Rich Burridge's Blog : Weblog

« Apple Battery Recall | Main | Links for 29th Septe... »

Thursday September 28, 2006

Recently Read (August 2006 - September 2006)

Here's a list of the books I've read in the last two months, with an Amazon-style star rating and a few comments. It's been a good two months. Not a duff one amongst them.

Old Man's War - John Scalzi
Learning the World - Ken Macleod
Spin - Robert Charles Wilson
These were three of the Hugo award nominees this year, with Spin winning out. See a previous post for more thoughts on these.
A Stainless Steel Rat is Born - Harry Harrison
A Rat book I'd missed. I thought I'd read 'em all.
The Art of Discworld - Terry Pratchett
I don't know why I took so long to get around to reading this wonderful book. It shows off the art work of Paul Kidby with commentary by Terry. I've been reading the Discworld books since the first one came out in 1983. The only downside to reading this art book is that I'd built up in my mind what each of the characters looked like and they didn't always match up to the way that Kidby had drawn them. Oh well. No biggie.
Ghost Brigades - John Scalzi
Agent To The Stars - John Scalzi
I've now become a John Scalzi fan and will read anything he writes.
Hominids - Robert J. Sawyer
One of the previous Hugo award winning novels that I hadn't read. It was enjoyable but not riveting enough to make me immediately want to read the other two in the series.
Tourist Season - Carl Hiaasen
One For The Money - Janet Evanovich
The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes - K. C. Constantine
Edwin of the Iron Shoes - Marcia Muller
These four are from the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century list. I'm now looking for all Carl Hiaasen books and all Stephanie Plum books from Janel Evanovich. The latter writes some of the funniest mystery dialog that I've ever come across. I had trouble liking the main protagonist in Slow Tomatoes. He always seemed to be in self-destruct mode. If there are other books with this character, I doubt I'll be interested. There are too many other good books out there. Muller's woman PI is a female equivalent of Philip Marlowe. Tough. Hard boiled. No messin' with her. I'm still in two minds whether I'll read any more in this series.
The Man In The Cage - John Holbrooke Vance
The Rheingold Route - Arthur Maling
A Time Of Predators - Joe Gores
Three Edgar winning novels. All well written and enjoyable. Nice to finally read the one by Vance.
Number 10 - Sue Townsend
The British PM is loosing touch with the people of the country, so he decides to dress up as a woman, and go out amongst them. Very funny at times. A tad stretched in places.
Three Days To Never - Tim Powers
Tim Powers can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. Hard to classify what genre to put this in. A mixture of science fiction, suspense, thriller, horror and the supernatural, with broad strokes of humor thrown in.
Air - Geoff Ryman
It's not often I'm impressed with the mini reviews on the back of a book, but this one from John Clute resonated well with me:

"Reading the first sentence of Geoff Ryman's brilliant new novel is like passing through a Tipping Point. The instant he touches you with his story, you're caught, and the world changes..."

I highly recommend this book although the baby sub-plot and how it ended didn't gel for me. Maybe I wasn't thinking deeply enough...
To Fear A Painted Devil - Ruth Rendell
Two For The Dough - Janet Evanovich
Two more from authors I really like.
Perchance To Dream - Robert B. Parker
This is a followup to The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, written with the permission of the Chandler estate. It was okay, but I got the distinct impression that Parker had lost interest in this project. Huge passages quoted from The Big Sleep.
High Society - Ben Elton
Amongst other things, Ben Elton wrote the scripts for TV shows such as The Young Ones and Blackadder, two of my all-time favorite shows. He's written several novels. He'll take an interesting premise, then just run wild with it. In this case, he speculates on what could happen if you tried to legalize the sale of all drugs in the U.K. Ripping prose. Very funny. I also feel he got the ending just right.