Mr. Burke's Reading List

2100: What Does the Future of Healthcare Look Like? , (no editor information available) (2019?) Update to entry pending Normally, I start off these entries saying like "not a review, just some notes to help me remember what I read". In this case, I'm not sure I wish to remember. I'm deliberately leaving out names, so anything negative I have to say won't get associated with them in any web searches. Also, the book contains no copyright information other than the authors retain the rights to their own stories which have not been published elsewhere. I'm assuming this book is from 2019, but there is no way to know. Update: I just discovered that all of these stories are available to be read online from the foundation that hosted the contest. I guess a link would be helpful. I was recently at a book reading/book launch party for an anthology that I wanted to participate in. (Maybe I'll write about this some day.) There was a raffle, and I won tw...

A Dozen Dozen Game Books , Philip J. Reed (2019) Entry pending I spent a lot of time reading gaming material in the latter part of the year. Altogether, those pages could comprise a book the size of many others I'd read this past year. And they were better written than some of the things I subjected myself to (particularly things I didn't bother to list on the blog). The title of this post doesn't mean that I read 144 books. It means that I read many of the books in the A Dozen Adjective Nouns series by Philip J. Reed (@philipjreed on Twitter). There will eventually be more than a dozen of these, and many are already available for preview by the backers of two separate Kickstarter campaigns. (And I'm one of them.) Here are some of the coming PDF files: On top of this, there was an additional Kickstarter for Delayed Blast Gamemaster #2, which had issues #1 as an add-on. These were each 48 pages of well-thought-out source material. I thought all of t...

Classics Illustrated: Romeo & Juliet , William Shakespeare (Author), (Illustrator) [image pending] I don't know where I got this graphic novel from -- probably from the library. It's been in the basement for a while. I didn't read illustrated classics as a kid because they seemed to dense. I picked up a few when I started teaching (they were in the class library), but those seemed very thin. If you didn't already know the story, you might not know what was going on. Then again, if you did know the story, you'd see how much was left out. So... Romeo & Juliet . I've watched the Franco Zeffirelli film from 1968 with Olivia Hussey and ... other people that I could google. And I've seen the modernized version with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, which kept the dialogue but modernized everything else. I prefer the former. There are also a billion adaptations -- skip those. What I didn't know about this comic -- even though it's on ...

Mathematical Recreations , Richard H. Minear (Author), Maurice Kraitchik (1944) [Image pending == its just a green cover with a geometric pattern] I have too many old math books in my basement. Years ago, I made a practice of attempting to read one math book each summer, and to see how far I got before I gave up. Reasons for giving up: the math moved beyond me, or the notation became tiresome to figure out. There are times when I might prefer a sentence to a nifty equation. Consider the difference between four or five lines of programming, and a single line of "clever code" that can accomplish the entire thing. Or even a paragraph explaining just what is going on. Sometimes I feel I'm not the audience for these books, which is usually a 1940s grad student or above, or a 21st-century math professor (and above). This book has been in my possession for at least a decade, and was taken from a pile of discards in the William E. Grady Technical-Vocational High Scho...

Flash Fiction Library, Volume 1: A Touch of Darkness , Keith McLachlan (2016) [NO IMAGE WILL BE INCLUDED] Okay, so I've been dabbling in a bunch of stuff over the past month or two, starting a couple of paper books, and even carrying them around, as well as starting (or resuming) a couple of crossword and cryptic crossword books that I need to work on or toss out. (And if you know me, I can't just toss things out.) And there is so much gaming material in PDF format that I'm currently plowing through. At some point, either through FreeEbooks on reddit, or perhaps a mailing list, I found four volumes of flash fiction, which are usually good if you want a quick read, maybe with lunch or something. This wasn't it. I'm including this as an entry on my blog, because I tried. I even completed the first story when I should have given up after the second paragraph, and then again by the second page. Self-publishing is fraught with peril, and if one cannot affor...

Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel , Richard H. Minear (Author), Dr. Seuss (Illustrator), Art Spiegelman (Foreword) I'm a math teacher but I work as a substitute. One day late last month, I had a coverage in a history class, and as I sat at the teacher's desk as glanced back at his bookcase, one title jumped out at me: Dr. Seuss Goes to War . I had known that Theodor Geisel (aka, Dr. Seuss) had done war cartoons, but I don't think I've ever seen more than a sample or two. And suddenly here they all were! (Not all of them, actually, which I didn't know until I read the text.) I couldn't let the opportunity pass, so I took the book back to the teachers' room during my prep period, and by the end of the day, I had read all of the comics. However, I had little time to read the commentary. The good news is that the book was available as an ebook from the public library. The bad news is that this book su...

The Joy of Cookies: Cookie Monster's Guide to Life , Cookie Monster, Julie Kraut (Ghostwriter) (2018) Of course, a monster would have a ghost writer! You probably already know what you're getting when you pick up a book written by a Sesame Street Muppet . If not, the teeth marks and the missing bite in the corner should clue you in. The book is similar to other inspirational books, with a quote or passage on each page or two. In this case, familiar adages, proverbs, nursery rhymes and even song lyrics appear, except rewritten in Monster-speak -- e.g., using "Me" instead of "I" -- and centering the quote around Cookies. But that is generally just the beginning. If Cookie Monster were to say "Ask not for who Cookie tolls, it tolls for me", it would be followed by whatever actions or thoughts might occur to a monster after saying something like that. And there might be an illustration. There are Word of Wisdom, like Keep Calm and Eat a...

At some point, it seems that I forgot that I had an "SF" tag and started using "Science" and "Fiction" as two separate tags. The Science tag was meant for books with actual science in them (usually nonfiction). I've corrected that. I hope. If anyone spots an errant tag, please feel free to leave a polite message.

How to Break Up With Your Phone , Catherine Price (2019) This was among a bunch of books slated to be removed from my house. The title intrigued me, so I took it out of the recycle pile. As a result, I only read this in school, not at home, because someone might've been upset that I'm rescuing what is supposed to be trashed. But I digress... My phone is the least of my problems. Until a few years ago, I still had a cheap flip phone because it was costing me about $7 per month, and because I still have a legacy house phone that isn't going away any time soon. However, it could be said that I have a problem with my iPad and any working PC with Internet at work (or at home). I'll sit down to do one thing, and I'll find myself checking out the same handful of sites over and over again, and not getting done the things I'd planned on doing. That sure kills writing projects (and sometimes comics), and is one of the reasons I no longer post weekly TV/movie/w...

Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice: The Dark Rival , Jude Watson (1999) Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ... In the final pages of the first book, there's an Epilogue that is really just a set-up for the next book. We find out that Qui Gon's first padawan, whom he lost, is still alive. He lost him to the dark side. (I don't know if this mentioned in the first movie or any other expanded universe stuff.) Qui Gon took the boy from his planet with his father's blessing, but for his last step as a padawan, Yoda sent the two back to that planet. Xanatos's father was preparing for war. Without spoiling too much for whomever reads this, Xanatos turns away from the Jedi and now embraces the dark side of the Force. And he has major issues with his former Master. As such, it was Xanatos would arranged for Qui Gon to be sent to Bandomeer. Less clear is if he arranged for Obi Wan to go there as well, or if he just assummed...

Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice: The Rising Force , Dave Wolverton (1999) Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ... As soon as I saw the first two books in this series sitting on a shelf in the Teacher Room at the high school I'm currently assigned to, I knew I had to borrow them. The fact that the apprentice was Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the Jedi was Qui-Gon Jinn just made it better. The fact that Scholastic had labeled it RL 4 was less attractive, but it didn't deter me. Actually, that meant that I should be able to read both and return them before anyone notice they were gone. (Or if I was suddenly reassigned, I wouldn't have someone else's property!) The first book in the series opens about a month before Kenobi's 14th birthday when he'll be asked to leave the Jedi Temple that he's known his whole life if he isn't selected to be a Jedi's padawan before then. He'll be "condemned" to a l...

