Echoes of an Alien Sky

By James P. Hogan

People of Venus have arrived on Earth and are studying the remains of a vanished civilization, a civilization that spread over the face of the planet and then just disappeared. The Venusians want to understand what happened to these people, who, it appears, were very similar to the Venusians themselves.
Kyal Reen and Lorili Hilivar are scientists who have traveled to Earth as part of the on-going effort to understand the fate of the planet's denizens. It's a puzzle thousands of years old, with crumbling ruins showing signs of massive destruction. But the most puzzling thing about it all is the similarity between the lost people of Earth and the Venusians themselves.

This was a fairly good story, as Kyal and Lorili and their associates manage to piece together the last days of humanity. As for their being, as they believe, Venusians, it turns out, no surprise, that they are the descendants of the people of Earth, who, in the last days, managed to establish a refuge out in space and that later ended up settling on Venus when its climate became more livable. All this due to Hogan's idea that evolution and cosmology don't require the massive amounts of time that is the current accepted view.
I will say that I thought the book was too long, too slow, and too mean in its view of the people of Earth. Democracy is pretty much dismissed as being under the control of corrupt government and the media as hand-in-glove with the government to keep the population deluded. Also I didn't really understand or buy into Hogan's versions of evolution and cosmology.

The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion

By Fannie Flag

Sookie, 59, has just married off the last of her daughters and is looking forward to relaxing and maybe travelling with her husband, Earle. Her life has run pretty smoothly, with no major problems except for her mother. Lenore, the mother, considers herself Southern aristocracy and wants her only daughter, Sookie, to carry on the family traditions.
Next to her flamboyant mother, Sookie has always felt dowdy and subdued. She has also always felt like she was a disappointment to her mother, who constantly tried to mold Sookie in her own image. But Sookie's failure to please her mother made sense once Sookie found out that she was adopted and no blood kin of Lenore's at all. In fact, Sookie wasn't even a Southerner, her birth mother was a woman of Polish descent from Wisconsin and a Catholic to boot!
So Sookie sets out to find out more about the woman whose name appears on Sookie's birth certificate, Fritzie Jurdabralinski, and who, it turns out, is alive and living in California.

I quite enjoyed this story. Fritzie was one of a group of women who took on jobs originally performed by men during World War II. She and her sisters ran their family gas station when their brother joined the military and when they had to close the gas station, the sisters, all of whom were pilots, became WASPs: Women Airforce Service Pilots. These women flew planes from the air plane factories to the military bases, freeing up male pilots for combat duty. It was hard and even dangerous work, with long hours and grueling schedules.
So not only is this just a good and entertaining read, it also tells the not-so-well-known story of the WASPs, the women pilots who showed that women can fly airplanes too.

For another review, see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/the-all-girl-filling-stations-last-reunion-by-fannie-flagg/2013/11/18/5b32ac96-4af0-11e3-be6b-d3d28122e6d4_story.html

Shaman

By Kim Stanley Robinson

Set in ice age, this is the story of Loon, a young apprentice shaman. It opens with Loon, naked and weaponless, on his "wander," a trial to see if he has what it takes to survive. If, at the end of a few weeks, Loon manages to take care of himself, he can come back to his tribe a man.
Loon does manage to survive but in the process he injures his ankle and the injury doesn't heal properly and this injury will continue to hamper Loon's activities. But the injury isn't only thing that is plaguing Loon. The shaman of the tribe, Thorn, wants Loon to settle down to his studies, but Loon just doesn't really care that much about being a shaman. Then, to anger Thorn even more, Loon falls for a foreign woman, Elga and marries her, becoming even more distracted from his apprenticeship. Then it turns out that Elga's people want her back and, at a large multi-tribal gathering, they steal Elga away. Loon sets out in pursuit only to find himself captured by her people and forced into slavery.
When Thorn gets word of Loon's capture, he sets off north to rescue both Loon and Elga, with the help of a Neanderthal friend, Click. He succeeds and the four of them set off for home hotly pursued by Elga's tribe. Their trek home is a terrible ordeal, with Loon's bad ankle, winter blizzards, and eminent starvation. But they do make it back and Loon finds new meaning in his shaman studies and settles down to become the tribe's new shaman in the course of time.

This was a very absorbing and, at times, intense read. A window on the past, as the author sees it, a time of struggle and life constantly on the edge. Loon's story is fascinating, frightening, enlightening and a terrific tale of our early ancestors. A very enjoyable read, one of those stories that I will remember long after reading.

For another review see http://valsrandomcomments.blogspot.com/2013/10/shaman-kim-stanley-robinson.html.

