Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Murder Crossed Her Mind, by Stephen Spotswood, is the fourth in his series Parker and Pentecost mysteries. The series is set mostly in New York City, shortly after World War II.

The books work well as mysteries. Also, part of what I like about them is that one of the two detectives is living with multiple sclerosis, at a point when her doctor can't give her much besides stretches and advice about when to rest, which she often ignores, because resting is boring even if you aren't racing against the clock to solve a mystery. Her assistant is bi, ran away from home/was kicked out when her parents found out, and spent a few years working for a circus before coming to New York. Her boss doesn't consider this a problem in itself, but sometimes reminds Parker to be careful, because being queer could get her into legal as well as social trouble.

I read The Wednesday Wars for book club, finished it about an hour and a half before the book club meeting, and decided that I liked it, but didn't think I had much to say about it, so I skipped the book club. The book is a historical novel about a seventh grader, Shakespeare, and his family, set in suburban Long Island in 1966-68. The narrator is mostly interested in school, his friends and immediate family, and baseball, but there's no way to ignore national and world events, even if his father didn't insist on listening to Walter Cronkite every night.

This year, the Boston Public Library's adult summer reading challenge is in the form of a bingo card. The prize for completing a row, column, or diagonal is a BPL "summer reading" tote bag, plus entry in a drawing for a gift card. The tote bags are "while supplies last," but when I asked a couple of days ago, they told me they had them available at every library branch. The categories range from "debut author" and "essays or short stories" to "book with a red cover." Having completed a line, I took the bingo card with me when I returned a book this afternoon.

I did choose a couple of things to fill out the bingo squares, in between looking up author biographies (for "indigenous author," "debut author," and "LGBTQ+ author."The card also includes several entries like "read outdoors" and "learn something new."

The Stuff Between the Stars, written by Sandra Nickel and illustrated by Aimée Sicuro: a children's book about the astronomer Vera Rubin's life and discoveries, including her difficulties with sexist male astronomers. (for the "children's book" square)

The Library Book, by Susan Orlean: a book about the Los Angeles Public Library, anchored by a massive fire in the Central Library 1986, the rebuilding afterward, and someone who was accused of having set the fire. Orlean goes back to the founding of the library, and forward to the 2010s.

She also discusses fire investigations, and the odd assumptions about arson that were part of them for decades--in particular, the idea that if the investigators couldn't find an accidental cause for a given fire, that was sufficient to prove that it had been arson. Orlean has loved libraries since she was a small child, and she came to know Los Angeles after moving there for her husband's job. (I read this for the "a book about libraries" square.)

The Blue Hawk, by Peter Dickinson, for the Scintillation Discord book club. This is a children's (maybe middle grade or YA) fantasy novel, and yes there's an actual hawk, which doesn't die. I liked it, but am not sure what else to say about it.

Once upon a Marquess and After the Wedding, Regency romances by Courtney Milan. After the Wedding is sort of a sequel to Once upon a Marquess, but doesn't assume the reader already knows the characters. I didn't read them one right after the other; when I went to add After the Wedding to my booklog, I realized I hadn't recorded the first book.

Currently reading: Views of Nature, by Alexander von Humboldt (which will go in the "book in translation" bingo square).

Mostly a list, again:

Light from Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki. This is excellent, and is both definitely science fiction and definitely fantasy, and much of it takes place at a video arcade donut shop.

Forged in Combat, by Celia Lake

Perchance, by yojfull on Archive of Our Own. Original work (meaning not fanfic), which I found because I liked the author's InCryptid/Saint of Steel crossover story.

Third Girl, by Agatha Christie. A Poirot novel, with (again) questions of who some of the characters really are, plus a very 1960s-square atttitude toward drug use and then-contemporary fashion and art.

A Frame for Murder, by Imogen Plimp. another random cozy mystery from BookBuB. The romance is, fortunately, only a minor part of this, and the plot kept moving. It was good enough to finish, but I'm not going to look for more of the series. The bits about food seem shoved in, somehow.

