"The Arcanist" story collections (multiple)

The usual dislainer: 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 Arcanist is a magazine that prints flash-fiction (roughly 1,000 words, I believe). They publish one story a week, so you can imagine the competition for that one slot. The magazine also runs flash fiction contests, which the winner gets paid and gets published, along with the runners-up. Disclosure: I have submitted a few times, but I have not been published by them. My rejections have been generic and usually happen with 1-2 months. I have not submitted to any of their contests because they have an entry fee, a small one, but a fee nonetheless. I'd rather take my chances on the slush pile.

Recently, the magazine sent an email about the latest collection of stories it had for sale. It also had stories from previous years available for free.

Another disclosure: probably 5-10 or more years ago, I thought about the idea of self-publishing, since it was just catching on. The problem was that I had nothing in the way of novels to publish and no time to write and rewrite one. (I was "too good" for an editor, so I could save money. Ha!) I thought about the idea of putting out collections of flash fiction, until I thought, "No one is going to pay for a book with 7,000 words. That's a short story!" Turns out I was wrong, and it isn't just the Arcanist doing it.

End of digression.

Below are the books I've read, so far. I may amend this post if I read more this calendar year. Otherwise, I'll make a new post in 2023.

Welcome to Camp Arcanist (2021)

Stories about camping.

• "The Monster of Lake Gregg" by Kara Pogos was cute, with an unexpected ending. Part monster, part ghost story. First place winner.
• "Take Me Back to The Giants" by Connor Smith was the second place winner. I might've enjoyed it more if it hadn't reminded me of a better (longer, naturally) story from Analog in the late 80s/early 90s. The camping part is incidental, and it could've been replaced with a different theme alongside the other half (the twist) of the story.
• "Special Order" by Aeryn Rudel was third.

Yeah ... this didn't work out. At some point, I'll go back and list the stories. But let's face it, I probably won't. Here's a list of the rest of the books I read, each about seven stories long, some better than others. I hope I got the years right. I got this from the email which didn't list the years, but I think they went in order.

Hunger Flash (2020)

Tales From the Weird Weird West (2019)

Monster Flash (2018)

Magic, Monsters, and Mayhem (2017)

The Arcanist Presents: Ghost Stories (2016)

Miracle of Deck 34 and Other Yuletide Tales (Olsen/Ashby)

Miracle of Deck 34 and Other Yuletide Tales by Kaki Olsen and Scott Ashby (2021)

(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.)

Last year and this year, I participated in a Santa Book Exchange, where someone buys a copy of my book, and I buy a copy of someone else's book. It's all done mostly randomly. Last year, I included my "In A Flash 2020" in the fantasy category, so this year, I picked science fiction, since the book is roughly half of each.

The book I had to buy was Miracle of Deck 34 and Other Yuletide Tales, which worked out well for my December Christmas reading. It doesn't appear to be on Good Reads, so I may have to add it. However, I don't want to be the first one to rate it.

There are 24 stories (which, I admit, I didn't notice at first because I didn't read the blurb). This means that I could've read it like an advent calendar, except that I didn't get it until the second week of December.

(Side note: I did tweet out an Advent Calendar of my own because I have 24 published stories that I own the rights to, plus my first story, which was a work for hire.)

The book started well enough, but little things wore on me after a while. The writing isn't quite there. You could watch an episode of Star Trek or The Love Boat or any cop show to know how to talk to a captain. And some of the stories aren't really stories. Something is going to happen, and then it happens. And then the story just stops. In several instances, the ending is given away in the title and once we get to that reveal, it's done.

Speaking of titles, most are puns or take-offs on Christmas songs, lyrics or movies. Note the "Deck 34" of the title referencing Miracle of 34th Street. Santa appears in a few of the stories.

The pair started with the titles and wrote the stories, so some are most "prompt-ish" than others. I can recognize this because some of my prompt stories suffer from it. There have been times that by the time I'm done with the setup, the prompt that spurred the story is out of place and needs to be removed. One story spent a lot of time explaining how to make a fire in the rain and when it was done, oh, look, a shelter was built at the same time.

And, I'll confess here in fairness, I've been told by an editor that some of my stories were good but they just stopped. (I even noticed that when I read one in particular in front of an audience. My voice was high like I was about to read another sentence, but there was no more to read.

The book was enjoyable, but I wish it had had another round of editing to punch it up a little.

The Witch of the North Pole (Snow)

The Witch of the North Pole by Eden Snow (2017)

(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.)

Looking for books to get me into a Christmas mood, I went looking for free Christmas-themed ebooks (that weren't "bodice-rippers"). There seem to be plenty of "cozy" mysteries with witches, elves or whichever. The funny thing is from the thumbnail, I thought she was sitting on a chimney, not a bag of toys. Also, I didn't realize right away that the author's name was "Eden Snow" -- I thought it was a subtitle for the book!

The book is also listed as Cinnamon Mercy Claus 1. The main character doesn't like to be called Cinnamon, because she used to be teased that it was a spice name. Mercy was somehow better.

Mercy, a strong, indepedent woman, who works in an office with lots of spreadsheets but little interaction with people, is ill-prepared for a visit to her grandparents, whom she doesn't know. Her parents are away for the holidays, leaving her no place else to go. She's farther North than she's ever been. In fact, she's at the North Pole. And her grandfather is Santa, the actual Santa Claus.

The problem is that her grandmother isn't happy with the whole "Santa" situation and is leaving him. She's also leaving running the entire operation in the hands of Mercy.

Oh, and Mrs. Claus is a witch.

And, by the way, so is Mercy, even if she doesn't know it.

The entire "Santa" business, how old he is, the family line, the replacement Santas, can all be accepted as part of the narrative. That's the setup for the story and it's internally consistent. It gets a little problematic with Mrs. Claus, angry as she is, bailing out and leaving her granddaughter in charge without any training whatsoever. Or telling her about her witchy background and not helping there either.

There is some help in the form of a single spell, which a helpful elf, Ginger, tells her should be cast away from everyone, but indoors, so no one else is affected by it. Unfortunately, the elves captured a human who saw them and was holding him in the same warehouse where Mercy read the spell. He is affected with the same Christmas cheer, and agrees to help Mercy break into the Christmas Command Center and access the computer with the Naughty List. (Those on the Naughty List get a special present that gives them a chance to turn their lives around. The list includes the man's daughter.)

Unlike a Hallmark movie, the two do NOT become a couple by the end. However, it's a book series, so it might be something to expect in the next few books.

It was a cute book. If there's one drawback, it ended abruptly. The story's told but there's not denouement, no day after, nothing. On the other hand, there was the first chapter of Book 2. I don't normally read those, but in this case, I made an exception and read far enough to see how the ending would have played out. And then stopped because I don't normally read these.

Update: In the time it took me to write this up, Amazon sent an email that included the second book for free, so I downloaded it. It probably won't be read until after Christmas. I'm reading something else right now and then I have a Book Club book to get to.

Beyond the Waterfall Door (Cooper)

Beyond the Waterfall Door: Stories from the High Hills by Brenda Cooper (2015)

(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 got this one in an eSpec Books Kickstarter campaign. It's been in the electronic TBR pile for a while.

Previously, according to a quick blog search, I've read Brenda Cooper's novel Post and two short stories, "The Street of All Designs" and "Trainer of Whales". (Both short stories were bonus stories from other kickstarters.)

This book is a collection of six short stories, most of which were previously published. There were (according to the intro) some modifications for the sake of the narrative. It still felt a little disjointed.

The first story opens with a boy named Jack who lives in the High Hills, which is a world similar to ours, but it has magic and is less advanced technologically. We are introduced to Jack as he is driving horses. He spots two oddly dressed girls and follows them. They crossed through a rock wall. He emerges behind a waterfall at an Arts festival in Laguna Beach, CA, which occupies the same place as the High Hills in a different dimension. Jack becomes "The Handyman's Apprentice", and will figure into all of the stories to come in some way.

The doorway operates only when the waterfall is operating, which is only during the summer when the festival is running. (There is an exception for the Halloween festival ("All Hallows in the High Hills") that happens one year.) Only a person of a certain mindset is able to get through although it seems that a person can be helped through if Jack or someone else is holding them.

The second story, "Singing Backup" starts a little weird. Not only is Jack not the narrator or focal character, but the woman who is is not one of the two from the previous story. This isn't a problem, but it was a little jarring to the narrative. Again, these are separate stories that were collected into one volume. Jack has gotten older, and is involved with one of the singers at the festival. Someone else from the High Hills is there often as well, checking out the other singer. Jack and the woman are a couple, but the festival is coming to an end, and Jack will be returning to the High Hills, and she will be off to college. Such is life as people have to grow up and move on.

The stories were all enjoyable, although the final story "The Back of the Drum", which is the longest of the bunch and the only new story, is more serious and a much heavier story. I almost wish that there were one more story, even a short one, to end on a lighter note. It could've even wrapped around to the first story in some way, or introduced a new "Jack" for some future volume that may or may not ever be written.

Short verson: I enjoyed this book.

The Literary Handyman: More Tips from the Handyman (Ackley-McPhail)

The Literary Handyman: More Tips from the Handyman by Danielle Ackley-McPhail (2021)

(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.)

Why would a published author need more tips on writing? Honestly, I don't remember if I got this one free in a Kickstarter campaign, or if I bought it extra. But the advice is worth the price.

Disclaimer: Danielle Ackley-McPhail is the editor of my book In A Flash 2020 and is the publisher of eSpec Books, which published my book.

