The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year (Carter)

The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
Ally Carter (2024)

(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 Pandemic Book Club book. It came available from the library about 3 days after I finally bought a copy of it. As it was, I didn't finish it in time for the book club meeting, but that was pushed back a week, so I haven't missed it yet. I'll update with reactions.

The book deconstructs mystery writing when a writer and her "nemesis" are suddenly invited to an event for Christmas and flown to England without a clue where they are going. Maggie Chase is a successful writer who has a horrible life -- her ex-husband now lives in the house she paid for with her ex-best friend, and Christmastime is filled with nothing but bad memories. Worse, she can't stand Ethan Wyatt, the Leather Jacket Guy author who is a relative newcomer and a bit of a rival.

Working on my assumptions, this is practically made for a Hallmark Christmas movie. (Not surprisingly, the author has written at least one of those.) It's a rom-com and a mystery as the two of them come together, partly out of self-preservation, and partly because they unravel their interwined past and start to understand what was going on back then.

The trip brings them to the estate of a reclusive fan, Eleanor Ashley, the Duchess of Death, author of 99 best-selling novels, with rumors about number 100. She's in her 80s now, but that still means that she'd been churning them out for quite a while. Maggie (not Marcie, now) is her biggest fan. Ethan acts like he doesn't know he she is but also turns out to be a fan, having read the books with his mother before she walked out on the family.

There's a cast of characters, like someone assembled in Clue or Murder by Death, mostly relatives of some sort, along with another writer, the butler, and a police inspectror.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs.

The Crown of Zeus (Norris)

The Crown of Zeus
Christine Norris (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 bonus book from a recent Kickstarter campaign. Note: my book, A Bucket Full of Moonlight was one of the books in the Kickstarter as was Norris's A Curse of Time and Vengeance.

I've read a lot of bonus stories. It was nice to read a full book for a change.

Since is was a special Kickstarter edition, I didn't get the pretty cover shown above. Also, I don't remember if my version mentioned the Library of Athena or that it was a series. (Maybe it wasn't back then?)

Megan and her dad move to England for his job. She hates the idea of leaving everything behind and having to start over and make new friends in a new school in a new country.

Then she winds up staying in a mansion, the Parthenon, that the company her father works for owns. It comes with a butler and maid as well as its own ghost stories. Megan hears about these stories at school. Next thing, she's having a sleepover with three classmates. The four girls want to hold a seance but end up going on an adventure that finds a secret library hidden beneath the mansion with steps leading down from behind a statue of Athena. Among the shelves, Megan finds a book titled The Crown of Zeus and the four girls are sucked inside of it.

Now they have to follow the clues and solve the puzzles to find the Crown of Zeus to get out of the book or they'll be stuck in there forever or killed trying.

The puzzles are familiar, and while there's no kraken released, Medusa needs to be beheaded and her head needs to turn another monster to stone. Nothing so esoteric that a teenage girl with an interest in Greek mythology can't figure out.

The four girls work together, save each others' lives and become best friends. And, spoiler, they get out with the crown. And then we learn more about Sir Gregory, the archeologist and student of magic.

The book was a little slow-paced but that didn't stop me from enjoying it. I'm not even the target demographic. I also proudly showed off to Christine Norris that I was reading her book when we were at an eSpec Books launch party at Philcon (Cherry Hill, NJ) last month.

So Good Reads is telling me that this is #1 in a series. Given the library in the basement, it seems natural that many more books could follow. Obviously, I'm going to have to check those out, too.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs.

My Hero Academia Volumes 38 and 39

My Hero Academia Volume 38 and 39, by Kōhei Horikoshi (2023)

(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.)

Not really a lot to say other than I enjoyed them. This blog entry is mostly so they'll be counted in the year-end total. The final battle is still being drawn out. As with a lot of manga, the more action there is, the more difficult it can get for me to tell what's going on. But some of those background scenes and cityscapes are just amazing.

The books (in English) have caught up to the show (in Japanese with subtitles). The show recently eclipsed the books, particularly with Ochaco Uraraka and Himiko Toga.

Next book will be reserved as soon as possible.

The Mimicking of Known Successes (Older)

The Mimicking of Known Successes
by Malka Older (2023)

(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 that I learned about at the World Fantasy Convention in Niagara Falls back in October. Someone mentioned it at a panel and I made a note of it. (Actually, I may have reserved it from the library while the panel was still going on.)

It was mentioned as a Sherlock Holmes type book and it reads like one, but it isn't because Older creates her own characters, which is appreciated. I don't mind modern takes on Holmes and Watson but writers, or perhaps producers in the case of television, want to do Holmes as best they can but at the same time changing everything about the characters, their relationships, their environment and surroundings. In this case, the characters are both women and the sapphic love story and mystery are set in space. (I believe the proper term is just "sapphic mystery", but I'm not sure if my usage is correct or not.)

In the future, Earth isn't inhabited or inhabitable but researchers orbiting Jupiter are working on that. There are man-made rings (former satellites and other junk?) circling the planet. I was exactly sure how these rings were oriented at first because we are given a location that is a longitudial (degree and minute) designation, so I thought that the rings ran pole to pole with rail lines connecting them. Then I realized that they are likely concentric equitorial rings and some must be further out. It is possible that the multiple rings run parallel to each other but which connections at certain locations. (Curiously, some platforms are degrees and minutes but others have actual names.)

Most of humanity lives clustered around one side of Jupiter with no one on the other side. There are trains that run the rails that circle the planet but they over travel to the farthest stations, along several lines. The stations are huge platforms and seem to be connected to towns and cities in stable orbit around the gas giant. Note that these platforms are open to the atmosphere because of the psychological problems of living enlcosed in spaceships. This means people have to wear special atmo-scarfs, for example, when outdoors. It also means that someone can go to the farther stop on the line and either jump to their death from the edge of the platform or be pushed.

The prologue details Investigator Mossa traveling to the end of the rail line to investigate a missing person. It's a small community there where strangers would be noticed coming and then disappearing before the next train arrives. It's assumed to be a suicide but Mossa isn't entirely sure. And if it was, why pick this spot? After questioning the people, she decides to the academic Pleiti, her college ex-girlfriend.

The narrative shifts here, and I had to go back. While the prologue was third person, Mossa was the POV characters. Now, Pleiti becomes the narrator and the POV character. It was confusing when I read it and even a little when I first listened to it, but then I rolled with it.

More of the world is explored. We learned more about Earth and what academics are doing to restore the Earth. We find out more about the man who disappeared and his associates. There's a tiger attack (a big cat, I forget which kind) which hurts Mossa and Pleiti needs to take care of her. And you wonder if the two are getting back together again.

Not much more I can say without spoilers. I know this page is for notes for me, not as a review to others who find the page, but I think the above will refresh my memory. Mostly.

It was an enjoyable read, and I look forward to getting the second book sometime after I catch up with other books in the TBR pile and the book club selections.

This was an ebook and I listened to the audio after I'd started reading (if I recall correctly). I don't think I finished the audio as I finished the ebook first.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs.

Fangirl: the Manga (Volume 4)

Fangirl: the Manga (Volume 4)
Manga adaptation of Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl by Sam Maggs (2024)

(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 random manga and the New York Public Library website recommended "Fangirl", which was a four-part adaptation of a novel, which I wasn't familiar with. So I started reading it. What I wasn't aware of at the time was that the fourth and final book has not been published yet. Arg.

The fourth book came out and I borrowed it. I read it a couple months ago.

Nothing much to add to my previous post. Cath and Wren are together again. Wren gets better (or at least gets help). Cath keeps writing, both in her Creative Writing class and her fanfic. In both cases, she's racing to beat deadlines: the end of the semester, and the publication of the final book about Simon and Baz, which will close the door on the series.

It was fun to read. The manga format, however, was a bit annoying. Once again the pages read from back to front, but the pages themselves were read from left to right, except when there was a two-page layout that had to appear as it was. This is likely confusing to both manga readers and comic book readers.

If you stumbled across my page thanks to a random search result, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs.

What Kind of Mother (Chapman)

What Kind of Mother
by Clay McLeod Chapman (2023)

(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 wwas a Pandemic Book Club pick. Otherwise, I'm not much into horror. For this month, the book selected was one of several that were written by Clay McLeod Chapman, who joined us for most of our book discussion. I participated and had a few things to say without trashing it.