This Body

By Laurel Doud

A fantasy story about a middle-aged woman, Katherine, who dies of a heart attack only to wake up and find herself living in the body of a young drug addict who has overdosed and also died, Thisby.
Katherine had a pretty ordinary middle class life living with her husband and her two teen age kids. True, she had some problems, namely a growing distance between herself and her husband and her kids with the usual teen rebellion. But all together she didn't have much adversity to deal with.
The same could be said of young Thisby, a talented but troubled young photographer. Born into a upper middle class family, Thisby never wanted for anything. But something wasn't right because Thisby seemed destined for trouble. Her parents and brother were constantly disappointed in her as she failed time and again to straighten out her life. Seemingly chronically depressed, Thisby sought refuge in drugs and alcohol, resulting in her untimely death and the possession of her body by Katherine.
So Katherine wakes up to find herself on Thisby's bathroom floor, covered in vomit, were Thisby passed away from too much booze and drugs. Amazed and confused, Katherine tries to make sense of what has happened. Fortunately she has the good sense to keep the truth from everyone because revealing her situation  would only land her in the loony bin, a place where Thisby was pretty much headed any way. Katherine takes up the reins of Thisby's disordered life and tries to live as Thisby, only without her addictions. But it is very difficult as Thisby was a mess and had managed to alienate almost everyone who cared about her. Plus Katherine finds herself having to deal with the same destructive cravings that drove Thisby. Plus Katherine is longing to be reunited with her own family, to be loved again by her husband and to hold and cherish her two teen children. She even hires a private investigator to gather information about them.
She finds herself trying to juggle two families, Thisby's and her own, without either knowing the truth about herself and continuing to struggle with Thisby's addictions.

This was a pretty interesting story. Katherine does a good job of passing herself off as Thisby until almost the end of the story when she nearly ruins everything. Eventually she realizes that she is neither Thisby nor Katherine anymore and she has to stop living as if she were and make a life for the new person she has become.

The Good Lord Bird

By James McBride

The story of abolitionist John Brown as told by a young slave boy he rescued. The story starts in the Kansas territory when the boy Henry's father is shot during a confrontation between Brown and some pro-slavery advocates. Brown carried the boy off, making the mistaken assumption that Henry was actually a Henrietta, a charade that Henry goes along with. At first Henry tries to return several times to his owner but the attempts fail for various reasons. Later on he realizes returning would be a mistake and he remains with Brown and continues to masquerade as a girl.
Brown, Henry and others spend some time rushing around Kansas, getting into various battles. Henry gets to meet Harriet Tubman when Brown goes to Canada to raise money and volunteers. He also spends quite some time living with Frederick Douglass, another of Brown's supporters.
Henry is in the thick of the planning for the raid on Harper's Ferry and its sorry aftermath.

Henry/Henrietta dismisses most of what Brown intends as craziness. He doesn't have much respect for Brown's religious convictions or his zeal for ending slavery. Mainly he sticks by Brown because he really has nowhere else to go. And through Henry's rather skeptical eyes the reader gets to live a bit of American history in an interesting and absorbing story.

2312

By Kim Stanley Robinson

Swan lives on Mercury. Wahram lives on Titan, one of the moons of Saturn. They are "spacers," people born and raised off of Earth. Out there in the solar system life is pretty good. Advanced technology enables humans to live almost anywhere they desire. And with the advanced technology comes advances in medical care too. Both Swan and Wahram are in their 100s but have the vitality and well-being of people in their thirties.
Swan's grandmother Alex is the "Lion" of Mercury. She is the de facto leader of the people of Mercury. She is quite old but in good health yet dies suddenly. Swan is devastated by her death.  She is even more upset when she finds out that Alex had secrets she kept from Swan, secrets that involve the whole solar system. Wahram, one of Alex's confidants, arrives on Mercury just in time to be nearly killed in an attack on Mercury's largest city, Terminator. The city is destroyed and Swan and Wahram barely survive and spend many long weeks waiting for rescue in an underground passage.
But they are rescued and together they carry out Alex's secret mission and try to discover why Mercury's main city was targeted for destruction.