Amsuing anecdote: This past weekend, I was at Philcon in Cherry Hill, NJ (across the river from Philadelphia). I did show her that I was reading her book. It had been in my kindle app for a while. While I was there, I mentioned a story of mine that a mutual acquaitance had read as the assistant editor of a magazine. She sent me an email saying she liked it and was passing it to the editor for review. In the end, unfortunately, the editor didn't agree, and I didn't make the cut. But I when I discovered that she (the one who liked it) was at a con, I introduced myself and thanked her for the kind words. She actually seemed to remember the story from a comment she'd made. (That had been six months earlier, at least.) Anyway, Danielle told me to send her the story. They (that is, eSpec) is planning their next anthology, whatever it may be. When I got home from the weekend trip, I did just that.

The next day, I'm reading about shooting yourself in the foot by not doing everything you can to help yourself and your manuscript, and to not give the editor an excuse to reject your manuscript without reading it. (They get a lot, and sometimes they're overwhelmed.) One of her pet peeves were when authors leave out the personal information on the top of the first page. Sometimes authors she's friends with and has worked with before are guilty of this, too, not just newbies.

When I got home from work, I updated the file to include that information, and resent it. I later realized that I don't know if I included page numbers or not. I usually don't. I think I turned them off when one editor mentioned it in their guideines, and I don't think I ever put them back on again. It's something that was obvious when I was typing manuscripts, as opposed to using a word processor.

Anyway, rookie mistakes like this are good reasons to reason "how to" books occasionally, just to make sure you're still doing what you should be doing.

Ackley-McPhail includes numerous examples of what she's talking about, both from her own works and new entries created for this text.

A great guide. I reccomend both editions.

She also has one for book publishing, but I'm not "there" yet. And I would really only be interested in electronic publishing, not print copies, first because print would take even more of an investment, and I would more likely be aiming for the Kindle Unlimited audience if I went that way.

Steampunk!

Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories edited by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant (2011)

(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 wish I'd written this one up sooner, but I hadn't written earlier books yet. Also, I hadn't thought at the time that I might want to write something about the individual stories.

There was a call for story proposals for an upcoming steampunk anthology which will be published for an upcoming Steampunk convention. It will be handled by eSpec Book, which has published stories that I've written. I would've liked to have proposed a story. However, to be honest, I don't know much about Steampunk. I know the gears and the clockwork stuff and the flying ships and the steam and goggles and stuff, but not what actually makes a Steampunk story.

So I went looking for an anthology. Actually, I looked for novels first, but I kept finding romances with steampunk settings. When I discovered the anthology, I realized that I could get a bunch of different takes on what makes a steampunk story. Basically, a lot of things. For one thing, anything done by Jules Verne is fair game. Also, "The Island of Doctor Moreau" (H. G. Wells) isn't off-limits either.

Stories can be Victorian up through World War I. I don't remember any set in the Wild West, but there are analogues (read elsewhere) between Edwardian/Victorian England and the upper crust of the American West. This is good to know for writing, because I might want to set it in the American West. On the other hand, Long Island, NY was underdeveloped at the time and yet so close to NYC. But I digress.

I did find a review which broke down the list of stories. I rememeber from the authors' bios that all of them have multiple credits to their name. The ones I remember, I will comment on. Unfortunately, the book has already gone back to the library, so I can't go back and peek at it. Also, I read the stories in the book over a period of a couple of months while I was reading other things, so some of the details of the earlier stories may be fuzzy.

n particular:

"Some Fortunate Future Day" by Cassandra Clare set the stage for the book. It took place during the war (WWI). A girl, Rose, is home alone in her mansion, cared for by automatons built by her father, who also built friends for her (life-sized dolls). An injured soldier comes to the house that she (and the robots) care for. She fantasizes that the soldier will take her away and that they will live happily ever after. The soldier sees her as a child, however. The girl then uses a time travel device of her father's (not out of the realm of possibility given the setup), to go back a few days so that she can try to win the soldier all over again. When she goes back, the device remains where it was, so it can be used again. (I don't recall if that means that there will be two instances of the girl now.) I enjoyed the story. If this were the benchmark for the series, then it was set high, say 4 out of 5.

"The Last Ride of the Glory Girls" by Libba Bray. I think it took a while before I realized that this was set on another planet and not in the old West. There are Pinkerton detectives, so I assumed it was some alternate history with gadgets. Not an issue, but it threw me a little. The girl is good with gadgets, and you know she will not recognized by many for her talents because she's female. She overcomes a bad situation. Good story.

"Clockwork Fagin" by Cory Doctorow is, I imagine, a steampunk "Oliver Twist". I say, I imagine, but I've never read it or seen a film (or musical), just adaptations into other mediums and genres. There's a horrible orphange filled with kids with injuries from jobs that kids shouldn't be performing, but did back then. The new kid kills the creepy man who runs the place, but which clockwork technology, they manage to fool people into thinking he's alive until they can come up with another plan. The problem they face is, if discovered, no one knows who would take over the orphange (could be worse) or if the kids would wind up worse off. A pretty good story and made use of clockwork stuff in a belieavable way. The stuff exists, and they adapt it.

"Seven Days Beset by Demons" by Shawn Cheng was a seven-panel comic which was a little difficult to read in kindle. Each day is a deadly sin. It didn't do much for me as it was a concept story/art piece.

"Hand in Glove" by Ysabeau S. Wilce. Okay, this one I think I remember. It was weird. There's a detective and a constable solving murders. The constable wants to use fingerprints but the detective doesn't like the modern methods. The fingerprints indicate that a dead man was a murderer. The investigation leads to a Frankenstein-like setup. If I recall correctly, the mad scientist is an uplifted chimp (the term "uplifted" is not used -- in fact, I don't recall if they address it at all). The doctor is re-animating bodies, but the problem is that most bodies have something wrong with them usually related to the cause of or the aftermath of their death. So parts get taking from multiple bodies. (If I'm remembering correctly, a hand is animated and walks alone, and it might've been the murderer's hand. Again, it was a while ago.)

"The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor" by Delia Sherman was a little odd from where it started and then where it went, but that isn't a bad thing. Unexpected, which isn't bad. Victorian setting and the name is definitely Welsh. (I googled how to pronounce it.) A young maid helps her young master with the help of the ghost of one of her ancestors. She works as a housekeeper because there's no future for a blacksmith's daughter -- certainly not as an engineer.

I don't mind stories that bring this to mind, so long as the entire anthology isn't filled with them -- unless, of course, that's the theme of the anthology, as opposed to "steampunk" -- so long as this is woven into the plot and not a soapbox placed on top of the plot's throat.

This was one of the more enjoyable stories. The can never be certain when you have a ghost story because you expect the ghost to be real, but then if it is, you expect that it has some rules or at least reasons for its actions or lack of actions.

"Gethsemane" by Elizabeth Knox. I really don't remember much about this at all, which is odd because I know it's religious allegory and I usually remember those. (Particularly if really good or really bad. Maybe it was neither?) It takes place (Google search) on a fictional island in the South Pacific, part of the Shackle Islands (which aren't real, either). I think there was magic and mysticism and making people blind and dependent on you and stuff I wouldn't associate with stemapunk. But there was something steampunk-y about it, I'm sure.

"The Summer People" by Kelly Link. I don't remember much about this one either. I could be confusing this one with the previous one. Maybe the summer people have all that power. I don't remember.

"Peace in Our Time" by Garth Nix. I don't remember hating it, so there's that. An end of the world story, I think. (This is why I need to make notes sooner.)

"Nowhere Fast" by Christopher Rowe. In the future a lot of stuff is outlawed by the government, and some people like it that way because that stuff was bad (like oil and cars and stuff). Not much to say about it.

"Finishing School: A Colonial Adventure" by Kathleen Jennings is a comic about a girl who built a flying machine. I don't remember much about it becasue (again) comics in kindle are difficult to read.

"Steam Girl" by Dylan Horrocks. Two young misfits fall in love.

"Everything Amiable and Obliging" by Holly Black. I believe that this is the story with the young woman who rejects all suitors because she's in love with her personal automaton. That machine is connected to the house. When there relationship is severed, the house reacts badly to the point where the house, which is supposed to serve and please everyone, only cares for the one mistress. In the end, she weds the automaton. This story couldn't have been written 100 years ago. Actually, it could have been written by Verne or Wells but it would've ended differently. This ending would never have sold. The house would've burned down instead with the maid inside the house, or being dragged out over the shoulder of her father or one of her many suitors. The automaton might have even pushed her into whichever man's waiting arms. Actually, I could write that -- except that I'm rubbish with romance stories, not to mention Regency settings.

"The Oracle Engine" by M.T. Anderson. Steampunk in Ancient Rome. The Romans were brilliant engineers and this kicked that up a notch. It's a story of revenge of a young boy against the rich and powerful Crassus, who allowed the boy's home to burn and his father to die because the father could not afford Crassus's price to douse the flames and save the house. The boy grows up to be an engineer and approaches Crassus about building an Oracle Engine that could, given all the needed information, foresee victory or defeat in the future. And he's willing to build it for the fame that his engine will bring. Crassus heads to the Middle East on a campaign that traditional omens predict doom. He lets the enemy move about freely while awaiting the Oracle's programming to be completed. He has it tested, and then kills the young man who built it so he could make no more. He tells them that he knows who he is. Before Crassus finally launches his campaign, he has the engine checked for sabotage and finds a coin, with no memory of giving that coin to the young boy who would grow to make the engine. The coin would have altered the results. Instead Crassus hears prophecies that he believes means victory but are actually the kinds of things said by the gods and oracles to the players in tragedies before they fall. And his company falls. Revenge is had. (SPOILER, sorry)

So I can see why it took me a while to finish becuase there was a dry spell in the middle with a handful of stories that didn't do much for me, and which I barely remembered. It did finish strong, however, with the Crassus tale. Ancient Rome i not what I think of when I think "steampunk", but as I mentioned before, given Roman engineering, it actually makes a lot of sense to place a story there. Probbably moreso than in any other place at any other time in history, outside of the traditional origins.