Madi Price has returned to Brandywine, Virginia where she grew up. She is the mother of a 17-year-old daughter who is currently living with the girl's father who didn't want anything to do with her for many years. He's doing well, but Madi is living in a room in an old motel that was converted into a strip mall (and not a particularly good one). Madi goes to the weekly market to read fortunes like her mother used to. She doesn't have any gift. But as soon as she meets old boyfriend Henry McCabe, she has a vision associated with his missing son.

Henry's wife killed herself and his son disappeared. He's sure that he's still out there somewhere. He hangs up posters with computer technology aging his son's image.

Madi finally gives Henry a reading and leads him out into the waters around Brandywine, whether they come across a duck blind -- and Skyler, who has been missing for five years.

But, of course, it's not really Skyler. Henry doesn't want the authorities involved and Madi is freaked out. She wants to get away and take this boy to a hospital to be checked out. But it's not even a real person.

And that gives away enough. I had plenty of problems with this, such as the fact that Henry knew from the start that his son wasn't still out there despite being so convincing and hanging up flyers for five years and putting up with things people say. Henry finally does a 180 in his opinion, which almost seems organic but it's overshadowed by Madi going off the deep end in suddenly choosing Skyler, who'd she'd been suspect of, at the expense of her actual daughter. Her turn is overexpected. And then it gets crazier by the ending.

So, no, as well-written as it may have been, I didn't enjoy the book at all. Others into creature-based horror with mommy issues might feel otherwise.

This was an ebook and I didn't listen to too much of the audiobook.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs.

The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies (Goodman)

The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies
by Alison Goodman (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 recommended on the Brooklyn Public Library page as something that I might be interested in. I read it and listened to most of it. If I finish reading first, I'm less likely to finish the audio before it needs to be returned.

Note that the cover is inaccurate because even though the two sisters are twins, one is several inches taller than the other.

The book is a high society amateur detective story set in the heart of Regency London. Several stories in fact. Lady Augusta Colebrook, “Gus,” is determinedly unmarried, bored by society life, and tired of being dismissed at the age of forty-two. She and her twin sister, Julia, who is grieving her dead betrothed, need a distraction. One soon presents to rescue their friend’s goddaughter, Caroline, from her violent husband.

Along the way, they are attacked by and manage to subdue a highwayman, who isn't exactly what he appears to be. They use the man to pose as their brother, who they claim was wounded by a highwayman, to get to Caroline. When the man awakes, he sees no choice but to continue the ruse and is instrumental in getting away. Gus is terribly smitten with him as she's never been before, but he knows that they could never be together for it would ruin her, and he would surely hang.

They eventually get reunited for another case, and Gus becomes determined to prove the man's innocence.

This was an enjoyable (though a little long) book. I would read another in the series.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs.

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 173 (February 2021)

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 173
edited by Neil Clarke (February 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.)

Neil Clarke is the editor of a fabulous online science fiction magazine, Clarkesworld. (Note: I have submitted many stories to Clarkesworld. As of this writing, I have not been accepted. That doesn't mean I won't stop trying, nor does that bias this review in any way.)

If I've been informed correctly, when Neil goes to conventions, he brings along paperback copies of his magazine that didn't pass quality control. This book in particular is stamped on the inside front cover: This Is A Misprint. The cover failed quality control but the inside is fine.

As with last month's issue, I didn't see anything wrong with the cover I have, which looks like the cover shown above.

Being that this is summer, this book was mostly pool reading.

The stories include: note, I finished this a couple weeks ago and have read other books and start a new issue

• The Failed Dianas by Monique Laban. In the future, Diana comes down to Earth to a restaurant to meet herself. The original version she was cloned from. The original's parents weren't happy, apparently, at how she turned out, so they made another and another. And they all have their own special interests that they chose instead of what they're parents wanted. She meets DeeDee, 3D and Dr. Diana and they bring her up to speed, just as they were brought up to date. It was a fun little tale.
• Terra Rasa by Anastasia Bookreyeva, translated by Ray Nayler. Everyone is on the trains to get to the ships to escape the fires to get to the better place. People are scheming to get where they need to. The narrator has a pass to get her through. She's watching people. There are others who could use it. It has a twist ending.
• Obelisker Adrift in the Desert by K. H. Meridian. Another long one, but fewer than 30 pages. The narrator is an obelisk and gets called Obelisker by Kouya who survives a crash after an attack. The obelisk is an old station. The two have an easy truce. Plus she's wearing tactical gear and has special training. She leaves for a time to visit another village that obelisk watches without letting them know that the obelisk exists and is functional. Then there's an attack that must be repelled. Good story. Not like some of the other longer ones.
• "Remember the Washington" They Said as They Fed the Ugoxli by Jeff Reynolds. A quirky title, and I had to go look up what an "ugoxli" was because there have been a lot of aliens lately. No, I guess the story didn't resonate enough for me to remember.
• History in Pieces by Beth Godor. A story told as a series of puzzle pieces, but not all of the pieces are there, nor are they presented in order. The first is 37, with Cassandra stepping onto the surface of the planet, and the last three are 1005, 1006, and 1. It starts with the people on the ship not seeing an Archivist, but Archivist Tan is telling much of the story. It was an interesting approach. (Once again, I am writing this after 3 months after reading it and I rememeber little about it.)
• Terra Rasa by Anastasia Bookreyeva, translated by Ray Nayler. People on a train are headed to Murmansk, to the bay. They need to get to the ships there. The world is ending and the ships (sea, not space) are taking survivors to a better place, if they have passes. The narrator does, but there are others who do not. And others who will do what they must to get on the ship. The woman decides to stay with a child who has no one. But the ships that sail away aren't going anywhere. There's nothing left out there. An interesting, if not depressing, story.
• Mercy and the Mollusc by M. L. Clark. Another long one, with chapter titles (or section titles). It plays out like a western on another planet, but the steed in this case is a large mollusk creature name the Oomu, which is very mucusy. It's easy to ride. And one point, it attacks a kid and covers it with a mucus membrane so it can't escape, but it doesn't attempt to eat it either. It then goes off on its way and the rider has to figure out what to do. Again, there's more to it, but I don't remember. It was interesting, but too long. Wish I remembered more.
• We'll Always Have Two Versions of Pteros by Dominica Phetteplace. A shorter one with section numbers. The sections titles are names, many followed by 1 or 2. Barry believes that he's in the wrong timestream and that he's supposed to be somewhere else, namely on the Pteros. However, the Pteros has been destroyed, in this reality, at least. Lily thinks it's survivor's guilt because Barry knew people on the ship. Barry 2 was lost in space for a year and then he woke up next to Lily. It flows nicely.

The Nonfiction section of the book includes

• There are two interviews, an article about Peter Pan through the ages, and the 2020 reader's poll finalists. Interesting to note that there were ten stories listed for Best Story because there was a six-way tie for fifth place. Out of then stories, none were in the December issue that I'd read. "The Helicopter Story", which I haven't read but I know about because of the big splash it made in social media before the content was pulled, was nominated. I wonder if it won. I saw (a few months back) that it was available on a different website if I wanted to read it. Maybe at some point, but I'll more likely forget about it.

And that's this issue. An interesting issue, and I'll keep reading. I have at least one more that I've picked up at conventions, and the content is free online. Problem is that I can't read online magazines on the subway. (And, of course, pool weather is over for the year -- not that I'd take my ipad into the pool.)

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs.

The Hidden Palace (Wecker)

The Hidden Palace
by Helene Wecker (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 sequel to a pandemic book club selection. I listened to it as well as read it. I actually finished it before we had the online meeting for the previous book.

Most of the cast of characters from the previous book is back again, with some in surprising ways.

Unlike the first book which took place over the course of a single year, this novel spans a couple of decades and we see some major events in New York City (and beyond) history unfold. We also see other characters age while the two titular characters do not. This means that there has to be some kind of shake-up, or else others would start to realize that something is wrong.

The book also introduces a younger female djinn and a second golem that gets created from the notes of the deceased rabbi. So you have to wonder if there will be some kind of love rectangle at work here as the title characters have their own relationship issues to work through.

Also back is Sophia, the heiress that Ahmed falls for in the first book. She travels all over the Middle East like some adventurer out of the Age of Exploration, traveling with two Pinkertons for protection. She leaves home with her father's blessing. She's looking for a cure to the affliction that you might've thought would've faded on its own at the end of book 1. She travels for YEARS, missing major events for her family, until she's finally forced home due to lack of funds. She helps bring the female djinn to the U.S.