Speak Thai: The Easiest Way to Learn Thai and Speak Immediately , Daniel Flood (2019) NO IMAGE ADDED There are lots of free ebooks out there, so many that I've stopped downloading things just because they were free. But every now and then, a title pops up that intrigues me. If a newsgroup online (okay, it was really a "subreddit"), the author posted a link, stating that the book was free for a short time. His approach makes sense: you don't need an extensive book that covers everything. ou won't see a zebra in Thailand, so you don't need to say it. On the other hand, there are too many references to "ask a native speaker" because they will be glad to help. I'm not going to find a native speaker (outside of a restauurant), and I'd have to keep asking them to slow down so I can hear how the language is spoken. Speaking is the problem. There are a few references to how some letters or letter combinations are promounced. There neede...

Tales from Dragon Precinct , Keith R. A. DeCandido (2013) Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ... To date, I have read all the Dragon Precinct novels which have been published. I have not read all the stories. As I discovered in a sit-down at Heliosphere (NY) this past spring, Keith has submitted a number of Precinct stories to various anthologies that ask him for stories. Some of those are collected in this volume. Not all, obviously, because it was printed in 2013. The better stories are the ones that remind me of Barney Miller episodes, even if I don't try to see specific analogues. The only downside was that the "first meeting" story, which concludes the book, was published in one of the actual Precinct books -- or at least in the edition that I purchased. (People who bought it "back in the day" might not have seen it.) The other amusing thing -- and this isn't a criticism, but a hazard of ...

Buffalo Dogs (The Amazing Conroy, Book 0) , Lawrence M. Schoen (2001) Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ... Not a book, just a story from 2001, which was republished as a standalone book, available for free. It's a great introduction to the series. And least I hope it is because I haven't read the series, but I would like to. Disclosure: I've met Schoen at conventions, and while I doubt he'd remember it, we even had dinner together once, as a group of six were trying to eat before other panel appearances. (My brother and I were the only two who were not panelists, but I gave a ride to one of the others.) I also own a small Buffalo Dog stuffed animal that I won at a Reading at a different convention -- there were twelve people in the room, so he rolled a d12. Woo Hoo! Back to the story. Conroy is a space-traveling hypnotist who works lounges on foreign planets and space stations. He gets into a little bit o...

They Called Us Enemy , George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott; Illustraded by Harmony Becker (2019) IMAGE COMING Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ... Last month, I got an email about an event at the Barnes & Nobles in Union Square. George Takei would be there signing his new book. Advance reservations were needed, and tickets included the price of one book. Everyone was told in advance that he would only signed these books, and did not pose for photos. It was an interesting evening. I just wish I'd picked a different seat. I sat in the center, a little farther back, instead of in a closer row on the side. I didn't know how they would call us up -- section by section or row by row. So I sat for a half hour more than I otherwise might have. On the bright side, I got to read most of the book while I was waiting. They Called Us Enemy is a graphic novel of a story I'd heard before. Takei has already publi...

Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy: 20 Dynamic Essays by the Field's Top Professionals , the Editors of Analog and Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (1993) IMAGE COMING Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ... If this entry seems rushed and uninspired, it's because I spent more than a half hour writing what I wanted to say, added tags and scheduled it to post the following day, and then hit the Publish button -- only for it to vanish into the ether. I just took a long lunch break and I'm trying again. I may hit the Pause button and come back tomorrow, at any time. This book, from the editors of Analog and Asimov's science fiction magazines, was published in 1993, and it's been in my possession for nearly as long. I don't know where I got it from -- it doesn't appear to be a Book Club edition, or have a reduced price sticker from a book store. Maybe I bought it at a convention? In any...

Hook Line Sinker: An Online Resource Book for People who Teach Mathematics , John Rowe (2019) Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ... I didn't read this over the summer as much as perused it. As the title says, it's an online resource, meaning each section contains a lot of links to a lot of examples and exercises and lessons and whatnot. It's a great guide for cutting through the Net, and it contains likes to several people I follow online or whom I've actually met in real life, which is a bonus. The book is listed as free (and should always be free), and you can find it at: https://books.apple.com/au/book/hook-line-sinker/id1452938209 Additionally, all the resources linked in the book are free as well. There is nothing typically be found in textbooks included here. Hook, line, sinker is an obvious fishing reference for "reeling them in", and it follows a common theme I've encountered in Math ...

