Swynn reads and runs in 2016: Lap 3

Dit is een voortzetting van het onderwerp Swynn reads and runs in 2016: Lap 2.

Discussie75 Books Challenge for 2016

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Swynn reads and runs in 2016: Lap 3

Dit onderwerp is gemarkeerd als "slapend"—het laatste bericht is van meer dan 90 dagen geleden. Je kan het activeren door een een bericht toe te voegen.

1swynn
Bewerkt: dec 20, 2016, 1:45 pm

Expect a mixture of the following, in decreasing density:

Science fiction and fantasy
Crime & mystery novels
Popular history (American, mostly)
Popular science
Library science/history of the book
Math

Also, I tend to read impulsively so there will also be not necessarily categorizable things that happen capture my attention.

I got about halfway through the 50-states challenge last year, and hope to finish the tour this year. That thread is here.

Regardless of plans, priority usually goes to things that must be returned to the library. This is a stack generated more by whim & hope than by plan, which I call "The Tower of Due." Here's what it looks like now:

2swynn
Bewerkt: nov 27, 2016, 10:26 pm

This year's reads:

(1) A Net of Dawn and Bones / C. R. Chancy
(2) The Lady of the Decoration / Francis Little
(3) Killing Titan / Greg Bear
(4) The Remedy / Thomas Goetz
(5) The Bodelan Way / Louis Trimble
(6) Ink and Bone / Rachel Caine
(7) Gun Monkeys / Victor Gischler
(8) Our Only World / Wendell Berry
(9) The Hanged Man / P.N. Elrod
(10) Running With the Buffaloes / Chris Lear
(11) One Foot in Eden / Ron Rash
(12) The Providence of Fire / Brian Staveley
(13) Cycle of Nemesis / Kenneth Bulmer
(14) The Traitor Baru Cormorant / Seth Dickinson
(15) A Girl of the Limberlost / Gene Stratton-Porter
(16) Where / Kit Reed
(17) The Innovators / Walter Isaacson
(18) Indexing / Seanan McGuire
(19) Zeroes / Chuck Wendig
(20) Agent to the Stars / John Scalzi
(21) Pre / Tom Jordan
(22) Submission / Michel Houellebecq
(23) Mr. Crewe's Career / Winston Churchill
(24) Jani and the Greater Game / Eric Brown
(25) The Red : First Light / Linda Nagata
(26) Keeper / Greg Rucka
(27) Novelist to a Generation / Robert W. Schneider
(28) The Book of Fritz Leiber / Fritz Leiber
(29) Leviathan Wakes / James S. A. Corey
(30) The Barrier / Rex Beach
(31) The Fever / Megan Abbott
(32) The Long Way Home / David Laskin
(33) The Trials / Linda Nagata
(34) In the Heart of the Sea / Nathaniel Philbrick
(35) The Grendel Affair / Lisa Shearin
(36) Make It Stick / Peter C Brown et al.
(37) The Inner Shrine / Basil King
(38) Ancillary Mercy / Ann Leckie
(39) Zero World / Jason M. Hough
(40) Libricide / Rebecca Knuth
(41) Updraft / Fran Wilde
(42) Bury Me Deep / Megan Abbott
(43) The Burning Dark / Adam Christopher
(44) Graceland / Chris Abani
(45) A God That Could Be Real / Nancy Abrams
(46) Zombie Baseball Beatdown / Paolo Bacigalupi
(47) Going Dark / Linda Nagata
(48) The Water Knife / Paolo Bacigalupi
(49) Finder / Greg Rucka
(50) A Symphony of Echoes / Jodi Taylor
(51) Part of Our Lives / Wayne Wiegand
(52) Mr. Splitfoot / Samantha Hunt
(53) Indexing : Reflections / Seanan McGuire
(54) Stiff / Mary Roach
(55) Trail of the Lonesome Pine / John Fox, Jr.
(56) The Bone Clocks / David Mitchell
(57) Koningsmarke, the Long Finne / James Kirke Paulding
(58) A Great and Terrible Beauty / Libba Bray
(59) Hell at the Breech / Tom Franklin
(60) The Heart Healers / James Forrester
(61) The Rosary / Florence L. Barclay
(62) Anna Karenina / Leo Tolstoy
(63) Alan Turing : the Enigma / Andrew Hodges
(64) The 5th Wave / Rick Yancey
(65) Blood and Salt / Kim Liggett
(66) Days of Darkness / John Ed Pearce
(67) The Dragon Conspiracy / Lisa Shearin
(68) Life or Death / Michael Robotham
(69) Fergus Crane / Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
(70) The Children's Blizzard / David Laskin
(71) This Census-Taker / China Miéville
(72) Becoming Abigail / Chris Abani
(73) Mortality / Christopher Hitchens
(74) The Broad Highway / Jefferey Farnol
(75) Seeker / Arwen Elys Dayton
(76) The Witches: Salem, 1692 / Stacy Schiff
(77) Pump Six / Paolo Bacigalupi
(78) City of Blades / Robert Jackson Bennett
(79) The New Year's Owl / Susan Hand Shetterly
(80) The Pagan Night / Tim Akers
(81) So You've Been Publicly Shamed / Jon Ronson
(82) A Modern Chronicle / Winston Churchill
(83) Caliban's War / James S.A. Corey
(84) Shots Fired / C.J. Box
(85) Razzle Dazzle / Michael Riedel
(86) The Immortal Irishman / Timothy Egan
(87) Disclaimer / Reneé Knight
(88) The Harvester / Gene Stratton Porter
(89) Wizards, Aliens, and Starships / Charles L. Adler
(90) Arabel's Raven / Joan Aiken
(91) The Fifth Season / N.K. Jemisin
(92) Keep Mars Weird / Neil Pollack
(93) The Fifth Gospel / Ian Caldwell
(94) Uprooted / Naomi Novik
(95) The Secret History of Las Vegas / Chris Abani
(96) The Aeronaut's Windlass / Jim Butcher
(97) The Heckler / Ed McBain
(98) Seveneves / Neal Stephenson
(99) Luke Skywalker Can't Read and Other Geeky Truths
(100) Corby Flood / Paul Stewart
(101) The Inside of the Cup / Winston Churchill
(102) The Catonsville Nine / Shawn Francis Peters
(103) Traveler / Arwen Elys Dayton
(104) The Geek Feminist Revolution / Kameron Hurley
(105) The Bath Massacre / Arnie Bernstein
(106) Bootlegger's Daughter / Margaret Maron
(107) Bold Spirit / Linda Lawrence Hunt
(108) The Eyes of the World / Harold Bell Wright
(109) Shotgun Arcana / R.S. Belcher
(110) Father and Son / Larry Brown
(111) The Deep Sea Diver's Syndrome / Serge Brussolo
(112) How to Bake π / Eugenia Cheng
(113) The Girl In Between / Laekan Zea Kemp
(114) Barefoot in Babylon / Robert Stephen Spitz
(115) Jani and the Great Pursuit / Eric Brown
(116) From Eve to Evolution / Kimberly A. Hamlin
(117) What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours / Helen Oyeyemi
(118) The Mathematician's Shiva / Stuart Rojstaczer
(119) Edge of Dark / Brenda Cooper
(120) Trailer Park Fae / Lilith Saintcrow
(121) The Turmoil / Booth Tarkington
(122) The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making / Cathrynne M. Valente
(123) Engraved on the Eye / Saladin Ahmed
(124) Three Parts Dead / Max Gladstone
(125) NeuroTribes / Steve Silberman
(126) Dodgers / Bill Beverly
(127) A Far Country / Winston Churchill
(128) A Darker Shade of Magic / V.E. Schwab
(129) Quite Ugly One Morning / Christopher Brookmyre
(130) Nuclear Nebraska / Susan Cragin
(131) Shadow Child / Joseph Citro
(132) Seventeen / Booth Tarkington
(133) A Gathering of Shadows / V.E. Schwab
(134) 13 Drops of Blood / James Roy Daley
(135) Dragnet Nation / Julia Angwin
(136) The Brotherhood of the Wheel / R.S. Belcher
(137) Weapons of Math Destruction / Cathy O'Neil
(138) Ninefox Gambit / Yoon Ha Lee
(139) What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria?
(140) Roadside Magic / Lilith Saintcrow
(141) Mr. Britling Sees It Through / H.G. Wells
(142) Bitter River / Julia Keller
(143) Republican Theology / Benjamin T. Lynerd
(144) Central Station / Lavie Tidhar

