer can't shake the feeling that the first two weapons were decoys and the most dangerous weapon is still out there. He consults a supercomputer that tells him the probability of a third weapon is large enough not to be ignored, but Atlan sees no solid evidence of a third weapon and Perry feels that postponing the conference, even for safety reasons, would send the wrong signal to his detractors amid a vote of confidence. So Al goes rogue to find the threat he knows is out there.

12) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Date: 1932

This was a read for a classic sf book group. It's been about forty years since I read this, and I remembered very little of it other than lots of free-love and that 1984 was better. In fact, I remember picking this up on the recommendation of a teacher after I'd gushed to her about Orwell. I was underwhelmed. Honestly, I don't remember whether I finished it.

Well, this time I've finished it and my opinion of it is much improved. I can see reasons why middle-school me rejected it: the narrative meanders: it begins with a big infodump and even once the plot gets going, Huxley jumps among viewpoint characters, so there's not really a single plot to tie the whole thing together. But middle school me just wasn't ready to process it, I think. But thanks to experience and 21st-century dispatches from late capitalism, the theme of social control through pleasure and entertainment seems uncomfortably familiar. And I am 100% certain that middle-school me did not understand how Huxley saw capitalism manufacturing consumers as well as products; while fifty-something me is impressed that he'd figured it out already in 1932. Some bits haven't aged well - dated ideas about women's roles, absence of queer attraction and kink in his free-love fantasies, the idea that you get better consumers by suppressing strong emotions (social media would like a word), and the rant about religion feels quaint. But I'm glad the group got me to revisit this. Orwell is still the better writer, but Huxley's vision is not a lesser one.

>58 swynn: Had I read Brave New World when I was under seventeen, I'd've rejected it too. I think you need to have a key moment of realization: you're being manipulated for "Their" profits and control...before it makes any sense at all. My older sister told me not to read it when I was twelve because it was really long so I could get more Poul Anderson and Andre Norton and Fritz Leiber books in if I skipped it. Having just finished Stranger in a Strange Land and moaned about that very thing, she was really smart. It preserved a really important read for the time I *could* find its real message.

Orwell's a much better writer no matter how you dice that banana.

>60 swynn: I think for me it would have been my early twenties before I'd have been ready to appreciate it, but yeah, I agree you have to bring some experience of disillusionment to hear what he's saying.

>58 swynn: I read Brave New World in high school, and I frankly don't remember much about it. Your review has me thinking of revisiting it - it sounds as though I appreciate much more now.

Thanks!

>33 swynn: I think that one is a hard pass from me. I have absolutely no nostalgia for 'plantation life and the slavery it required.'

>37 swynn: I vaguely remember reading that one back in the day. . .

>39 swynn: I am slated to read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress some time this month. I think I have read it before, but I do not remember a thing about it.

>45 RBeffa: I still have my old paperback copy of Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, Ron. I still like that one even after all these years!

>58 swynn: I reread that one last year. I agree completely about the differences between what 'middle school me' understood about the book and what 63-year-old me does. Amazing how the years change our perspectives, isn't it?

Have a wonderful weekend, Steve!

>61 Dejah_Thoris: Based on my experience, I'd recommend a revisit. I look forward to your thoughts if you do!

>62 alcottacre: This weekend, I scoured a large portion of my ... um ... physical TBR and was surprised at how many Heinlein juveniles I found: Revolt in 2100, Rocketship Galileo, Have Spacesuit Will Travel, Starship Troopers, and Farmer in the Sky. I'll dig in to something from this set soonish.

>63 swynn: I am not familiar with Revolt in 2100 or Farmer in the Sky. I will have to see if I can find copies of those. Thanks for the mention of them, Steve.

>64 alcottacre: >64 alcottacre: I'll reread any or all of those with you if you want the shared reads for the TIOLI Challenge.....

>64 alcottacre:
>65 Dejah_Thoris:

A shared read sounds fun, but my card is pretty full for this month. Let's see what fits into the March TIOLI.

13) Tales of Light and Life
Date: 2023

Over the year I have accumulated quite a few franchise-related ebooks, picking them up when discounted to a buck or two. The last couple of years, I logged several Star Trek novels until Paramount pissed me off by licking the boot of an administration pursuing a future antithetical to Roddenbery's vision. (Well, maybe not antithetical to the Ferengi.) So I thought, fuck Paramount, maybe it's time to work on the Star Wars books for a little while. (No, I don't have confidence in Disney's ethical superiority to Paramount. Just, you know, here we are.)

WRT Star Wars, I'm waaay behind on the franchise lore. Tales of Light and Life is a collection of short stories set in the "High Republic" series, officially described as taking place 200 "years" (whatever that means) before "Episode 1: The Phantom Menace," of which I've read 0 books. This probably is not the best entry point -- it feels like a bunch of bonus chapters to books I haven't read. Mostly, they seem to add perspectives to major events of the series, or to spotlight favorite characters. I found it just fine, but I'm probably also a lousy judge.

14) Tales of Ruma / edited by Martin Greening
Date: 2018

Here is a collections of fantasy stories "inspired by Greek and Roman mythology." From the Foreword, I gather that the setting was originally developed for a tabletop role-playing game. I've never heard of "Ruma : Dawn of Empire", much less played it, but the Internet tells me it does exist. But it doesn't really read like a collection designed to promote the product: there is very little overlap or continuity between the stories, even in basics. For example, some stories refer to Rome as "Ruma", but others just as "Rome." Quality falls in the expected range of meh to pretty good, with no real duds but also few especially memorable ones. Most lean toward miliatry fantasy, which is not my favorite subgenre, so I assume others will like them better. My favorite was David Farland's “Flying in Darkness,“ a tight and effective extension of the Icarus myth.

15) Melania : Devourer of Men / J.D. Boehninger
Date: 2018

So the slug-emperor's consort released a Very Special Documentary a couple of weekends ago, and I came across a request to "buy" and rate this ebook in an effort to raise it to the top of search results on Amazon for "Melania." The price was free and the payoff was amusing and petty, so I played along. Reading was optional because my god we're not the monsters here, but I read it anyway and can report that is written coherently in complete sentences and mostly correct grammar. Try to get that from the documentary.

>69 swynn: *eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww*

>69 swynn: Hahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!! Too fabulous!

>70 richardderus: Yep.
>71 Dejah_Thoris: Yep.

16) Children of Morrow by H.M. Hoover
Date: 1973

Here's another juvenile from my childhood. I don't remember reading this when I was in the target audience, but it does feel familiar. It's set in a postapocalypse future dystopia, where two psychically gifted children, following the instructions of a stranger they have met only in their dreams, escape from their community and its cruel leadership. Their guidance, it turns out, comes from telepaths of a more advanced community which survived the worst of the apocalypse underground. It moves along nicely, and is certainly the sort of thing I would have been reading in the mid-1970s.

Perry Rhodan 286: Jagd auf die Teleporterkugel = "Chasing the Teleporter-Sphere" by H.G. Ewers

Near the center of the Milky is a matter transmitter built by unknown hands sometime in the distant past. The transmitter is powered by six blue-giant suns, and so is sometimes called the "hexagon transmitter" (Sechsecktransmitter) or the "sun transmitter" (Sonnentransmitter), and sometimes the "sun hexagon transmitter" (Sonnensechsecktransmitter) just for fun to maximize German noun length. Anyway, the transmitter is also a receiver, and the Terrans slapped strong security measures on the Sonnensechsecktransmitter fifty episodes ago or so, in order to prevent a surprise invasion. So far the security has worked fine.

So the Terran defense forces go into a panic when a twelve-meter sphere appears through the transmitter without warning or authorization. If one vessel can slip past securiy, might the Island Masters be planning to invade the Milky Way? (Spoiler: yes.) Just as strange is the way that the sphere cannot be held by tractor beams, leading to the conclusion that it moves by teleportation rather than physical technology. The Terrans chase it to an inferno planet, where a new mystery emerges ...