---

sabotabby asked what I thought about Everything for Everyone (from the previous book post). I had hoped to write something thoughtful, but instead, I'm copying this from my booklog file:

post-dystopian SF, about the battles and work to build a communist future on the ruins of, well, everything, with world-building, both in the science fiction criticism sense and literally people talking about (re)building the world, working to restore the biosphere, education, and so on.

This is set about 50 years into the future, with voices including old people who were born before and lived through and helped create the transition, and talking about what they did and the friends and family they lost, and others who remember the worst times but not the world before, the world that included universities and airline travel as well as the horrors of late stage capitalism.

Family as a verb, a choice, some of it by people who needed to do that to have any family at all, having lost parents, siblings, other kin to war and detention camps and hunger and disease. // Characters talking about the ongoing work to make a better world, and also about the trauma. The "oral history" quilt format includes the "interviewers" being told "ask about something else" when they touch on painful topics.

Several weeks' reading:

( cut for length )

The Curse of Chalion, by Lois McMaster Bujold. This book is the first set in her fantasy world of the Five Gods, and I read it after (almost all of) the Penric novellas, which were published later. Excellent, and the "curse" is plausibly interesting, and feels more believable than some family/hereditary curses in fiction (including myth). On rysmiel's recommendation, I am now reading the sequel, Paladin of Souls.

The Madness of Crowds, by Louise Penny. This is the most recent Inspector Gamache mystery. It's very good, but I'm not sure I would recommend reading it yet. It's very much about the pandemic, and some of people's worse reactions to it, including the line from "underlying conditions" to people advocating eugenics. (This clearly isn't the author's viewpoint, nor that of the ongoing sympathetic characters.) It's excellent, both as a mystery novel and an attempt to think and talk about current and recent events, which means it was somewhat difficult, emotionally. Content warnings also for references to past psychiatric abuse and CIA mind control experiments.

Wednesday reading isn't even going to pretend to write reviews. Just, here are some books I finished reading (or rereading) since the last time I made one of these posts.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate, by Becky Chambers (novella length, but published separately, not connected to her Wayfarers books.

Destination Unknown, by Agatha Christie

Homicide Trinity; Gambit; Family Affair; A Right to Die; Three Witnesses; and Three Doors to Death, by Rex Stout. That's three novels, and three books of three novellas each, mostly rereads. I'm fairly sure I'd remember if I'd read Family Affair before, though it's also true that a novel involving Watergate might not have struck me as strongly before the Trump administration.

Georgette Heyer, The Incomplete Clue, a mystery novel, with bits of romance lurking around the edges. One of the (emotionally) easy books someone recommended on Discord. I might read more of her mysteries, but this does not incline me toward the Regency romances.

The Last Resort, by Alison Lurie

Life in a Medieval City, by Frances Giles (nonfiction, what it says on the tin, and very well done)

Hench, by Natalie Zina Walschots

Thanks to oursin, I discovered three Amanda Cross books that I hadn't been aware of, all from late in her career. I had not only thought I'd read all Cross's novels, I've reread the ones I own, some of them several times; they're mysteries, but there's enough character and relationship stuff going on that knowing the "solution" doesn't take away the interest, for me.

Like most of Cross's fiction, The Edge of Doom is about Kate Fansler, a literature professor and amateur detective. This starts with Kate thinking she has reached the age at which life holds no more surprises, and being proven wrong when a stranger turns up, claiming to be her biological father. There are levels of mystery plot, but this is mostly about relationships and self-definition: Kate spends a lot of time thinking about nature vs. nurture, and her self-identification as not being like the rest of the Fanslers. I liked this, but wouldn't start here if you haven't read any of Amanda Cross's earlier Kate Fansler mysteries.

Honest Doubt is the other Amanda Cross novel I hadn't read. This one is narrated by a professional detective who was hired to investigate a murder at a small private college, and advised to consult Kate Fansler for information about, and insights into, academia. I didn't like this as well; I'm not sure if that was because of the different point of view (Cross's other novels are in tight third person, focused on Kate Fansler) or the ending.

The Collected Stories of Amanda Cross is short. Several of the stories, though not all, are about Kate Fansler. I'd read a couple of these before, and enjoyed the rest, but again wouldn't recommend this as a starting point.

