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Not exactly reviews, but here's what I've read in the last couple of months, with notes I jotted down at the time:
Death in a White Tie, by Ngaio Marsh. Part of her long, loose series of mysteries starring Roderick Alleyn, who is both a police officer and from a well-off upper-class British family. In this case, the victim and many of the suspects are friends of his; this book is where the slow romantic plot arc gets to "yes, I'll marry you." My note on this is "Plausible mystery plotting, though the past [in this case 1930s Britain] is a foreign country—gur zbgvingvba sbe n ybg bs guvf vf oynpxznvy, naq gur ynetrfg frperg vf gung, haorxabjafg gb ure, bar bs gur punenpgref jnf obea bhg bs jrqybpx.
The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison. I like Maia, and enjoyed rereading this. And would like reading more about him, beyond the first months of his reign, but have no idea if she's considering writing that.
The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax, by Dorothy Gilman. Third in a series about a widow from New Jersey who winds up working for the CIA in the 1960s. Mrs. Pollifax i getting more confident, and still worrying the actual CIA agent she works for, Carstairs, while letting circumstances take her well away from her assignment. Once again, impressive results; I'm glad that the pattern in the first two of "she is assigned a minder, and he's killed quickly in the course of that" isn't replicated here.
Swing, Brother, Swing, by Ngaio Marsh. Alleyn is (coincidentally) at the scene of the crime in this case; complicated intertangled motives and plotting, a purloined letter bit—and yet another book where things would be so much simpler if the characters talked to each other. Though at least here there are plausible reasons why not (both expectations against honesty between the genders, and that two of them are a long-married couple who either like nor trust each other, but are stuck being married and for halfway-plausible reasons living together).
Dancing at the Edge of the World, by Ursula Le Guin. I reread probably about 2/3, dipping in and out of a library ebook copy; skipped most of the travel writing this time, and I'm going to sync the kindle now that I've either reread, or decided I'm not in the mood for, everything except the last section of book reviews. [I own almost all Le Guin's books in hardcopy, but most of them are still in boxes.]
Beneath the Sugar Sky, by Seanan McGuire. Sequel to Every Heart a Doorway: a quest, of course, since these are portal fantasy. Starts at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. Some of the students there, missing their own portal worlds, offer to help Rini get her mother back, after Rini falls out of the sky and tells them that the villain from her world has undone her mother's successful quest and made Rini not have been born. Not as silly as that sounds (although Confection is a nonsense world). Rini and Sumi get a happy ending, as does Nadya, who stays in the Land of the Dead so the others can take Sumi's ghost with them; the other questers come back to the school here on earth.
Women and Power, a Manifesto, by Mary Beard. Beard discusses the ways that politics and public speech have been gendered male at least since the Odyssey, and the extent to which that's still true, and still a problem, now. "A manifesto" suggests more suggestions for action, along with the (interesting) examples of the problem, past and present. The book is short, and in two parts, based on lectures she gave in 2014 and 2017.
All Systems Red, by Martha Wells. On this year's Hugo ballot; the first-person story of a murderbot [sic], a part-organic construct that's supposed to act as a sort of guard. This one has hacked its governor module, and just wants to watch video dramas. Murderbot doesn't exactly like its humans, but dislikes them less than many other humans and wants to protect them. At one point, it observes that it doesn't like any real humans as much as the fictional ones, but if there were no real humans, there'd be no more entertainment programs. Good story, obviously room for a sequel (even if I didn't know the next one is coming out this spring).
At the moment I am most of the way through Eleanor Arnason's Hwarhath Stories, in hardcopy, and just started on a very odd book called S, by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst; the latter is a complex and slightly fragile artifact, which may slow my reading. Those are both library books. On the kindle I just started Le Guin's last nonfiction book, No Time to Lose, and have a variety of other things to keep me company on the bus to and from Montreal.
Death in a White Tie, by Ngaio Marsh. Part of her long, loose series of mysteries starring Roderick Alleyn, who is both a police officer and from a well-off upper-class British family. In this case, the victim and many of the suspects are friends of his; this book is where the slow romantic plot arc gets to "yes, I'll marry you." My note on this is "Plausible mystery plotting, though the past [in this case 1930s Britain] is a foreign country—gur zbgvingvba sbe n ybg bs guvf vf oynpxznvy, naq gur ynetrfg frperg vf gung, haorxabjafg gb ure, bar bs gur punenpgref jnf obea bhg bs jrqybpx.
The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison. I like Maia, and enjoyed rereading this. And would like reading more about him, beyond the first months of his reign, but have no idea if she's considering writing that.
The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax, by Dorothy Gilman. Third in a series about a widow from New Jersey who winds up working for the CIA in the 1960s. Mrs. Pollifax i getting more confident, and still worrying the actual CIA agent she works for, Carstairs, while letting circumstances take her well away from her assignment. Once again, impressive results; I'm glad that the pattern in the first two of "she is assigned a minder, and he's killed quickly in the course of that" isn't replicated here.
Swing, Brother, Swing, by Ngaio Marsh. Alleyn is (coincidentally) at the scene of the crime in this case; complicated intertangled motives and plotting, a purloined letter bit—and yet another book where things would be so much simpler if the characters talked to each other. Though at least here there are plausible reasons why not (both expectations against honesty between the genders, and that two of them are a long-married couple who either like nor trust each other, but are stuck being married and for halfway-plausible reasons living together).
Dancing at the Edge of the World, by Ursula Le Guin. I reread probably about 2/3, dipping in and out of a library ebook copy; skipped most of the travel writing this time, and I'm going to sync the kindle now that I've either reread, or decided I'm not in the mood for, everything except the last section of book reviews. [I own almost all Le Guin's books in hardcopy, but most of them are still in boxes.]
Beneath the Sugar Sky, by Seanan McGuire. Sequel to Every Heart a Doorway: a quest, of course, since these are portal fantasy. Starts at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. Some of the students there, missing their own portal worlds, offer to help Rini get her mother back, after Rini falls out of the sky and tells them that the villain from her world has undone her mother's successful quest and made Rini not have been born. Not as silly as that sounds (although Confection is a nonsense world). Rini and Sumi get a happy ending, as does Nadya, who stays in the Land of the Dead so the others can take Sumi's ghost with them; the other questers come back to the school here on earth.
Women and Power, a Manifesto, by Mary Beard. Beard discusses the ways that politics and public speech have been gendered male at least since the Odyssey, and the extent to which that's still true, and still a problem, now. "A manifesto" suggests more suggestions for action, along with the (interesting) examples of the problem, past and present. The book is short, and in two parts, based on lectures she gave in 2014 and 2017.
All Systems Red, by Martha Wells. On this year's Hugo ballot; the first-person story of a murderbot [sic], a part-organic construct that's supposed to act as a sort of guard. This one has hacked its governor module, and just wants to watch video dramas. Murderbot doesn't exactly like its humans, but dislikes them less than many other humans and wants to protect them. At one point, it observes that it doesn't like any real humans as much as the fictional ones, but if there were no real humans, there'd be no more entertainment programs. Good story, obviously room for a sequel (even if I didn't know the next one is coming out this spring).
At the moment I am most of the way through Eleanor Arnason's Hwarhath Stories, in hardcopy, and just started on a very odd book called S, by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst; the latter is a complex and slightly fragile artifact, which may slow my reading. Those are both library books. On the kindle I just started Le Guin's last nonfiction book, No Time to Lose, and have a variety of other things to keep me company on the bus to and from Montreal.