3swynn
Bewerkt: nov 22, 2016, 3:43 pm


135) Dragnet Nation / Julia Angwin
Date: 2014

Julia Angwin is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, specializing in stories about technology and privacy. She gives a brief history and survey of tools used by governments and coporations for electronic surveillance; she then describes her own exploration of ways to keep her online activity private, with tools like email encryption, burner phones, tracker-blocking software and even false identities. It's not easy. There is a difficult balance between privacy and convenience. Besides the fact that some services *depend* on knowing who you are, where you're at, and who your friends are, there are learning hurdles as well: tools for keeping your data private often have counterintuitive interfaces. And no matter what you do, bad actors can still collect public information about you and refuse your request to stop.

And weirdly, she discovers that many people find upsides to ubiquitous surveillance. There are the standard responses of "I have nothing to hide," and arguments for security benefits, but there's also a curious nostalgic comfort in looking back through some vendor's record of one's online activity. Well, for some anyway.

There isn't much to hope for in the way of systemic solutions. The message is clear: your privacy is your responsibility. Don't look to companies or governments to help you: they all say they "value your privacy," which is generally true only in the sense that they stand to make a profit by selling it. There are tools available, and this book is an accessible introduction to some of their advantages and benefits. Recommended.

4ronincats
nov 8, 2016, 1:04 pm

Happy New Thread, Steve!

5weird_O
nov 8, 2016, 1:33 pm

135 books read!?! Yeeha, that's reading on an epic scale, to me. Kudos.

Other than that, I'll say this new thread presents you with lots of nice possibilities.

6lyzard
nov 8, 2016, 4:42 pm

Happy New Thread, Steve!

Having trouble placing Mr Britling this month; the "not a photograph" challenge may be our best option.

7swynn
Bewerkt: nov 9, 2016, 8:55 am

>4 ronincats: Thanks Roni!

>5 weird_O: Hi Bill! I'm on track to break 150 this year, which I've only done once before. Persistence ....

>6 lyzard: Thanks Liz! Yeah, it doesn't really have a natural slot, does it? Although I've seen "HGW" as an abbreviation for the German phrase "Herzlichen Glückwunsch" ("Congratulations!") but I don't know whether that counts as recognizable. The translation challenge is also a possibility: according to Worldcat, there exist translations (at least) in:

Danish ("Hr. Britling og verdenskrigen"),
French ("M. Britling commence á voir clair"),
Swedish (Mr. Britling kommer till klarheit")

and at least two in German: "Mr. Britling schreibt bis zum Morgengrauen" or "Mr. Britling's Weg zur Erkenntnis" (i.e., "Mr. Britling writes until dawn" or "Mr. Britling's path to knowledge." Oh, those wacky Germans.)

Or the photograph challenge. I'll be happy to follow your lead.

8lyzard
nov 8, 2016, 6:37 pm

I was looking at the translation challenge, but I think its parameters are actually "read a book in a language other than the one it was written in". It might be worth asking a clarification question.

9PaulCranswick
nov 8, 2016, 6:54 pm

Happy New Thread, Steve.

I have a couple of your "Tower of Due" on the shelves.

10drneutron
nov 9, 2016, 1:03 pm

Happy new thread!

11swynn
nov 9, 2016, 2:37 pm

>8 lyzard: I understood the second part of

"Either a translated book or a book in your language that is translated"

to allow the possibility of reading a book in its original language, provided that a translation exists, and some of the titles already listed seem to assume this reading. But I suppose it could mean a foreign-language translation of a work originally written in the LTer's mother tongue. I'll be happy to ask for clarification if you'd prefer listing it under that challenge (are you going for a sweep?)

>9 PaulCranswick: Good reason for me to watch your thread, Paul!

>10 drneutron: Thanks, Jim!

12scaifea
nov 11, 2016, 11:34 am

Happy new thread, Steve!

13swynn
Bewerkt: nov 22, 2016, 3:42 pm

>12 scaifea: Thanks, Amber!



136) Brotherhood of the Wheel / R.S. Belcher
Date: 2016

This is a contemporary fantasy from the author of the weird-western "Golgotha" series. This series features truckers and bikers as descendants of the Knights Templars, keeping the roads safe for travelers. In this one they battle a supernatural serial killer working a plan for global apocalypse.

It's not bad, but probably won't have much appeal outside its genre audience.

Is CB-jargon still really a thing?

