Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine So what are you READING?

And the Lesla-Lar multi issue story was very good.

Browsing through a used book store today I discovered a H. Beam Piper collaboration in an old Ace Double. Crisis in 2140 (copyright 1957) by H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire I've never seen this before and I'm really hyped. I just LOVE Piper's works and discovering a "new" one is a huge thrill!

Haven't posted here in awhile-- I notice there's been lots of appreciation of Oscar Wilde. There's a couple of fairly new mysteries (at least new in the U.S.) that feature Oscar as a character solving mysteries, with Arthur Conan Doyle as a sort of around-the-edges-of-the-plot advisor. Bram Stoker shows up in the second book.

This subgenre of fiction is growing- folks like Beatrix Potter, Jane Austen, Shakespeare are used as amateur detectives. I have mixed feelings about the books, but they can be entertaining, as I found the Oscar Wilde entries.

Anyway, the books are OSCAR WILDE AND A DEATH OF NO IMPORTANCE and OSCAR WILDE AND A GAME OF MURDER by Gyles Brandreth. The first one has a plot I figured out pretty quickly, so I was a little disappointed in it. I'm no Wilde scholar, so I don't know if the characterization used here is particularly factual, but his wit is on display, if perhaps parochialized.

The second one, of which I've read about half, is thus far a much more intriguing mystery.

Any fans of WITCHES OF EASTWICK by John Updike? He's just published a sequel, titled WIDOWS OF EASTWICK. I haven't read it yet, but will soon.

Also, there's a third Gregory Maguire book set in Oz, called A LION AMONG MEN. Guess who the main character is....

I love Maguire's books, and this one's no exception. A worthy sequel to WICKED and SON OF A WITCH that left me wanting more.

Mystery Lad, I've been wanting to read Maguire's Oz books.

The famous author as detectives sound like lots of fun I have to check that out.

You (or anyone else) ever read Nero Wolfe? Nick and Nora? Micky Spillane stuff? I have this list of old school mysteries and pulp books I've been dying to read.

1. I always love how you say things, ML!
sigh
2. I so love OZ books! I hadn't heard about these Maguire books, either. I'll try to get them.
kisses

I'm currently reading "A Shadow on the Glass" by Ian Irvine. Yes, I am reading yet another fantasy series My wife put me onto this one. It is essentially just a big chase novel, but it is engaging and the characters are likeable.

I'm reading "The Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russell. It's a first contact novel concerning a Jesuit led expedition to Alpha Centauri.

LOVED The Sparrow. At one time there was talk about a movie, it was cast and all. When you're finished, be interested in your opinion on why that movie never hit the theatre.

There's a follow on book and Russell followed that with a WWII novel, completely non Sci Fi. She's not prolific but I have enjoyed everything she wrote. Ohioan too!

I really liked it. <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">A Catholic Priest forced into prostitution & killing a child</span></span> might make potential investors think twice about a film project. It probably wouldn't cheap to produce either.

According to Internet Movie Database the film version of it may still happen.

I'm reading a trilogy by Garth Nix about young people who live in a land about the size of Scotland where magic is a reality.
The Old Kingdom is separated by a Great Wall from the rest of country adjoining it (like England), where there IS no magic.

The bad guys are Free Magic sorcerors and necromancers.

The heroes (male and female) are heriditary heroes (like Shady) or rulers (like Jeckie) or seeresses (like Nura) with lots of inbetweens and even some very powerful and enigmatic pseudo-animals (a dog and cat.)

I love these books.
They're generational and so remind me of Legionnaires!

In order:
Sabriel (name)
Lirael (name)
Abhorsen (title like 'King' or 'Hero')

Fun reads!

What am i reading? Dewalts study guide to the SC contractors licensing exam.

And legionworld, of course.

Finished Tale of Two Cities. Pretty good. Not sure if I agree with some about Sydney Carton being the hero of the story. It reminded me of Count of Monte Cristo but I enjoyed that more.

Decided to take a break and read something light. Call of the Wild. Pretty good! I want that dog! It was nice, short, and easy. Lots of emotion.

Next is The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe. I'm just curious about it.

What a coincidence! "Call of the Wild."


I just watched the movie with Charlton Heston.

I'm sure the book was better.

Picking up here and there the various connections to this final crisis as the library gets them. Starting to make sense. The Blue Beetle one was very good IMO but I still need the one before that.

Just read A Nameless Witch by A. Lee Martinez, along with Gil's All Fright Diner.

Q, by Luther Blissett. A hefty historical fiction at 750 pages, it tells the story of an Anabaptist radical from 1518 to 1555 and the Vatican spy who has infiltrated the group. We never learn the true name of the Anabaptist character; he assumes many identities as he lives life on the run throughout Europe, spreading the message and encouraging rebellions. The spy is identified as "Q", but it's only in the final pages that we learn who his identity was as the infiltrator. The two play a very extended cat and mouse game for decades, neither one knowing who the other one is. The story is a fascinating study of political manipulation and power brokering, and we see how diverse interest groups used the protestant rebellions for their own purposes.

I read it as a straight novel, but after learned that some consider it to be an allegory for European sosciety from the rebellious 1960s to today.