>73 swynn: I think Hoover was an underrated author for her time. I have not read this one. Your post reminds me to keep looking for her books.

>69 swynn: I can't help but laugh about this. However I also think it is pretty mean.

>75 RBeffa: I plan to read some more Hoover too. Sometime soon I'll get to Treasures of Morrow, her sequel to Children of Morrow.
>76 RBeffa: Under the circumstances, I figure that the Trump regime has merited much meaner.

17) Little Girl Lost by Richard Aleas
Date: 2004

New York PI John Blake learns that his high school girlfriend, once headed for medical school, is the subject of headlines about a murdered stripper. Blake's twisty investigation exposes not only the crime, but also his own idealistic illusions. I liked this much. It's an early entry in the “Hard Case Crime“ series, which aims to preserve and revive hard-boiled crime fiction à la Chandler and Hammett, and for my taste Aleas nails it. This was a Kindle archive read, and I'm happy I finally got around to it.

Perry Rhodan 287: Die Halle der Unbesiegbaren = "Hall of the Unconquerable" by H.G. Ewers
Date: 1967 (March 3)

Events of the last episode revealed that the Island Masters are almost certainly preparing an invasion force to be sent through the sun-transmitter, and can almost certainly invade in numbers large enough to overwhelm Terran defenses. For several episodes, Perry has slowly and reluctantly come to realize that Terrans lack the resources to maintain forces in both the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. So: how to withdraw gracefully from Andromeda without inviting attack on the Milky Way? So Perry sends Atlan to the Maahks with a proposal: in exchange for the Maahks' help against the Island Masters, Terrans will withdraw from Andromeda and leave it uncontested to the Maahks.

18) Space Hostages by Nicholas Fisk
Date: 1967

Here's another science fiction juvenile that was available but unread by me when I was in the target audience. The premise is that an RAF Flight Lieutenant, outraged by the world‘s march toward nuclear war, steals a secret spacecraft, kidnaps children from an English village, flees into space, and then dies, leaving the children to figure out how to get back to Earth. One of the children is a science nerd with some ideas about how to work toward that goal, like establishing radio contact with earth and putting in the work to learn the controls. But other children are more intent on dominance than survival. It's part Lord of the Flies, part Airport, and part that too-familiar story of a glory-hungry narcissist targeting the knowledge class whose skills keep everyone alive but expose the narcissist for the clown he is. Y'know, current events.

>78 swynn: Yay for enjoying a well-crafted noir but I am confounded by the proportions of the woman on the cover. How long ARE her legs? Lol.

>80 swynn: Oh dear...no wonder it wasn't in my libraries available to me during the 1960s. No US polity would've reacted calmly to that in the era of Dr. Strangelove. Too much questionin' authority's right to dominate, celebratin' the sensible individual.

Ah me...people. *tsk*

>81 MickyFine: Right? And thank you: I've spent more time than I want to admit contemplating the pose. Partly it's an illusion: she has her toes extended in a way that makes the sole of her foot appear to extend her left leg but that doesn't really explain it, or why her head is so small. The artist is Robert McGinnis who has a large portfolio of pulp covers and movie posters, many of which you'll recognize though that knowledge only makes this cover's awkwardness more disappointing.

>82 richardderus: Exactly. Also, the science-nerd hero kid who brings the craft home is mixed-race. My recollection is that when I was in the target audience black kids could be the stars of social-issue fiction, but for science fiction they were strictly sidekicks. For that or another or multiple reasons, I don't remember any of Nicholas Fisk's work on the shelves of my school or public libraries. I will seek out some more.

>84 swynn: The choices we make for kids are so invisible to most of us. They're also super-high impact. I hate that we've ignored this truth as a society and thus enabled lowlife sleazes to grab the high ground.

>78 swynn: She doesn't look to be such a little girl, Steve.

>84 swynn: & >85 richardderus: Isn't it a shame in 2026 that we still notice things like that? My three terrors are mixed race and I find attitudes towards them quite humorous sometimes as people don't seem to know where to place them and they themselves don't seem interested in being placed anywhere.

Kyran, my son, is comical because his knowledge of Bahasa Melayu (Malay Language) was good enough to give him a high grade at school but my spoken Malay is far better than his!

>86 PaulCranswick: Kyran always used Malay less than you...the workplace was, I'm sure, heavier in Malay than his school life and certainly home life.

>86 PaulCranswick: She certainly isn't, not on the cover and not in the text.

It's a shame we ever made race a thing at all. But we seemed to be hard-wired to find false-but-easy explanations for problems with complex or self-implicating causes, and since we currently seem intent on multiplying those problems, I don't see it going away soon.

Isn't it strange how wide the gap is between written and spoken fluency?

If anyone is interested in joining me, I've added Farmer in the Sky to TIOLI #15.

>89 swynn: I'm in! I'll go add myself to the wiki. :)

>90 Dejah_Thoris: Yay!

Perry Rhodan 288 : Das Sonneninferno = "The Sun-Inferno" by K.H. Scheer
Date: 1967 (March 10)

The Island Masters are planning to invade the Milky Way Galaxy through the sun-trasmitter, with a Tefroder-Duplo fleet so large the Terrans cannot hope to defend against it. The Terran's only practical defense is to cut off the invasion route: i.e., destroy the sun-transporter. But for that they need a new weapon, powerful enough to detonate stars. Then they need their new Maahk allies to to provide a diversion while they move the weapon into place. This one is heavy with technobabble, but pays off with a sun shattering kaboom.

19) The Undying Monster by Jessie Douglas Kerruish
Date: 1922

The Fifty-two Months' War -- which I guess was a term for WWI before there was a II -- leaves the Hammand family with just two remaining members: Oliver and Swanhild. One night Oliver ventures out to check the estate for poachers, and fails to return. Swanhild goes looking and finds Oliver injured and unconscious in a thicket where nearby are the remains of his dog and a severely injured but still-living village girl. No poacher could be responsible for such violence, so suspicion falls on the Hammand curse, a sort of monster that periodically appears throughout history to attack the family head on cold dry nights near pine trees. Which seems weirdly specific, but there's a bit of doggerel to go with it and everything:

Where grow pines and firs amain
Under Stars, sans heat or rain,
Chief of Hammand, 'ware thy Bane!

To investigate the curse and avoid its doom, the Hammands call in Luna Bartendale, "the greatest hand at hunting down ghosts and anything supernatural that ever was known. She appears to combine the functions of a White Witch and detective." Bartendale applies her considerable competence to investigating the origin of the curse and ways to foil it.

I found this occult mystery thoroughly entertaining, which is a little surprising because the pace is not rapid. After a gruesome opening set piece, Miss Bartendale arrives and we settle into a steady rhythm of research, history lectures, mesmerism and theosophical argle-bargle that manages to maintain more suspense than it really should. Miss Bartendale herself contributes much interest as a super-competent and assertive investigator, but I also enjoyed its confidently loopy takes on psychology, Norse mythology, and werewolf lore. I am sad that this is the only example of Luna Bartendale's adventures, because I'd read the whole series if she were to keep this up.

>93 swynn: Someone ought to make a stab at it, it's out of copyright and ripe for the poaching for 2026's Media market. Intriguing premise!

>94 richardderus: A film version exists, made in 1942 apparently to ride the popularity of Universal's 1941 "Wolf Man". It's an awful mess, worst of all turning Luna Bartendale into a gawky comic-relief character. I wouldn't turn my nose up at a remake.

>69 swynn: You are a braver soul than me...

>96 ocgreg34: I don't blame anyone for giving that one a pass. In fact, I recommend it.

