Moe Lane

Just finished the Monster Hunter Memoirs: Saints E-ARC, and I read Grunge and Sinners a while back.  They’re interesting books: Larry Correia and John Ringo managed to create a hero who I like and want to succeed, while at the same time seeing him as an utter a*shole.  That’s harder than it looks!  But, well, Correia and Ringo. They give good pulp action.

And so, adieu to Theodore Rex.
(more…)

This one is admittedly speculative: I started reading Edmund Morris’s Theodore Rex the last time I was visiting my mom’s, and I forgot to take it with me when we left.  It’s OK: my mom won’t mind.  Sometimes I think she wants me to take half the house back down to Maryland.  Anyway: I’ve heard good thing about Morris’s Theodore Roosevelt biographies, so I’m putting it up here so I won’t forget about it when I hit the library next week.

And so, adieu to Uncompromising Honor.

David Weber’s Uncompromising Honor* — the first new Honor Harrington novel starring Honor herself — is only available as an eARC, but it’s the Book of the Week anyway. I know that a lot of you don’t like eARCs as much as I do, but the brutal truth of it is that the print version of the book isn’t going to be coming out until October. Which is why I dropped everything and got the eARC the moment it came out.  Your call, folks.

And so, adieu to Vanguard. Geary vs Harrington… no. Don’t be absurd, Moe. They’d never fight each other and the rest of the galaxy would fall all over itself to surrender before the two teamed up. (more…)

Oh hey, folks.  Jack Campbell’s coming out with more crack in written form. Excuse me: “a new science fiction series called The Genesis Fleet.” Vanguard‘s out now, and Ascendant is coming out in May. You’re doo-oommmeedddd….

And so, adieu to Bull. Which was the other book I took out from the library, actually.

My wife took Bull by David Elliot out of the library, read it, and then handed it off to me and suggested that I read it, too.  It’s a modern poem retelling the Minotaur legend, only the poetry isn’t crap and the author managed to paint a sympathetic portrait of the Minotaur without actually messing with the legend. And Poseidon comes across as the tremendously smug and breezily offensive jackwagon that frankly virtually all of the ancient Greek gods and goddesses were, so full points there. I found it most diverting, and it reads well.  Check it, heh, out.

And so, adieu to Thirty Days Later. (more…)

Come, I will conceal nothing from you: I bought Thirty Days Later: Steaming Forward: 30 Adventures in Time specifically because it had two Harry Turtledove flash fiction stories in it.  Ones that I’ve been meaning to read, too.  They’re set in an alternate universe where sasquatches are real, sentient, and one of them is the governor of the state of Jefferson (a state carved out of northern California and southern Oregon). The world is developed a bit more in “Typecasting,” which is itself an enjoyable little story that you should read. Anyway, for four bucks I’ll buy flash fiction.  Especially if the rest of it is supposed to be steampunk, which neither of the two Turtledove stories are but when Harry Turtledove gives you flash fiction you say ‘Thank you.’

Hey! I guess including the two stories worked, huh?

(more…)

I’m still trying to decide how I feel about T.R. Fehrenbach’s Lone Star: A History of Texas and Texans. It’s a good book, and it’s engrossing, but… I dunno. Something. Still, it’s what I’ve been reading all week.

I quite liked Ruthanna Emrys’ Winter Tide, albeit for slightly different reasons than perhaps the ones for why she wrote it.  The attempt here was to take Lovecraft’s mythology and, well, turn it on its head; the basic facts would remain, but the motivations and whatnot would be different — and in a way that would present the Deep Ones as basically sympathetic characters who got the short end of a very nasty stick in 1928.  There’s also a not-unexpected amount of social commentary about the imperfections of our grandparents’ generation (well, my grandparents’ generation), but you have to expect that from current literary fads. (more…)

OK, I admit it: this is mostly a reminder to me to reread The Silmarillion. I get that most of my readers are going to be at least familiar with the book, and most of the rest of JRR Tolkien’s work.  Still, you never know, right?

And so, adieu to The Great Book of Amber.

The Great Book of Amber: The Complete Amber Chronicles, 1-10 is a collection of Roger Zelazny’s ten Chronicles of Amber novels (but not the short fiction).  Back when I was a kid, when I joined the Science Fiction Book Club (it did not end well) I got a collection of the first five Chronicle of Amber novels as part of my introductory package; I read the other five… later. These are definitely books that you need to read if you want to understand how the fantasy genre developed post-Tolkien.  They’re also, you know, good.

And so, adieu to Fritz Leiber: Selected Stories. (more…)