14swynn
Bewerkt: nov 22, 2016, 3:42 pm



137) Weapons of Math Destruction / Cathy O'Neil
Date: 2016

Cathy O'Neil has been a math professor, a hedge-fund analyst, and a data scientist. She also has a conscience and is concerned about disadvantages of relying on big-data algorithms. Big data algorithms are everywhere and do amazing things; but they are also imperfect. She cites instances where algorithms have unjustly cost people jobs, insurance, or fair treatment, and have even put people in jail.

In education: an algorithm for evaluating teachers gives results that vary so wildly from one year to the next that they are essentially random -- and yet are used for employment decisions. In criminal justice: an algorithm for guessing whether a criminal will recommit, is used to give black prisoners longer sentences than their white peers. In marketing: algorithms price goods according to what a customer is willing and able to pay rather any intrinsic value -- so that for example when buying insurance, a driver with a clean driving record but poor consumer credit can pay more for auto insurance than someone with a drunk driving conviction.

O'Neil has plenty of examples and also suggestions for how things could be better. If we ever decide to move in a direction that favors reason and fairness over ever-more efficient scapegoating, her suggestions would be a useful guide. Alas, I am not optimistic. Still: recommended.

15drneutron
nov 14, 2016, 12:06 pm

She has a blog called, I think, mathbabe that I read occasionally. It's worth a look if you found the book interesting.

16swynn
Bewerkt: nov 15, 2016, 11:45 am

>15 drneutron: Yes, she mentions the blog in her book. I've checked it out and it's very interesting -- also recommended!

17tymfos
nov 16, 2016, 7:47 pm

Happy new thread, Steve!

18swynn
Bewerkt: nov 22, 2016, 3:39 pm

>17 tymfos: Thanks, Terri!



138) Ninefox Gambit / Yoon Ha Lee
Date: 2016

This launches a military space-fantasy series, set in a universe where physical laws are subject to consensus. (I can't help thinking of this.) Technology depends on rituals, holidays, and arrangements of the calendar to work. Rebels can disable technology, or even create their own alternatives, by celebrating new holidays or changing the number of days in a week.
That's precisely the problem faced by our heroine Cheris, a bright young officer who has earned a reputation for unconventional -- though not too unconventional -- thinking.

A rebel group has taken over a space station, the Fortress of Scattered Needles, and has started to alter the laws under which it operates. Cheris is tapped to lead the mission to retake it, in partnership with the brilliant general Shuos Jedao. Jedao, everybody agrees, is the only general smart and ruthless enough to recapture the Fortress. He is also unstable, probably psychotic, and sort of dead.

The narrative style is of the jump-right-in variety. Explanations are both needed and scarce. But if you're willing to hang on and figure things out as you go, it's a terrific story: a twisted buddy-cop psychological thriller with lots of things going boom. Recommended.

Cover art is by Chris Moore.

19drneutron
nov 18, 2016, 10:45 am

That one sounds great!

20swynn
nov 21, 2016, 1:37 pm

>19 drneutron: It is, Jim! Hope you like it if you get around to it!

21swynn
Bewerkt: nov 22, 2016, 3:41 pm



139) What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria?
Date: 2008

This is a collection of essays, focused on varies questions relating to the Library of Alexandria, arranged roughly in chronological order according to their subject. The narrative that emerges is that the main library was destroyed by fire in 48 BCE when Julius Caesar set fire to his ships; and that its daughter library in the Serapeum was destroyed by Christian rioters in 391 ACE. There remains a story that Muslims destroyed the library in 642 ACE on orders of the Caliph Umar, but this apocryphal story is almost certainly a myth.

They're academic essays, with the usual challenges: the authors assume a level of contextual knowledge that I personally lack; they occasionally focus on minutiae whose significance is lost on me; and they're less interested in telling a story than I am in hearing one. Also, two essays are in French -- I'm not going to pretend to have grasped more than the barest outlines of those. Still-- the nerd in me can't help but be intrigued by this stuff. One author estimates the possibility of an Alexandrian firestorm in 48 BC by comparing ancient Alexandria to 1871 Chicago. Another discusses points in the theology of Synesius, who attempted to reconcile Christianity with Neoplatonism. I'm going to have forgotten all details by sometime next week, but I've enjoyed the excursion.

22swynn
Bewerkt: nov 22, 2016, 3:40 pm



140) Roadside Magic / Lilith Saintcrow
Date: 2016

This is the second in Saintcrow's "Gallow and Ragged" series, which began with Trailer Park Fae. The fairy plague continues, and now Robin Ragged finds herself on the bad side of the Queen of Summer -- a very bad bad side to be on. The armormaster Gallowglass does his best to try to protect her from Summer and from Summer's rival Unwinter, who has his own reasons to be interested in Ragged, and who has a well-motivated grudge against Gallowglass.

I enjoyed the first, though I wasn't crazy about the prose. This is more of the same, but I knew what to expect this time so the prose didn't bother me as much. I'll read the third.

Cover art is by the terrific Daniel Dos Santos.

23PaulCranswick
nov 24, 2016, 6:05 pm



Happy Thanksgiving, Steve.

24ronincats
nov 24, 2016, 6:53 pm

25swynn
Bewerkt: nov 24, 2016, 10:20 pm

Thanks, Paul & Roni! We stayed home -- my son's work schedule made it pointless to travel, so it was just we three low key. Still, we ate much too much, and I made a sweet potato cheesecake that was just too good. I'm currently immobile, but will be ready to roll off the couch and eat again maybe sometime next week.

Hope your holiday was also excellent!

26swynn
Bewerkt: nov 30, 2016, 12:39 am

141) Mr. Britling Sees It Through / H.G. Wells
Date: 1917

Mr. Britling is a country gentleman living leisurely in Essex, paying the bills by writing popular essays on timely topics. He is aware of trouble brewing in the Continent, but believes things will sort themselves out because the Germans are not so monumentally stupid as to start a war. Until, of course, they do. Britling watches the progress of the Great War with increasing despair, as his friends and neighbors and his only son go to soldier, as refugees seek safety, and as his political and religious beliefs are tested.

There's not much of a plot, and it's awfully talky: it's essentially about one Englishman's subjective response to the War. This sort of interior drama rarely appeals to me, so I'm not sure why this one worked so well -- but it did. I think it helped that I never felt Wells was preaching; the goal seemed to be to examine without judgment the changes in his hero's emotion and mind. It probably helped that I read it at a time when, like Mr. Britling's, my assumptions about political trends faced a dispiriting challenge. (But let's not hyberbolize: the difference in scale is significant. So may it continue.) For whatever reason I found it compelling and occasionally moving. Recommended.