Perry Rhodan 289: Das System der blauen Riesen = "The System of Blue Giants" by Clark Darlton
Date: 1967 (March 17)

Back in episode 286 a mysterious sphere emerged through the sun-transmitter at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The sphere led Terrans on a merry chase, at the end of which it was revealed that the sphere was the vessel for "sun engineers", energy-beings who built the intergalactic star transmitters, and who can bypass any security measures applied to the transmitters. And who are working together with the Tefroders. These revelations prompted the Terrans to establish an alliance with the Maahks and to destroy the sun-transmitter at the center of the Andromeda galaxy with a very big boom. While fleeing the explosion's shockwave, Gucky and the Woolver twins notice a sun engineer craft also trying to outrun the shockwave. The twins contact the sun engineers, rescue them from the rapidly approaching wave, and negotiate an invitation to the home planet. But the sun engineers' planet is occupied by Tefroders who are not happy about the lost transmitter and object to Terrans' presence.

20) Damned by E.S. Dorrance
Date: 1923

A young woman recently deceased with her infant daughter is summoned to Satan's throne room. The woman is Dolores Trent, known in Hell as "Grief to Men." Satan is looking for some diversion, and commands her to recite her life of sin. A melodramatic story follows, periodically interrupted by Satan's commands to speed things along and not to skip over the spice. Dolores's story is one of poverty and misfortune, where at every opportunity men attempt to take advantage of her. She soon acquires a reputation for loose morals, which constrains her choices further. Eventually she is hired to be a nanny to a disabled and indulged-but-ignored son of a wealthy couple. In this role she finds a calling -- until the child dies in an automobile accident, after which the boy's father confesses his love to her. Seeing something in him that is invisible to me, Dolores returns the sentiment and they have a brief period of unsanctioned bliss until the wife finds out. From there events lead quickly and literally to Hell. Her story enchants Satan who offers to make her his queen, and for my taste that could have been a satisfying ending except how would you sell *that* to a 1920s audience? (Very possibly more easily than I imagine, but Dorrance doesn't take that chance.)

It's a hot mess. It's a little bit critique of patriarchy and a little afterlife fantasy, but it's full of cliches, it won't commit to its most interesting ideas, it can't decide on tone or pace or its world's rules, and resolves with a deus ex machina. Still, there are hints of something more appealing and subversive here, and I can't help wishing for a film adaptation from a team who could lean into the surreal bits, sympathize with the devil, commit to the nonsense, and make me wonder what the Hell I just watched.

Perry Rhodan 290: Koordinaten ins Jenseits = "Coordinates to the Beyond" by Clark Darlton
Date: 1967 (March 23)

On the sun-engineers' homeworld, Gucky works to negotiate a partnership, but also to secure the release of Terrans who had been taken hostage by Tefroders. The sun-engineers however are not very interested in partnership. Their culture is peaceful and transparently honest, based on a curious religion that holds there is only one sun in the universe which they call "Mother", and all apparent suns are incomplete projections of Mother into our plane of reality. Upon coming into this plane, the sun-engineers partnered with the Tefroders only now to discover that the Tefroders have been duplicitous, violent, and power-hungry. Rather than try a new partnership with the Terrans, the sun-engineers plan to leave the universe altogether by diving into the local sun thus reuniting with Mother. If that sounds nuts, then Gucky would agree with you: he tries to persuade them to another course, and if they are unpersuadable at least to stick around long enough that he can use their potential cooperation as a negotiating point with the Tefroders.

21) Trilby by George Du Maurier
(1894)

I knew about this novel mostly as the source of the villain Svengali, who bacame the title character in most film adaptations, so I was surprised at how little page time he gets. It's really less about Svengali than about Paris's Latin Quarter in the mid-19th century, so much that it sometimes reads more like travelogue than fiction. Add to the slow pace a heavy dose of untranslated French dialect and a vicious preoccupation with antisemitism and I just don't have enough rope to give this book the "product of its time" slack it needs to recommend it for its local color. Others have done, and that's fine. Me, I'm just glad it's no longer sitting unread in my Kindle account.

22) The capacity and extent of the human understanding exemplified in the extraordinary case of Automathes; a young nobleman, who was accidentally left in his infancy, upon a desolate island, and continued nineteen years in that solitary state, separate from all human society by John Kirkby
Date: 1745

After being shipwrecked and then abandoned by his father on an uninhabited island, Automathes grows up alone. It's kind of like Robinson Crusoe, except that Kirkby isn't interested in how his hero survives but rather in what Automathes can learn by contemplating nature in isolation. All on his own, undistracted by problems of food or shelter, Automathes not only teaches himself Euclidean geometry but also develops approximately orthodox ideas about God, the soul, sin, and repentance by logical chains that say more about the author's lack of imagination than the soundness of his reason. Good news is that it's short, less good is that it's dull, sophistical, and preeningly pious

23) Sanctuary : a Bad Batch Novel by Lamar Giles
Date: 2025

For those who haven't been paying attention to the "Star Wars" universe: "Bad Batch " is an animated series on the Disney+ streaming service. It's a spinoff of the "Clone Wars" animated series, at the end of which nearly all clone soldiers switched from good guys to bad guys when given a specific command ("Order 66"). A handfull of clone soldiers had mutations which made them immune to Order 66. These exceptional soldiers formed a crack commando unit surviving as soldiers of fortune in the Empire's underground. ("If you have a problem, if no one else can help you, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire ... " etc.) This is the first tie-in novel for the series. I am aware of but haven't watched the "Bad Batch" series yet (still working through "Clone Wars" slowly), so the characters are new to me and I lack some background that might have been enlightening, but even without the background it's still quite fun. The story is involves the liberation of cultural artifacts, a client with a sketchy background on the run from the Empire, and a megalomaniacal villain with ties to Emperor Palpatine. You know, macguffins, chases, treachery, peril, explosions, the usual stuff for the intended effect. The publisher made a good choice to bring in a writer with crime fiction credits to deliver a story about the Star Wars A-Team. I'd read another.

Perry Rhodan 291 : Brücke zwischen den Sternen = "Bridge Between the Stars" by Kurt Mahr
Date: 1967 (March 31)

Back in episode 288, Terrans destroyed the Star-Transporter in the center of Andromeda. There was a huge explosion, a dangerous shock-wave, and a thwarting of villainous plans. But the Terrans now learn additional consequences. There are other star-transporters, including one in the Andro-Beta Nebula by which Perry planned to withdraw Terran forces from Andromeda. But exploding the Andromedan star-transporter has now destabilized the entire network of star-transporters. It starts when a ship departs through the Andro-Beta gateway but arrives in the Milky Way as a horrifying mix of steel and flesh. The Terrans scramble to identify patterns in the cycle of instability, hoping to move as much and as safely as they can. But then Tefroders appear unexpectedly in Andro-Beta with retaliation in mind ... This one is fine, and the mild body-horror elements are appreciated, but mostly it feels like scene-setting for the next few episodes.

>102 swynn: it's dull, sophistical, and preeningly pious
Oh, gross. Thanks for taking one for the team!

I'm just popping in briefly to wish you a great weekend, Steve.
And thanks for reminding me to get back into Perry Rhodan.

>101 swynn: You made it through, so that ain't nothin', but why ever not simply say "adios chickenf**ker" and delete it when the antisemitism hit? I'm so old it's become SOP when I'm even just bored. Too few eyeblinks remaining to waste on tedium or nausea.

Happier weekend-ahead's reads!

>105 scaifea: You're welcome! That's one I don't mind warning others away from.
>106 SirThomas: Hi Thomas! And I'm looking forward to your comments on upcoming PR reads!

>107 richardderus: Good question. I do abandon books, though I rarely mention them here when I do. And in fact I abandoned Trilby a couple of times before finally finishing it: it's been unread in my Kindle account but not unattempted. And every time I scroll past it I think I really ought to finish it someday.