So now I have a slightly better understanding of steampunk, except that the story I had in mind doesn't fit with any of these. I'm happy to see zeppelins, but I wanted to see flying ships, actual ships that flew. And maybe I'll still write that.

My Best Friend's Exorcism (Hendrix)

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix (2016)

(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.)

This was a Book Club selection. it was also a it of an odyssey in finding a copy of the book. The novel has been made into a movie, so copies are hard to come by. I was told by two libraries that the estimated wait time would to 10-12 weeks for a copy .

As a result, I started to use the Internet Archive, which had a copy, but I was only able to borrow it for one hour at a time, until a 14-day copy became available. Adding to the insanity, the Internet Archive is, naturally on the Internet. I couldn't download anything to read on the subway. As a result, before getting on the train, I needed to buffer the next dozen pages or so to read until I got somewhere I could buffer more. And I couldn't launch any other apps that might've cleared memory.

And it was a quick read, so I flew through chapters faster than I expected to.

So the story ... It takes place in the 90s and a lot of 80s reference are sprinkled throughout the text, some of them carefully placed with a sledgehammer. I lived through the 80s, and it wasn't all that 80s-ish that much all the time. Basically, it's product placement with 80s refs instead of actual ads. The chapter titles are 80s songs, which usually fit the chapters thematically, so it's occasionally a stretch. The funny thing about this is that the book reads like one of those 80s "TV Movies of the Week" that the networks would use to fill out their schedules. The fact that it's a current movie is a little more boggling.

When Abby was 10, she had a birthday party, but only Gretchen came because Margaret announces her party on the same day and its at a horse-riding ranch. None of their classmates make it back, but Gretchen didn't go because Abby asked first. References to E.T. abound.

Fast-forward a bunch of years and they are in high school. Abby's father is out of work, so they live in the poor part of town in a scary-looking house, but Abby has a scholarship to her private school. She's still friends with Gretchen, along with Margaret and another girl Glee. They're popular.

While at Margaret's lake house, the girls try LSD. Gretchen goes skinny dipping in the dark and disappears. The others look for her in the woods, and Abby finds a creepy cabin and runs off. They find Gretchen the next day.

Over time, it's obvious that the experience changed her, but Abby starts to believe that Gretchen is possessed by a demon thanks to a cult in the building. And, in fact, she was. At first, she creepy, but suddenly she seems fine and normal, and Abby is the one on the outs. Demon Gretchen is set on destroying the girls' futures and almost succeeds.

The fancy prep school has many assemblies, and one of them is a family of exorcists. One of the sons recognizes the demon within Gretchen. At some point after, Abby contacts him about saving Gretchen. This should be the strongest part of the book, given the title, but it becomes the goofiest. Christian doesn't bring his father because he doesn't believe his father is strong enough to do this any more. But Christian has performed an exorcism and he has lots of notes (which turn out to be useful to Abby). His attempts to force the demon out would result in serious harm to and the possible death of the host, and he has to be forced to back it down a little. Before it's over, he abandons the girls, leaving Abby to save Gretchen before the police arrive.

This is where it get really over-the-top Movie of the Week. When viewed in that light, it makes up for the less than stellar exorcism scene. However, it doesn't end there, as the movie might have. It tells us what happens for the rest of their lives and how the two friends drift apart. (The other two girls will never be the same again.) None of that is necessary except to comment how difficult it is to stay from forever, particularly if someone moves away and put physical as well as emotional distance between them.

So this wasn't scary, and it wasn't funny. It was pretty much straight-forward about the girls and fitting in, especially with Abby suddenly being poor.

The book wasn't terrible, which doesn't sound like much, but I had a sense of dread going into it because I didn't know what kind of graphic demonic possession would be in the forefront. That part wasn't so bad. Parts of it were clever, but I won't spoil those.

I've been told my several members of the book club that the movie is awful an I should skip it.

Note: I didn't use the "Teen" tag, because even though the characters are teens, I wouldn't recommend this book for teens. They wouldn't appreciate all the 80s references anyway. At least when I watch Happy Days, the 50s were only 20 years earlier.

John Dies at the End (Paragin)

The Dream Peddler by Jason Pargin (aka David Wong) (2007)

(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.)

This was a Book Club selection. I had never heard of it before, despite the 20-year later commentary added to this version. Honestly, I couldn't tell you which author name was on the cover. It was Jason Pargin on the Good Reads page. Apparently, it was a movie, too.

The fact that this started as a web serial in 2001 was interesting, and also explained the choppy nature of it (even if he did go back and edit it). Back in 2001, something like this was possible. It would be like the folks who pioneered self-publishing for a living on Amazon or who do serials now on their new service. It's something that I would've loved to have done had I had the time and the discipline to keep writing. Granted, I probably would've been lost in the shuffle and never advertised for readers.

Anyway, David Wong is being interviewed about some of the crazy stuff that he's seen, along with his friend John. Most of it defies the laws of physics as well as time and causality. It mostly has to do with this inky black gunk that gets into them and allows them to see things that other people don't notice. There's another dimension that's going to burst into this one and kill everyone. And they have to stop it.

It's strange, really out there, hard to follow (except, oddly, for the parts where people are erased and no one remembers them, including someone who would've been a main character in the beginning of the book, but he was erased in Las Vegas, but someone remembers shouting their name).

Spoiler: John never dies at the end. On the other hand, a lot of other people do. And many of them are replaced with shadows from the other dimension, except that they don't know that they are. The replacements appear to be exactly who the person looking at them expects them to be -- but if that person had never seen them before, their head fills in their own details. These may not match what others see, so that's one way to detect them.

This isn't a book I would've picked up. And if I had, I probably would've nave stayed with it if it weren't for the book club meeting ... which I missed because Family Movie Night ran long, and I don't skip out on Family Movie Night. That's me.

The next book was creepy, but I blew through it pretty quickly.

The Dream Peddler

The Dream Peddler by Martine Fournier Watson (2019)

(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.)

This was a Book Club selection, and it put me in a bit of a quandry. There was no ebook available at either library. I eventually was able to get a print edition. I kept putting off reading it for odd reasons. Starting new books is always a little on the difficult side for me, but lately print is worse. I can't adjust the font size any more. (Actually, i've made my ereader font smaller because I thought it was too large!) Adding to this, I read on the subway in the morning, but I usually have a coffee in one hand, so holding a book can be difficult. Coming home the trains are crowded, so standing and trying to read a paperback is even more ridiculous. And reading a paperback by lamplight in bed only gets me so far (maybe a page or two) unless I'm really drawn in.

And then comes the dumbest excuse of all: my kindle app has a daily reading counter. Yes, I wanted to keep my streak going, to a year, to 400 days, to whatever number I can get it to. I don't know what I'll do if I finally miss a day. Take a break, maybe. But that meant reading other things, even if only for a half hour, every day.

In the end, I got the book on tape, unabridged and nine hours long. It wasn't the sort of thing I could just sit and listen to. That actually started putting me to sleep. So I'd listen while walking, when I didn't have my radio. And I'd listen when I was standing in the train. For a while, I would read later to catch up, but that didn't last long, and she was reading the entire text.

In the end, I didn't finish before the book club meeting, but I wound up out the house that night.

It's a small town before everyone had cars. A lot of walking and wagons. A young boy, Benjamin Dawson, goes missing. And a stranger, Robert Owens comes to town. He finds a room at Vi's boardinghouse where he sets up his supplies. He's a dream peddler. He sells dreams, or rather potions that will make you have dreams.

The first to buy one -- Owens gives it away for free -- is a tenn, Toby Jenkins, who wants to have a dream about girls. He passes the word along to other boys. No one believes that selling dreams is possible and that he must be a charlatan, but people come to see him. Mr. Dawson wants a dream that might tell him where to look for Toby -- Owens doesn't think it'll work but maybe his subconscious will tell him something.

After the boy's body is found beneath the ice in the river (no foul play expected), Owens avoids his mother, Evie. She finally corners him, not to ask for a dream of her son, but not to dream at all.

A teen girl, Christina Blackwell, wants to dream of her future husband, which again isn't exactly possible. He ends up dreaming of somone other than who she'd hoped. That get her and her friend Cora Jenkins to try to shape the future so that the right boy is looking at her. It turns out that he's a bit of jerk (a big jerk by the end) and the other boy isn't all that bad, so that dream may come to pass after all.

The peddler only stays in one place for a while and then moves on. It's a great business, but there's a problem. People have to tell their secrets to him when explaining their dream. After a while, Owens says, they can start to resent you knowing so much.

It plays out a little differently here with people using dreams for the wrong purposes, with results not what they're expecting. On top of that, Cora Jenkins develops a crush on Owens, who isn't interested, and even if he was, he knew that he could settle down and go on the road. And constant traveling would be no life for Cora (or anyone else). You almost hope that something would develop between Owens and Vi (but, again, I'm listening, so I may have missed details about Vi's age). Evie obviously develops feelings even though she's happily married.