There's a bit of a disconnect between the two books. For one thing, it starts with Ahmed finding his own people, but none can free him from his shackles. When he returns alone, the neighborhood is curious because they figured he'd return with a mother or a new bride. It seems that the boy he took to the Middle East is mostly forgotten.

Not forgotten, but not important, is the (spoiler for book one) wizard from the first book, who is imprisoned in the oil flask. He is connected to Chava, and she can sometimes hear him, but he's not a factor in the book other than mentioning that he's still out there.

The scope of the book is broader, too, because so much time passes in this one, allowing the author to work in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, the sinking of the Titanic, World War I, and the women's suffrage movement. This also allows time for Anna's son, and the daughter of the rabbi who created the second golem, to grow up to become adults.

I don't see where there's room for another sequel because many doors were closed here. Many human characters either died (from old age or other means) or moved out of the neighborhood. Little Syria must give way at some point. Honestly, I wouldn't want book three to be about the wizard coming back again or even seizing the hidden palace, which also doesn't play a big part in the book.

I enjoyed this book. If a sequel comes out, I'd likely read it even though I'm satisfied with the two books as they are.

This was an ebook and audiobook.

The Golem and the Jinni (Wecker)

The Golem and the Jinni
by Helene Wecker (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.)

This was a pandemic book club selection. I listened to it as well as read it.

I labeled it as a "historical fantasy" even though it takes place "only" 100 years ago or so in New York City. (I just double-checked, and it's set in 1899-1900.)

A man has a golem made as a wife who will accompany him on his trip to America. The golem is shipped in a box and is to be awoken in NYC, but the man activates her at sea. He then dies from an untreated illness leaving the golem alone at sea. When it's discovered that she doesn't have a ticket, she jumps ship, sinks down in New York harbor and walks to shore. She winds up in Little Syria in Lower Manhattan. She is befriended by a rabbi, who names her Chaya, and who tries to teach her to ask human as a disguise.

Around the same, a tinsmith, also in Little Syria, accidentally releases a djinn from a flask when he breaks the decorative markings. The djinn, who is given the name Ahmed, immediately demands to find the magician who imprisoned him, only to discover that not only is he half a world away (across an ocean of fire-killing water) but centuries have passed in the meantime. The djinn is wearing iron bracelets that he can escape from which prevent him from leaving the human form he took before being captured.

It's only a matter of time before the two meet. But one is (literally) hot-headed, while the other is more forgiving and submissive. Their personalities, as much as they have them, clash a bit. Along the way, Chava gets a job at a bakery when she befriends Anna (who hates how perfect and quick Chava is), and the rabbi's nephew, Michael, a bit of an irrelegious radical, starts to develop feeling for Chava, unaware of her true nature.

I enjoyed the book although in the beginning there are quite a few info dumps, detailing the background of various characters, a couple of whom make you wonder, why am I reading this. Those background characters will turn out to be more important to the story.

I was okay with the ending although several in my book club thought it was a little too pat. They wouldn't have minded parallels with the world centuries ago, but too much of it came back.

Our meeting was delayed, so by the time we spoke, I'd already read the sequel. This meant I had to sit out any speculation until we were done before I could tell those who wanted to know what would happen next.

I both read and listened to this book although I didn't listen to the end after I finished reading it.

Remarkably Bright Creatures (Ven Pelt)

Remarkably Bright Creatures
by Shelby Van Pelt (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 has been sitting as a draft since July. I honestly thought I'd posted it. Oops.

This was a pandemic book club selection. I listened to it as well as read it.

This was a first novel, and it was a very good one. What put it over the top was that portions of the book were narrated by a Giant Pacific Octopus named Marcellus (McSquiddles, but he's not a squid) who can escape his tank and wander around the aquarium. Thankfully, Van Pelt realizes that too much of a good thing would be bad, and Marcellus's chapters are more like short interludes.

That said, Marcellus makes the book. Without his point of view, the rest of the book would be a little monotonous and "by the book" with coincidences and missed chances. The octupus elevates it. Also, at one point, Marcellus lets out a large spoiler, which is good, because it was obvious where that story line was going. (Basically, if it didn't go there, most of Cameron's story wouldn't be needed.)

Tova Sullivan is a widow who works the night shift cleaning up the aquarium. Her son died in a boating accident for which she doesn't have any sufficient explanation. She befriends Marcellus who she discovers has found a way out of his tank. Unfortunately, he's trapped himself and needs her help or he'll perish. She never reports this. Marcellus has been know to move around and sample the fish in the other tanks.

Cameron lives in California with his aunt. His mom left a box of stuff for him. It's mostly junk but she finds a class ring that he believes belongs to the father he never knew. Suddenly, down on his luck and basically lazy and good for nothing Cameron is on his way to Seatle.

Paths cross, things are slowly (very slowly) revealed, and the first one to notice in the octopus.

Some stuff is resolved but some mysteries remain because there's no way to get a full explanation. But there's closure, so maybe that's the next best thing.

I enjoyed this book. It was one of the better club picks and such an improvement of the Witches book. (No link -- you wanna know, go find it!)

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 172 (January 2021)

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 172
edited by Neil Clarke (January 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.)

Neil Clarke is the editor of a fabulous online science fiction magazine, Clarkesworld. (Note: I have submitted many stories to Clarkesworld. As of this writing, I have not been accepted. That doesn't mean I won't stop trying, nor does that bias this review in any way.)

If I've been informed correctly, when Neil goes to conventions, he brings along paperback copies of his magazine that didn't pass quality control. This book in particular is stamped on the inside front cover: This Is A Misprint. The cover failed quality control but the inside is fine.

As with last month's issue, I didn't see anything wrong with the cover I have, which looks like the cover shown above.

Being that this is summer, this book was mostly pool reading.

The stories include:

• Intentionalities by Aimee Ogden. I recognized the name by it took a moment to place her. I haven't read her before, but Aimee is an editor that I have submited (but not sold) to. The story is of a woman named Sorrel who agrees to have a child to "confer" to the Braxos Corporation for ten years. It's not "slavery", it's training for any job they could want afterward. She's inseminated, has the baby, Abigail April, and raises her for a few years as best as she can with the stipend she got from Braxos to help make ends meet. Naturally, she has regrets about letting Abigail go but can't repay the money. Sorrel joins an advocacy group and searches the dark web, but she doesn't see her daughter for 10 years. Abigail asks her if she's her mother, and Sorrel doesn't believe she deserves that title. Sad, chilling. I prefer happier endings, but there wasn't a way for a happy ending out of this in a short story, just growth and regret.
• Deep Music by Elly Bangs. Quinn has an "aquid" capture and rehabilitation center. Aquid are watery creatures that get removed from homes like squirrels and stray cats. She keeps them in jars and has one that she's given a keyboard to and that the aquid types on. It becomes obvious partway through that the "gibberish" text is going to start making sense, which it does. There's also an adversary exterminator who wants to wipe out the aquids and cause trouble for Quinn. He's the weak point of the story. It was interesting but predictable, really, though maybe not the exact outcome.
• Philia, Eros, Sturge, Agaipe, Pragma by R.S.A. Garcia. As the expression goes, once bitten, twice shy. I wasn't sure if I wanted to venture into another novella after left month's novella. This one had a prologue that had Brother-Adita, recon drones, and shells, and I wasn't sure what was going on. Page 2 started the Philia section which subsections of Now, Then, Now, Then, Before, which was a little confusing. When it got to the Eros section, I hadn't noticed a change but by then I realized that people weren't speaking but signing or indicating their language which was why so much of the "speech" was in italics. I lasted 20 pages without much of a clue what was going on or what the timeline was, and I gave up. If it hadn't been for the December novella, I might've stuck it out. But I was getting a headache.
• The Last Civilian by R. P. Sand is another story that just drops you into the future and leads you to figure out where you are and what you are doing. Literally, in fact, because it employs Second Person storytelling, and I never had a grasp of who this "You" was supposed to be, even though "You" is in every section title. (A lot of section titles in this issue.) You are a generic, genetic soldier, but there are others referenced in the story so it's hard to imagine an unnamed soldier bearing witness to all this and interacting with the characters. The story starts by introducing the reader to the Uilai of Uiloolea, who was flamingo-like with antlers. And then the action shifts to the humans who they are at war with. The humans are clones, developed to be adults at activation, and You are part of the 8th generation, making Your name Eta and a number. It turns out that the war has not been going on for as long as the clones are taught to believe and they aren't as old as they think. Basically, it reminded me of a Donna Noble story.
  In the end, we come full circle and meet the Uilai who has been telling this story to You and seems to know everything You did and whom You talked to and what You said. Sure, the Uilai could know all this, but why bring it all up?
  The story was okay.
• Aster's Partialities: Vitri's Best Store for Sundry Antiques by Tovah Strong. Syd was a magician and she was executed in multiple ways, but she survived in the mirrors of a house that her death created. The house narrates the story as a "we" that sometimes eats people who visit, and then it has to move afterward. A child (always referred to as "child" and "they") named Mor shows up with one of Syd's talismans, so the house protects Mor. THis is another story with multiple sections and other than the first, I couldn't decode what they referred to. I enjoyed it. Definitely above average.
• Leaving Room for the Moon by P. H. Lee. Two children, a boy and a girl, are taken from their planet and brought to the world of the Emperor of All Space and Every World. Some 65,000 years have passed since they've left home and everything that they knew of is dead and gone. Meanwhile, the shine came off the palace and the world many millenia ago. They are presented to the emperor who tells them that the demiurgist can create anything that they desire, but the record of what was doesn't match the memories. Not a bad story, but not a great one.