Usually when I return to an abandoned book, I can acknowledge what it was that stuck in my memory that refused to go unresolved. Completing the book may be satisfying or not, or complicated, but in the case of Trilby I'm not sure what it is. Really, there isn't anything I found appealing. The antisemitism and the French dialect are barriers. The depiction of a certain time and place is interesting but also feels sanitized. The version of Svengali that fascinates me is a version the text doesn't support. I think the thing my squirrel brain can't let go is the memory of stumbling across the 1931 movie while late-night channel-surfing some thirty years ago. The story and John Barrymore's performance as Svengali struck me as so bizarre it felt like a revelation. (Drugs were not involved on my part -- they certainly were on Barrymore's -- but sleep deprivation was probably a factor.) I've rewatched the movie a few times since then without sparking the same magic. Now that I've completed the book I hope the squirrel brain will stop thinking the book might do it.

>109 swynn: I suppose it's the negative payoff on this one that's got me verschmeckeled. I return to books that call to me, too...2025's most favorites most lauded most starred The Remembered Soldier was a revisit that didn't let me alone. But what kept calling me by my name was the sense of Noon trying to link thoughts and impressions into an identity, a life he could someday maybe just live. It was too much too soon in felonious yam's reign, but I'd calmed down a little so I picked it back up and loved it wholeheartedly.

I wish this read had done that for you instead of besmirching your brain with blobs of badness.

>110 richardderus: It wasn't a good book but I do have a sense of closure with respect to it, which is not nothing.

24) Blackbriar by William Sleator
Date: 1972

An orphaned teenager is placed with a foster mother who doesn't seem to have much more emotional maturity than the boy himself. On little more than impulse, his guardian leverages his inheritance to buy an abandoned mansion in the countryside. Creepiness ensues, from the townspeople who don't want to talk about the house, to the weird dreams and noises and fireplace that lights itself when they are away, to the list of names carved on the door to the basement and a date carved next to every name but one. Oh, and the devil worshippers celebrating black mass at the nearby cairn. I'd probably have loved it if I'd read it while I was in the target audience. In my mid-fifties it feels like a weird mix of too much and not quite enough. The spookiness is laid on thick, but the narrative foundation is too creaky to sustain it.

25) DAW #236: The Gameplayers of Zan by M.A. Foster
Date: 1977

Second in Foster's "Ler" series. The "Ler" are a population of genetically engineered humans (transhumans? posthumans?) designed to be superhuman but in fact something more complicated. The Ler are stronger faster smarter, but also have developed their own language, kinship structure, and ethics including a profound caution for technology. This volume takes place before the first volume, while humans and Ler are confined to Earth, with the Ler living on a reservation and the human-Ler relationship being an uneasy truce. A young Ler woman is arrested by human authorities for vandalism, and while detained she self-induces a psychologal process that wipes her memory and personality. The humans of course wonder what she was trying to hide, and the Ler just wonder what the hell? The incident sparks a series of political, ethical, and cultural complications.

I liked the first in the series, Warriors of Dawn, very much and this one even more. It's the kind of immersive anthropological science fiction where you can get lost in the author's carefully imagined details of nonhuman culture. If that's your thing, then so is this. Looking forward to the last.

26) A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller
Date: 1959

This is a collection of three post-apocalyptic novellas focused on events surrounding a monastery in the middle of nowhere dedicated to the veneration of St. Leibowitz, who the reader can see was a pre-apocalypse nuclear physicist (and who may still be around ... ) Over the course of the book, civilization recapitulates its path to apocalypse, while its characters confront questions about god, revelation, the relationship between spiritual and secular authority, and finding one's place in history with incomplete knowledge. (Which incompleteness is often humorously evident to the reader.) This was a re-read for me, and it did not diminish on the revisit: if anything, it resonates even more is a time when its theme of humanity repeating its worst sins sounds like the daily news.

27) Dissertations Upon the Apparitions of Angels, Daemons, and Ghosts, and Concerning the Vampires of Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia by Augustin Calmet
Date: 1746 (English translation 1759)

Author Calmet was a Benedictine abbot with an interest in ghost stories. This volume collects, as the title advertises, stories about angels, demons, ghosts, and vampires, by which he seems to mean any reanimated corpse, not necessarily the blood-sucking sort. This volume (Dissertations sur les apparitions ... ) was wildly successful, which encouraged Calmet to expand it into a two-volume work in 1751 bearing the title "Treatise Upon the Apparitions ..." (Traité sur les apparitions ... ). The version I read is an English translation published in 1759 and bears the (translated) title of the first edition, but its publication date indicates the the translator may also have had access to the larger second edition, so I'm not certain about its relationship to the source work(s?).

Regardless: the stories are of course interesting for their own sake, but one of Calmet's projects is to assess the plausibility of the stories he has gathered. Any story that appears in the Bible he regards of course as true; on the other hand, many of the vampire stories in particular are fetched too far. For stories in between Calmet compares factors such as the number and reliability of witnesses against a story's surface believability and the availability of alternative explanations -- including psychological ones -- is often as interesting as the tales themselves.

>114 swynn: I haven't reread A Canticle for Leibowitz in years. I need to fit it in soon.

If you enjoyed Farmer in the Sky, would you be interested in reading another Heinlein in April for Stasia's planned, but not yet posted, TIOLI Challenge? Both Space Cadet and Tunnel in the Sky are on the list. I'd be open to either or both - and, of course, Tunnel in the Sky also fits Judy's Challenge #7.

>116 Dejah_Thoris: I did enjoy Farmer in the Sky, and would definitely read another. I want to be careful about overcommitting because I plan to read Clarissa next month which will crowd out a lot. So let's just do the one, and like you say, Tunnel in the Sky fits Challenge #7 perfectly.

>117 swynn: I've joined you in Challenge #7. :)

>114 swynn: It's been a long time, but I remember loving A Canticle for Leibowitz when I read it.

>113 swynn: I'm glad this held up for you. I do not recall my feelings about the third book, Day of the Klesh, probably because I read it many years after the first two.

I must pay more attention than I thought to the right-wing celebrity space, because I read this bit from Clarissa and my first reaction was, Oh wow the Erica Kirk schtick was worn out three hundred years ago.

The widow, in the conversation we had after breakfast, gave us an account of the military merit of the Colonel her husband, and, upon this occasion, put her handkerchief to her eyes twice or thrice. I hope for the sake of her sincerity, she wetted it, because she would be thought to have done so; but I saw not that she did. She wished that I might never know the loss of a husband so dear to me, as her beloved Colonel was to her: and she again put the handkerchief to her eyes.

Narrator: The widow is not, in fact, sincere.

>118 Dejah_Thoris: Glad for the company!
>119 scaifea: It has been a while for me too, and I found it rewarding in new ways.
>120 RBeffa: I don't know when I'll get to the third -- but I've noticed that I am retaining less and less of the information needed to make continuing series rewarding so I hope to follow up more promptly on series that interest me. We'll see how well that resolution translates into action

>121 swynn: I think Yesteryear: a novel ought to hit your eyestalks, Steve. Mrs Kirk's consolable widowhood and impeachable "character" is extremely effectively skewered.

>122 swynn: Same with me Steve. I think it is partly the number of books I have read and probably more significant is aging.

2026 has been a busy one, and I have fallen behind on comments again. Chances are I won't catch up soon, but here are a few:



28) Dhata Mays by Greg Dragon
Date: 2018

A Kindle Archive read. This is the prequel to the “Synth Crisis“ trilogy, a far-future crime series I haven't read. In this world, "synths" are artificial humans who are legally recognized as persons, though many feel they shouldn't be. When synths start turning up dead, the titular hero investigates their murders. It's fine. I'll probably go on to read the first book in the trilogy, because it's also been sitting unread on my Kindle for a long time. But I'm not in a hurry.