In the end, he's chased away because of the preacher and because of the scuttlebutt involving Cora (who, SPOILER!, miscarries).

I did plan on reading the last chapter or two of the book, but that didn't happen despite having the book in my bag for a couple of weeks. I passed it on to the next library reader. I hope the book wasn't worse for wear in my bag.

It was a good story. I do wish I'd read it instead of listened (or both) just because it's sometimes confusing which character is speaking. And if I ever wanted a good definition of "speculative fiction", this is it. Everything is normal, except for this one speculative element, "What if a person could sell dreams?"

I should check out what else Watson has written... that's available as an ebook.

Abaddon's Gate (Corey)

Abaddon's Gate by James S. A. Corey (2013)

(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.)

As previously noted: I watched the first season of The Expanse when it first aired on Syfy. I have to admit, I was somewhat lost and couldn't follow a lot of lost was going on. I couldn't even understand some of what was being said. Had I thought about it, I might've deleted the timer I had set for the series. However, I forgot to, so it taped the second season, which I watched and enjoyed more. I can now confirm that the third season aired on Syfy before it moved to Amazon, as I remember these episodes.

Comparing the book to the show: the first season of the show did not cover the entire first book. However, it did include characters from the second book, in particular, every character on Earth. The first half of the second season, which I recently rewatched, introduces a couple of Book Two characters in the first episode, setting them up for later, or repurposing them. The person whom I would call the "main" new character of Book Two, Prax, doesn't appear until halfway through the season when Ganymede is attacked (or about to be). Somehow they managed to finish book three by the end of season three. However, since most of it took place while everyone was trapped in one location, it sped things up. They also combined or repurposed existing characters so new ones didn't have to be introduced.

The book opens with the gate already out there in deep space and everyone keeping an eye on it, where it had been for about a year. In the show, it launches from Venus in the middle of season three.

A slingshotter, someone in a ship that slingshots around plantary bodies without crashing or crushing themselves, decides to make a name for himself by slingshotting through the ring. He dies in the attempt because the ring stops his ship, slowing it down to its own speed limit. The gate, now activated, draws even more interest.

Meanwhile, the daughter of Jules Mao decides to seek revenge against James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante. She's had her body augmented so she can kill easily, but needs to rest afterward. With a new identity, she boards a ship heading toward the gate working as a maintenance crew member. (She mostly supervises others' work but she took a crash course in it.)

The Roci crew, meanwhile, has a problem where the ship is locked down because the Martian government is suing to get it back. A documenatry crew shows up to hire the ship to go to the gate and promises that it can use its news connections to get the lockdown order lifted. This happens and Holden and crew are heading where Mao wants them. Added to this, a member of the crew is a saboteur who will allow Mao computer access so that she can fire the Roci's weapons at another ship, making Holden a villain. The ship's communications are also compromised with a spoofed Holden delivering an ultimatum and claiming ownership of the ring.

Miller starts making appearances. He only shows up when Holden is alone and only briefly. This is explained that the protomolecule is talking to him from Venus and it has to trip a lot of switches in Holden's brain for this to happen. It's more difficult if more are present. Miller warns him about doors and corners and rushing in blind.

When everything goes bad, and there's no safe harbor, Holden orders Alex to take the ship into the ring, but slow it down. Ships moving below the speed limit can proceed. Faster ships are halted and drift to the center.

Other ships follow, including the OPA's ship Behemoth, which is the Nauvoo repurposed. It turns out that the Nauvoo was never intended to accelerate forever to create gravity. Rather it has a drum in the center that could spin to provide gravity. However, within the solar system, that isn't necessary, so the ship is used top-down, and what should have been the ground is now a really thick wall. The fact that it can spin will become important will everything goes wrong again later on.

Holden comes to believe that Julie Mao is somehow manipulating him through the protomolecule, not knowing that it's her living sister. He ends up going to the station in the center of the spherical space within the ringspace. The Miller construct tries to help him fix whatever's wrong. Miller also wants answers to what happened to the race that created the protomolecule two billion years ago, and why are all the other exits closed?

Before they can get answers, Martians capture Holden. In the process, one fires off a weapon that the ring decides is bad. The speed limit is suddenly reduced dramatically. This causes a lot of death and injuries on all the ships. Worse, without a fix, none of the ships would survive the months-long voyage out to regular space.

There's a fight for control of the Behemoth to prevent in some setting in motion the destruction of the solar system by the ring, and everything works out. And Miller has plans for Holden.

The story is left wide open for the next book without it being any kind of cliffhanger.

This is the part of the show that I remember the most -- probably because that's when I was finally getting into it and understanding the characters. It seems funny that after spending so much time on each of the first two books that they managed to finish this one in so few episodes without leaving too much out. They hit all the major points that they had to. It's possible that they knew that they weren't being renewed so they needed to finish it, ending with Miller's promise that there's more out there. When the producers found out that Amazon was picking up the series, I couldn't say.

I enjoyed this book. I ordered the next, but barely started it before it was due back because of other book club readings. But I'll get back to it.

I do wish I'd written this sooner because Show "Expanse" is intermingling with book "Expanse", particularly with the minor bits.

Puzzled (Nichols)

Puzzled by P.J. Nichols (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.)

This was a freebie in a Book Bub mailing list that I read with an eye on if it might interest my nephew. I think not, but he was his own tastes.

It's a middle-grade book, filled with puzzles and Nichols will at times stop and ask the reader if they've worked out the solution before he reveals it.

The conceit of the book is that Peter has a talent for solving puzzles. He's approached by an older man (I read this two months ago, I don't remember the particulars, which kind of defeats the purpose of this blog) who has him solve a few riddles. The man has an ulterior motive.

It turns out that there's an alien living among us and that alien can control the weather and create tornados that wreak distruction. But the alien would rather solve puzzles. And the older fellow has been creating puzzles for the alien for many years now. He wants Peter to take over. But first he must pass a challenge and he'll need a team to help him because some challenges will be brainy but others will require brawn.

Peter gets the girls he's interested in, and another frend. He also wants his older brother, but he lies to him about the competition because he figures that his brother would never believe him about a tornado-creating alien who likes puzzles. The older brother discovers the lie and quits the team right before the day of the challenge. Oh noes!

The other three go through the puzzles, figuring them all out, only to have a squeaker of a finish where the older brother runs in to save the day (someone managing to avoid all the other puzzles and make it to the finish line).

It was an okay book. I wasn't it's target audience. Your mileage may vary.

My Hero Academia Volume 31

My Hero Academia Volume 31, by Kōhei Horikoshi (2017-2019)

(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.)

This is the most recent issue available, and it merits a separate entry even if it was only 40 minutes of reading.

I'll have a separate entry for the spinoff My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, which I'm also up to date on.

This book came as a little bit of a surprise. I put a hold on it at the library a while back and suddenly there it was.

The series has gotten a bit dark, with its emphasis on the League of Villains and the Paranormal Liberation Front. but now we discover Dabi's true secret, and the revenge that he's been waiting for. No spoiler, but it's dark, and it concerns the new Number 1 Hero.

Despite being on the cover, Izuku Midoriya (Deku) has little to do since he's in the hospital from his battle with All for One's vassal Shiguraki.

So if I had a problem with this series, it's this: it's supposed to be about a high school. While I'm happy Japan's active heroes appear and get showcased, and even happier that a squad of high schoolers do NOT run off and save the world every issue, the focus has shifted. The bigger issues in the world have taken center stage. But we seeing it from the front lines, not through the lens of the teens in training.

And, again, without a spoiler, after 30+ issues that just about got us through a single year, the reveal on the last page with Mioriya was a head scratcher. There's a sudden jump in the timeline (a few months) and a rash decision for someone training to be the world's greatest hero. And it's practically an off-the-cuff aside.

Oh, yeah, I'll have the next issue on hold at the library.

Caliban's Way (Corey)

Caliban's Way by James S. A. Corey (2011)

(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.)

As previously noted: I watched the first season of The Expanse when it first aired on Syfy. I have to admit, I was somewhat lost and couldn't follow a lot of lost was going on. I couldn't even understand some of what was being said. Had I thought about it, I might've deleted the timer I had set for the series. However, I forgot to, so it taped the second season, which I watched and enjoyed more. I think a third season aired on Syfy before it moved to Amazon.

Comparing the book to the show: the first season of the show did not cover the entire first book. However, it did include characters from the second book, in particular, every character on Earth. The first half of the second season, which I recently rewatched, introduces a couple of Book Two characters in the first episode, setting them up for later, or repurposing them. The person whom I would call the "main" new character of Book Two, Prax, doesn't appear until halfway through the season when Ganymede is attacked (or about to be).

In Book Two, Prax is more the driving force, in my opinion, than Martian Gunnery Sergeant Draper, who is an important character, but more supporting the action than driving it. Having the Russian reverend be a former colleague of the UN Secretary General helped the narrative and allowed the character to be added early and given sufficient backstory for when she's needed in Book Three (which, thanks to the time off from this blog, I have already read).

In Book Two, the crew of the Rocinante is running missions for Fred Johnson for a year or so after the events of Book One. Miller, the dead detective, starts appearing to Holden whenever he's alone, warning about "door and corners" and clearing the room instead of blundering in. Meanwhile, on Ganymede, the largest food plant/greenhouses beyond the Belt, a child is kidnapped by her doctor and a strange woman posing as her mother. Her father Prax is an engineer. There's an attack on Ganymede by an protomolecule engineered soldier. Earth and Mars fight. Satellite mirrors crash. The greenhouse is destroyed. The ecosystem is spiraling into chaos and won't be salvageable.