This was an interesting story and also a boring story. Over 600 pages long, it just goes on and on. What is interesting about it is the author's depiction of humanity free to wander the solar system, settling in the most unlikely places, like Mercury, the hottest planet in the system. The main city of Mercury, Terminator, moves on a track that keeps in constantly on the dark side of the planet and out of the burning sunlight. The attack that destroys Terminator is not directed at the city but at its track. Unable to maintain its trek in the shade, Terminator is caught in the light and burns up. Fortunately the population has plenty of time to evacuate.
Not only are people living on most of the planets of the solar system, they have also colonized the asteroids, hollowing them out and building small ecosystems that also serve as refuges for the Earth's endangered and even extinct (on Earth) species.
Robinson's vision of the future is quite appealing and that is what captured my interest. I didn't really care for the main character, Swan, who seems to be a bit unstable. I also didn't really understand the whole attack on Mercury plot of the story. I understand who but didn't get why. That part either didn't register with me or maybe it isn't fully explained. Anyway, my main problem with the book was its length: it's too damn long! That would be OK if it was an exciting, gripping story. But it's not. Interesting but not very exciting or engaging.

Zero Point

By Neal Asher

Book Two of The Owner, opens with a new dictator, Serene Galahad, seizing power on Earth and eliminating all threats and potential threats with bloodthirsty efficiency. She wants to save the Earth from humanity and has released a plague called Scour which wipes out half the people. She then threw the blame for the plague on Saul, the man who has taken over the space station Argus. She follows that up with launching an attack on the Argus, sending a space plane after the space station, which is now fleeing towards Mars. It will take the plane months to catch up with the Argus, giving the space station some time to develop new weapons and defenses.
But Alan Saul is laying on a hospital bed, half his brain destroyed by an assassin's bullet. Nevertheless, he was able to transfer his consciousness to the space station's computer system with some limited success. Although he is still running everything on the station, he is no longer capable of communicating rationally.

I liked this story, but not as much as I did the first book in the series. The main character from the first book, Saul, spends much of this book out of the story. The lead is taken over by his companion, Hannah, who tries to fill in for Saul while he lies unconscious. He does wake up later on, but still seems to be less of a leading character than before, which is too bad, because I thought he was very interesting in the first book. The book devotes more time to the villain Serene Galahad than it does that of the hero, Saul. We get to watch her have her father gutted and tortured and have a group of hunters condemned to die via Vlad Tepes' impalement method. I could have done without all that needless gore.
There is a third book in the series, Jupiter War, but I don't think I will be reading it. I liked the ending of this book and am not really that interested in continuing the story.

The Departure

By Neal Asher

Alan Saul woke up not knowing who he was. But he had a voice in his head, Janus, who told him what he needed to know to survive. With help from Janus, Saul is going to go after those who done him wrong.
Saul's Earth is in decline, overcrowded with humanity ruled by a cruel, oppressive world government. Ecosystems are failing, people are starving, chaos is only kept a bay through the use of cruel crowd-control robot weapons.
But Saul doesn't really care about the starving masses. What he cares about is tracking down the man who stole his memory. What he cares about is revenge.
But the man Saul is after isn't on Earth anymore. He is on the Argus, a huge space station. But that isn't going to keep Saul from coming after him.
Meanwhile the Mars colony has just been informed that they are on their own and will no longer receive any more support from Earth. The Mars colony leader is instructed to kill off most of the staff except for a few of the key people in order make their limited supplies last longer. This instruction is kept secret but one woman suspects something is terribly wrong and discovers the truth and makes a stand against extermination.

I liked this story a lot. I liked Saul and thought the idea of man allied with machine was interesting and intriguing. But the author does like to add a lot of technical detail to the story, for example:

When this thing was up and running, deuterium droplets sprayed into the aggregation plants, where they froze, and were next electrostatically coated with tritium dust. The resulting microspheres were then conveyed to the injectors, to be fired into each combustion chamber. Once a sphere reached the chamber's centre, it was briefly captured in a magnetic bottle, then targeted with the beams from high-intensity stacked gallium-arsenide lasers. With each ignition, the bottle expanded to form a tubular containment field, focusing the resulting blast out of the rear of the engine. The lasers fired, igniting fusion, then this process repeated itself a hundredth of a second later, and from then on kept repeating. The resulting plasma explosion from the engine provided thrust measurable in millions of tonnes.

I just skimmed those parts since that kind of technical stuff doesn't interest me.