27swynn
Bewerkt: nov 30, 2016, 12:37 am



142) Bitter River / Julia Keller
Date: 2013

This is the second entry in Keller's "Bell Elkins" mystery series featuring a public prosecutor in rural West Virginia. In this one, Bell investigates the murder of a local high school girl, pregnant, strangled, found in a car submerged in a river. On the personal front, Bell deals with a much younger boyfriend and attendant anxieties; an ex-CIA agent in town just for a visit; and her jerk of an ex, who now enjoys primary custody of their daughter.

It's not bad. Some bits are a little too ninja-action for the context, but overall it delivers. I'll proably read more.

This is my West Virginia read for the 50 states challenge.

28tymfos
nov 28, 2016, 10:24 pm

>27 swynn: I have the first in that series on my Ever-Expanding List.

29swynn
nov 28, 2016, 11:55 pm

>28 tymfos: Well it definitely starts with a bang, Terri! Hope you like it if you get around to it.

30swynn
Bewerkt: nov 30, 2016, 12:36 am



143) Republican Theology / Benjamin T. Lynerd
Date: 2014

Lynerd argues that there is a uniquely American political theology whose roots reach back to the Revolution, and which explains the cozy relationship between evangelicals and Republicans. It begins with a commitment to small government: government exists only to protect life, liberty, and property; to the extent that government assumes additional roles it risks diminishment of liberty, and at worst becomes tyrannical.

This is a view that the signers of the Declaration of Independece would have recognized. Lynerd traces it to Locke, who was a deep influence on those guys. Republican theology takes it a step further: liberty is a gift of God, granted to humans to the extent that they follow God's laws. The more virtuous a nation's citizens, the greater its freedom, and vice versa, in a vicious circle of righteousness. Keeping in mind the link between personal virtue and freedom, it is appropriate for government to make laws that promote personal virtue and control temptation. For the most part, this viewpoint coincides with the Republicans' message of small government. And though evangelicals may find themselves in tension with the party's libertarians, their joint commitment to small government interference makes them natural allies against the Democrats' expensive, misguided and sinful attempts at social engineering.

These arguments sound familiar to me. I was raised in an evangelical faith, and I was a believer (sometimes a very enthusiastic one) for my first twenty years or so. The church's political never made sense to me though. Since my earliest memories are that the church avoided politics until 1980 or so, I thought that the marriage of evangelicals and Republicans was largely a weird Reagan-era thing that just won't go away. It certainly was not always so. And yet these principles -- small government and the link between personal virtue and liberty -- find expression all through our history. Lynerd's work describes this historical context, so that helps my understanding a bit.

And yet: quibbles. Lynerd discusses theological niceties which I think are moot for most believers. He acknowledges this up front, that his sources are preachers and theologians rather than rank-and-file believers. Questions about total depravity vs. free will for example are probably not big issues to believers. Having sat through some theology classes, I'd argue that even for theologians, particularly evangelicals, the question is pretty muddy.

And in a chapter about theologians and Darwin, Lynerd gets Darwinism wrong, giving it a definition that sounds more like Lamarckism:

This intricate system admits to a relatively simple synopsis: the structure of every organic being has the "plastic" capacity to adapt to external conditions, adjustments that manifest in gradual genetic transformations within a species, and, finally, with the perishing of subspecies that fail to adapt for survival.

31swynn
Bewerkt: nov 30, 2016, 12:35 am



144) Central Station / Lavie Tidhar
Date: 2016

Collection of interconnected stories featuring members of an extended family around a Tel Aviv spaceport. There are a number of developments that challenge what it means to be human: robots, cyborgs, disembodied artificial intelligences, direct brain links to social media, vat-grown children, data parasitism ... The writing is terrific, the setting is rich, and themes are thought-provoking. Recommended.

Cover is by Sarah Anne Langton.

32swynn
dec 1, 2016, 5:42 pm



145) The Obelisk Gate / N.K. Jemisin

This is the follow-up to Jemisin's fantastic The Fifth Season, which I read and loved during this year's Hugo season. I don't want to gush, so I'll just say: Gush.

But read the first one first.

33The_Hibernator
dec 1, 2016, 8:03 pm

Republican Theology sounds interesting. Good review.

34swynn
dec 2, 2016, 11:04 pm

>33 The_Hibernator: It is interesting, Rachel! It also added about a dozen works on religion and politics to the neverending tbr list ... so you may see more here sometime.

35swynn
dec 2, 2016, 11:20 pm



146) The Creative Fire / Brenda Cooper

Earlier this year I read and enjoyed Cooper's The Edge of Dark. TEOD is the first in a series, but it turns out that the series is a follow-up to an earlier series. The Creative Fire is the first of that first series, and after The Edge of Dark it's a bit of a let-down. (It also probably didn't help that I read it right after N.K. Jemisin's The Obelisk Gate)

It takes place on a generation ship with strongly stratified social classes: the "Grays" do manual labor, the "Reds" provide security, the "Blues" perform more professional tasks, and the "Greens" lead. At one time, the social classes were more permeable and all passengers had a voice in the ship's governance, but those days are no more. Ruby is a young gray with a lovely voice and a little more curiosity than is good for her, when an accident brings her into contact with a Blue, who inspires her to find her way into other parts of the ship. Revolution is not far behind.

Based loosely on the life of Evita Perón, it ought to be more interesting than it is, but it's full of bland, barely-differentiated characters and a moderate case of the Mary Sues. I'll read the next (and last) in the series, but I'm happy I read The Edge of Dark first, because I'd never have read it on the strength of this.

I do, however, quite like the cover, which is by John Picacio.

36swynn
Bewerkt: dec 7, 2016, 6:18 pm



147) The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There / Catherynne M. Valente

September travels to the land below Fairyland, where her shadow has been having a lot of fun throwing parties for other shadows. Problem is, the shadows have been taking all their magic with them, leaving Fairyland-above wanting for magic.

This sequel to The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making continues the spirit and tone of the first, but it's (inevitably) not such a refreshing surprise this time around. Still, I quite liked it and will continue the series.

37swynn
Bewerkt: dec 10, 2016, 3:27 am



148) Divorcing Jack / Colin Bateman
Date: 1995

Dan Starkey is a Belfast journalist. He's gotten into a bit of trouble with his wife, who kicked him out after she caught him kissing someone he oughtn't. It probably would have ended with the kiss, honest, if only she hadn't kicked him out, but she did and it didn't, leaving Starkey juggling an angry wife, a new lover, and the American reporter he's supposed to be showing around Belfast.