The Roci crew is trying to bring aid. Prax hires them to find his daughter, who he discovers was kidnapped from the daycare center. His daughter has a genetic condition because of the astronomy of the situation (radiation, etc.), which makes her one of the better candidates to receive the protomolecule, which is still being researched. Meanwhile, stuff is happening on Venus, and the two sets of alien tech are talking to each other.

Cutting to the chase, it was a satisfying read, using some of the threads left from the first book, and adding more that may show up again later. It was worth the wait to get it from the library, but the size of the book put me off pace to finish my book club selection!

When You Had Power (Quinn)

When You Had Power
(Nothing Is Promised #1)
by Susan Kaye Quinn (2020)

(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 write. I don't sell a lot of stories but I write as many as I can. When I look at the markets open to me, a couple of trends show. First, lots of people like horror. Unfortunately, I'm not really one of them. Second, there are emerging genres out there that don't havea lot of content in them. The ones that piqued my interest (or at least got my attention) are solarpunk, hopepunk and lunarpunk. I'm not exactly sure what these are, or how the first two differ from the other. I get that "solarpunk" is supposed to be the antithesis of the popular "grimdark" future stories. The idea is that the world can have a bright future, if we work together and work with the Earth instead of against it. There's a streak of environmentalism (and climate change) built in. Side-note: "lunarpunk" doesn't take place on the Moon -- it's similar to solarpunk, only the setting is usually nighttime, and the asthetic should match (neon colors, etc.).

Since it's something relatively new, there's not a lot of stories and writers out there for it. That presents a little window of oppourtunity for writers wanting to jump in. But you have to know (that is, I have to know) something about the genre before I can write in it. And there isn't a lot out there to read. Certianly nothing that I could get from the library. So I did the next best thing, what I usually do, I went looking for freebies.

Susan Kaye Quinn has at least two series, which each one having the first book for free on Amazon (at least they were at the time I was looking). This "Nothing is Promised" series is supposed to be four connected novellas, but the first one is a bit open-ended. Too much was left for the next installment.

The title When You Had Power seems to be an effective play on words, refering to people in power and actually no longer having power in a world affected by climate change. A lot of changes happen in the next few decades. You hardly recognize the place (Earth, that is).

It's been a while, and the details can be found elsewhere on the web, but the main character starts the book being accepted/adopted into a group/family/home. She's working at a power plant on an island nearby. She discovers a problem and is suspended for a day while the problem is cleared up. (Why just a day? They didn't give themselves a lot of time.) She comes back and tries to prove that things have been tampered with, and someone tries to kill her by tampering with her diving suit. She survives, and lives to fight another day, along with her group family.

I wish I'd written soemthing when I read it. I could call this a benchmark story that I could measure others by. I won't judge a genre based on one book. However, I don't feel compelled to bu th enext one, and even though I have the first book in her other series, I might want to read a different author's take. I won't get a feel for the genre and its conventions otherwise.

If you're interested in solarpunk -- or is this hopepunk? -- give it a try. I believe I gave it 3 stars on Good Reads. It was definitely better written than anything I give 2 stars to, but not up there with the 4 star books either.

Updates Coming

This blog got away from me toward the end of the summer. I was reading quite a few things, trying to get through all of them, and not making headway anywhere.

That's not entirely true. Those Exapnse books are huge and take some time. I've finished 3 of them now.

I've also taken a couple other books from the library, one nonfiction and one an anthology, and I keep going back to them and then putting them aside after a while. However, I intend to finish both of them.

Likewise, I've started other things that were on my phone mostly because they were there. Since I plan to finish these and not abandon them, there won't be entries until I'm done.

That is all for now, except that I hope to start making entries in the next couple days.

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact July 1972

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, July 1972

Update the photo

July is late which just about guarantees that August will be last. Too many things going on and too many things to read. And, of course, silly as it sounds, I want to get my daily Kindle app reading streak going, and .PDF files don't count toward the daily reading goal.

The July issue of Analog will be reviewed as I read it and get back to this page. That means a lot of what you see hear will be from last month's review until at I get to the point where I've updated the entire thing.

For anyone finding these reviews, my purpose is two-fold: enjoying some "classic" sci-fi, and looking for stories that I think could be adapted for TV broadcast since so much of what shows up on anthology shows is rough to awful. Additional Note: I do NOT work in television. I just watch it.

In this issue:

The Editorial: "The Mystic West". Fifty years ago, a war between science and poetry, technology and the arts. Silly but presented sensibly.

Novellette: "Collision Course", S. Kye Boult with an illustration by John Scoenherr, which is really difficult to make out. I can see a few figures, one standing away from the others, and a couple of structures, but I have no idea what is going on. The caption reads, If you were captian of a fifty-mile long chunk of granite sailing on molten magma and had just been rammed by a floating plateau ... what would you do?

Mental note: check the reviews of stories by S. Kye Boult because I've seen the name a lot in the past two years. But nothing is springing to mind.

Okay, so as far as visual go, this story has it. I can't recall ever reading or seeing a story about a mountain of rock with engines on it being steered like a battleship. (I may have missed the fifty mile long reference.) Even if Hollywood writers throw out everything else to make this "more accessible", this would rock. (Pun not intended at first, but intended after.)

The problem I had with it was it wasn't accessible with the aliens it created and the language and terminology to go with it. It got a little distracting. That said, it was better that this wasn't a bunch of humans mining minerals on a magma-flowing planet. When I finally got to the flat rock that was planning on ramming the mountain, I wasn't sure who or what was ramming or why. The reasons were liking there and I could've just zoned out and skimmed over them. The solution did lie in the dynamics of fluids and heating and cooling magma.

It was interesting enough that I didn't bail on it, but I did slough me my way to the finish.

Short Story: "Klysterman's Silent Violin", by Michael Rogers, with an illustration by John Schoenherr, showing a simple image of a man in the background playing an electronic violin while wearing a pair of headphones. There's the face of a man in the foreground who appears to be annoyed. I don't know if there's something on his forehead or if it's just a bad image of his hairline. The caption reads, "The path of scientific research sometimes takes unexpected turns -- and so does the path of evolution."

The story is told in the form of journal entries. I just scanned the text looking for the name of the writer, who is in charge. I figured that there might be dialogue in one of them. I didn't see it. Klysterman is a scientist who works on his violin in his spare time. There is a female scientist named Ludmila W., and there appears to be a love triangle. Except that it isn't. Klysterman seems interested in her, and she seems interested in him and his violin. The projet leader tries to separate them -- for her sake, of course, because he's a ne'er-do-well, or something -- going so far as to put her on his research project. It doesn't help.

The narrator becomes more erratic in his tale as it goes on and I thought it was going to be beause of the "silent" violin actually driving him mad. Nope. Doesn't happen and that's a missed opportunity.

Instead the plot resolves around augmented wheat rust, which is allowed to germinate so it could be studied. No, I didn't fully understand the reasons for this. Klysterman takes an interest in the project. It appears that the rust has psychedelic properties. And in the end, the rust's mutations expand so far as to cause a mutation of Klysterman and Lucinda W, which they undergo willingly.

This could be interesting visually but I don't know if it could be done cheaply enough such a short story. It could be the last (short) segment of an hourlong anthology show.

Science Fact: "Strong Poison 2", by arl A. Larson

It was long and I didn't read through much of it. It could have ideas to be used in writing, maybe. I don't recall Strong Poison 1, whenever that was published.

Novellette: "The Darkness to Come", by Robert B. Marcus, Jr., with an illustration by John Schoenherr, showing a large black bird-like creature with human-like arms and hands not attached to its wings. The caption reads, In a situation where fats are scarce, faith counts as much as logic. But when the faithful reach the wrong conclusion, they still cling to it stubbornly!

Jans Deriae is an old scientist. He takes pills (which appear to be illegal) to prolong his life. He has calculated that the world (Rangi) is cooling because it is moving away from the primary sun, which would be obviously if the clouds would get out of the way. The population of the world lives underground and most have never seen the sky through gaps in clouds.

Jans Deriae has realized that the world has traveled through the dark of space from one star to another but it has now passed that star. The world won't survive another trip through the darkness.

He's opposed in the scientific community, so none will listen to him, and they ridicule him. He finds a way into Chamber of the Gods, which is off-limits to all. He learns the truth that the "gods" were just men, from a planet called Earth, and they set in motion a plan to save Rangi. But the gods even acknowledged that their machine were fallible and left instructions on what to do if the planet did not enter orbit about the new star on its own. (Diagnostic says that the surface sensors froze.) Now it needs to be fixed before he can be stopped.

An enjoyable story, which could be made with a good budget or an austere one. (Not too austere, make sure they look like bird people, not people with beaks and a few feathers.)

Short Story: "Out, Wit!", by Howard L. Myers, (no initial illustration) The caption reads, As was pointed out long ago, "It ain't what you say, it's the way you that you say it!" that counts.

The story is told in the form of letters between D. R. Dayleman, Editor of the the North American Physical Journal in Virgina and Harmon McGregor, Chairman of the Department of Physics at Grandview University in Ohio. It concerns recommendations of a former student who goes on to make a presentation that includes a joke that is not well-received among his colleagues. He becomes an outcast and the two correspondents are all "woe is me" about it.