Songs of America: Patriotism, Protest, and the Music That Made a Nation , Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw (2019) Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ... A couple months back, I got to see Tim McGraw and Jon Meacham at The Beacon Theater . I put the names in that order because, frankly, I had no clue who Meacham was, and I was going to see and hear Tim McGraw. Yeah, it wasn't that kind of show. Not that it was bad. It was basically an evening of talk and song that promoted their new book, which was conveniently on sale in the lobby. I got my copy from the library. Twice -- there was such a demand that I couldn't renew it without waiting again. The book analyzes how music has influenced and been influenced by events in American history, going back as far as "The Liberty Song" written by John Dickenson in the years before the first Continental Congress. Meacham is a presidential biographer, and that experience i...

Superman: Zero Hour , Writers: Dan Jurgens, Karl Kesel, David Michelinie, Louise Simonson (1994) Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ... I vaguely recall when Zero Hour happened in DC Comics , but if I had to guess it was back in 1994, I would have been way off. I remember the bit where every comic was Issue #0 for that month, but I wasn't regularly reading any comics by that point. This was also sometime after the Doomsday plot line where Superman died and there were suddenly four new Supermen. Again, I never read that story line, but it did make it into the papers and get discussed at a convention. Plus, later on, I listened to an audio presentation of it in my car. (Back in the days of the 50-mile one-way commute.) The stories up front are connected because of some time storm happening, which causes characters to shift universes. This allows for Batman to appear numerous times, as various incarnations that have been pu...

Superman Adventures, Volume 4 , Writers: Mark Millar, David Michelinie; Illustrators: Terry Austin, Aluir Amancio, Neil Vokes, Mike Manley (2018) In the past, I've complained about graphic novels that weren't novels, but rather collections of comics and sometimes not even cohesively or coherently so. And yet I continue to pick them from the library shelves. This one isn't a novel, and I'm absolutely fine with that. It is what I expected it to be: a bunch of one-off adventures, each self-contained. Basically, it's like watching a three-hour marathon of the show, which, by the way, I have never seen. (I should rectify this.) Note: I have seen all of Justice League and Justice League Unlimited , which has the same animation, voice actors and a couple of story lines, so I am familiar with it. And because of that, Lobo sounds in my head like Robert from Everybody Loves Raymond (Brad Garrett), and Kalibak sounds like Worf from Star Trek: the Next Generation ...

The Way Station , Clifford Simak (1963) Not really a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ... I was assigned to a class that met in the library at Lafayette High School earlier this year. They had a shelf of books removed from circulation that were free to be taken. I didn't want to be greedy because these were for students. But on the other hand, some of these books, realistically, would never be taken. On of these was The Way Station , which according to the printing history was produced in 1988, and according to the final circulation card in the back was last taken out four times in 1994. After 25 years, I think I was safe in taking it, particularly considering that it was originally written and won a Hugo Award before I was born. The only Simak novel I've read (I may have read short stories in old anthologies) was City , which I purchased from the Science Fiction Book Club way back when, on purpose, not as a mistake that was s...

Q is for Quarry , Sue Grafton (2002) Not a review, just reminding myself about some of the details of what I read ... Q is the 17th letter of the alphabet, so this is the 17th novel in the series, making it the longest series I've read, by far. (I've read maybe a dozen Doc Savage novels, and I should get back to those.) This entry is a little different in that it deals with an actual unsolved murder, although he details were fictionalized, and in the book, the case gets solved. It does have information at the end in case anyone with information wants to come forward. Kinsey Milhone gets hired by Con Dolan, an old cop from the series who is currently on medical, and Stacey Oliphant, a retired cop in ill health. Those two deserve each, and they each watch out for the other's bad habits. Years ago, they were the officers who found the body of a Jane Doe in a quarry in Lampoc in Santa Barbara County. Not only was the murderer never caught but the body was never id...