The author "Luther Blissett" is actually 4 Italian writers who now go by the name of Wu Ming, which means "no name".

I just picked up a little book on the extraordinary uses of baking soda!
lol
Another one is about not sweating the small stuff in you family.

There's just piles of books everywhere at this school!

Accounting For Dummies. Don't ask.

Recently finished a couple of Sue Grafton's mysteries. Gotta' say that if you read 'em out of alphabetical sequence, she's improved a hell of a lot over the years in terms of story quality. Or else her editors got better. Maybe it's both...

(I left off the Kinsey Milhone series at M or O. I forget.)

I've almost finished Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919, by Stephen Puleo. Sound like a joke or a Bugs Bunny cartoon? It's not. This is the first and only book to document a disaster that hit North End Boston in January 1919. (More unfortunate jokes come to mind, about molasses in January....)

A huge tank (50 feet high) containing 2.3 million gallons of molasses burst apart on January 15, 1919. A wave of molasses 25 feet high and 160 feet wide spilled into the surrounding area, engulfing people, horses, other animals and wrecking buildings and a railroad line. People were killed and injured, either drowning in molasses or crushed by debris. All the horses were shot. It was a real nightmare of a disaster.

The molasses was being distilled into industrial alcohol, used in the manufacture of explosives. With the world war, there had been a huge demand for explosives, so this giant tank was built. After the war, the country was on the edge of Prohibition and the company, U.S. Industrial Alcohol, thought they could make some money with one final, massive distillation of alcohol for rum - so the tank was filled to the maximum.

Leaks in the tank had been reported for years; the company would just recaulk the tank. At one point, they even painted it brown so the leaking molasses would be less evident. In the end (in a class action civil suit), it was determined that the company was negligent. However, they argued that anarchists had bombed the tank.

This wasn't an entirely farfetched proposal. Anarchist activity was widespread at the time; there were a number of actual bombings throughout the U.S. and many threats. It seemed a lot like our own time with terror alerts and widespread suspicion of particular nationalities.

The book is a fascinating tale of a tragic event and the surrounding political and financial environment of the time.

1000 Novels Everyone Must Read
Cool article with synopses (synopsi? damned plurals) of the books. I'm ashamed to admit I've only read a few of them and honestly have never even heard of a great many of them.

A very few of them I own or have owned but never got around to reading so I have to dig 'em out of the slush pile. Also now I have something to really look forward to finding at the book stores.

Very cool.

More useful to me if I could sort by page count.

I love DVDs. Sometimes I turn on subtitles, does that count as reading?

So one of my friends knows I like crime novels and noir movies so he gave me a copy of James Patterson's recent Alex Cross novel. I really didn't want to read it, but I felt guilty returning it to him unread...it just didn't feel like the kind of thing I was looking for. Well, either I made a self-fulfilling prophecy or my gut was right, because I really did not enjoy it very much and by the end I was skimming through it.

It just felt very...weak. The pacing and characters all acted very cliche, the plot was a bit jumbled without being clever, and the dialogue seemed to be trying so hard to be witty and 'cool' without achieving it (because it was trying too hard). I've read much better crime fiction, including many comic books, and I've seen too many better films that the book didn't ring true to me. It felt rather flat, like the author is running through the motions without giving me any real meat.

Anyone ever read one of these? Am I way off and simply was too jaded? Because it just didn't seem all that good. There's just so much better crime / CSI / serial killer fiction out there that doesn't get all the press probably because its more complicated plot & character wise. I've heard the same thing about Tom Clancy's books, even though I've never picked on up.

Sounds fascinating!

Anarchists around that era are extremely interesting. After an anarchist shot and killed President McKinley (I believe in 1900), a panic swept through the nation (and this was already after anarchists scared many people).

Interestingly, wiki claims that Czolgosz, McKinley's assassin, never held formal membership in any Anarchist group-- though he was enamored of some Anarchist teachings.

BTW, Candle, I remember reading about the plant disaster in an old 'zine called Murder Can Be Fun. My husband was a big fan. I'll have to tell him that the events inspired an entire book.

BTW, for anyone who's curious about American Anarchism from the other end, I totally recommend Sticking To The Union .

P.S.- CK, your complaints about Patterson sound like my complaints about Phillip Margolin. He's hugely popular in these parts, but I read one of his books, and that was plenty.

The Voice in the Mirror. Book 29 in the Nightmare Hall series.

A book I was supposed to get for Christmas but came late.

Salem University student Annie and her friends are preparing for the holiday season, but, one of the boys suffers an unexpected, Ripper-esque psychotic break, and begins to imagine that one of Annie's friends, Helene, is actually Elyse Weldon, the girl he killed to get her scholarship. This isn't helped by a split personality which has manifested, a voice in the mirror which tells him to kill "Elyse" before she reclaims her scholarship. But when the "Voice" takes over and tries to kill Helene, getting her sent back home for surgery, the guy now sees another girl as "Elyse" and that he will have to kill her before she kills him. And pretty soon Annie will be next on this psychopath's quest to get rid of Elyse Weldon once and for all.