As time passes however, science marches on and breakthroughs are made. The chairman is unable to ascertain how he came upon a certain idea, as it doesn't appear in any scientific literature, and assumes that it was just germanating in the back of his mind for a long time. In the end (some ten years later), there's a note about the young man who never amounted to anything in life, going crazy, and they really dodged on, didn't they. Of course, it was the young man's initial idea.

Not only could it be filmed, but it's likely that something of this sort has been. Obviously, there would have to be more than random correspondece. And one would think that the replies to these letters would come much sooner.

I recognized the name, but I couldn't remember from where. The Analytical Library shows that he wrote "War in OUr Time" in March 1972, which I remember had a sequel story a month or two later.

Serial: "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!", by Harry Harrison, Part Three of Three.

I'll get to this soon, I hope.

The Reference Library , by P. Schuyler Miller. Reivews include The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin, A Choice of Gods by Clifford D. Simak, The Devil is Dead by R. A. Lafferty, Russian Science Fiction Literature and Criticism: A Biblioraphy" by Darko Suvin, and Orin by Piers Anthony.

Brass Tacks: Several letters about the illustration of a nude man extending a raised middle finger and the sex that appears in the pages of sci-fi as of later (ie, early 1970s).

I hope I read July's issue before July ends. I also want to read the Harrison serial. On top of this, I seem to have it in my head that I need to keep my daily Kindle reading streak going, and pdf files don't count toward that goal. So other books have to be sprinkled in, even if its only a dozen pages per day.

At Wit's End (Bombeck)

At Wit's End by Erma Bombeck (1965)

(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.)

This was a paperback that I had for a very long time and which became my in-pool reading book. That is, a book, should it happen to fall in, I wouldn't be too concerned about it. Obviously, this is not something I could do with loaners or books that I'd prefer to hold onto.

I used the Good Reads image because it matches the edition I have. It's old, although not 1965-old. Actually, I was surprised that the book itself dated to 1964. I know Bombeck was a pioneer and that my parents and older siblings read her newspaper columns, but I didn't think she'd started back then. Given the idyllic family life that she takes to task, I should've realized it.

Where this book came from, I couldn't possibly remember. Likely a used book store, or a used whatever store that also had books. It was something that I wanted to read and never got around to reading. Erma Bombeck was one of the names that I remember my high school Creative Writing teacher (Mr. Jon Marc Mucciolo) suggesting that I should read. Her name is the only one of the three or four that I remember now. Probably because I knew who she was. I was trying to write humorously, and these were people who knew how to turn a phrase. Also, "Mooch" was trying to impart upon me the idea that humor needed to be about something. For all I knew, it could be a bunch of one-liners. I didn't write bunches of one-liners, but if someone printed them, I probably would read them!

Last two things before I get to the book: first, I titled my final column for my college newspaper "At Wit's End" -- I had thought about calling it "This Wit's End" but I'd only had four columns published in 2 years, along with one that was held so long that I bumped it myself for my final column; second, the only column of Bombeck's I remember was, unfortunately, a more serious piece -- the kind humorists write when they think an issue is so important that they believe it's okay not to be funny while they talk about it. (For the record, I thought it was a stupid column. It's point was made in the first 50 words and the rest was beating the dead horse. Not her best work.)

Okay, so this book is broken down into sections that are labeled by calendar months. I thought that meant that this was going to be a year's worth of columns. I'm not sure what it is. The months are more thematic, where you'll find stuff about particular holidays, school events, summer vacations, and more holidays. There are some short columns, but then there are longer pieces which I don't know if they're related columns strung together, or if individual columns were expanded for the book. Some of these go one for a while and the tone changes after a couple of pages. In syndication, it's rare for one column to continue to the next, but not uncommon for the topic of a popular piece to be revisited. These revisits are pieced together.

Some of Bombeck's complaints are universal, but others are dated and not very relatable. Keep in mind, I'm old, so I have a greater frame of reference to relate to, but a lot of what she presents would be like if the origin Roseanne series had been made at the same time as Father Knows Best or Ozzie and Harriet. The type of family and situations she writes about where not the typical family of 50s and 60s television. But kids are kids, even if the only entertainment was the single television set and the only phone hung on a wall and was used by everyone.

Anyway, I'm glad I finally read this, even though I started it at least four years ago. I was reading it as a substitute when I was covering classes before I made it the pool book. Now I have to find another pool book. I had used old sci-fi magazines, but the print is small and I don't wear my glasses. I don't think I've ever finished one of those. Maybe, one. I do have some old math books, but I'm not sure I want to get those wet. I'll figure it out before my next morning in the pool.

Leviathan Wakes (Corey)

Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (2011)

(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 watched the first season of The Expanse when it first aired on Syfy. I have to admit, I was somewhat lost and couldn't follow a lot of lost was going on. I couldn't even understand some of what was being said. Had I thought about it, I might've deleted the timer I had set for the series. However, I forgot to, so it taped the second season, which I watched and enjoyed more. I think a third season aired on Syfy before it moved to Amazon.

I considered suggesting the first book recently for my book club. I rejected the idea for two reasons: first, since it's been around for a decade, anyone with an interest might've already read it. Second, the length of it -- if I didn't like it, I'd have to slog through 400+ pages before our next chat.

Still, I reserved it from the library. Even after all this time, there is a wait list for the book. Reading it on my own would allow me to bail if I didn't like it.

That was not a problen in the slightest. Yes, the length bothered me -- when is this going to end? But the book moved. It just didn't move by the time my loan was up, so I had to shut the wifi off on my ipad and finish half the book in about three days.

I didn't remember much about the first season of the show, other than the ship and some parts on Earth with Shohreh Aghdashloo. Yes, I just looked up her name, but I remembered her from 24 at the time the show first aired. Oddly, her role is NOT in the book. In fact, none of the book takes place on Earth at all. Earth is only referenced, and we hear reports from there.

In fact, the entire thing, after the prologue with Julie Mao, is told through the perspective of either Holden, the Rocinante captain, or Miller, the Belter cop. It even switches perspective when the two of them are together. Also in the book, Holden's crew, Naomi, Alex, Amos and Shed, don't have a problem with him. He was the XO of the Cant and now he's the captain and Naomi is the XO. Furthermore, he relies on Naomi for a lot. (TV Holden isn't trusted immediately despite having been on the ship for a long time. He's got nowhere else to go.)

Julie is a rich girl who defied her parents and joined the OPA (Outer Planets Alliance, i think). She's on the Scopuli when it's hijacked by terrorists. A fake distress call brings the Canterbury to the rescue. They send a shuttle and a crew of five to check it out. They realize it's a trap. A ship using Martian stealth tech ignores them and destroys the Canterbury. The shuttle is then rescued by the Martian ship Donnager, which is then attacked and destroyed. But not before Holden and his crew get off in a Martian attack shuttle.

Someone is trying to start a war to cover their own tracks, and Julie Mao is in the middle of it.

Miller was given the case to find Mao and drag her home. He discoveres that she isn't on Ceres. He's told to let it go but he can't. He falls in love with Mao from reading her files and her emails.

Space adventures, of the hard sci-fi variety, ensue. The entire story happens "out there" between the Belt and Saturn. It's discovered that the Earth should have been destroyed two billion years ago by a biological weapon that accidentally was caught up in Saturn's gravity well on its way to Earth. The race that created it were already gods then. Scientists here (the ones without morals) want to be able to duplicate the programming of the virus so that the human race could be on equal footing and make our way out into the galaxy.

Saner heads prevail. Mostly.

I enjoyed this and started rewatching the series on Amazon. I immediately noticed differences in the narrative, so which just moved the story along and some that didn't seem to have a point. I assume that the Earth sequences are to set up characters for later books in later seasons. I have the second book on reserve. Hell, at this rate, I should probably put the third book on reserve as well. Or maybe when I'm done with that, I can get the next Sue Grafton book. I think I'm up to T.

The Graveyard Book (Gaiman)

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (2008)

(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.)

This was a Book Club selection, and it was one of my choices. I was asked to pick three books that I wanted to read. I selected the first of the Murderbot series, and "The Three-Body Problem", both of which I've had in my kindle for quite a while. I considered a few other books but all were well over 400 pages. I didn't want to obligate myself to something that I'd have to slog through. For this reason, I didn't select the first book in The Expanse series (which I've since read on my own). I perused Good Reads for suggestions. Neil Gaiman had quite a few books listed, so I decided to go with one I hadn't heard of, and hoped that the others hadn't either. Less of a chance that they'd already read it.

The Graveyard Book was the clear winner, with Three-Body getting no votes at all.

In the book, a man named Jack (who is referred to in that manner repeatedly) kills a family, but he misses the baby, who had climbed from his crib and toddled up the road to the cemetery. There he is protected by some of the spirits which live there, and one who has taken residence there. The ghost of the baby's mother frantically arrives and implores the spirits to protect her child. She cannot stay because she won't be laid to rest there. But Mr. and Mrs. Owens take charge of the baby and call him Nobody Owens (aka "Bod"). He is given Freedom of the Graveyard like his protector and teacher, Silas, has been given. Silas clouds the mind of the killer to leave when he approaches.

Years pass and Bod gets restless. He wants to go to school and meet people. He outgrows his playmates in the cemetery.

He gets into misadventures and finds but he is protected, and becomes the subject of an ancient prophecy. Meanwhile, the man called Jack returns looking to finish the job he started. We learn more about Bod's family and the fact that Bod's disappearance was covered up.