Humble & Kind , Tim McGraw (2016) Not a book between books, but a book in the middle of reading another book ... Tim McGraw has a new book out, Songs of America , which I put on reserve at the library after seeing his show at the Beacon Theater . While searching the library catalog, this book appeared, and I recognized it as the title of one of his songs. There wasn't much to it. An introduction to the song, and an epilogue by the song writer, the bulk of the book is the lyrics and pictures. Basically, it's a gift book (like the first version I encountered of Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten ), of the inspirational variety. Pleasant to read, but has as much meat as a magazine article might. On the other hand, I'm ready for the other book and there's just a few people ahead of me. Which also means I have to finish the other library book I have checked out.

An American Princess: The Many Lives of Allene Tew , Annejet van der Zijl, (20`5), translated by Michele Hutchison (2018) I left the following review on Goodreads : A fascinating look at high-society and old money meets new at the close of the 19th century, in New York and Pittsburgh, focused on the life of Allene Tew of Jamestown, NY who went on to make the society pages in the 20th century and marry an actual prince (among others) in the course of a turbulent life that weathered two world wars, a market crash, the Depression, and the start of the Cold War. Through it all, she persevered. Not the kind of book I normally read. It was a suggestion from Amazon (World Book Day). I didn't know at first that it was a biography of an actual person -- I'd never heard of her, but I have heard of many of the names that were dropped. Even more surprising was I thought it would be more about Europe because the author in from the Netherlands. (The author has done a bo...

Go: A Coming of Age Novel , Kazuki Kaneshiro (2000), translated by Takami Nieda (2018) Not a review. Just a reminder of what I read recently. I probably would not have read this were it not for Amazon's World Reading Day. As I did last year, I downloaded a bunch of free books from around the world. Last year, I only read two of them (so far). Once again, I read a book by about a Korean living in Japan, but unlike A River in Darkness , Go wasn't anywhere near as depressing. That said, it wasn't particularly cheery either. The book was from 2000, which is something to keep in mind whenever there are mentions of technology or pop culture. Some references become dated. The story follows Sugihara, whose family in Korean. When the North Korea had been founded, Koreans in Japan had to choose to register as North or South Korean. The book opens with his parents deciding to switch nationality to South Korean, so they'll be able to go to Hawaii. (At first, I ...

Mermaid Precinct , Keith R.A. DeCandido (2019) Not a review. Just a reminder of what I read recently. I was lucky enough to be at the book launch party for Mermaid Precinct at Heliosphere in Tarrytown, NY recently. I was even luckier to already have a copy of the ebook from winning a flash fiction contest at eSpec Books , the publisher. The plan was to buy the Tales of book to get signed since I can't sign my ebook. ( Sidebar: my winning story was The Feast of Groggry the Cronaut . ) This is the first one three books to be written for eSpec Books. To expand the series, DeCandido expanded the town. This book takes place a year after Gryphon . In that time, there was a fire in Barlin, and many refugees flooded Cliff's End. As a result, a new neighborhood was built, and while the official name is Albinton, everyone calls it "New Barlin". This neighborhood has been designated Phoenix Precinct. Also, there is now a prison barge offshore, which has been d...

Gryphon Precinct , Keith R.A. DeCandido (2013) Not a review. Just a reminder of what I read recently. Read this a month or so ago. Spoilers from previous books in the very first paragraph. The end of Goblin Precinct was marked by the death of Dru's partner, Lieutenant Hawk, as well as the Lord Albin, who had been sick with more than allergies. Albin's son, Lord Blayk comes in and immediately starts making changes. First, he gives both Captain Osric and Lt Iaian full pensions to retire. Then he makes Grovis the new Captain based purely on his status as the son of a Cliff's End banker. Blayk expects Grovis to be his mouthpiece and do whatever he's told. This doesn't play well with Torin, Danthres, Dru or even the new lieutenants. Blayk splits up Torin and Danthres, so they can take each train new partners. He also doesn't want them investigating Albin's death. However, his mother overrules this and wants Danthres to investigate. The entire...