As if things weren't yet complicated enough, he pops out for a pizza and returns to find his new lover dying of gunshot wounds. As she dies she cryptically says: "Divorce Jack." Well, divorce seems likelier than ever but who in the world is Jack? And now he's murder suspect, hunted by the police -- and for some reason by the IRA and the loyalists as well.

It's a super fun and funny Irish noir. Recommended for readers who like that sort of thing.

And yes, there's a pistol-packing nun-for-hire and a Jack Russell terrier, though not in the same scene. Still, that's a great cover, isn't it?

38swynn
dec 11, 2016, 2:30 am

149) With Americans of Past and Present Days / J.A. Jusserand
Date: 1916

This was the winner of the inaugural Pulitzer Prize for History, back in 1917. It's a collection of essays, mostly on French-American relations, written by a French ambassador to the United States, The essays throw an interesting light on American history, beginning with an essay describing George Washington's relationship with Rochambeau. Other subjects include Pierre Charles l'Enfant, the French architect who laid out the streets of D.C. and more general treatments of Washington's and Lincoln's relations with France.

Jusserand highlights stories that get left out of the usual accounts of the American Revolution and the Civil War, and for that I'm glad to have read it. But his favorite theme is what wonderful friends we are, we Americans and French, and he patiently details every compliment paid by any American politician to a French general, or vice versa, and describes the medals and honors mutually conferred. It gets a bit saccharine and tedious.

Cynically, and considering the publication date, it feels as if Jusserand emphasizes French cooperation in our wars and our mutual admiration to remind his readers that, you know, it would be okay if they were to return the favor. But to be fair, the essays were written over the course of thirteen years, not necessarily under the threat of war. (Maybe compiled and published in order to remind his readers that, you know ... )

So: interesting view on the history of French-American relations but with long dull spots. Recommended accordingly.

39scaifea
dec 11, 2016, 11:26 am

Oh, gosh, I'd love to read through all the different Pulitzer categories. Someday, maybe...

40swynn
dec 12, 2016, 11:35 pm

>39 scaifea: Well, I don't know how far I'll get. I have a vague idea of working through the winners in History as Liz & I read through the bestsellers. But some of those are pretty thick-- the winner for 1920 is a two-volume history of the Mexican-American War for example. So we'll see.

41lyzard
dec 13, 2016, 12:40 am

Heh! I already have a fiction challenge pencilled in for myself for the future.

Great minds...

42swynn
Bewerkt: dec 13, 2016, 10:28 am



150) Untrodden Ground / Harold H. Bruff

Constitutional history of the executive office, written by the former dean of the University of Colorado Law School (and, as if that weren't authority enough, the guy who literally (co-)wrote the book on separation of powers law). I'm going to assume he knows what he's talking about.

Where to begin the praise? There is so much information and insight packed in here, and covers American presidents from George Washington's acknowledgement that for him interpreting the Constitution would be walking on "untrodden ground"; to Barack Obama's finessed reading of the War Powers Act. There's even an oblique reference to our 45th president:

Barack Obama is fond of noting the unlikelihood that a black man with an unusual name could rise to the American presidency. Small wonder, then, that some of our least stable citizens think his presidency illegitimate, on grounds that he must have been foreign-born and thus ineligible to the office.

As that snippet suggests, Bruff's pose is not one of indifferent observer. He wryly notes historical ironies, pronounces Supreme Court decisions as "correct" or "incorrect," and passes judgment on Presidents from the "best" to the "worst." Lincoln and Johnson, respectively. Such personal touches, together with a solid sense of narrative, make Bruff's information-dense prose engaging-- less like a textbook than a semester with a favorite professor.

Not that it's a quick read. On the contrary, it demands close attention. Note-taking is advised. Bruff follows multiple threads, picking up and leaving off as historical events demand. We follow Constitutional implications of every aspect of the executive branch -- the development of its bureaucracy, the function of executive orders, the changing role of the Vice President, ambiguities of the faithful execution clause, limits on the executive vesting clause, the relationship between "war powers" and the office of "Commander in Chief", the slow expansion of executive power ... It's rich and it's readable and it's exhausting. My only complaint is the lack of a bibliography. (Dagnabbit why does nobody include a bibliography anymore goldurn kids?)

Another disappointment: I'd hoped that, considering our current situation, the story would reassure me about our Republic's checks and balances; that I'd be able to breathe some sigh of relief knowing that Congress or the Supreme Court would be able to slap those checks on a (purely hpothetical) unhinged sociopathic narcissist before he committed irreparable damage. Alas, dear reader, this is not bedtime reading. He can fuck us up long before *those* kick in.

Sorry about that. Still: good book. If there's still a Republic around in four years I hope Bruff will write a supplement.

43scaifea
dec 13, 2016, 6:38 am

>40 swynn: Oh, yeesh. Yes, I can imagine that some of the winners would be a challenge, for certain.

>41 lyzard: I'm working through the fiction winners now (very slowly).

44swynn
dec 14, 2016, 11:04 am

Here's an interesting list: the 100 most-discussed papers from peer-reviewed journals of 2016, as measured by Altmetric:

At number 66: reading books correlates with longer life.

An abstract of the article is here, though the article itself is behind a pay wall. Because Elsevier.

45brodiew2
dec 14, 2016, 11:15 am

Good morning, Swynn! this is my first visit to your thread and you have quite a variety of different styles and genres.

>13 swynn: I looked this book earlier in the year because I thought the premise was fantastic. However, I was immediately turned off by its graphic nature. It is definitely not my cuppa tea.

>37 swynn: Great cover and excellent review. I may look into this once further.

46swynn
Bewerkt: dec 14, 2016, 2:42 pm

>45 brodiew2: Welcome to the thread, Brodie! I've been terrible about exploring other threads this year -- or for that matter even about checking threads I mean to check regularly. So I haven't checked yours earlier. But ... with the JSA topping your latest, I expect good things and will spend some time over there soon.

As for the variety ... yeah, I'm intrigued by a lot of things. Some might call it an attention problem but me I call it oh look! Book!

Yeah, Brotherhood of the Wheel starts off with a psycho-of-the-week who we're supposed to hate just because the author pushes some gratuitously grotesque buttons. The book improves after it moves on to fighting the main villain and developing the world's mythology. Still, it remains pretty violent and I wouldn't necessarily recommend giving it a second chance.