I enjoyed the book. I expected the ending, and yet I was a little disappointed in it. Bod would eventually have to leave the graveyard and face the world, and he would have to do it alone. However, he seems to be a little young to be doing that at this point. Granted, had I read this as a teen, I might not have thought that was a problem. But as a teen, I didn't have a good grasp at how life worked either.

It was a good read, and I really need to read more of Gaiman's works. I have so many as ebooks from a Humble Bumble years ago. (That's how I found out that I'd actually purchased his first book as a gift -- it was a quickie book about Duran Duran.

Exactly How I Promote and Sell Books (Dee)

Exactly How I Promote and Sell Books
A 30 Minute Read
(Kathy's Practically Perfect Plan Book 6) by Kathy Dee (2021)

(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.)

This was a freebie, probably from r/FreeEBOOKS, so she didn't make money from me selling this book. Kathy Dee has a series of 15-minute reads, but this one, she says, has so much material in it, it's more of a 30-minute read. And it was. Note: I read this a month ago and just didn't get around to posting about it. In truth, I wanted to wait until I finished the next book because I didn't want this to be the top post on my blog for more than 1 day.

There's should good information in here if I want to self-publish books, particularly if I want to use Kindle Unlimited to get more eyes on my pages. Let's face it, at this point, I'm not going to sell books on my name.

But it keeps coming back to this: you need a cover, and covers aren't cheap. You can do it yourself but it won't look all that great. And worse is when I looked for cheap royalty free artwork to use, I couldn't find a way to buy one thing. They wanted to sell a package for more all than I needed or make it a monthly subscription, as if I'd need more for my one book. Granted, it makes sense to use two or more images and blend them just so I'd have an original final cover that couldn't be duplicated by someone looking to make a similar cover with a similar title. That's actually an issue.

Over than that, it was like I read an online article -- the kind I wish I could find on the subject.

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact June 1972

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, June 1972

Update the photo

June came and went along with the last of the school year and an exess of overtime grading Regents exams. As a result, I fell behind on this blog and have felt too tired to catch up with it along with my math blog. Life happens. I'm back. For now. I'll still be reading even if I'm not posting about it. I don't want to neglect this blog for 4 years, like I did once before.

The June issue of Analog has a noveltte by Joe Haldeman, which was the only name I recognized aside from the serial by Harry Harrison. I'll read that one separately.

For anyone finding these reviews, my purpose is two-fold: enjoying some "classic" sci-fi, and looking for stories that I think could be adapted for TV broadcast since so much of what shows up on anthology shows is rough to awful. Additional Note: I do NOT work in television. I just watch it.

In this issue:

The Editorial: "The Mystic West". Fifty years ago, a war between science and poetry, technology and the arts. Silly but presented sensibly.

Novellette: "Hero", by Joe Haldeman with an illustration by Kelly Freas, showing several men in spacesuits, armed, running across an alien landscape, at night. There's an explosion in the background., A couple have fallen. The caption reads, With a highly-advanced technology, you'd hardly expect warfare to be anything but push-button automation, right? Wrong! The infantry is still the Queen of Battle, even out among the stars."

Taking place in the far future, 1997, the Earth is an war with the Taurans. No one has seen them yet, and they were given that name because they came from somewhere from the constellation Taurus. The military leaders fought in the last earth war, which took place in Asia in the 1970s. The planet that most of the action takes place on is Charon, which is not the moon of Pluto (not discovered yet). For that matter, Pluto is still a planet and probably larger than we now know it to be. Charon in the story is twice as far out as Pluto is. That's where the training is, and mistakes are death. Also, the only ride home is the go the distance with the mission.

The hard science is understandable for me, but that's also because I'm older and reading more of it. It's moralisti at the end where the Taurans aren't as dangerous in a land battle, but they'll likely be ready for us the next time Earth encounters them.

This could be a good movie or shot TV series. Given that the Expanse does so well, it could try to copy its success. Except that this is much smaller. On the other hand, more open-ended. There's a lot of female representation in the military and the role could be any nationality, so you have diversity. Something worth filming but possibly similar to other things that have already been filmed -- particularly after Hollywood writers get through with it.

Short Story: "Klysterman's Silent Violin", by Michael Rogers, with an illustration by John Schoenherr, showing a simple image of a man in the background playing an electronic violin while wearing a pair of headphones. There's the face of a man in the foreground who appears to be annoyed. I don't know if there's something on his forehead or if it's just a bad image of his hairline. The caption reads, "The path of scientific research sometimes takes unexpected turns -- and so does the path of evolution."

The story is told in the form of journal entries. I just scanned the text looking for the name of the writer, who is in charge. I figured that there might be dialogue in one of them. I didn't see it. Klysterman is a scientist who works on his violin in his spare time. There is a female scientist named Ludmila W., and there appears to be a love triangle. Except that it isn't. Klysterman seems interested in her, and she seems interested in him and his violin. The projet leader tries to separate them -- for her sake, of course, because he's a ne'er-do-well, or something -- going so far as to put her on his research project. It doesn't help.

The narrator becomes more erratic in his tale as it goes on and I thought it was going to be beause of the "silent" violin actually driving him mad. Nope. Doesn't happen and that's a missed opportunity.

Instead the plot resolves around augmented wheat rust, which is allowed to germinate so it could be studied. No, I didn't fully understand the reasons for this. Klysterman takes an interest in the project. It appears that the rust has psychedelic properties. And in the end, the rust's mutations expand so far as to cause a mutation of Klysterman and Lucinda W, which they undergo willingly.

This could be interesting visually but I don't know if it could be done cheaply enough such a short story. It could be the last (short) segment of an hourlong anthology show.

Science Fact: "Strong Poison 2", by arl A. Larson

It was long and I didn't read through much of it. It could have ideas to be used in writing, maybe. I don't recall Strong Poison 1, whenever that was published.

Novellette: "The Darkness to Come", by Robert B. Marcus, Jr., with an illustration by John Schoenherr, showing a large black bird-like creature with human-like arms and hands not attached to its wings. The caption reads, In a situation where fats are scarce, faith counts as much as logic. But when the faithful reach the wrong conclusion, they still cling to it stubbornly!

Jans Deriae is an old scientist. He takes pills (which appear to be illegal) to prolong his life. He has calculated that the world (Rangi) is cooling because it is moving away from the primary sun, which would be obviously if the clouds would get out of the way. The population of the world lives underground and most have never seen the sky through gaps in clouds.

Jans Deriae has realized that the world has traveled through the dark of space from one star to another but it has now passed that star. The world won't survive another trip through the darkness.

He's opposed in the scientific community, so none will listen to him, and they ridicule him. He finds a way into Chamber of the Gods, which is off-limits to all. He learns the truth that the "gods" were just men, from a planet called Earth, and they set in motion a plan to save Rangi. But the gods even acknowledged that their machine were fallible and left instructions on what to do if the planet did not enter orbit about the new star on its own. (Diagnostic says that the surface sensors froze.) Now it needs to be fixed before he can be stopped.

An enjoyable story, which could be made with a good budget or an austere one. (Not too austere, make sure they look like bird people, not people with beaks and a few feathers.)

Short Story: "Out, Wit!", by Howard L. Myers, (no initial illustration) The caption reads, As was pointed out long ago, "It ain't what you say, it's the way you that you say it!" that counts.

The story is told in the form of letters between D. R. Dayleman, Editor of the the North American Physical Journal in Virgina and Harmon McGregor, Chairman of the Department of Physics at Grandview University in Ohio. It concerns recommendations of a former student who goes on to make a presentation that includes a joke that is not well-received among his colleagues. He becomes an outcast and the two correspondents are all "woe is me" about it.

As time passes however, science marches on and breakthroughs are made. The chairman is unable to ascertain how he came upon a certain idea, as it doesn't appear in any scientific literature, and assumes that it was just germanating in the back of his mind for a long time. In the end (some ten years later), there's a note about the young man who never amounted to anything in life, going crazy, and they really dodged on, didn't they. Of course, it was the young man's initial idea.

Not only could it be filmed, but it's likely that something of this sort has been. Obviously, there would have to be more than random correspondece. And one would think that the replies to these letters would come much sooner.

I recognized the name, but I couldn't remember from where. The Analytical Library shows that he wrote "War in OUr Time" in March 1972, which I remember had a sequel story a month or two later.

Serial: "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!", by Harry Harrison, Part Three of Three.

I'll get to this soon, I hope.

The Reference Library , by P. Schuyler Miller. Reivews include The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin, A Choice of Gods by Clifford D. Simak, The Devil is Dead by R. A. Lafferty, Russian Science Fiction Literature and Criticism: A Biblioraphy" by Darko Suvin, and Orin by Piers Anthony.

Brass Tacks: Several letters about the illustration of a nude man extending a raised middle finger and the sex that appears in the pages of sci-fi as of later (ie, early 1970s).

I hope I read July's issue before July ends. I also want to read the Harrison serial. On top of this, I seem to have it in my head that I need to keep my daily Kindle reading streak going, and pdf files don't count toward that goal. So other books have to be sprinkled in, even if its only a dozen pages per day.

The School for Good Mothers (Chan)

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan (2022)

(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.)

This was a book club selection and was a little difficult to get a copy of. There was a long wait at two libraries from the ebook, the print edition and the audio (which I really didn't want because I figured it'd be abridged). I also didn't realize that it was published in 2022, so of course it was difficult to get a copy of. Additionally, it was a selection for a celebrity book club. (I was told it was one of the Bush daughters, but I didn't verify this.)

