Mr. Burke's Reading List

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) I've particpated in a bunch of Kickstarters over the past few years. As a result, I wind up with not only a bunch of books to read, but bonus stories and gaming pdfs as nice little extras. These get sorted into folders on my hard drive. So I decided to knock off a few of them while I'm between books. Since my last foray in reading short stories was a "peck" of eSpec , I'll call this one a "bushel", but don't expect four times as many stories, or even four times the length. It'll be until whenever I stop and post it. The batch should all be from eSpec Books bonuses and stretch goals, unless something else sneaks in. In order that I read them: Feeding the Mouth that Bites Us by L. Jagi Lamplighter was originally published in Dreams of Decadnece (date?). No sp...

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, April 1971 The fourth issue in my ANALOG PLUS 50 series. At some point, I'll stop numbering, but probably not until I do this for at least a year. This was a less impressive issue than the past few. In this issue: The Editorial: "Ecological Collapse", by John. W. Campbell. An ecology can collapse but Ecology keeps going, albeit in a different form. Campbell starts by talking about one of the greatest Earth-changing elements ever: oxygen. It altered the atmosphere and what life could live on this planet forever. From there, it's on to other types of pollution, like thermal pollution from nuclear reactions. They can heat rivers, and that could kill off the current wildlife in those rivers, but it could spark other life to move into those rivers. There are lots of side effects to consider, good and bad. Novelette: "The Unreachable Stars" by Stanley Schmidt, with an illustration by Kel...

Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley (2018) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) The was a book group book. Yes, I've somehow become part of a book group. The spelling of "Bellewether" is a pun on the French "belle", and it is the name of a ship and an estate in the book. There are dual storylines taking place during the Seven Years (French & Indian) War and current day at a home above Snug Cove on the northern shore of Long Island, which is becoming a museum dedicated to the the life of a Revolutionary War hero. The hero will become Captain Benjamin Wilde, but he is still just one of the brothers of Lydia Wilde in the earlier narrative. There is also the story that a ghost haunts the museum and the woods about it, and the tale that it is a French soldier, killed by the one of the Wilde sons, when he attempt...