I borrowed all three of these as ebooks from the King County library, and probably won't buy copies, since they don't feel like things I'm going to want to reread.

!markup

What I read in January, basically copied from my "booklog" tracking spreadsheet:

Becky Chambers, *Record of a Space-Born Few* This isn't exactly a sequel to *A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet* but is set in the same fictional universe. This book is set almost entirely on the Exodan fleet. There are intertwined narratives, and mostly the characters are trying to help each other, but the different threads didn't feel as connected as in *A Closed and Common Orbit*. This one also has more conventionally shaped families (parents, grandparents, siblings, spouses) than the family-by-choice of her first novel. (One piece of the plot is about someone looking for family/a place to be, which goes badly wrong.)

Nick Lane, *Life Ascending* A book on evolution in the form of ten chapters on what Lane thinks are the ten most important "inventions" in the history of life on Earth, including DNA, the eukaryotic cell, and death. Fun; bits that stuck with me are that the DNA-to-amino acid coding isn't random, and (the claim) that eukaryotes are descended from a fusion of an archaeon and a bacterium, based on biochemistry shared with each kingdom. The chapters are on The origin of life, DNA, Photosynthesis, The complex cell, Sex, Movement, Sight, Hot blood, Consciousness, Death. I'm not convinced (and would want to read more, at least) by his argument for the evolutionary value of death, or how that connects to possible life extension, but yes it's a question worth asking.

Margery Allingham, *Sweet Danger* Another of the odd Campion books, this one with a tendency toward Ruritanian adventure--odd artifacts to prove the claim to a fragment of Balkan coast, and the village doctor is a sinister figure who fancies himself a black magician.

Martha Wells, *Artificial Condition* volume 2 of The Murderbot Diaries, very good. Murderbot finds some other non-humans to talk to/work with, though not trust, and adamantly refuses modifications that would make it in any way sexual or gendered.

Rex Stout, *Before Midnight* Reread of one of the Nero Wolfe novels, this one holds up pretty well.

(That's four books and a novella,)

I've been trying to spare my hands, in part by using pens and my keyboard less, for the last few weeks, and have read a lot of books (compared to my pattern over the last few years). Books finished since the beginning of June:

Lunar Activity, by Elizabeth Moon. Collection of short stories, which I read over several weeks during visits to adrian_turtle, because I tend to wake up before she does. Fun, some with a good sense of place,

A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers. This is a sequel to The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet: it has some of the same warm emotional feeling, which I was looking for, but I don't think it was as good as the first book. There are two timelines, one starting right after the end of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet [spoilers for that book] ( spoilers for that book ) I enjoyed this, but I liked the first book better, in part because we get to spend more time with interesting aliens.

In the Labyrinth of Drakes and In the Sanctuary of Wings, by Marie Brennan: volumes 4 and 5 of Brennan's "Memoirs of Lady Trent" series, set in an alternate world that contains many species of dragons, and the relics of an ancient, lost "Draconean" civilization. I recommend these, but read them in order unless you don't care at all about spoilers, because it's a continuing narrative, though with natural break-points: each book is about a different major expedition, what was discovered, and the adventures along the way.

It's an odd sort of alternate world: the geography is visibly not that of Earth, but is very similar to it, as are the cultures: Scirland is very much based on Britain, the Akhians are desert nomads, and so on. These aren't presented as an alternate history—there's no divergence point along the lines of "what if Lincoln hadn't gone to the theatre that night?"—so I didn't find myself objecting to the "wrong" degree of similarity with our actual history, but I know different people's tolerance for that sort of thing varies. (If you can buy Novik's Napoleonic Wars with dragons, you'll probably like this series.)

I was a little disappointed by In the Labyrinth of Drakes because it felt as though there was more archeology and politics, and fewer dragons, than in the first three volumes of the series. In the Sanctuary of Wings gave me plenty of dragons and natural history, along with the politics. (There's politics throughout the series, and that's part of what I like about it; I just felt the proportions were a bit off in volume 4.)