The Nonfiction section of the book includes

• There are two interviews. The first was with Connie Willis, whom, as much of a fan of scifi that I am, I should've heard of and been more familiar with. The other is with E. Lily Yu, who won a writing contest at 15 and has been writing since. Neil Clarke presents a list of all the stories published in 2021 that are eligible for their own best of awards as well as for the Hugos. Finally, there's a blurb about the cover artist. Once again, I don't believe it goes with any particular story. It shows a girl, probably a fairy, in a sealed jar with flowers and tree and a butterfly. Imagine Tinkerbell in a terrarium, but without wings. Again, this cover would've been considered defective, which is why the issue was given away from free. I don't see any issue with it myself. The online image is a little more vibrant. Also, the back cover, which is a closeup of the front cover without text seems to be off-center, so that might've been the problem.

And that's this issue. Not a great second issue for me. Let's hope February 2021 will be better. And let's hope there's still some pool weather left or this becomes subway reading material.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs.

The Book of Genesis

The Book of Genesis

(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.)

Not kidding.

A couple of years ago, I decided -- and I don't remember if any conversation provoked this -- that I could download a bible onto my kindle app, which I could read between books. Also, I arrive at Mass on Sunday mornings 10-15 minutes early so I can get my usual seat, and I tend to read before the service begins. As much as this sound like a reverent thing to do to reflect on God's word before Mass, it's mostly because the current book I'm reading might not be the most appropriate thing to dwell upon inside a church.

That said, I read most of this on subways, I believe. And, in any event, I read a bunch a year or two ago, and only recently decided to finish this (meaning Genesis, not the entire Bible). I didn't scan back to the Tower of Babel or Sodom and Gommorrah, which I read then.

First off, I've read sections of bible in school, but never anything in depth. And I read along with the same readings each year for many years.

Genesis has 50 chapters, which right there said commitment. A number of chapters are straight genealogies, and sometimes this information is repeated. It's a lot of names, with a lot of variation among them, but others which are quite similar. How Bible scholars remember them all is beyond me.

Among the stories are the two creation stories, and then Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel. Noah and the Great Flood are Chapter 6 -- if this was a movie, it would almost be "blink and you miss it". It's more "story" and less "history" at this point.

The rest of the book is Abraham, Issac, Jacob (Israel) and Joseph. Joseph being sold to slavery and his rise to power in Egypt is the last quarter of the book.

Next up is Exodus and Moses.

The Adventures of Larry the Alien (McDonnell)

The Adventures of Larry the Alien
by John McDonnell (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.)

This was a freebie that seemed like it might be a little humorous. And it was humorous, a little.

The book is divided into eight short stories, but it's actually one continuous narrative, about the size of a short novella. I think I've read longer things in Clarkesworld magazine. But it was sold as a book and it listed online as such, so that's how I'll record it.

Murphy owns a small, quiet bar, and he likes it that way. He sees that Larry is pretty scuppered and tries to cut him off. Larry zaps him back to dinosaur times, but brings him back before he's eaten by a T-Rex. Murphy thinks this is a great trick and becomes friendly to Larry, who would later zap other people away.

Larry appears to be human because Larry can change shape so that he could look like any human or animal. And when he gets too drunk, he accidentally shifts shapes. He goes home with Murphy where he causes trouble with Murphy's wife when he takes the shape of Kim Kardashian. Most is forgiven though when he morphs into Pierce Brosnan.

Larry winds up transforming Murphy's life and his bar. Dolores (the wife) likes the changes. There is a promise of more, but I haven't looked online.

It was an interesting short book to read. Some of the problems I had with it could be excused by the fact that this is a 2011 book originally published by Smash words. I'm not overly familiar with that site, but I've seen if referenced a bit. It seems like a place I could've gotten started if I'd been so inclined and didn't luck out with eSpec Books.

Moving on.

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 171 (December 2020)

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 171
edited by Neil Clarke (December 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.)

Neil Clarke is the editor of a fabulous online science fiction magazine, Clarkesworld. (Note: I have submitted many stories to Clarkesworld. As of this writing, I have not been accepted. That doesn't mean I won't stop trying, nor does that bias this review in any way.)

If I've been informed correctly, when Neil goes to conventions, he brings along paperback copies of his magazine that didn't pass quality control. This book in particular is stamped on the inside front cover: This Is A Misprint. The cover failed quality control but the inside is fine.

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with the cover. That said, I just went over to the webiste to look at Issue 171 and I can see that the issue is much sharper.

Being that this is summer, this book was mostly pool reading.

The stories include:

• The Island of Misfit Toys by Fiona Moore, a tale of an old homeless man who starts to resemble Santa and who used to program AI toys who finds ways to survive until one day he's beat by teens in a prank that goes too far. He finds himself in a junkyard along with some discarded toys and robot dogs, which he sets out to repair. It's a fun little tale.
• Things That Happen When You Date Your Ex's Accidentally Restored Backup from Before the Breakup by Lisa Nohealani Morton is a mouthful of a title. Once I was able to parse it correctly, I thought it an interesting premise for a story, but it just didn't work for me. As you can guesss, it's set in a future where cloning is a possibility and it's the type of cloning where you can "awaken" or "download" a consciousness from a memory drive of some point (as opposed to having a clone baby). Such a future is not free from bureaucratic errors (transposing numbers) and making mistakes. This much I liked, and applying it to a relationship where the partner doesn't know about the breakup is a fun twist. Unfortunately, other parts don't work for me. The politics, for one thing, with the whole resistance plot. And the other thing I'm on the fence about is that it's written in second person, you, and the ex is always referred to as "they", so you can imagine whatever genders you wish here. Second person stories are difficult to write, but I give it the benefit of the doubt here because it made it by the editor. It was a bit of a slog. Your mileage may vary.
• The Last Days of Old Night by Michael Swanwick was a fanciful tale of three near-omnipotent beings (Goat-Eater, Bone-Grinder, and the unnamed, mute one) traveling the long night, creating things and clearing obstacles with mere thoughts. A probelm arises when they get to a sea that they can't bridge nor ford. They are then informed by the locals that the old night will soon end because the day is coming which will end them all. The beings manage to turn back time ten years so that the local people can create a boat big enough to beings to escape the day. It reads like an old folktale, and in the end, we learn what inspired it. I did a search in this blog for Swanwick, but I didn't find any results. The name looks familiar (not surprising given the awards he's won). His bio says he's from Philadelphia, so it's possible that I've encountered him at sf/f cons.
  Edit: Not three hours after I typed the above entry, I got a Facebook suggestion of "People You Might Know" for Michael Swanwick. We have 13 mutual friends! LOL.
• Conversations in the Dark by Robert Reed was not a favorite. Stories are subjective, of course. The problem with novellas is that they take up a lot of the book, and if a novella doesn't pull you in, you can either stick it out until it does, or stick a large chunk of the book. I stuck it out. It was an odd story. There's a tank that can hide a person where nothing would detect it from outside. Then we're on a great ship in space, the greatest prize in the galaxy, an ancient ship. The people on it live for centuries and change appearance and gender when they sleep. And then it turns out that these people are human, so the human race must've evolved a bit and this story must take place really far into the future. I read a couple sections at a time and put it down to read other things. This probably hurt trying to immerse myself in the story, instead of thinking what I'd do with a great ship in a story. But I made it through.
  Reading the bio, I see that Robert Reed has written over 300 stories, including several "Great Ship" stories, so maybe I needed to know more background for this to have made more sense to me. And I'm guessing that the editor is better read than I am.
• No Way Back by Chi Hui, translated by John Chu, was an interesting story. Xia Xuejano isn't who she seems to be, and neither is her talking cat Aksha. It's in a future where talking cats aren't unusual as science has advanced there. But not as much as the online world has advanced. A man comes looking for Xuejano because he wants her to find her daughter. The daughter's body in in a hospital ICU but the person inside isn't her. In the future, not only can individuals jack into the net, they can abandon their bodies and live on the net. They usually regret this, if they live long enough and aren't carved up for data. That's why someone else would welcome the chance to jump into her body with some of her memories, without being her daughter. It doesn't have a particularly happy ending but does raise some interesting issues.
• Forward Momentum and a Parallel Toss by Ana Maria Curtis takes place in a small town (Madrid) where football and farming are a big thing. Matching bands are now automatons. And farming equipment is protected IP. Lacey and her students want to do something about that. Alex, Lacey's former boyfriend now works for the "enemy". I don't know if this is steampunk or hopepunk or some other kind of punk. She succeeds but it ends befrore we find out where one character stands -- but that's okay because either choice would be unsatisfying to some part of the audience, and it could feel like a coin flip by the author. It's not pivotal to the story.
• Songs of Activation by Andy Dudak is an interesting story with great worldbuilding, but in the end, I really have no idea want it was about except something to do with revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries. The students memorize Odes and Sagas, passage of which activate something or other. And then there's Sinecure, which has caused people to commit suicide. Told well, but I don't know what I read. Note: I had to look up "Aestivation", which is the name given to a period of summer dormancy. Summer dormancy is often exhibited by animals when conditions become unfavourable. Had I known this sooner, it might've meant something, but I wasn't reading an electronic copy with a built-in dictionary. I had a paperback in the pool.