Divorcing Jack is also violent, but in a different way. If you enjoy noir crime stories then I do recommend that one.

47brodiew2
Bewerkt: dec 14, 2016, 3:58 pm

>46 swynn: 'gratuitously grotesque buttons' is the perfect description! I don't mind violence as much as torture and the aforementioned buttons.

I'm glad you liked the JSA header images on my thread. I hope to see you there sometime soon.

48swynn
dec 18, 2016, 1:09 am



151) The Last Policeman / Ben H. Winters

Murder mystery set in a near future where human civilization is doomed to be wiped out by a meteor in just six months. Unsurprisingly there is an epidemic of suicides -- but one suicide just doesn't look right to cop Harry Palace. He investigates it as a murder, over the objections and ridicule of everyone else who tells him (a) it's clearly a suicide, and (b) we'll all be dead soon anyway, so what's the point?

It's quite good, and I'll read the others in the series.

49rosalita
dec 18, 2016, 12:52 pm

I really liked that trilogy, Steve!

50swynn
dec 19, 2016, 10:51 am

>49 rosalita: I'm looking forward to the rest of it!

51swynn
Bewerkt: dec 20, 2016, 10:14 am



152) Changing Channels / Kay Mills
Date: 2004

WLBT is an NBC-affiliated television station in Jackson, Mississippi. From its founding in 1953 through the early 1960s it featured programming for a Caucasian audience, barely acknowledging the existence of its black audience, even though the black population of Jackson was around 40%. WLBT's erasure of black faces was no accident: it would decline to air national news stories favorable to the civil rights movement, or interviews with any nonwhite interviewees.

WLBT's segregationist policies were arguably no worse than that of other stations in the mid-twentieth-century American South, and these policies came under increasingly heavy criticism from the growing civil rights movement. In 1964, a group of civil rights activists and the United Church of Christ filed a petition requesting that the Federal Communications Commission not renew WLBT's license. There followed a game of legal football that lasted several years: the FCC ruled that the petitioners had no standing; the Court of Appeals (under including a pre-Supreme-Court Warren Burger) ruled that they did; the FCC ruled that WLBT had met the license requirements; the Court of Appeals ruled that they hadn't; WLBT's license was revoked; they appealed and lost.

During the legal challenges, WLBT made significant changes to their policies in a too-late effort to address complaints. More significantly, a multiracial nonprofit took over the station's operations during the search for a new licensee. By the time a new license was awarded, policies were dramatically different, and the station's staff dramatically more diverse.

The WLBT case is presented here as a watershed case in civil rights legislation, particularly in the history and application of the Fairness Doctrine. She closes with the case's numerous positive effects, but also a sort of elegy for the Fairness Doctrine, which met its nemesis in Ronald Reagan and has never really recovered.

Personally I wonder how the Fairness Doctrine could even be revived: it was, IIUC, premised on equity of representation across scarce broadcasting channels. In a communications environment where broadcasting is nearly obsolete and other communication channels are the opposite of scarce, it's hard to see how the same Fairness Doctrine can be defended. Except, of course, that we may be seeing the effects of its absence in our increasingly polarized news sources, which I think feeds the perceived credibility of fake news. Oh, dilemmas.

Anyway, it's an interesting legal story and recommended for readers interested in the civil rights movement.

52MickyFine
dec 21, 2016, 6:30 pm

I somehow missed the jump to this thread but I'll keep up with you for what remains of this year. :)

53rosalita
dec 22, 2016, 9:39 am

>51 swynn: That looks like a good one! The media landscape has changed so drastically in just the last decade that I also wonder how we could ever revive a concept like the Fairness Doctrine or if it's necessary. My opinion is that something is needed but I'm at a loss to know what, exactly.

54PaulCranswick
dec 23, 2016, 11:20 pm



Wouldn't it be nice if 2017 was a year of peace and goodwill.
A year where people set aside their religious and racial differences.
A year where intolerance is given short shrift.
A year where hatred is replaced by, at the very least, respect.
A year where those in need are not looked upon as a burden but as a blessing.
A year where the commonality of man and woman rises up against those who would seek to subvert and divide.
A year without bombs, or shootings, or beheadings, or rape, or abuse, or spite.

2017.

Festive Greetings and a few wishes from Malaysia!

55lyzard
dec 24, 2016, 3:34 pm



Best wishes, Steve! Thanks for your company in the best-seller challenge. :)

56ronincats
dec 24, 2016, 11:58 pm

This is the Christmas tree at the end of the Pacific Beach Pier here in San Diego, a Christmas tradition.

To all my friends here at Library Thing, I want you to know how much I value you and how much I wish you a very happy holiday, whatever one you celebrate, and the very best of New Years!

57swynn
Bewerkt: dec 28, 2016, 10:48 pm

>52 MickyFine: Good to see you, Micky! Hope to see you again next year!

>53 rosalita: Yeah, it's a puzzle. The problems of media seem so much more complicated than they were back in the mid-20th century. I don't know whether there is any regulatory remedy for the shrieking mess that passes for news, or for political discourse. I'm not optimistic.

>54 PaulCranswick:
>55 lyzard:
>56 ronincats: Thanks and Happy Holidays to you Paul and Liz and Roni and to every visitor to this thread. My Christmas weekend was an excellent one, spent with family and out of WiFi range. We had some interesting conversations -- including political ones, which proceeded carefully and respectfully despite representation of multiple views. Minds were not changed but we're still okay with each other, which is as close to Peace on Earth as I was hoping for. May you all have at least as much.

58swynn
Bewerkt: dec 29, 2016, 9:09 am

I didn't read nearly as much over Christmas break as I'd hoped, but since the time was filled with family instead I can't regret it either.

Still: a few titles were finished, and I hope to squeeze in a few more. Here's one of the done:



153) Being a Beast / Charles Foster
Date: 2016

Charles Foster is not a badger. But he is a cousin of sorts, having a common ancester only a few million years ago. Foster and the average badger have a lot in common, and while the perceptual gap may be significant it seems possible that Foster could learn something about what it's like to be a badger simply by behaving like a badger: crawling about with his nose six inches from the ground, sleeping underground, eating worms. Yeah. There are things about eating a live worm that you can only learn by eating a live worm. Or less directly by reading a firsthand account by somebody who has. And badgers aren't very literary.