29) Sea Sick by Iain Rob Wright
Date: 2016

A Kindle Archive read. It's Groundhog Day. With zombies. On a cruise ship. If you like the premise, you'll probably like the product. For me, I found it mostly fun. It passed the time. It's also the first in a trilogy, and I have the next on Kindle; I'll get to it eventually.

30 Treasures of Morrow by H.M. Hoover
Date: 1976

In “Children of Morrow,“ two telepathically-gifted children in a post-apocalyptic dystopia escaped their oppressive community for a more welcoming and technologically advanced one. In this sequel, the children join a team from their new community to make contact with their old one. Mixed feelings about this one, but I appreciate its perspective that that there is a difference between reaching a safe space and finding a home.

31) Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler
Date: 2025

Set in a not-implausible near future where Western nations have handed government over to the AI optimists, and the authoritarian “Federation“ uses immortality tech to extend indefinitely the life of its dear leader. It's heavy with pondering about what it means to be happy and why as a species we seem to suck at it, and why the systems we build that ought to promote happiness do so mostly for a priveleged few at the increasing expense of you and me. Yeah, sounds ... familiar ...

Thanks for recommending this one, Richard!

32) The Devil's Saint by Dulcie Deamer
Date: 1924

Here's a medieval fantasy in which a fortune-teller's daughter, Sidonia, falls in love with both an angel of the Lord and with Satan. Actually, the "angel" is the son of the local Count and "Satan" is the Count himself, which is no spoiler because it's very clear from the beginning that Sidonia overlays actual events with her own allegorical imagination, though it is not entirely clear how much Sidonia herself is aware of this habit. Nor is it clear as the story proceeds, whether all of Sidonia's magical experiences have nonmagical explanations. Further blurring the boundary between magical and mundane is Deamer's lush, symbol-rich prose. The effect is surreal and enchanting.

>128 swynn: I'm glad you "liked" it...weirdo. It still raises the jeebies but at least the heebies have passed.

Let me know if you feel like reading any more Heinlein - I'm game!

Double post. Again.

Let me know if you feel like reading any more Heinlein - I'm game!

33) Farmer in the Sky by Robert Heinlein
Date: 1950

It's been a long time since I've read Heinlein, but have been reading some vintage "juvenile" sf and his name came up. Dejah proposed a shared read, and this is the one we picked, a story about a teenager who moves with his family to a terraforming colony on Jupiter's moon Ganymede. I'm struck by its pace, which feels glacial next to standards of the current YA market; and even more by its confidence that its readers are more interested in science and engineering challenges than in action and relationship drama. I do not remember reading this when I was in the target audience, and I don't know how I would have responded if I had. But old me finds its engineering drama very appealing -- even while my eyes roll at teenage supercompetence and while I wince at casual misogyny that probably would have gone right over my head 40-something years ago.

>130 richardderus: Thanks again for the rec, Richard. The news constantly sends signals that both heebies and jeebies are justified.

>131 Dejah_Thoris: Yes! Let's take a look at the June challenges and pick another.

34) Auf zwei Planeten = On Two Planets by Kurd Laßwitz
Date: 1897

A balloon expedition to the North Pole arrives at its destination only to discover a Martian outpost. When the balloon is caught up in the Martians' antigravity elevator, the expedition's scientists find themselves stranded. Fortunately, the Martians take pity on the survivors and take them into the shelter of their polar base. The Martians, it turns out, have been observing Earth for many years, intending eventually to contact Earth's governments to arrange mutually beneficial relations. The scientists' arrival advances the timetable for doing so. Peaceful relations seem promising based on Martians' interactions with the scientists, which are mutually respectful and even friendly -- romantic, even, for a qualified definition of "romantic" -- enough that the Martians eventually invite the scientists to visit the home planet. But as Martians encounter broader humanity things develop less peacefully. When the British navy attacks a Martian ship, the Martians respond with unequaled technology and military force to punish the British and to demand submission from other Earth governments. Thus begins a vicious cycle in which Martian policy toward Earth grows increasingly draconian, causing discontent among humans and provoking acts of resistance, to which Martians respond with more draconian measures, et cetera. As relations deteriorate, peaceful solutions grow ever more distant.

Auf zwei Planeten was published the same year that H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds was serialized in Pearson's Magazine. It's unlikely that either author was aware of the other’s work, and differences far outweigh superficial similarities. (Though it does feel a bit weird when Laßwitz's Martians are threatened by a viral epidemic originating on Earth.) But while Wells imagines Martians mostly in terms of military power, Laßwitz presents an advanced technological civilization with art, philosophy, and cultural values in addition to military power, whose goals on Earth are more nuanced, and who envision -- or tell themselves they envision -- mutually beneficial relations with Earth. It’s easy to read this as an allegory of European colonial ambitions in which the colonizers become the colonized. Inevitably, Laßwitz’s perspective has not aged well in every way, but even when it fails to entertain it remains consistently *interesting*. From the twenty-first century it's surprising how insightful it feels.

Auf zwei Planeten was tremendously successful in the German-language market, and was translated into several European languages -- but not into English, perhaps because Laßwitz portrays the British as aggressive barbarians, i.e., in the same way that British writers habitually portrayed “the Huns,” and Americans as barely civilized at all. For whatever reason, no English-language translation was published until that of an abridged version in 1971. AFAICT, this remains the only professional translation in English, which is a shame.

35) Crimson Climb by E.K. Johnston
Date: 2023

Qi'ra was introduced in the opening sequence of the "Solo" movie, where she is a street kid and Han Solo's first love. Later in the movie Qi'ra is reintroduced as an upper operative in the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate. How she got from street kid to capo is left as an exercise for the tie-in novelist. E.K. Johnston completes that exercise and it's fine, though it really feels a little homework-y, with an episodic plot that mostly feels like it's trying to connect the dots it's expected to do -- pretty much how I felt about the movie too, TBH. It also leaves threads dangling though I expect some of these tie into plots of other SW products, my ignorance of which probably informs my ambivalence.

36) Key Out of Time by Andre Norton
Date: 1963

Fourth in Norton's “Time Traders“ series, this one has Ross Murdock investigating a Polynesian-coded culture on a recently-discovered planet Hawaika. On the hunt for information about antagonist aliens, Ross and his fellow time agents (including a pair of dolphins) set up a time gate then accidentally fall through unprepared, into the middle of a war involving pirates, witches, and aliens. It's kind of kitchen-sink-y and some plot developments feel forced, but fun overall.

37) Songs of Innocence by Richard Aleas
Date: 2007

Follow-up to Aleas's "Little Girl Lost,", in which PI John Blake investigated the murder of a high school girlfriend. Reeling from the events of that investigation, Blake leaves the PI business and returns to college. He gets involved with a fellow student who like Blake has a hard journey behind her and little hope for a brighter future. When the young woman turns up dead and authorities diagnose a suicide, Blake knows they are wrong and dusts off his PI skills. This is a committed noir story of the sort where the hero descends into a sordid urban underbelly, and learning the truth brings peace to nobody. But as an example of the kind of thing it is, it's quite good.

38) Clarissa by Samuel Richardson
Date: 1747

Spoilers follow.

Clarissa Harlowe is a young woman of a respectable family, of marriageable age and reputation. When the notorious rake Robert Lovelace insults Harlowe's hotheaded brother, her family grows concerned about her cordial relationship with him. To quash any romance, the Harlowes arrange to marry Clarissa to the fabulously wealthy but personally odious Roger Solmes. They steadily increase pressure on her to agree to the match, until the only escape she sees is to accept Lovelace's offer to spirit her away. As soon as he removes her from her family's orbit, however, Lovelace springs a trap of his own devising, placing her in situations increasingly under his control. For a time he tries to persuade Clarissa to yield willingly, but eventually, tiring of the chase — and already halfway through the novel — he drugs and rapes her. The remainder of the novel deals with the aftermath: Clarissa's family reckoning with a dishonor they largely provoked; Lovelace's family trying to make everything right by solemnizing a marriage after the fact; and Clarissa looking for a way to be (or not be) in a world whose narratives don't match her experience.