Tremontaine, season 1, by Ellen Kushner et al. This is an episodic, because written for serialization, prequel to Kushner's Swordspoint. Each chapter is by a different author (though some people wrote more than one, nobody did two in a row). A lot of this takes place in and around the University (though we do see both Riverside and the Hill. If you liked Swordspoint, give this a try (N.B. Nobody here is as bloodthirsty as Alec).

Crocodile on the Sandbar and The Curse of the Pharaohs, by Elizabeth Peters: mysteries against a background of Egyptology, or maybe vice versa, set during the beginnings of archeology as a scholarly pursuit. Fun, relatively light fare, with detective plots I was satisfied by,and I gather her Egyptology is basically sound. (The main characters' relationship isn't one I can imagine being happy in, but I can believe that they are, and don't find it unpleasant to read about.) This is told as first-person narrative, by an Englishwoman who took up Egyptology, and then detection, more or less by chance.

Georgiana Darcy's Diary, by Anna Elliott: a "what might have happened next" fanfic set after the end of Pride and Prejudice. It's competent enough that I finished it, but not enough to make me want to read the next volumes, because the author (wisely) doesn't even try to pastiche Austen's narrative voice/style, and I'm not nearly invested enough in that book to otherwise care much about the doings of Darcy's sister and aunt, or Elizabeth Bennett's family. (I got this free via the web: a lot of what I've read in the last few weeks was either from the library, or free or low-cost "try one, maybe you'll get hooked" ebook offers.)

If Death Ever Slept, by Rex Stout. A Nero Wolfe mystery novel I don't remember having read before. It's from the mid-1950s, and well done (within the pattern of the series in general). Archie Goodwin's attitude toward women can be more than a little annoying, but there isn't too much on display here. (One reader's opinion, probably based in part on my mood a week ago, YMMV.)

Welcome to Bordertown, edited by Ellen Kushner and Holly Black. I found this because after reading Tremontaine I decided to ask the library what else it had by Kushner: it's a (relatively) new Bordertown anthology, set in the same world as the previous volumes (edited by Terri Windling). Bordertown has dealings with the human world as well as with Faerie; the book deals with the gap in real-world time since the previous books by having Bordertown cut off in the interim (under a version of Elf Hill) so when the border reopens the residents are dealing with new tech (what's a blog?) as well as people in the World looking for long-lost relatives.

I've done a lot of reading in the past fortnight—most of it in Montreal, and on the trips there and back—and then I came home and find myself busier than I expected, so this is mostly based on brief notes I made at the time.

Agatha Christie, The Murder at the Vicarage: I think this is the first Miss Marple; I didn't much like the narrator/viewpoint character, a minister. He obviously shouldn't be married to his wife, from what he says about marriage and how little respect he shows her. (That's not germane to the mystery, but Christie gives an impressive example of that kind of relationship problem. And it is a problem here, not "I don't understand this person, but I adore them and we make each other happy.")

Will Cuppy, How to Attract the Wombat: reread of a collection of short bits, most of them at least partly about animals, but with comments about humans in general and ancient naturalists in specific. Not quite as snarky about Pliny as in some of his stuff, but he has some sharp things to say about Aristotle and fact-checking.

John Barnes, One for the Morning Glory: another reread, a book with deliberately silly use of words (hunting the wild gazebo, the Isought Gap, etc.) along with characters who know they're in a fairy tale.

E. K. Johnston, The Story of Owen, Dragon Slayer of Trondheim: recommended by mrissa, a good, fast-moving YA novel about an alternate history with far too many dragons, and therefore some differences in Canadian, US, UK, and other history.

Carl Hiaasen, Tourist Season: I seem to be off Hiaasen (or got another clunker), our senses of humor don't fit together as I remembered.

Laura Antoniou, The Killer Wore Leather: a murder mystery set at a leather/BDSM convention in New York City. Not bad, but I think the author was aiming for funnier than I found it.

( possible mild spoilers for Mike Carey and Anthony Price )

Julie Smith, Tourist Trap: one of a series of mysteries about a San Francisco lawyer; I found some of the described reactions to a crime wave less than convincing, but a lot of the rest works, and there's some good stuff about the detective's relationships with her boyfriend and her family of origin. (Amazon offered me this as a free download, so I had it on the kindle and read it on the flight home.)