The Nonfiction section of the book includes

• Ghosts of Christmas Past: The Victorian Christmas Ghost Story Tradition by Carrie Sassarego was an interesting article about the popularity of ghost stories around Christmas times and how they brought some Victorian elements into them. "A Christmas Carol" wasn't the first, but it is perhaps the best known. And the tradition continues if you think about Christmas movies having ghosts or moving into horror.
• After that were two interviews. The first was with Stina Leicht ("sTINA Lite"), author of Persephone Station and the second was with Tim Pratt, author of Doors of Sleep. I didn't get far through the second one. Instead I skipped to the end of year editorial "Don't Let Go of the Future" by Neil Clarke. Finally, there's a blurb about the cover artist. I like the artwork but I'm not sure what story it goes with, if any.

And that's this issue. I made a blog entry for magazines, and Clarkesworld is one of them, so if I venture out without a copy of one of the magazines, I can go to the archives online.

Now, on to the January 2021 issue, which I picked up at the same Heliosphere convention.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs.

Tequila Sheila and Other Tall Tales (Lucci)

Tequila Sheila and Other Tall Tales
by Jessica Lucci (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 book from a recent Kickstarter. It's not labeled "Kickstarter edition" but this ebook has a plain blue cover, not the one pictured above (which is quite nice). Also my copy is 85 pages on Kindle (keeping in mind, I fiddle with the font size) but Good Reads says it's 102 pages. In any case, I enjoyed the book.

The main story is about Cleo Westwind, lover of a woman named Tequlia Sheila, who starts by transporting pigs across the river, but has to dump them overboard when a police submarine rises out of the water. Realizing that she's in trouble and will be responsible for the cost of the lost pigs, Cleo runs off. Later on, Cleo brings down a bear with her pistol as the same time that Zonta, a Lakota hunter, attacked it with a spin-bow. She's befriended by the Lakota, stays with them for a while before going on her way. She learns that there's a reward for the wild boars running around the county, so she starts tracking them, but not so quickly, because she wants to stay gainfully employed for a while. Tragedy happens. Cleo gets revenges, but has to flee again. And then there's more betrayal.

A fun novella with some steampunk elements. I'm enjoying reading more steampunk because at some point, I'm going to have to try writing some.

The second half of the book is comprised of shorter stories. "Instellar Games" is about space Olympics and dragons. "Watch Your Back" is a cautionary flash tale. "Sugar Skull" is labeled "Chapter 4" for some reason, but I guess it's the fourth story in the book and the tag might've been a mistake. It starts with a dog licking her face and I'm not sure where it went after that. "Mary Baker Eddy" was a fun one about restoring old phones to their original state and working order. There's a problem though because there seems to be a phone missing, and they have to find it to make it work. There's a little bit of a Twilight Zone ending to this one, which it didn't need, but gives it a little more oomph. Finally, "Prince Charming" takes place six years into the pandemic (and at the time it was written, I'm sure it seemed like it might last that long) where a female representative of a sticker company goes to a Hollywood hotel and winds up having an encounter with Prince Harry, along with some rude woman.

A fun, quick read.

Notes: The Good Reads page states that this book was published by Indie Woods. Again, I received it as a bonus book from an eSpec Books Kickstarter. This particularly Kickstarter included my book, A Bucket Full of Moonlight.

Some Online Magazine to Read

This is a (non-exhaustive) list of online science-fiction and fantasy magazines that are free to read the current issue, and which may or may not have archives. Almost all are currently publishing. I may add to this list.

• Apex Magazine
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies
• Clarkesworld
• The Dark
• Interfictions Archive (ended in 2017)
• Lightspeed
• Podcastle (audio and written)
• Escape Pod (audio and written)
• Strange Horizons
• Uncanny
• Fireside Fiction

52 Loaves (Alexanader)

52 Loaves
by William Alexander (2010)

(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 pandemic book club runner-up. I put on the books on hold, but this was available right away.

First of all, I enjoyed it much more than the Witches book (no link, if you're interested, go find it). That said, I took a couple of breaks because there were points where I just needed him to get on with it.

Also of note, I'm not sure I realized just how old this book was. There might've been a clue early on, but I obviously forget about it.

So Willaim Alexander has this incredible piece of peasant bread. He decides right then that he's going to learn how to make that exact bread, not that he's ever cooked bread before. His wife and family amuse and tolerate this. He decides that he will bake one loaf of bread a week for a year until he gets it right. The first few weeks are really bad. And those after aren't much better.

Along the way, he learns a bit about flour, yeast, levain, poosh and many other aspects of baking and where these things come from. He learns about the disease pellagra and why niacin is added to flour to enrich it along with other nutrients (and how this was not ordered by the government).

He bakes at a state fair. He contacts people to use their ovens. He grows a field of wheat to make flour in his yard in the Hudson Valley just north of NYC. He travels to Paris and Morrocco and finds himself spending a week in an abbey where he teaches a brother to bake bread after so many years not using the oven.

Informative and many parts were interesting when he was talking about other things. By the time it was over, I'd already forgotten much about the levain, etc. There were recipes from bread, but I didn't copy them down.

The Lexical Funk (Clausen)

The Lexical Funk
by Daniel Clausen (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 the second edition from 2014.

I don't know where this popped up from, but I downloaded it for free. I didn't realize how old the book was (relatively speaking). It had an interesting cover, it called itself "a triumph of words", and I thought it was going to be a funny book.

I picked it up because I thought it was be a quick, little diversion from a non-fiction book I'm reading that's plodding along, and while I'm enjoying it, I needed a break.

It was not. It was quite introspective, but for the most part, I didn't really feel it or care about the introspection. The book contains five unreleated stories and an excerpt from a novel that I skipped. The acknowledgments says "many" of the stories were previously published and then lifts five publications, so I assume that all the stories were previously published.

The first story was "Imitation for Beginners" about androids that try to imitate human behavior as best they can. It was told in several numbered sections for no reason, and I worried that the entire book was going to be like this. Again, the android's introspection wasn't very interesting. The one twist was when the older model confronts the narrator telling him that he's nothing speical, and in fact that older model is actually a human imitating an android. The newer model considers this and figures that the older model has malfunctioned and does his duty and dismantles the older model. Now, there is nothing I can tell from the description whether or not the "older model" was either a human or an android. You would think that the reference to the cleaner robots would give a hint about this.