I read Pamela last year and thought I had Richardson figured out: a stuffy moralist with enough narrative instinct to turn my low expectations into unexpected engagement. Post-Pamela, with my expectations raised ever so slightly, I thought I knew what to expect from Clarissa: more Pamela but at greater length. And by "greater length" I mean that Clarissa is more than twice as long as Pamela and its sequel Pamela in Her Exalted Condition combined. It is almost as long as the entire Harry Potter series: HP only outbabbles Clarissa in the last half of book seven -- and no, I can't be bothered to remind myself which title was book seven because who cares and I'm sorry I brought it up. Point is, it's long even for a long book. And yes, you feel it.

But dang, Richardson surprised me again. Despite the length, and despite the fact that every one of the characters — prissy Clarissa included — is dislikable, I can't help admiring Richardson's craft. He gives us a cast of well-realized characters, each with motivations that are incompatible with those of other characters, but perfectly justifiable from the motivee's perspective. No character is evil just to be evil: even Lovelace has admirable qualities (if he had none, argues Richardson in the preface to the fourth edition, why would Clarissa correspond with him at all?), and justifies his worst actions with appeals to a libertine philosophy consistent with ideas that were in circulation at the time. Likewise, even the most pious characters are flawed, and Richardson strongly hints that Clarissa is romantically attracted to Lovelace more than she pretends. In fact Richardson gives the reader so many ambiguities, unreliable speakers, competing motives, half-truths, and self-deceptions — and delivers actual events at such a slow trickle — that it's hard to take any character's version of events at face value. (As a 21st-century reader I also can't help reading attraction between Clarissa and her close friend Anna, though Richardson almost certainly didn't intend that.)

The novel also lacks the kind of moralizing that hulked over the last half of Pamela and all of its sequel, where characters would voice the author's opinions and sermons regardless of their own supposed motivations. Clarissa on the other hand has moralizing enough, but it is everywhere consistent with its characters' motives and feels more like character development than didacticism.

I don't want to oversell the book, because I do not love it: too much repetition, too much histrionics, too long, too ick. Some of that is just 18th-versus-21st century aesthetics; some is my aversion to negotiating with social customs that never should have been acceptable. But I don't want to undersell it either: in my project of reading 18th-century novels, I haven't yet encountered a book with such close attention to character, such awareness of its own audience, and such a layered effort to manipulate the reader's response. It's possible to admire a book and also to want never to read it again, and I expect this will be a favorite example.

39) Tunnel in the Sky by Robert Heinlein
Date: 1955

A group of students are transported to a distant planet to test their survival skills. But the return trip doesn't happen and keeps not happening until they find themselves stranded for two years. Heinlein's version of how teenagers and young adults build a society is much more optimistic than, say, Lord of the Flies; but also not pollyannish: conflicts develop between older and younger colonists, conflicts over role assignments and distribution of labor, especially between those who see themselves as leading and planning the colony versus those who do the work. Bureaucracy accretes quickly, as do social habits that may not benefit long-term survival. The nature of the conflicts offer a window into Heinlein's preoccupations, as do the characters' ruminations on freedom and civilization. (As also do the ideas about women's roles, though the range here is wider than in Farmer in the Sky.) Not everything has aged well, but as a can-do survival story it appeals to me.

40 No Offense Intended by Barbara Seranella
Date: 1999

This is the second in Seranella's series of crime thrillers featuring “Munch“ Mancini, ex-junkie ex-con auto mechanic. I read the first back in 2014 and lilked it will enough but only just got around to the next. In this one, an old boyfriend shows up at Mancini's job with news that he has a baby. A few hours later the boyfriend is dead. As she sorts out what happened, Munch becomes a person of interest to local law enforcement, the FBI, and a parole officer who would like nothing more than to send her back to jail. I liked this one well enough too, but don't know when I will continue.

41) Roderick Random by Tobias Smollett
Date: 1748

Born to the gentry but disinherited, the Roderick Random travels the world seeking his fortune. The intent is satire, and many of Smollett's targets have parallels today which keeps much of the humor fresh; for other targets, age has dulled the knife. The best bits are Random's adventures at sea as a surgeon's mate, which combine satire of military bureaucracy with exciting incidents. On his return to shore, Random goes fishing for a wealthy wife, having a series of adventures I am sure comprise a delightful comedy of manners but that I found much less engaging, probably because I am insufficiently familiar with the targets of Smollett's satire. It could be worth revisiting someday with more patience and a critical edition.

42) Quest for the Hidden City by George Mann
Date: 2022

When a Republic Pathfinder team goes missing, by Jedi Master Shilandra Sho and Padawan Rooper Nitani form a second team to investigate. It's light and fun and now a month later I barely remember it at all, just that it passed the time well.

43) Flatlander by Larry Niven
Date: 1995 (collection; stories originally published 1969-1995)

This is another Kindle archive read. It collects five stories featuring Niven's character Gil “the Arm“ Hamilton, so-called because of his ability to manipulate objects using a phantom limb. The stories are designed as classical mysteries in a science-fiction setting. The puzzles are clever, if sometimes a bit overcontrived. More distracting is the James-Bondish view of sex roles, but even that differs within the collection on the age of the stories. That aside, hey're much fun.

44) Aus Finsternis geboren = "Born from Darkness" by Alfred Bekker
Date: 2017

Another Kindle archive read. Alfred Bekker is so remarkably prolific that I suspect he is not in fact a single person. Wikipedia says that he is, though, and credits him with writing over 350 novels and 1000 short stories. I have a craptonne of his work on Kindle because it keeps showing up in Amazon for free, and I get around to it no faster than average. Anyway, this is a collection of three monster stories:

Kein Spiegelbild ("No Mirror Image"): A job-seeker interviews for a job at a blood bank, and is turned away because the employer has heard a rumor that the applicant believes himself to be a vampire.

Schrecken aus der Tiefe ("Terrors from the Deep"): An eccentric professor investigates ancient myths about underground creatures.

Der Totengräber ("The Gravedigger"): A boy who recently lost his father moves with his family into a house bordering a graveyard, where he watches a creepy gravedigger.

The stories are okay but not especially memorable.

45) The Demon Lover by Dion Fortune
Date: 1927

Dion Fortune was a British occultist who broke with the Golden Dawn group and forged her own path. Part of that path was the writing of novels and this was her first. It tells the story of a selfish and unscrupulous "left-hand path" magician who finds redemption through the love of a good woman. Justin Lucas seeks to rise to the top of his secret society of magicians, but personal conflicts keep him on the margins. He decides to pursue his ambitions without the society's knowledge or approval, and to that end he hires the heroine Veronica Mainwaring -- ostensibly to be a secretary but in fact to be his tool in magic rituals, whether she will or no. When she sorts out what's going on he imprisons her and forces her to participate using his "left-hand path" magical powers. Eventually, he begins to fall in love with her and for reasons of plot she falls in love with him as well. It's interesting for its believer's take on occultism. But the romance is forced and the magician's acts of redemption are not proportional to his crimes, making it an unsatisfying read. I won't hurry to read more.