As a writer, I see that a lot of magazines publish "literary fiction", which I'm at a loss to explain just what that is. This book is listed as literary fiction. So now I know. It's boring and depressing, even when it has elements of science fiction. Those elements aren't emphasized. They're just there to be assumed to be real, and go from there. Any questions or ideas that my sci-fi-oriented mind mind veer off into didn't pan out. That's fine, though, because it wasn't the point of the book.

The book is basically a downward spiral for the main character and a study on government overreach and bureaucracy. Frida is a new mother who is also newly divorced. She has a "bad day" and leaves her daughter alone at home for a couple of hours. (It should've been a quick trip for a file.) Social services get involved and the child is taken away from her. She isn't allowed to see Harriet any more.

Harriet remains in the custody of her father and his new girlfriend/wife. Throughout all of this, those two are supportive and don't think Friday should be denied access to Harriet, but they don't have any say in the matter.

Frida is given the option of going to the titular School for Good Mothers, which is a school for bad mothers, as they are constantly reminded. She will attend for a full year of schooling and counseling, at the end of which, if she passes, she will be entitled to see Harriet again. She goes. It's an old college campus in Pennsylvania. There is a Mens school across the lake that they will interact with at times.

The sci-fi element comes in when each mother is given a child similar to her own child (or similar to one of her children for some of the mothers). These children are lifelike robots that run on blue goo. The mothers have to teach them new words, learn to love and protect them, and have their children love them back. Frida names hers Emmanuelle.

The dolls record everything, and the school has cameras everywhere. (There are some blind spots.)

The entire curriculum makes it seem like they are being set up to fail. Everything gets recorded in their files. Frida constantly loses phone privileges because of rule changes, her counselor's opinions, and (in my opinion) the author's inability to write more video calls with Harriet. (I could be wrong on that one, but it made it easier.)

Frida pushes herself, denies herself, does everything so she can get Harriet back. And in the end, she fails. I saw this coming, so I kept waiting for the twist. Maybe her lawyer would finally do something worthwhile.

Nope.

It does end with a promise for the future that the whole thing will unravel when questions start getting asked, but it wasn't a satisfying conclusion.

One of the book club has already said she'd like to read a book about the Dad's school. I'd prefer to see a book where some of the dolls become self-aware and they lead the rest of the dolls into a rebellion of sorts.

Next month's book will be a Neil Gaiman book. I suggested three books and that was the one picked. I picked two books that I've been wanting to read but I had a problem with book three -- either they were 400 - 600 pages long or they were popular enough that I assumed the others had read them already. The Graveyard Book was listed as popular on Good Reads, so I picked that one. It won by one vote over the Murderbot series.

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact May 1972

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, May 1972

Update the photo

The may issue of Analog has stories by Clifford D. Simak and Isaac Asimov, as well as the continuation of the serial by Harry Harrison.

For anyone finding these reviews, my purpose is two-fold: enjoying some "classic" sci-fi, and looking for stories that I think could be adapted for TV broadcast since so much of what shows up on anthology shows is rough to awful. Additional Note: I do NOT work in television. I just watch it.

In this issue:

The Editorial: "Life Cycles". There are complex carbon molecules in interstellar space. Not life, not even pre-life, but the building blocks for life.

Short Novel: "Solo Kill", by S. Kye Boult. with an illustration by Leo Summers showing a winged creature with a beak, carapace, and taloned feet is on the ground in the foreground. There's a small plane flying over some high mountains on the left page. On the right page, there is another plane flying lower and trailing something. There are more winged creatures, including on taking off. The caption reads, Competing species may battle each other until one of them is driven into extinction. An intelligent species can speed the process -- but pays a cost of guilt.

I saved this for the end of the month to read. Halfway through I was losing interest but still reading. Actually, I didn't expect to get past the first few pages where there is a battle between two different winged creatures, neither of which is in a plane. The one that wins is the protagonist for the story, Baron Amarson, who can fly a plane. The other creature was one of "The Drak" which seem to be more animalistic in nature. This was a battle of honor for the Baron.

We're later introduced to the Rivermen, who appear to be the scientists. They have machines that measure celestial movements. There's one large red sun and a smaller yellow sun distant from the planet.

I'm not sure if I will finish this because as I went back to review the text to type some things above, I couldn't remember reading some of the pages that he passed by. Did I forget them? Did I skip them while I was falling asleep and didn't notice?

I was also distracted by continued references to flying above the mole where "mole" was obviously a place. Apparently, the fifth definition in Websters is a place formed by masonry and large stones, and the sixth is a harbor formed by a mole. Also, the machine I described above is apparently called an "orrery".

Maybe I should've known these things, but they were distractions. And since I was reading a PDF, the dictionary wasn't an option.

Anyway, it's a long story with different sets and winged creatures, so I don't know if this is something that an anthology series would want to take on. It could be a movie in its own right if a screenwriter could make it interesting and accessible.

Serial: "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!", by Harry Harrison, Part Two of Three.

I'll get to this next month.

Short Story: "Lunch Box", by Howard Waldrop with an illustration by Kelly Freas showing an alien landscape and a lunar lander of some kind. The caption reads, Intelligent creatures can recognize the benefits of high tenchology -- even if it's not their own!

I didn't make note of Myers name when I started reading this, but it became obvious with the mention of Radge Morimet and a reference to "war in our time" that this was a sequel last month's story.

Science Fact: "Celestial Mechanics", by Rowland E. Burns. The caption reads, If you wonder why the astronauts don't whip out their trusty slide rules and quickly compute a new orbit when something goes a little wrong -- try this basic course in "Celestial Mechanics and why it drives people nuts." There *is* a solution to the three-body problem ... only it can't be worked out. To catch up to a ship ahead of you in orbit, you must slow down! Rowland E. Burns is a NASA orbital mechanics mathematician and knows the frutstations of which he speaks.

Sounds like it'll be over my head. If I can get back to it, great, but it's 27 pages long, so maybe not.

Short Story: "The Observer", by Clifford D. SImak with an illustration by Kelly Freas showing a volcano in the background with a large Sun-like object with a human eyeball in the center of it. There is what looks like a snake-like staff or the underside of some kind of creature. There are weird looking trees which look like vertical stalks with large tomatoes on top of them. The caption reads, To make a workable data-gathering system, you must understand what kind of information is being sought, why it's being sought, and -- ultimately -- who is the seeker.

The first of two "big names" that I wanted to read. It seemed like the story was going to be about an AI that became self-aware. It later seemed to be an actual person, or something that used to be a person, which has its memory erased after every mission. It remembers things and then realizes that it has remembered things.

In the end, it senses that it has been cut off from whoever launched it because it knew too much and was no longer of any use to them.

This could be a quick short story. It doesn't need much except a studio backlot or a remote section in the desert. A little cerebral though.

Short Story: "Mirror Image", by Isaac Asimov with an illustration by Leo Summers a seated man and another standing near him, both looking at a giant robotic head, which seems to be speaking. The caption reads, Lije Bailey could understand how two humans could tell exactly equal but opposite stories -- one of them was lying. But robots can't tell lies, it's a violation of the Laws of Robotics. And here were two robots telling exactly the same story ... except that they contradicted each other on every point.

With the exception of the I, Robot, I have not read any of Asimov's robot novels. (Amusingly, I used picked up a used copy of a book thinking it was Caves of Steel when it was in fact The Currents of Space, which is an Empire novel, and I was wondering where the robots were.)

I know of Elijah Bailey and R. Daneel Olivaw, but not much about them. (Like, I might've guessed that the R. stood for "Robot", but I didn't know that for a fact.)

The robot has worked with the private detective before, and he contacts him about a Spacer problem -- a case of theft among two Spacer academics, old elderly and ready to retire, and one young and new in the field. Each has a robotic assistant that supports their master's claim. Olivaw is allowed to contact Bailey, who must solve the problem from his living room because Spacers would never allow an Earthman on their ship.

Bailey figures out that under the Laws of Robotics a robot could lie to protect its master's career and public image. He even applies enough logic to the situation to get one of the robots to recant its testimony. Olivaw is pleased. However, Bailey tells him that he isn't done because the robot might've changed his testimony from truthful to falsehood for a logical reason.

Bailey figures out the problem based on human nature, and the fact that the young academic would be much more likely to consult the older fellow than vice versa, while the older academic would want one last hurrah while his younger college would have over a century ahead to make a name for himself. (Spacers live long lives in space.)

This requires one set, two humans, and a couple of retro-looking robot masks. It could be filmed tomorrow except that Asimov stories probably cost more to option. This one could be a good test to see of filming a novel might be successful.

The Reference Library , by P. Schuyler Miller. Reivews include Riverworld by Philip Jose Farmer, many years after the fact as Miller had always assumed it to be fantasy and not sci-fi, The Transvection Machine by Edward D. Hoch, Science Fiction: The Future by Dick Allen, 20 Years of Analog/Astounding Science Fiction Science Fact compiled by Jan A. Lorenzen.

Brass Tacks: A letter from Leslyn Campbell Randazzo, John W. Campbell's youngest daughter. A couple of readers sound off about a January letter. Someone else liked "Ecology Now" after thinking that they wouldn't. A letter about "Galactic Geopolitics", a complaint about an illustration of a vessel that should've had a gaff and boom on each of two masts, and a couple more round out the column.

Can I keep up with June? It depends if I read other things as well. I already figured out that reading more than one magazine a month wouldn't work unless I quit my book club and deleted most of my kindle library.