The logic for becoming a badger applies equally well to other animals, and in this book Foster tells about his attempts to learn what it is like to be an otter, a fox, a deer, and a swift. He mixes the subjective experience of his experiments (swimming a river-bottom at midnight; volunteering to be chased by staghounds), with more objective natural history and a good deal of imagination to conjecture what it's like to be a beast.

It's hugely interesting, but I have some reservations. The language is rich, which can sometimes be a hurdle: it's eloquent, colorful, filled with classical allusions and literary devices -- and, I suspect, just what a beast doesn't think. Foster seems aware of this tendency and will sometimes admonish himself to avoid anthropomorphism. But then he'll write, for example, of trees in a storm: "Some branches that had brazenly reached too high were wrenched hubristically down." (Are the branches hubristic? The wind? Does a badger care?)

I'll confess also to being disturbed at the way Foster includes his children in some of his project. I understand that the idea of sleeping underground and eating worms probably appeals to many eight-year-old boys; still, I can't imaging encouraging my own eight-year-old to do it. Even less can I imagine clearing the experimental protocol with his mother. I'm quite certain that his argument, "But badgers are social creatures!" would be unpersuasive in my household.

Still: recommended for anyone curious about what insights might come from behaving like a beast, especially for anyone too squeamish to try it and see.

59swynn
Bewerkt: dec 30, 2016, 1:14 pm

154) The U.P. Trail / Zane Grey

This was the bestselling novel in the U.S. for 1918. Spoilers follow.

"U.P." here stands for "Union Pacific," and the story is a historical melodrama set against the construction of the transcontinental railway. Our hero is Warren Neale, a surveyor and engineer for the railroad who in his professional life must confront incompetence and graft, and in his personal life falls in love with a girl who just can't stay unkidnapped. Our heroine is Allie Lee, whose wagon train is attacked by Indians: her mother is killed, but Allie hides from the raiders, barely survives, and is rescued by Neale. For Allie, though, any rescue is only temporary: subsequently she is kidnapped by rascals, abducted by Indians, held captive by her evil stepfather, re-attacked by Indians, re-abducted by rascals, and re-imprisoned by the evil stepfather who has a dastardly plan to use her sex for profit: standing around dressed like a loose woman to distract his gambling partners. Fortunately she is rescued from this villainous fate by a madam with a heart of gold -- only for the madam to turn against her with another, less subtle, plan to use her sex for profit. Then she is re-re-captured by the evil stepfather. Pauline (from "The Perils of ...") didn't have it this hard.

Considering Allie's travails, Neale strikes me as a singularly ineffective romantic hero -- though I don't read many romances so I may have my tropes all wrong. Instead of moving heaven and earth to rescue his beloved, he mopes around about his lost and probably-dead love. (Actually, Neale seems more attached to his gunslinging cowboy friend than he ever does to Allie -- I'd love to read a queer-theory analysis of this story.) Lacking much help from Neale, Allie mostly has to rescue herself or find help elsewhere: an Indian woman helps her in one case, the gunslinging cowboy friend in another. (In fact the cowboy friend dies while rescuing Allie from the madam with a heart of gold, and that's when Neale *really* gets mad.)

Plenty happens, with explosions, shootouts, evil deeds, and more Christ figures than a religious souvenir shop. Grey's style is mostly transparent, the thrills keep things moving along, and it's easy to see how it sold so well. Unfortunately, there's also a distinct nastiness toward immigrants and nonwhite characters that makes it difficult to read uncritically today.

60MickyFine
dec 30, 2016, 1:35 pm

>59 swynn: Hoo-boy. That's a lot of damsel-in-distress-ing for one novel. :P

61lyzard
dec 30, 2016, 3:34 pm

>59 swynn:, >60 MickyFine:

Oh, you have NO idea...

The reviewing phrase already in my head is "Gets abducted more often than the heroine of a Gothic novel", but a reference to The Perils Of Pauline is valid too. :D

62brodiew2
dec 30, 2016, 3:49 pm

>59 swynn: Amusing review, swynn. I got a kick out of it. Poor Allie. How was she not killed?

63rosalita
dec 30, 2016, 4:02 pm

>59 swynn: I always enjoy your and Liz's reviews of these old bestsellers, Steve. This one sounds like a pip.

64MickyFine
dec 30, 2016, 4:38 pm

>61 lyzard: Having made my way through The Mysteries of Udolpho that is very apt. But did she cry as often as a Gothic heroine?

65lyzard
dec 30, 2016, 4:47 pm

No, she's not a crier, I'll give her that.

(Congrats on making it through Udolpho!)

66swynn
Bewerkt: dec 30, 2016, 6:06 pm

>60 MickyFine: No kidding. The girl gets abducted the way a Tarkington heroine fills out her dance card.

>61 lyzard: I'll defer to your experience of Gothic heroines, but they'd have to pretty kidnappy even to be in competition. Looking forward to your thoughts.

>62 brodiew2: Glad you like it, Brodie! Allie owed her survival to a case of unlikelycoincidencitis, fortunately a chronic one.

>63 rosalita: It is indeed, Julia!Looking forward now to ... oh, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I actually *am* looking forward to that one. Don't tell Liz, but we're back to Zane Grey for 1920.

>64 MickyFine:
>65 lyzard: She's not a crier, and that's a curious thing. After the opening attack on her wagon train, Allie has a bad case of PTSD. Neale spends a lot of time nursing her back from the brink. So it's surprising how coolly she handles her subsequent abductions. I'm not sure whether it's just inconsistent characterisation or if Grey is making an argument for her resilience.

Allie's frequent abductions are, honestly, low-hanging fruit. I'm having a harder time wrapping my head around ZG's moral landscape: I can't figure out whether he thinks the corruption and graft is a moral outrage or an unfortunate nuisance; whether Native Americans are a menace or tragic heroes; whether Irish laborers are the salt of the earth or vermin. He continuously seems to want these things at both extremes simultaneously without any nuanced middle ground -- just like he wants Allie to be simultaneously resourceful and in need of rescue.

67lyzard
Bewerkt: dec 30, 2016, 6:20 pm

I guess you could argue from the book's #1 status that he succeeded in making it all things to all people but yeah, the lurches in attitude are exasperating.

I guess part of the point is that Allie is growing up, but a more annoying interpretation is that Love Gives You Superpowers...