"The Lexical Funk: how the white boy learned to settle down and love the Afro" might be considered by some to be offensive these days. I just found it boring, with the following proviso: the author knows his language and did weave something together, and the entire story built to one amusing paragraph near the end.

"In a glass box over Osaka" is the story of someone who lost a job and is in a restaurant for either several hours or over a day. More introspection. No speculative element that I noticed.

"Rich Jacobs Searches for the Meaning of Life" gets speculative with the produce at the supermarket start talking to him. One of the better, if not stranger, of the stories.

"Starlight Terror and the Cappuccino Machine" is the highlight where a mysterious woman arrives and the main characters and the world around them slowly morph into a 50s-era B-flich. The author must be fond of these because it's not something easy to fake.

"Angela Killed Herself" is more introspective stuff with a giver and a taker, and the giver gives out.

If I were ever to use the review "It was a book", this would be the time to use it. Not quite but bordering on "What did I just read?" It took me a bit longer than a hour to read, probably because I kept wondering what I was reading.

My Hero Academia Volume 37

My Hero Academia Volume 37, by Kōhei Horikoshi (2023)

(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.)

Spoilers for the "final battle", which may or may not be final because I don't know how long this fight and this manga continue afterward.

Deku arrives to confront Tomura Shigaraki, who is now melded with All For One (or possibly not). Bakugo is done but may survive with another hero's sacrifice. Spinner's added quirks cause trouble for some members of Class 1A (or 2A now, I guess), but they also cause trouble for Spinner whose mind is becoming as beastly as his body. And Todoroki's victory over Dabi may have been premature.

It was a quick read that became available sooner than I expected, and I plowed right through it, putting other things on hold.

Volume 38 is on hold. Hopefully, I'll have that in a few weeks.

A House with Good Bones (Kingfisher)

A House with Good Bones
by T. Kingfisher (2023)

(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 would not have expected to have read another T. Kingfisher book so soon. The last one I read, What Moves the Dead was good, not necessarily great, nor something that screamed "read more" to me. However, I needed something to listen to on my phone while I was out walking. I went to Libby for ideas. I wanted a short, fantasy audiobook, preferrably under 8 hours. Many were much longer.

Anyway, "A House With Good Bones" appeared, and I gave it a shot. It sounded good enough that I borrowed the ebook, caught up to the audio, which then got left behind.

Instead of mushrooms, this book gives us ladybugs and roses and vultures and some old magic.

Samantha Montgomery is an archaeoentomologist, someone who studies insects and other arthropods recovered from archaeological sites, usually associated with human remains and middens (aka "dunghills"). Her site is shut down but her room has been sublet, so she has no place to go except to her mother's house (which belonged to her mother before her) in North Carolina, traveling across most of the country to get there. When she gets there, things are a little strange and her mother is behaving oddly. And there are weird things about the house.

Sam thinks her mother is started to develop dementia or something similar. She doesn't understand why the interior of the house was repainted ecrue or why there's a portrait of a Confederate wedding hanging in the hall.

And, more weird, there are no insects in the yard on the rose bushes. But there is a sudden infestation of lady bugs that she can't explain. And then there's the portrait that shows what clearly seems to be a child's hand coming out of the ground beneath one of the rose bushes.

Mom's not crazy, and grandma's not gone. Others on the lane know that there's something wrong with the house.

If I have a quibble, it's with the climax of the book, which takes all the action ... somewhere else. I'm not exactly sure where it was or how any of the vultures managed to find their way there. I understand that they didn't need realism at this particular point, but the book went to extraordinary lengths to make the creepy, unimaginable into real, believable things. This was a little disappointing and could've been closer to home, as it were.

One last side note: I have to say that "a house with good bones" isn't a common expression in the Northeast, USA. At least, I don't think it is. It's not one that I've heard. The only other reference I have is the song "The Bones" by Maren Morris, where she sings "the house won't fall when the bones are good", which made me wonder right from the start if the house was going to fall. (Oddly, I assumed that the song was talking about a personal relationship with two people, not the actual structure of their dwelling, allegorically speaking.)

This book was written before "What Moves the Dead" and contains a preview for it at the end of the book.

I enjoyed this, both in audio and ebook, although I abandoned the audio once I caught up reading.

A Cry of Hounds (Ackley-McPhail, ed)

A Cry of Hounds
by Danielle Ackley-McPhail (2024)

(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.)

A Cry of Hounds was a Kickstarter book, published by eSpec Books and edited by Danielle Ackley-McPhail, who also edited my book, In A Flash 2020 and the upcoming A Bucket Full of Moonlight.

A quick check of the Internet says that the paperback hasn't been released yet. However, this book was created in conjunction with the Tell-Tale Steampunk Festival, which took place a couple of months ago.

The stories in this volume are steampunk or have a steampunk feel to them. And while they are not Sherlock Holmes stories, they are meant to evoke Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And, of course, they needed to have a dog in them. That dog could be Cerberus, a giant puppy, a construct, or any mythological creature. And the fact that they don't repeat is a testament to the editor. (Note: I mean it -- I'm not kissing up.)

A couple of the stories feel like they are the "continuing adventures" of the characters contained within, but Keith R. A. DeCandido fooled me by using other Doyle characters and setting this adventure immediately after the events of one that Doyle published a century ago. (And I only know this because I was at a reading at the eSpec Book Launch party at Heliosphere, in Piscataway, NJ.)

The stories include "The Curse of the Baskervilles" by Arthur Conan Doyle (an excerpt from the novel "The Hound of the Baskervilles"), "The Night of the Howling Wind", by Ef Deal, "The Adventure of the Exploding Airship" by John L. French, "A Grecian Pawse" by Doc Coleman, "The Vampire of Rannoch Moor", by David Lee Summers, "Amber Waves of Bane" by Dana Fraedrich, "Weighed and Measured" by Bill Bodden, "Progenitor" by Keith R.A. DeCandido, "Ember Eyes" by Jessica Lucci, "The Houndstooth Affair" by Aaron Rosenberg, "A Glimpse of Death" by James Chambers, "They Who Have Lost Their Way" by Danielle Ackley-McPhail, and "Sherlock Holmes and the Stonyhurst Terror" by Christopher D. Abbott.

This is one of those times when I wish I'd been on the ball about recording my reading. I finished this book back in May, but with the end of school and real life events, this blog (and my others) took a back seat.

To highlight a few of them: Ef Deal sets the stage with "The Night of the Howling Wind" which takes place in Ireland during a historic windstorm (really, it happened) and involves werewolves and murder. "The Exploding Airship" is a "Hope and Gracie mystery" dealing with an automated plane that exploded over the banks of the Thames (bonus points for naming the airships Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace.) "The Houndstooth Affair" takes place in New York City, specifically involving the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a clockwork songbird built by Cartier. And "Sherlock Holmes and the Stonyhurst Terror" unravels the mystery of a Yeth Hound, which given that this story employed Holmes and Watson, you knew that it would have a rational explanation but you still had to wonder what it was.

An enjoyable read. Recommended. Again, for anyone who stumbled upon this blog -- it isn't private, but I don't actively publicize it -- I've written for eSpec Books and I've participated in many of their Kickstarter campaigns, so I own a lot of their books (and bonus stories), and they are a large part of my digital TBR pile.

My Hero Academia Volume 36

My Hero Academia Volume 36, by Kōhei Horikoshi (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.)

Now that I'm caught up, I'm reading these once every few months, so I'll list them separately.

The "final battle" continues. I notice that the anime that I'm watching on Hulu has almost caught up with the books. This past Saturday, Monoma copied powers that allowed him to use Kurogiri warp gate abilities to separate all of the villains into groups where heroes would be waiting. (Deku unfortunately gets snagged and dragged into the wrong portal.)

As shown on the cover, the highlight is the showdown between brothers Dabi and Shoto. Dabi notes that Endeavor didn't come himself and assumes he's too ashamed to be there. This doesn't bother Dabi because he wants to destroy everything Endeavor holds dear before disposing of him.

At the coffin in the sky, Tomura Shigaraki still has the power to create more hands from his body as a natural ability. However, his Decay quirk is being negated by Monoma who is standing by Aizawa so that he can use his ability past the normal time limit. (Aizawa has one eye bandaged -- I don't remember if he lost it entirely -- and his ability isn't what it had been.)

Without Deku, they can't finish off Shigaraki.

Three month wait for the next book.