Goblin Precinct , Keith R.A. DeCandido (2012) Not a review. Just a plot summary, for future reference. Read this a couple months ago. The third book in the series brings us to another precinct. The book opens with a former aristocrat in Elven society, one who had been close to the Elf Queen and who fled when the end was near, is now a poor beggar in Cliff's End, having never found a new way to support himself. In the end, he gives in and tries a new drug called "Bliss", which makes the user happy beyond belief. He's instantly hooked, but the high never lasts as long, and it's a short matter of time before he overdoses. Not exactly murder. And not something that would merit the involvement of the Castle Guard detectives. However, when another Elven aristocrat shows up looking for the first one to try as a war criminal. Using his credentials, he forces the Castle Guard to find the body and prove cause of death, to make sure it wasn't a political...

Magic & Mayhem Sampler: Rule-breaking new fantasy from Tor and Tor.com Publishing , Seanan McGuire, Cate Glass, et al. (2019) I've downloaded free books from Tor.com before and enjoyed them to varying degrees. (Not everything is for everybody.) I did learn a lesson a few years ago when I was reading the first story in a "Best of" whichever year it was. I was getting to the end of a novelette and it didn't seem to be winding down. That's because it was a novel excerpt, which was stated upfront in plain text and I had missed it. I skipped later excerpts because I was enjoying this and didn't want to stop reading the anthology while I hunted down a copy of the book. (At this point, I don't even remember what book it was.) I went into this knowing beforehand that there were six novel excerpts. I read two of these before moving back to other books. They were different, to say the least, the first more than the second. Middlegame, by Seanan Mc...

The Battle of Dorking , George Tomkyns Chesney (1871) I don't remember where this recommendation came from, and someone I must've thought that it was one of those History channel books. This was a disorganized, rambling mess that couldn't hold my interest for 4 pages. It was only 40-page chapter without visible breaks, and I quit somewhere in the middle of a six-page paragraph. (Not kidding.) Now that I'm aware that this was written in 1871, maybe I'll give it another chance, but I'll likely skip ahead 20 pages or so to get to whatever action there is.

Unicorn Precinct , Keith R.A. DeCandido (2004) Okay, so Unicorn Precinct is where the rich live, and it's usually a cushy assignment, so rookies on the Guard get sent there. Dragon Precinct is where the middle class dwell, and includes the area where Gan Brightblade's murder took place. Goblin Precinct is the slums, mostly the poor live there, and with smaller homes, some of the denizens there are nonhuman (dwarves and gnomes). Mermaid Precinct is the dock area. And in the Castle itself, where the detectives work, is Gryphon Precinct. While there isn't a map, there is a description of the neighborhoods and street boundaries. Most of the streets have been mentioned at some point, so it's safe to assume that they're "major". The main case, for Torin and Danthres, is the murder of the daughter of a nobleman as she is preparing for her wedding. Dru and Hawk have the least to do in this story, and they are somewhat stymied by the negative reactio...

Spirit Seeker: The Kassandra Leyden Adventures , by Jeff Young (2016) Maybe had I read a cover blurb, I might've known in advance that this was an alternate history and not some post-apocalyptic future where society is rebuilding. This impression came from the mix of technology, plus references to New Britain and Londinium. after reading the last entries in the book, I saw that this was actually an America that was founded after the Plague was followed by a worse Black Death, causing survivors to flee across the ocean. (Actually, at the very beginning there is a short blurb about the plague that arrived during the reign of Edward the third of his name -- but it didn't occur to me that that was referring to the actual King Edward III of England, who obviously preceded Edward VIII of the 20th century.) What I thought was going to be a novel was actually a series of short stories, not tied together other than by the lead character, although the last one calls back the firs...

Breakfast on Mars And 37 Other Delectable Essays, Edited by Rebecca Stern & Brad Wolfe (2013) The cover states "Essays like you've never seen before -- Funny! Smart! Inspiring! And Best of All written by YOUR Favorite Authors" The last part is overblown in that not only are they not my favorite authors, I don't think I've ever heard of any of them, let alone read any. That said, soe of them were funny and smart. Inspiring? Maybe about my writing, but not about the subject matter. I picked up this book in a box at a school I was working at in the fall. The idea of the collection is that students tend to be bored with essay writing, and there isn't a lot of inspiring essays out there that are relatable for students. So this book is intended for teachers to use with students, so that the students will respond. Each essay, whether personal, persuasive, or information, is based on a response to a different writing prompt. And each should be fun to re...