46) Hard Reboot by Django Wexler
Date: 2021

It's a novella with giant robot fights and light romance on an Earth so ravaged by multiple apocalypses that it's become little more than a luxury disaster-tourism vacation resort. Kas is a young scholar hoping to make a name for herself. Problem is, academics is a rich person's game and Kas has plenty of ambition but no family and no wealth. She gets a scholarship that attaches her to an Earth expedition, but her status relegates her to doing grunt work for the trust fund kids who will claim all the credit. Through misadventure she meets Zhi, a robot jockey with her own set of problems. Zhi's path to escaping her dead-end situation is very narrow -- but it happens to coincide with Kas's. The characters are appealing, the underdog-versus-stacked-deck story is familiar but a good one, and there are giant robots. I should read more Django Wexler.

47) Star Wars : Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn
Date: 1991

So, I've been meaning to get around to Zahn's Thrawn trilogy for ... jeez, 35 years? ... 35 years now. It picks up shortly after The Return of the Jedi, which is either Episode VI or (if you are as old as me) three. A young New Republic is learning that running a government isn't nearly as easy or fun as fighting the old one, when an Imperial military leader shows up to prove that the old Empire ain't dead yet. I understand that many fans wished that Zahn's trilogy had been the basis for films 7, 8, and 9 , and having read this now I sympathize. It's a fun, multithreaded story by an author who gets the characters and respects what made the early films appeal to their fandom.

>141 swynn: I am, good and kindly Steven, filled to brimming over with the most effervescent of delights and warm contentments that you would so graciously condescend to afford the late literarian Mister Richardson with your prudently pithy praise for his limning delineations of the characters in Pamela in despite of your reservations regarding a certain authorial license for prolixity.

>151 richardderus: Yeah, there's that. Richardson does not know how to make a point and move on. But for sesquipedalianism he's no match for Fielding, who sends me to a dictionary with much more frequency but somehow makes me grateful for the lesson.

>152 swynn: Proof positive that leading≠preaching.

>153 richardderus: Agreed.

48) Doctor Aphra (Star Wars) by Sarah Kuhn
Date: 2021

This one takes place between Episodes III and IV: after Anakin turns into Darth Vader but before the first Star Wars movie. I understand that Vader's rise to power is chronicled in the Marvel Darth Vader bomic book series; in that series Vader encounters Doctor Aphra, a brilliant young archaeologist, roboticist, and antihero who makes up for an absent moral compass with an abundance of snark. I understand that Dr. Aphra became a fan favorite and her adventures in the Darth Vader series was turned into a popular audio drama. This is the script for that audio drama.

It's okay. I think I've had my fill of the snarky-young-adult-larking-their-way-through-peril trope, so I may not be the best judge of its success. So I'll just say that it's mostly fun, provoked a few smiles, and doesn't overstay its welcome. But I won't be looking for further adventures.

49) Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees
Date: 1926

It's a pre-Tolkien fantasy set in a country that borders on Fairyland. Relations between Lud-in-the-Mist and Fairyland are complicated by a long history, and our story takes place in a moment when the Lud-in-the-Misters are extremely suspicious of any relations with the fairies. In particular, "fairy fruit" -- produce grown in Fairyland which can enchant those who consume it -- is strictly controlled. Someone has been smuggling fairy fruit into Lud-in-the-Mist, and the children of the High Seneschal Nathaniel Chaunticleer are tempted by the fruit and lured away to Fairyland. Chaunticleer investigates, and journeys into Fairyland to retrieve the lost children. It's sweet and the prose is lovely and I adored its take that law is a human sort of fairy magic. But I confess the plot and in particular the denouement are a bit opaque to me. To be fair, a sense of fanciful discontinuity may actually be the point.

50) Ender's Game
Date: 1985

I first read and loved this back in the early 1990's but didn't continue the series. First I didn't continue the series because, you know, All The Books, and then it was because the author became publicly, proudly, and repeatedly hateful and also because All The Books. I picked it up again this year for a group read. As expected, my response to it has complexified though it's hard to say how much of that is due to my being a different reader than I was thirty years ago, and how much to my awareness of the author's failures of personal character.

I see what appealed to me 35 years ago, but am now less patient with the super-child trope and much less satisfied with the resolution, which I think is intended to be redemptive and which I once read as such but less so now. On the other hand, the theme of institutions and powerful persons expanding and solidifying their own power without regard to social benefit, and the observation that they lie and kill to do so ... well, that sounds more familiar than ever. And weirdly, while the book seems to condemn the lying-killing institutions, the author seems to have publicly chosen their side. The disconnect between the artist and his art puzzles me, and I'm tempted to continue the series.

On the other hand, there are still All Those Books.

51) Dragon Airways by Brian Rathbone
Date: 2017

This was a Kindle archive read. It's a fantasy set in a pseudo-medieval fantasy world, with dragons and also jet airplanes. For me the premise requires more world-building than the author delivers so the world makes no sense to me: air transport technology seems to have arrived in the world fully formed, without any preceding technologies and without any spinoffs. How do you have a thriving air travel industry but no automobiles? No radio? Without more technological context, the airplanes are more fantastical than the dragons. Given the incoherent setting, the unremarkable plot, about a super-child for whom armies will go to war, just isn't enough.

52) Star Wars: Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn
Date: 1992

Second in Zahn's "Thrawn" trilogy. I enjoyed the first and this is a satisfying follow-up. I'll finish the series soon.

>158 swynn: No RADIO. With powered air flight.

riiiiiight that makes all the sense in the world, that does. Because *powered*flight*plus*dragons* wasn't already foolish enough.

Plus Chosen One nonsense. Oi vey.

53) Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
Date: 1749

Tom Jones is a foundling raised by a kind country squire, but his low birth means he can never marry his true (cough) love Sophia. When slanderous rumors force Tom to leave home, he plans first to join His Majesty's forces fighting the Jacobite pretender but gets distracted and wanders his way to London, where all the principal characters meet and plots are unravelled. This was a delight: fun characters, a joyride of a plot, and clever prose full of allusions to just about everything. The narrator meanders as much as his peripatetic hero, frequently commenting on the story itself and inserting chapters on the art of storytelling but it's all so much in the spirit of the whole that none of it feels irrelevant or rambling. Of course it helps that Fielding makes me laugh. I wish I'd read it back in college so that I could be rereading again it by now.

>160 richardderus: Exactly. I suppose I should add in fairness that there are other books in the series, and absences in this volume don't necessarily imply absences in other volumes, but even if the world makes more sense in other books, it certainly doesn't here and this one didn't make me care enough to continue.

>161 swynn: ...think your dating's a typo, or else I'm getting scary senile...

>162 swynn: It feels like a story some 15yo had finished and the 30yo him dug it out and slapped a "for sale" sign on it. Not good enough to make you want more is really, really damning.

>163 richardderus: Thanks. I've changed "1949" to a more period-accurate 1749.

>156 swynn: I read this one a couple of years ago after hearing about it in Square Haunting. My feelings were similar, but I didn't understand all the accolades.

>165 BLBera: Same. I'd seen writers I respect mention it with deep affection, but it didn't hit that way for me. OTOH, Square Haunting looks appealing.

>137 swynn: Thank you for another great BB, Steve.
Thankfully I could read it in the original and loved it.

>167 SirThomas: Yay for "On Two Planets" love! It made a strong impression on me, and will be one of my favorite reads this year.

>157 swynn: I purged my home library of Card's books a long time ago. I am not sure I ever read the novel of Ender's Game. Probably did. What I do remember is liking the original short story/novelette a lot when it was new and read it more than once in various anthologies.

54) Bite (Wastelanders) by K.S. Merbeth
Date: 2016

A Kindle archive read. First in a series set in a post-nuclear apocalypse wasteland. An orphaned teenage girl accepts a ride from strangers, who fortunately turn out to be basically good people but also cannibals. They fight for survival against raiders, city leaders, and a crooked desert messiah. It's more Mad Max action movie than body horror or dystopian thought-provoker, and the "cannibalism" plot point is barely addressed except as a premise for others to take an immediate disliking to them. (Which I get because I do too.) The story moves along fine but doesn't leave me with much interest to continue.