In Defense of Witches (Chollet)

In Defense of Witches
Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial
by Mona Chollet (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 pandemic book club selection. I listened to it as well as read it.

The club decided that we would try our luck with nonfiction for a month. It didn't go much better.

The Introduction was over 40 pages. That in itself tells you that the book was going to drag. The overall sentiment was that this book should've been an essay. I wouldn't been fine with a Buzzfeed article, or if the 40 page introduction had been the entire book. Not much to add afterward.

The book was short on witches and long on generic feminism, and also the fact that all women are witches, so every woman is still on trial. Not something I buy, but the author made an effort to make the case. Granted, you had to get through a lot of the book before there were more mentioned of Gloria Steinem than there were of Donald Trump or Rush Limbaugh. The author also states that feminists aren't out to kill all the children and then spends dozens of pages supporting the assertion that women would do better for themselves if they don't have children.

Speaking of children, there could've been more about the midwives delivering babies. Now these were women who were accused of being witches if for no other reason than more of their babies lived while those delivered by doctors had a higher mortality rate. The answer was simple: hand-washing. And cleaning in general. Cleanliness is next to godliness after all. Actually, that last statement was NOT made in the book. That was something I read decades ago in an article that mentioned that many of the midwives in question were, in fact, nuns. Mothers wanted the nuns delivering their babies and not doctors.

Even leaving out the religious connection, more about this would've been more about the defense of witches.

An extra chapter about some of the witches killed in Salem or in England, France and the rest of Europe might've been appreciated.

At our meeting, the book didn't get higher than an average rating. Some good ideas but rambled too much. For the record, there were 4 women and 2 men in the webspace.

Fangirl: the Manga (Volumes 1, 2, 3)

Fangirl: the Manga (Volumes 1, 2, 3)
Manga adaptation of Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl by Sam Maggs (2020-2023)

(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 random manga and the New York Public Library website recommended "Fangirl", which was a four-part adaptation of a novel, which I wasn't familiar with. So I started reading it. What I wasn't aware of at the time was that the fourth and final book has not been published yet. Arg.

Yes, I'll borrow it sometime after it comes out.

There are twins named Cath and Wren, whose mother only had one name picked out (Catherine). The two were fans of "Simon and Baz", two characters from popular fiction (I'm guessing similar to Twilight, but I never read that and has no plans to). They are "shipped" together despite the fact that neither of the characters are gay in the source material. For that matter, neither of the sisters are gay either (at least in the first three volumes).

The two are going off to college, but they won't be rooming together. Wren knows that they need to spread their wings and be individuals. Cath is a little afraid of this. Wren is the extrovert which gets her into trouble sometimes, and Cath is an introvert who stays in her room if her roommate doesn't drag her out of it.

Wren has given up on the fanfic. Cath still lives for it, so much so that it interferes with her creative writing class.

Wren starts to reconnect with their mother, who abandoned the family when the kids were little. Cath hates her mother and doesn't want to see her again.

And Cath falls for her roommate's ex-boyfriend who is a fan of Cath's stories.

Nothing objectionable. An interesting read. Obviously, I'm not the target demographic for this.

If I had any complaint, it would be the construction of the books that I got from the library. The first book was formatted like a regular graphic novel, not magna. The front page was on the left. The second and third books start on the right BUT ... and this is the annoying part ... the pages themselves are meant to be read from left to right, not right to left. THAT was confusing.

But I dealt with it.

Waiting for part 4. I don't think I'll read the actual book though.

Manga: The Devil in a Part-Timer, Volume 17

The Devil in a Part-Timer, Volume 17
(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.)

This is just here for completeness.

Walking past the library one Saturday morning a couple months ago, someone had left a bunch of books outside on top of the book return bin for anyone to take. There wasn't anything of real interest, but I saw this one volume of a manga that I hadn't heard of. Even though it was Volume 17, I figured it'd be enough for me to decide if it was something I'd like to find the first volume of and read through.

If what I guessed is true, the devil is a teenager for some reason, and in this particular episode, he's concerned about getting his driver's license. At the same time, another character is missing, and others show up looking for her.

By the end, demons are showing up and there's a showdown, which you'd expect any manga to have.

Nothing gripping. I didn't hate it, but I don't think I would've read volume 2 if I'd picked up volume 1 instead. I'm not planning on looking for this series.

Note: After I read this (more than a month ago), I was looking at the anime listings on a couple of platforms, and I saw that this is a show. If I had time, I might watch the first two episodes, but it's low on the list.

Pinata: A Novel (Gout)

Pinata: A Novel
by Leopoldo Gout (2023)

(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 pandemic book club alternate selection. It wasn't selected. However, given the wait time for the book, I reserved it before the poll results were in. I listened to most of the book, and I read it in its entirety. Since I finished reading it, I didn't feel the need to finish listening.

I read this book before The Saint of Bright Doors but I forgot to include it in the blog when I was catching up with my backlog. Oops. I read this a month ago, end of March, begining of April. I could check Libby to see when I checked it out, but it's not that important.

Pinata sits on top as the best book I've read this year although it isn't perfect. I believe I gave it 4 stars on Good Reads, and I would give it 4.5 out of 5 here. I enjoyed it, but the ending was a little off for me.

The book opens centuries ago with Mexico being conquered and a church being constructed on Mexican burial grounds. The priests there find pinatas, the ancient kind made of dead bodies, and destroy them. One priests suffers a horrible supernatural death because of it.

Flash forward to the present day. The church is being restored to create a boutique hotel. Carmen Sanchez is an architect sent to Mexcio to oversee the work. She faces sexism and nationalism -- she's of Mexican heritage but still a foreighner. It's summertime, so she brings her two daughters. One, Izel, is a teen who hates that she was dragged along instead of going to drama camp with her friends (she has lots of teen drama) and who has a secret boyfriend that she's constantly texting. The younger daughter, Luna, is a bit of a misfit in school but she devours all the curiousities that Mexico has to offer.

A Mexican woman who works at city hall, Yoltzi, has the ability to see spirits, an ability she's always had. (I have to admit, when first reading, I thought she was an older woman, not someone in her 20s or 30s.) She spots Luna being followed by spirits and is worried that her openness makes her vulnerable to spirits taken over her.

When an accident at the cathedral causes a wall to be broken and a secret chamber (not on any of the floorplans going back hundreds of years) is revealed, containing some of the pinatas we read about earlier. Because of the incident, Sanchez is recalled to New York, but not before Luna steals one of the pinatas and manages to get in through custons. (She had a jar of crickets which would've been confiscated instead except that she ate them.

Once back in New York, the weirdness which started in Mexico starts to ramp up, and Luna is at the center of it.

Yoltzi, along with other side characters Father Verón and Quauhtli, try to get to New York. Here is where I was less happy with the book. It's not that I want characters to have Plot Armor but they don't need to have unnecessary targets on their backs either. It doesn't come down to one person standing, which if it had, I would've knocked a full star off my rating.

I enjoyed the book overall although the pacing was off a bit here and there.

DNR: The Saint of Bright Doors (Chandrasekera)

The Saint of Bright Doors
by Vajra Chandrasekera (2023)

(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 pandemic book club selection. This book was chosen because it was one of three in the window of a bookstore in Nashville. We all hate this bookstore now.

The book was popular enough that I had to settle for reading the hardcover, which I needed to pick up in Manhattan because I couldn't get it in Brooklyn. Being only a year old, it's still quite popular, apparently.

If this had not been a book club selection, I would've given up on it a lot sooner than I did. As it was, I kept reading until the day of our meeting and I was still only about a third of the way through the book. I found out that only one person managed to finish it (and she was mad at us that she stuck it out). Even the group founder, who is a librarian, was unable to finish this.

No one had anything nice oto say about it beyond the fact that it started off interesting in the first chapter and then went whereever it was that it went. It didn't go through a bright door, though, which were described a lot, but otherwise were beside the point of the story, which went hither and yon.

Anway, this book was a waste of a few weeks of my time -- although not completely because I did read a different book on my kindle app at the same time. It's not only a "DNF" but I've added the tag "WTHDIJR" to the blog for this book. Because what the hell did I just read?

Once vacation is over, I'll be on my way back to Manhattan to drop this thing off. And then, on to the next book.

The Skeleton in the Closet (Fox)

The Skeleton in the Closet
by Angie Fox (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.)

Book two in the Southern Ghost Hunter Series became available for free from Book Bub, so I picked it up. I was in between book club books and I figured that this would be a quicker read than anything else I had ready since I was alredy familiar with the premise.