Dragon Precinct , Keith R.A. DeCandido (2004) I've seen Keith R. A. DeCandido at science fiction conventions, particularly the possibly-defunct Lunacon and the newly-christened Heliosphere . He's had a long career and yet I don't think I've read any of his work before. Maybe a short story in an anthology? Thankfully, I'm remedying this! I've never read any police procedural novels before that I remember. Mysteries, sure. Stories with cops, sure. But the written equivalent to Law & Order or C.S.I. , no. (And for all I know, a different show might be a better analogy.) This was a fun book to read, with one little caveat. The Prologue introduced a host of characters, one of which, Gan Brightblade, we know will be dead before Chapter 1 even begins. The prologue gave quite a bit of background and introduced a cast of characters of some renown: Gan, the great human fighter; Olthar, the elven wizard who betrayed the Elf Queen; Urbarlig, the dwarf fi...

Doctor Who: The Writers Tale -- The Final Chapter , Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook (2010) The second part of the ebook continues the correspondence between Davies and Cook past "The Journey's End" and through "The End of Time". For the uninitiated, that would be the last episode of Series 4 of Doctor Who through the last of the specials that followed that series, in place of a fifth series. Once more you see the trials and tribulations of trying to run such a massive series. Lots of trivia, quite a few setbacks. Plenty of talk about Davies' old work, the search for a new Doctor, and the final shots of David Tennant as the Doctor. And, of course, working with lots of secrecy, much of which gets blown one way or another (such as the careless reveal of Timothy Dalton in costume , leaving little wiggle room for whom he could be playing or what was coming back.) Enjoyable to read, although I did want to skip to the end of some of the longer e...

Amulet , by Kazu Kibuishi (2010-8) A couple of months ago, there was a Scholastic book fair at the school that I'm currently assigned to. While I wasn't officially "working" the book fair, it took place in the room I usually spent my free time in, so I did lend a hand, mostly straightening up piles. There were a number of graphic novels on one of the tables, and one of these (particularly one of the ones that had Volume One on the table) was Amulet . The cover looked interesting and a quick flip of the pages showed some great color artwork. I took a picture of the first book and made a note to look into it. Fast forward a couple weeks, and I find myself regularly in an English classroom where there is a pile of these books. Basically, almost a class set of book 1 and two copies of the rest. I spent the next couple weeks reading them, 50 minutes at a time. It wasn't until I was on book 5 that I realized that there were more than six books in the pile. (I...

Doctor Who: The Writers Tale , Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook (2008) First book of the new year, and I'll count it as two because it was originally published as two books, even if the ebook collects them together. Plus, I'll only have time to read the first before the library loan expires. I only recently became aware that this book exists, and it was available at the New York Public Library website. It contains correspondence between Russel T. Davies, the Doctor Who showrunner (writer, producer, multi-hat person), and Benjamin Cook, a writer for Doctor Who Magazine , which took place from the time that Series Four was being conceived (and Series Three was to begin airing) through production of the Series Four finale, not counting the specials which came afterward. If nothing else, this book was fun for the trivia -- Note: SPOILER ALERTS for Series Four, both here and in the book . For one thing, Donna Noble was not supposed to be the Companion for the enti...

Last year, I seemed to avoid keeping track of what I was reading, giving the sparse use of the blog until the very end of December. Also, I seemed to avoid reading altogether, considering how long it took me to get through some of these entries. According to the sidebar, there were 26 entries for the entire year. Of those, three were not about specific books. On the other hand, there were a lot of graphic novels, particularly in the summer, and manga , particularly near the school library. So my book total was closer to 35. This comes with a little bit of a caveat: I counted the ROM comics as 4 graphic novels because I believe that's how they were available, even as I read 14 issues. Likewise, Clean Room , which had its review deleted by accident, and will get restored at some point, counted as 1 book, even though it was the first six comics in the series. Most of the graphic novels were similar to this. Additionally, there was at least one One Piece book in there, but I was ...