68PaulCranswick
dec 31, 2016, 7:41 am



Looking forward to your continued company in 2017.
Happy New Year, Steve

69swynn
Bewerkt: jan 1, 2017, 12:48 am

>67 lyzard: I can't help but think that a more convenient superpower would be Not Getting Kidnapped In the First Place (or second place or third or twenty-eighth ... )

>68 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul! See you soon. I just have some housekeeping to do over here ...

70swynn
Bewerkt: jan 1, 2017, 2:18 am



155) The Witch of Lime Street / David Jaher
Date: 2016

Post-WWI there was an explosion of interest in spiritualism, championed in part by Arthur Conan Doyle. On the other hand were skeptics and debunkers, most prominently Harry Houdini, who worked to expose celebrity mediums as frauds. In the 1920s, the magazine Scientific American promoted a contest offering a cash prize to any medium who could convince a committee of experts that his or her ability to contact the dead was genuine. Doyle's advocacy helped identify candidates, while Houdini served on the committee. The most perplexing case was that of Mina Crandon, the "Witch of Lime Street," a medium who seemed to have convinced all judges but one.

Jaher has reconstructed this story through a thorough review of personal papers, newspaper reports and secondary sources, and the amount of detail he has accumulated is impressive. He seems to have included most of it. The ratio of forest to trees is a bit low, but the details certainly help with vivid characterisations and close plotting. Judicious editing would have helped but nevertheless I liked it quite well and recommend it.

71swynn
Bewerkt: jan 1, 2017, 2:17 am



156) How We Learn / Benedict Carey
Date: 2014

You know how your academic advisor told you that you need a consistent, quiet, distraction-free study space? Yeah, baloney. Turns out that variety is good, background music can help, and taking breaks is helpful. Flashcards are good, as is any sort of active rehearsal. Rehearse multiple skills simultaneously instead of focusing on one at a time. For big projects, start as early as you can even if you're not sure where you're going with the project. Actually, start as early as you can *especially* if you're not sure where you're going with the project. Also knock off for the day before you're finished. And for goodness sake get some sleep. Carey describes the experiments that lead us to think all of this is good advice.

72swynn
Bewerkt: jan 1, 2017, 2:16 am



157) Two Serpents Rise / Max Gladstone
Date: 2013

Second in the author's "Craft Sequence" series, following Three Parts Dead, which I read and loved back in October. I didn't find this one as riveting but it's still quite good. I liked especially Gladstone's attempt to imagine a Mesoamerican urban fantasy world, and his effort to explore questions about technology, sustainability, and popular culture.

The hero Caleb Altemoc is a mid-level risk manager for Red King Consolidated (RKC), a firm that supplies water to Dresediel Lex, a city "built between desert and sea by settlers who neither expected nor imagined their dry land would one day support seventeen million people." Before RKC, the gods kept the city supplied with fresh water in exchange for regular human sacrifices. But that all changed in the God Wars, when human magicians rose up against the gods. Some of the gods they killed, others they allowed to survive in a diminished capacity. Depending on your perspective, DL either "cast off the gods' yolk sic" or abandoned its true heritage. Caleb's employer is in the first camp, his father in the second. In either case: no more human sacrifices for Dresediel Lex.

The plot involves a merger with a rival water company, threatened by sabotage from agents unknown. Caleb's job is to prevent the sabotage, and he gets involved with a danger-loving girl whose relationship to the case is complicated. Everything builds up nicely to potential apocalypse: I can complain about pacing here and there in the first two-thirds, but the last third rips along like Quetzalcoatl on speed.

It's fun, recommended, and I'll read some more.

73swynn
Bewerkt: jan 1, 2017, 2:16 am



158) Notorious RBG / Irin Cameron and Shana Khnizhnik
Date: 2015

This is a pointedly un-academic appreciation of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She happens to be my current favorite Justice, so I'm willing to cut some slack on the authors' tendency to hagiography.

Please please please Your Honor: four more years. Or forever, if you can swing it.

74swynn
jan 1, 2017, 2:15 am



159) The Rains of Eridan / H.M. Hoover
Date: 1979

Juvenile science fiction story, set on a science colony. There is a mutiny on one of the colony's bases. The base's leaders are murdered, but their daughter Karen escapes and meets field researcher Theodora "Theo" Leslie. Theo shelters the girl and nurtures her talent for the scientific method. Together, Karen and Theo crack a mystery about the planet's ecosystem.

I liked it though I think I missed the window of ideal exposure. I would have *loved* to have discovered this in my elementary school library.

75swynn
Bewerkt: jan 1, 2017, 2:36 am



160) Ocean of Storms / Chrisotpher Mari
Date: 2016

An electromagnetic pulse wipes out most electronic systems on Earth. More puzzlingly, scientists discover that the source of the EMP is an explosion on the moon: the moon now bears a brand-new and indeterminately deep crevasse. The U.S. and China, on the brink of military hostilities, scramble to put together competing expeditions to explore the new lunar feature. Plot twists abound, which I won't list for fear of spoil. It's okay, but for me the hard-science appeal gave way to silliness about 2/3 of the way through.

There is room for a sequel, or even a series, but it appears to be a standalone for now. It was the Kindle First pick for November.

76swynn
jan 1, 2017, 2:36 am



161) Muti Nation / Monique Snyman

I don't remember when or why I picked this up for the Kindle, but the idea of a paranormal mystery series set in South Africa sounds appealing. This one is set in Pretoria, and the heroine is a consultant on occult crimes for Pretoria law enforcement. This opening entry involves a series of "muti" murders -- i.e., murders in which victims' bodies are mutilated for use in traditional magic. (This is apparently an authentic problem in South Africa and in other African nations as well.) I have a variety of complaints relating mostly to pacing and characterization, but really it's not bad for a self-published mystery and I'd probably read another entry.

77swynn
jan 1, 2017, 2:39 am

And that wraps it up for 2017. Plans for the new year will appear on my new thread, which I'll set up tomorrow.

Happy New Year everybody!

78rosalita
jan 1, 2017, 9:48 pm

I haven't seen your 2017 thread yet, Steve, so I thought I'd drop by the old place to let you know that we are again planning an Iowa City Meetup over the MLK Weekend. The planning is happening on Beth's 2017 thread, so please do join us there and hopefully in IC, too!

79swynn
jan 2, 2017, 12:17 am

>78 rosalita: Thanks, Julia! I will visit Beth's thread after setting up my new one.

80ronincats
jan 2, 2017, 12:21 am

Oh, Hoover wrote a number of excellent juvenile science fiction stories! I thought How We Learn was quite well done and I'm up to date on Gladstone's Craft Series. See you on the other side!