Phil in SF started reading Abundance by Ezra Klein
To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history …
Going to see what the hype and criticism is all about.
Reviews and Comments
aka @kingrat@sfba.social. I'm following a lot of bookwyrm accounts, since that seems to be the only way to get reviews from larger servers to this small server. Also, I will like & boost a lot of reviews that come across my feed. I will follow most bookwyrm accounts back if they review & comment. Social reading should be social.
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Phil in SF reviewed Small Wars by Lee Child (Jack Reacher, #19.5)
The telex is brief and to the point: One active-duty personnel found shot to death …
Jack and Joe Reacher together
3 stars
Joe Reacher interrupts the drive of a promising officer in War Plans. When she stops her car, Joe Reacher executes her.
Jack Reacher is briefly assigned a post where he has to oversee the investigation of who killed the officer. Something is fishy when the local cops nab a recluse with no military background and claim it's a robbery gone wrong.
Will he ever figure out it was his brother? Yes. Yes he will because he's Reacher. He's a pure distillation of competence porn.
Phil in SF reviewed Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
An illuminating debut memoir of a woman in science; a moving portrait of a longtime …
Interesting
4 stars
Interesting memoir from paleobotanist Hope Jahren. She intersperses short chapters on plant life with vignettes from her life and career. Interesting because she clearly imparts a love for science as well as relates the shittiness of being a scientist. Other than when she identified the minerals that make up opal as the same mineral used by a tree to create nearly impervious seeds, Jahren does not dwell on the actual scientific process she's pursuing. It's mostly the tedium of creating things needed for experiments, the unfortunate discarding of specimens she tried to smuggle out of Ireland from an impromptu collection, and similar tales from being a scientist. I got a great sense of what her life as a scientist is like, but very few details of the actual science. I'm not sure how I feel about that, as I wasn't quite prepared for it. Extremely well written.
Phil in SF reviewed Trouble in Queenstown by Delia Pitts (The Vandy Myrick Mysteries, #1)
With Trouble in Queenstown, Delia Pitts introduces private investigator Vandy Myrick in a powerful mystery …
Starts interesting but gets increasingly more dumb
2 stars
Evander Myrick is the daughter of revered Queenstown police officer Evander Myrick, now a resident in a memory care facility. She's a former police officer herself, now starting a private investigations business. She's hired to find out if the wife of the mayor's nephew is cheating on him. She's wants the job because the mayor's connections will get her business for years to come. Just as she's about to report that nothing much is happening, the wife is murdered and the nephew has killed the murderer.
The villains are mustache-twirlers. They are also intent on monologuing their crimes to Evander. She is intent on not fucking recording them when they monologue. Or even investigating. Of course, neither are the police. So the big baddy is going to get away with it!
But then, the Lex Luthor of Queenstown inexplicably decides to make a run for it even though they are …
Evander Myrick is the daughter of revered Queenstown police officer Evander Myrick, now a resident in a memory care facility. She's a former police officer herself, now starting a private investigations business. She's hired to find out if the wife of the mayor's nephew is cheating on him. She's wants the job because the mayor's connections will get her business for years to come. Just as she's about to report that nothing much is happening, the wife is murdered and the nephew has killed the murderer.
The villains are mustache-twirlers. They are also intent on monologuing their crimes to Evander. She is intent on not fucking recording them when they monologue. Or even investigating. Of course, neither are the police. So the big baddy is going to get away with it!
But then, the Lex Luthor of Queenstown inexplicably decides to make a run for it even though they are winning. Thus sealing their guilt. OK, they're leaving town and getting away. But then... they turn around and come back, also for no reason except the author needs to have a big confrontation with the big bad guy.
But then, right after that her father (yes, he's there for the confrontation) remembers her name for the only time in the book. This is the emotional piece that Evander needed to feel complete, despite that never really being part of the emotional chasm that is our main character. Lots of other stuff is melodramatically and emotionally wrong with her at strange times, and usually when a side character that Evander has no reason to unload on, is present.
The plot is only coherent as a series of movie scenes where nothing lines up between them. I have no idea why this got a featured blurb in the Washington Post. This is not for readers. It's for someone who wants B-movie scenes in a book.
Phil in SF finished reading Trouble in Queenstown by Delia Pitts (The Vandy Myrick Mysteries, #1)
With Trouble in Queenstown, Delia Pitts introduces private investigator Vandy Myrick in a powerful mystery …
Starts off promising but gets progressively worse with every chapter, until at the end I wonder if any of the professional reviewers who rated this so highly actually finished it.
Phil in SF commented on Trouble in Queenstown by Delia Pitts (The Vandy Myrick Mysteries, #1)
With Trouble in Queenstown, Delia Pitts introduces private investigator Vandy Myrick in a powerful mystery …
ugh. the author is doing the thing in 1st person where we don't get to hear the important thoughts that would reveal information. just the protagonist's side thoughts.
