Mr. Burke's Reading List

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...