Bootstrapper

By Mardi Jo Link

Mardi Jo's marriage fell apart and she, staying in their family home, tried to carry on as best she could raising three boys and maintaining her acreage. Mardi had always wanted to live in the country and have horses and she and her husband had purchased the acreage with its hundred-year-old house and a barn and some pastureland. Mardi had also purchased two horses and installed them in the barn and put electrified fencing around the pasture for them. But then her marriage ended.
She stayed on the acreage with the kids and had to keep up the mortgage and take care of the place, the kids, the horses and herself on her now very limited funds. She had some income as a writer but it wasn't enough as became quite apparent when winter arrived and she couldn't afford to heat the house and had to rely upon the big old fireplace for heat. Due to lack of foresight and poor planning she had failed to acquire adequate firewood before winter. She had trees on her acreage but no chain saw so she and the boys had to gather limbs small enough to cut with an ax and scrounge for wood along roadsides.
After that first cold winter on her own, scrimping and saving and making due, the next summer she planted a large garden and bought a feeder pig which was later butchered and the meat stored in her freezer. But then there was a power failure and when the electric came back on, the power surge burned out the motor on the freezer and Mardi failed to check on the freezer periodically to see if it was OK. She didn't realize something was wrong until the meat began to stink up the whole house.
But somehow, despite her many goofs, she still managed to keep her sons clothed and fed and she also managed to hang on to the acreage despite the divorce. And at the end she marries the man who was doing some improvements to her house. Who, coincidentally, was granted his divorce on the same day as hers. Uh huh.
This was a pretty good story. I just have my doubts about how truthful it really is, which kind of spoils it for me.

Zone Yellow

By Keith Laumer

Brion Bayard is an agent of the Imperium. When his world is invaded by an army of intelligent, evolved rats, Bayard is the man on the spot. He travels to the alternate universe the rats originated from and attempts to understand what has caused them to launch an assault on the Imperium. What he finds is a convoluted tangle of disease, politics, and double-dealing. But nothing that Bayard can't handle.

This story was so confused and disjointed. At first you are supposed to hate the rat people, who are portrayed very negatively (they eat their wounded comrades while the wounded are still alive). Then they are portrayed as the downtrodden dupes of a mysterious leader who has overthrown the rightful ruler, a young and appealing royal girl rat. The evil villain war lord rat who invaded the human world suddenly becomes the hero rat who helps defeat the usurper. It was all rather convoluted and not in a good way. It just didn't make a lot of sense, and unlike many of Laumer's novels, was not the least bit amusing. Just a huge waste of time.

Ladies' Night

By Mary Kay Andrews

Grace Stanton is a successful lifestyle blogger. Indeed, she is so successful that she and her husband live in a large home in a gated Florida community, all paid for by her blog. Grace, a decorator by profession, doesn't really pay as much attention as she should to the business aspects of her blog, as becomes painfully clear when her marriage falls apart. It turns out that her much more savvy husband has put everything in his name and Grace, who stormed out when she found hubby getting a BJ from her assistant, is now without a means of support. She ends up moving back in with her mother in the apartment over the bar her mother runs. Plus she has been ordered to undergo counseling by the divorce judge because she drove hubby's fancy car into their swimming pool. Seems like things can't get any worse but they do when it becomes clear that hubby and girlfriend are determined to sabotage Grace's efforts to start a new blog and rescue her floundering career.

This was a good read. I enjoyed it a lot more than I should have, given the over-the-top behavior of hubby and girl friend and various other characters in the story. So even though I found the several of the characters rather unbelievable, I still liked the story, it was quite entertaining and I liked the pacing, with the main character and the new love not falling into bed together immediately.

Eighty Days

By Matthew Goodman

November 14, 1889 -- Two women set off from New York, one heading east and one heading west. Their goal: get back to New York in less than eighty days.
Inspired by the Jules Verne novel, Around the World in Eighty Days, Nelly Bly, intrepid woman reporter known for her investigative journalism,  and sponsored by her employer, the New York newspaper The World, set forth by ship, headed to Europe in a trek around the world. Getting wind of Bly's excursion, the magazine Cosmopolitan decided to send one of their female writers off on a similar trek, only their writer, Elizabeth Bisland, would start out by heading across the U.S. by train to California, there to board ship for the Orient. Their idea was that Bly, upon arriving on the West Coast would have to deal with the harsh Midwestern winter weather as she traveled east back to New York which might slow her down drastically, maybe even stall her for some time.
Bly and Bisland were alike in some respects. Both were young women in their twenties, unmarried and obliged to support themselves. Both were talented and evocative writers. Bly was a reporter, not afraid to go undercover to expose abuse and corruption. Bisland was not a reporter, she wrote genteel magazine articles about literature and poetry. Bly set forth with only one small piece of luggage and only one dress and a coat but Bisland took several pieces of luggage with her and several dresses suitable for various occasions. But both women had this in common, that they were going to experience and see things they never dreamed of and it would a very rewarding and enlightening experience.

