Mr. Burke's Reading List

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, March 1972 Update the photo This March issue of Analog has stories by Frederick Pohl and Larry Niven. What more could you ask? 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: "Born to Lose". The Attica Prison riots occurred in September 1971. This editorial is likely a response to that. (It is referenced.) Ben argues that orgazined crime pays pretty well because professional criminals rarely go to jail. It's the amateurs that go to jail, over and over. And even though every inmate thinks of nothing before getting out, so many of them want back in as soon as they are out. This leads to jail referm without the stone ...

The Book of Koli , M. R. Carey (2020) Book One of the Rampart Trilogy (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's a post-apocalyptic story set somewhere in England (toward the end we find out it's 200 miles north of London). It is written as a narrative of a young man with little education from a village of people with limited education. The text is difficult to read at first, but you get used to it and ignore it, except for the times that you don't. The biggest "offender" is the use of "of" in place of "'ve" in contractions. Every. Single. Time. There are also times when you need to sound something out loud to figure out what he's refering to, and other times, I just didn't bother if I could figure it out from context. It's also very conversat...

An Ignorant Witch , E. M. Graham (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 free book in an email. It's the first in the Witch Kin Chronicles , which includes similar titles where the adjective is changed. In fact, a few times while reading this, I thought it was "An Arrogant Witch". Nope, that was just Kindle trying to sell me the next book. (Granted, there are arrogant witches in this volume.) They also have similar covers, but they wouldn't lead me to believe that this is happening current day. The outfit the witch wears is old-fashioned. First off, it's not exactly my cup of tea but there wasn't much to complain about for the most part. I can see why the series might be popular. I do have complaints about the ending, and the lack of closure. Yes, it's a series, and there are things that can...

Armored Saint , Myke Cole (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.) I had to do some research on this book. It's been in the kindle app on my iPad for a long time, but I couldn't Archive it to make space. I could only Delete it. I found an email from Tor.com for a free download late in 2018. However, I don't have a copy of the book on my hard drive that I can find. Either I deleted it from my Downloads without storing it elsewhere, or I never downloaded it at all. It's possible, I guess, that I may have downloaded it straight into the kindle app from the mail app on the device. The other thing that stands out is that I have an uncle by this name, except that he spells it differently. The cover of the book shows the head of a woman (or a long-haired boy) poking out of the top of an oversized suit of armor. The bottom...