"i knew that fragrance. I'd smelled it on two different women. one must have given the perfume to the other. i got the message contained in this coat. a communication meant for me alone from an adversary i hadn't realized i was fighting."
Phil in SF reviewed Crossed Genres Issue 21 by Crossed Genres (Crossed Genres 2.0, #21)
- The Semaphore Society by Kate Heartfield
- Slippery Slope by Holly Schofield
- Good Numbers by Nadya …
Wooden stories
2 stars
The Semaphore Society imagines a world where people who cannot communicate easily with "normal" (for want of a better word) people due to such maladies as lock-in syndrome find an online community where they communicate with each other through drawing. Good premise. Uninteresting plot.
Slippery Slope imagines a universe where body parts can be replaced & upgraded and sees how this plays out on a school playground where a bully can beat up another kid and steal their tongue (for instance). It ends with some overwrought hand-wringing from a bullied kid who turns the tables.
Good Numbers explores the concept that employed people might be expected to be good at their jobs and have "good numbers". Yes, capitalism expects people to be productive for the benefit of others. This doesn't have anything particularly interesting to say about it.
Phil in SF reviewed Under Fortunate Stars by Ren Hutchings
Fleeing the final days of the generations-long war with the alien Felen, smuggler Jereth Keeven’s …
Fun time-traveling how-dunnit
4 stars
152 years ago an unlikely event that ends a war between humans and alien Felen. Five people unconnected to the human government show up as the Felen besiege the center of human government with the first person able to communicate with the Felen, and negotiate a peace. Now, the crew of science research vessel Gallion finds itself in a time rift with the crew of the Jonah bearing the "Fortunate Five" who negotiated the peace. The crew has to get themselves and the Jonah out of the rift without changing their timeline.
Despite a lot of disasters thrown into the way of the cast, it never really feels like they won't succeed. The real question is going to be how they will succeed, with preserving the timeline or without? Ensemble of characters most of which are fleshed out well enough, though their backstories do lean a bit on how trauma …
152 years ago an unlikely event that ends a war between humans and alien Felen. Five people unconnected to the human government show up as the Felen besiege the center of human government with the first person able to communicate with the Felen, and negotiate a peace. Now, the crew of science research vessel Gallion finds itself in a time rift with the crew of the Jonah bearing the "Fortunate Five" who negotiated the peace. The crew has to get themselves and the Jonah out of the rift without changing their timeline.
Despite a lot of disasters thrown into the way of the cast, it never really feels like they won't succeed. The real question is going to be how they will succeed, with preserving the timeline or without? Ensemble of characters most of which are fleshed out well enough, though their backstories do lean a bit on how trauma formed them.
Ren Hutchings has another book coming out in the same universe, and I'll pick it up.
Phil in SF wants to read The Unkillable Frank Lightning by Josh Rountree
Catherine Coldbridge is a complicated woman: A doctor, an occultist, and, briefly, a widow.
In …
Frankenstein in the US West? sign me up.
Phil in SF started reading Crossed Genres Issue 21 by Crossed Genres (Crossed Genres 2.0, #21)
- The Semaphore Society by Kate Heartfield
- Slippery Slope by Holly Schofield
- Good Numbers by Nadya …
The new Kobo has a lot more room than the old Kobo, so I added all my old issues of magazines that I haven't gotten around to reading (Lightspeed, LCRW, Crossed Genres, etc.), and I'm going to try to get through a few of them now and then.
Phil in SF stopped reading The Nigerwife by Vanessa Walters
Nicole Oruwari has the perfect life: a handsome husband; a palatial house in the heart …
None of the characters were interesting by 23%.
Phil in SF commented on The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins
What if the key to happiness, success, and love was as simple as two words? …
New book on the If Books Could Kill podcast!
Phil in SF reviewed Chenneville by Paulette Jiles
Consumed with grief, driven by vengeance, a man undertakes an unrelenting odyssey across the lawless …
Excellent Western
5 stars
John Chenneville wakes up in a Union Army field hospital after being unconscious for months due to a serious head wound. He returns home only to find out his sister has been murdered while he was a soldier. The murderer appears to be a local deputy, so the sheriff doesn't seem inclined to do anything about it. John swears revenge, and thus begins a multi-state chase via foot, horseback, and boat. Along the way John meets a young female telegrapher but he is resolute on revenge instead of love.
The story is made by lots and lots of details about life on the post Civil War road that illustrate both his personality and what life was (presumably) like for an unattached veteran at the time. Additionally, the narration by Grover Gardner has just the right amount of gravelly old gentleman in it for the story.
Phil in SF commented on A History of the Railroad in 100 Maps by Jeremy Black
The first international history of railroads and railroad infrastructure told through stunningly reproduced maps.
Since …
Making an effort to get a few pages read every week.
Phil in SF started reading The Nigerwife by Vanessa Walters
Nicole Oruwari has the perfect life: a handsome husband; a palatial house in the heart …
Been sitting on my TBR long enough that the publisher has actually retitled the book as The Lagos Wife.