Verity Long is still poor, after being forced to pay off her fancy wedding after she left her cheating fiance at the altar. He still wants to get back with Verity despite or even because his mother opposes it. In the meantime, she has (maybe) a thing with his brother who is in local law enforcement, rather than being employed as a rich snob. And Frankie the 1920's era gangster ghost is still around.

Verity tries to unground Frankie (see book one) with little success. Meanwhile, it's the annual Cannonball in the Wall celebration of a Civil War battle that saw a cannonball get lodged a wall in the middle of town.

Darla, a friend of Verity's (and her sister's) is handling donations for the event, and the two oldest and most fuedin'-est families are trying to out-do each other. She makes a startling discovery and ends up dead. Her discovery is missing as well.

Verity investigates the library and all the ghosts who are stuck in time within its walls and finds some revealing evidence, but not THE revealing piece of evidence until much later.

After that, it's dodging dangers on two planes of existence until the truth about the Cannonball in the Wall is know to all.

But most people still think Verity is nuts for blowing off the wedding.

I wouldn't be opposed to reading more of these, but they aren't so great that I'll be buying them any time soon. If the libary has them, I'll borrow them.

Two Short Books

Big Bullet Monster Bomb: lost little things: a short story for mature readers
by Adam Archer (2020)

The Race
by John Russo (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.)

I don't remember where I found these stories. I don't think it was reddit. It could've been on Facebook or Twitter.

Nothing about the Bullet Bomb book was particularly geared toward mature readers, other than the cover showing a woman wearing rags that barely cover what they need to. It seems like a story set in a larger world that I haven't read but I have no idea of this is the case. It's post-apocalyptic and the last of the human race is slowly morphing into cratures. This much is interesting.

The main character is pulling a sled of her belongings (including guns) and looking for some place to hide so she can sleep. Her sleep cycle is screwed up so she's up for a long time and then needs a prolonged sleep.

When she encountered some creatures attacking an overturned RV, she decides to go into action. It's at this point and after that it fell apart for me. It was a bit of a mess after that. But I read it until the end. I didn't bail on it. Interesting, but not great.

The first notes I wrote after reading it were: too many parenthetical expressions. Eloise and Marhsa. Good setup, no follow through. Fell apart with the first battle.

By contrast, The Race is just a mess. It takes place in a dystopian future. Amazon makes deliveries by drone. One brother decides that they can get rich by shooting down the drones and taking the packages for themselves. The packages would be insured, so no one loses. The other brother thinks it's a stupid idea.

Brother 1 shoots down a down with a shotgun (it might've been a rifle, I forget), and the drone goes down. Brother 2 says that Brother 1 has to get the package and return it. Brother 1 says he's going to keep it.

And now the race is on over hill and dale not to mention through woods, quicksand and swamp, to get to this package. It seems like they are surprised by the terrain that is right next to their own farmland. It also seems like Brother 1 must be an incredible marksman to shoot down a drone so far away with a store-bought rifle without a laser scope. You would think that the drone would crash within a couple hundred yards from where he fired.

If that wasn't bad enough, they get to a point where they haul the huge package, a large TV, of the bayou (again, suprise -- there's a bayou!) in a boat. The boat gets flipped, depositing the brothers in the water, and sending the large box flying into the air, up the enbankments, and into the trees. The physics of it are basically "somehow".

The item finally retrieved and they head home after spending most of the day following the path a disabled drone. There's a twist at the end that is 100% the twist you would expect to see even before you knew that there would be a twist at the end because the story needed an ending.

My notes when I read it were: Johnny and Robert. Shooting packages from Amazon drones. how far away was this thing? Race from the farm into the swamp, and they came to a bayou that they seemed surprised to see. They rescue the package and it manages to magically fly up a hill and clear some trees. They spend the majority of the day looking for something that was taken down with a shotgun. And the final twist, SPOILER, telegraphed really, was that the lost package was ordered by the wife.

Funny Shorts 5 (McDonnell)

Funny Shorts 5
More Comic Plays
by John McDonnell (2024)

(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.)

My first book of 2024 but not really. It is a collecting on one-act plays, or scenes, really, that one can use in theater classes. I'll use the Good Reads description because I read this nearly a month ago and I've already forgotten much about it:

In this collection you’ll find Dracula getting an image makeover, pigeons discussing their artistic methods, sibling rivalry among witches, an assassin who writes poetry, a verbal shootout in a senior center, Lucifer getting dumped by his girlfriend, a first date with an alien, and much more. These funny skits are perfect for community theater, schools, senior productions – anywhere audiences want to be entertained.

Some were amusing, some were harder to get through. Not much to say. It was a quick read: about three days, reading in fits and starts.

Edit: Okay, so there was a reason that I didn't remember the end of this book: I didn't finish reading it.

I must have been reading this when the last Book Club book came in from the library and then stopped reading. I have now completed it. It had its moments.

My overall opinion hasn't changed, so I guess my sample was indicative of the entire product.

The Shadow Glass (Winning)

The Shadow Glass
by Josh Winning (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 pandemic book club pick. It received a mixed but mostly positive reviews.

For fans of the Dark Crystal or Labyrinth (I've seen the first, not the second), imagine a similar film that was created by a one-time director named Bob Corman that defined a generation and spawned a lot of ancillary material. This is the world of the movie The Shadow Glass, which created a word known as "Iri", pronounced "eerie".

Jack is the son of Bob, who recently passed away. Jack was estranged from his father, and now in financial straits, he looks to sell off some of his father's things. He winds up encountering creatures from Iri in his father's attic, which seek the Shadow Glass. Bad times have come to Iri and they have until the next full moon to set things right.

Jack is a non-believer, but Toby is a fanatic, knowing everything about Iri. He tries to help Jack.

There's a quest to find the Shadow Glass, the actual prompt from the movie, but it's rumored to have been broken up in pieces for storage. (In the end, this seems odd just because the pieces themselves don't seem to be all that big.)

To antagonize Jack, there is someone who hates him and Bob but loves Iri as it was in the film and nothing more. He winds up teaming up with the villains in the piece just so he can get closer to Iri.

The book was enjoyable, but there wasn't much of a payoff to it. What is this big moment on Iri? We never really find out. How will the Shadow Glass help? No clear idea what it will do (or did). And Jack gets faced with a false choice out of nowhere at what he wants to do.

One other point: this is not a book for young children. Jack gets his finger bitten off. It doesn't grow back. It isn't fixed by magic. There isn't a reset at the end of the story. Likewise, a movie studio guard gets swallowed whole and his uniform is spit out. It has its creepy moments.

I don't have much to complain about, but it wasn't the greatest book either. On Good Reads, I'm likely to give it four stars just because of the mediocre things that I've given three stars to.

Once again, this was a book that I listened to while walking concurrently with reading. Some of the script and transcript reading didn't sound well in audio. I also didn't finish the audio because I got to the end of the ebook first.

Graphic Novel: Superman in the Fifties

Superman in the Fifties (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 summer, I was in my local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, and while there, I picked up 3 graphic novels. I read part of this one, and then put the pile on the side. I've been renewing them every three weeks since then.

Of the three, this was the one that it took the longest to read. Back in the fifties, the artwork in comics was much simpler but there was a lot more text to read. The pictures are interesting enough, but nothing is visually stunning. And, of coure, the story lines are about 70 years old.

The funny thing about this was the number of other rockets that landed on Earth and how many of those came from Krypton. There were three villains, not the Phantom Zone villains, who were imprisoned in a rocket. There was Krypto and Supergirl. And there was another alien, whose name I unfortunately forget, who thought he was Superman's big brother -- I remember the story being Mon-El, and maybe they reprinted this and changed it to Mon-El for the Legion of Super Heroes, but that wasn't his name. There were Bizarro stories. And, of course, Superman's Best Friend Jimmy Olsen and Superman's Girlfrien Lois Lane.

I remember in the late 70s or early 80s when a grownup Lana Lang came to Metropolis. Apparently, she'd done this back in the 50s as well.

It was an interesting look into the past. Two things that stand out: Superman didn't have "heat vision" then but rather used his "X-ray vision" to heat things up; and he used his "super-ventriloquism" more than once in the book, and the outcome of one story depended upon it. Yes, Superman could literally throw his voice and have it appear to come from somewhere else.

It was a fun but long read. I'm glad I read it, and I'm happy that I finally brought it back.