>169 RBeffa: Hi Ron! I stopped collecting Card's books after he made bigotry part of his brand, so I don't even pick them out of the bargain bin. I'm bad at purging books, so probably still have a few -- and I'm pretty sure Ender's Game is one of them but if so it's buried pretty deep. I couldn't find it for the group read so borrowed a copy from the library.

I'm pretty sure Speaker for the Dead is another one I still have somewhere, but my curiosity for continuing is decreasing. Unless I track it down and start it in the next few months I probably won't get around to it again for another thirty years.

>171 swynn: I will confess to reading a Card book in 2023 - First meetings in the Enderverse which I mostly liked and I will also confess that it made me want to go back and read some of my purged books. I somehow managed to start purging books when I joined LT and it was relatively easy to do since I had acquired an absurd # of unread books - of course LT caused me to get even more books all the time. And probably a month doesn't go by where I think about a purged book. I unfortunately only logged some of the purge books - i was very inconsistent - and wish now I had entered each one - but early on I didn't have a read but unowned place to sort books into like we have now. Well, that was then. I still let books go all the time now when I finish them, and just keep the best of them.

The enderverse book was one of many that a friend has fed to me for several years as he really downsizes.

>172 RBeffa: I need to purge more. We made a major move a couple of years ago, and I got rid of a few boxes, but still have many boxes too many -- and have lost track of which box holds what. Realistically, at least 60% of my library is stuff that interests me enough to think I want to read it someday but not enough to rise above the constant stream of things that I want to read even more. Someday I need to come to terms with that more realistically than I have done in the past.

55) The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Date: 1895

I first read this when I was about 10 years old, and have read it at least half a dozen times since. But it's been fiften years or more since the last visit. What struck me this time was a coldness: that no characters even have proper names other than the Eloi girl Weena -- which I feel I must have noticed before but do not remember; and that it's quite discursive and not at all subtle about its sociological theories. I remember the impression from my earliest readings that it was an adventure story. And it is, sort of, but it strikes me now as more interested in driving home its ideas about social evolution than it is in adventure. I also find find myself increasingly sympathetic to the Morlocks, and wanting to read a history from their perspective.

56) The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
Date: 1955

Set after a nuclear holocaust, in a settlement where very strict rules are followed to preserve bloodlines from from radiation-caused mutations: crops with mutations are burned; livestock or children with mutations are not allowed to live. Our protagonist David has a physical body that conforms to the standard, but has discovered that he can communicate telepathically with a handful of other children. It is a dangerous to talk about, but also something that they can keep hidden -- until David's sister is born and proves to be the most powerful telepath yet. The band-of-teenage-outcasts trope feels familiar, but Wyndham writes well and delivers a solid story about religion, conformity, eugenics, and freedom.

I've read one other Wyndham novel, The Day of the Triffids, and remember thinking it was fine but didn't understand why some felt it was a classic. AFter reading The Chrysalids, I'm interested in revisiting TDOTT to see whether I still feel the same way. And maybe finally read The Midwich Cuckoos.

>175 swynn: I enjoyed it, too, but unlike you haven't re-read it this century. I am one of those who felt Triffids was a classic, though again that's a rusty old can of memory that might change.

>176 richardderus: I might like it better too on a revisit.

57) Autumn Kingdom Vol. 1: Through the Blight by Cullen Bunn
Date: 2025

A fantasy writer takes his wife and two daughters on a backwoods retreat. Shortly after arrival, Mom and Dad disappear and the two girls find themselves fighting monsters from Dad's fantasy world. The idea is up my alley, the art is gorgeous and my only complaint is that volume 2 isn't available yet.

>175 swynn: This sounds really good. I haven't ever read anything by him. I love the cover. :)

>179 BLBera: It is very good, and makes me wish I'd read it sooner. I'll probably read some more Wyndham soon.

>175 swynn: I have read quite a few of Wyndham's novels include The Chrysalids under the American title of Re-Birth. I got started with Chocky in high school. There are two versions of Triffids, and I read the American version since that was what I had. The English version is reportedly 12% larger.

>181 RBeffa: Oh, interesting. Thanks for the heads-up about the Triffids, I'll be sure to sell out to British version. Also for the rec for Chocky.

>182 swynn: Most coincidently, John Wyndham was born on this day in 1903. Yikes.

When I was a kid we went family camping every summer. Most places we went was a long drive. One summer the destination was Lake Tahoe. We three kids got up super early so that we would arrive at the campground early enough to get a space. While everything was being packed we watched the midnight movie or whatever it was called in the early 60s - and the movie was Day of the Triffids. It scared the whatever out of us especially my baby sister. As we get about an hour or so from Tahoe my brother and I see these absurdly giant plants along the highway. I have no idea what they were to this day - looked kinda like 8 or 9 foot tall sunflowers. (I still have a mental image of them). So we start hollering "Triffids triffids" and my sister has a meltdown and the parental units were not pleased. There's your story of the day.

>183 RBeffa: Great story, Ron! I remember seeing the Triffids movie as a kid also, on a family trip when we were allowed to stay up later than usual and under relaxed observation so we caught it on late night television when otherwise it wouldn't have been permitted. It freaked me out -- come to think of it, my experience of the book may have been colored by its failure to live up to that experience. Which is obviously unfair because *nothing* lives up to the experience of forbidden horror movies when you're under 10.

58) The World of Mercury by Chevalier de Bethune (translated by Brian Stableford)
Date: 1750

This is a volume in Black Coat Press's series of translations of vintage French science fiction. It's unlikely that you've heard of this one, and no strong reason to seek it out. It's a utopian work detailing the lives and customs of the inhabitants of Mercury, where life is easy, all necessities are freely provided by Nature, boredom is treated as a disease, and the rulers are wise ambassadors from the Sun. The author is heavily influenced by Fontenelle, who seemed to believe that all heavenly bodies are probably inhabited, for if they weren't then that would imply wastefulness on the part of the creator (a conclusion less conceivable to Fontenelle than to myself). There is also a lot of reincarnation, transformation, and a generous helping of internal inconsistency.

There are some fun bits, but their frequency drops steadily as you go. For me the most engaging passages detail the various beings who visit Mercury, and their motives and methods for doing so. But the composition is haphazard, and veers from fanciful details to rants about problems in society. Bethune wraps with a several-chapters-long criticism of the practice of medical bloodletting, which is mildly interesting for its insight into the arguments in favor of the practice (which seem, let's say, quaint) but also tediously superfluous, as if Mercurians have nothing better to do than to rant about irrational medical procedures on Earth.

This is a volume in Black Coat Press's series of translations of vintage (I won't say "classic") French science fiction. This volume may not have aged well -- let's be honest, it probably wasn't born well -- but I'm grateful to the publisher for making these works available to the English market.

.

>184 swynn: I was about 9 or 10 myself. So, AI can be useful. Roadside cow parsnip (Heracleum maximum) near Truckee typically reaches 4 to 8 feet tall, though exceptional specimens in moist, nutrient-rich ditches can grow up to 10 feet in height. Cow Parsnip in the Sierra Nevada Locally in the Truckee and Lake Tahoe regions, this towering native perennial is frequently seen in roadside ditches, subalpine meadows, and forest edges where moisture is abundant. It is highly notable for its broad, maple-like leaves that span up to 16 inches across and its massive, flat-topped clusters of white flowers. Safety and Identification: While it is native to the Truckee area, it is closely related to the invasive and highly toxic Giant Hogweed. You can generally tell native cow parsnip apart by its smaller stature, completely green and hairy stalks, and lack of dark purple splotches. Be sure to exercise caution; the sap contains compounds called furanocoumarins that can cause painful rashes and blisters on the skin when exposed to sunlight.