This was a great and exciting read. The author really made the two trips come alive. Bly came back convinced that America had all the other places of the world beat. But Bisland came back enriched by and appreciative of what other cultures had to offer. I particularly enjoyed the picture painted by the author of those cultures before they became changed by contact with the rest of the world. A real trip back in time, I almost felt like I'd been there and seen it all for myself.

Tuesday's Gone

By Nicci French

A social worker stops by a client's home to check up on her only to find the woman taking care of a dead man. The woman, who has some kind of brain disease, is incoherent and can't tell authorities who the man was or how he came to be in her apartment.
Detective Chief Inspector Karlson, who has previously worked with Frieda Klein, a psychotherapist, asks her to speak to the woman, who is now in the psychiatric hospital.
With Frieda's help, the man is identified as one Robert Poole and further investigation reveals that he was a con man with a whole list of victims, anyone of which may have murdered him.

This was an OK story. The main character, Frieda, comes off as a bit of a cold fish. She also seems to have some baggage, some to do with a previous case and some to do with her own past. I didn't really care for Frieda, I had more sympathy for the confused and tragic young woman living in the boat who I hoped very much would be rescued. All in all, not caring for the main character nor for how the story concludes, I will say it was only a fair read.

The Nitrogen Fix

By Hal Clement

Something terrible happened in the past. Somehow, Earth's atmosphere has lost most of its oxygen and life on Earth has been devastated. Now the only animal life left are a few struggling settlements of humans. There is plant life, of a sort, and people are able to survive by maintaining greenhouses full of crops and plants that provide food and oxygen. But life is very harsh and life spans greatly shortened.
Kahvi and Earrin are nomadic traders, traveling by raft to and from seaside communities. They have a young daughter and Kahvi is pregnant. They have a small greenhouse in which they sleep and recharge their oxygen equipment. They also have a traveling companion, Bones.
Although Kahvi and Earrin are sure they are the aliens and Bones is the native, the reverse is the actual truth. Bones is an observer from another star system, on Earth to study its native life and atmosphere.
A group of young scientists from the former city of Boston has developed the hypothesis that Bones and his fellow aliens on Earth are the ones responsible for the destruction of the oxygen as part of a plot to seize the world for themselves. To that end, they have captured a small alien and are now attempting to capture Bones. They don't know that the aliens are mere observers and are on Earth just to gather information. But Kahvi and Earrin have known Bones for years and trust the alien, even leaving it to watch over their young daughter.
It all comes to a head when the radicals take not only Bones but Earrin too and Kahvi has to try to save both her husband and Bones from the well-meaning but mistaken young scientists.

I liked this book. It paints a picture of a very different world in which people are barely managing to hang on, a real survivor tale, with the added interest of strange, peculiar aliens. The humans have made science a forbidden subject, blaming it for the collapse of the atmosphere. The young scientists in the story are revolutionaries, going against the established wisdom in order to attempt to save their damaged world. And even though they are the "bad guys," at least they are trying to do something, unlike their elders. Very interesting and exciting story.

The Uninvited

By Heather Graham

Allison Leigh is a guide at an historic home in Philadelphia. Landon Mansion was commandeered by the British and used by Lord Bedford during the Revolutionary War. Legend has it that young Lucy Tarleton, resident in the home with her family, was a spy for the Americans and cozied up to Lord Bedford to glean information. When he found out, he was said to have stabbed her to death, earning him the nickname Butcher Bedford. Ever since, Landon Mansion has had a rather iffy reputation. Of course, any really old house has had people die in it. Most people died at home, not in a hospital in the past. But in more modern times, there have been at least three unexpected deaths associated with the house. One person died in a fall on the stairs, one died at the desk in the study of a heart attack and a student died while trying to break into the house. All this Allison dismisses as just unfortunate occurrences. But now one of her fellow guides has been found with a bayonet shoved through his throat in the study of the old house. And, as his ghost assures Allison, it was no accident. Allison, who was a staunch denier of all things paranormal, now has to grapple with this ghost haunting her and wanting her to find his unknown killer. That is where the Krewe of Hunters can help. An elite group of FBI agents, the Krewe are all psychics and are used to dealing with the supernatural. Together with Allison they will unearth the truth behind the legend of Butcher Bedford, a truth for which someone is willing to commit murder to keep buried in history.

This was a pretty good story. I had never before read one of the Krewe of Hunters stories and I don't know if it is typical that the ghosts are as interactive as that of the murdered guide in this story. This ghost was pretty much the same as when the young man was alive, rackety, undependable, and even prone to taking naps. He just didn't seem very ghostly. I didn't much care for that. Also, the motive of the killer seemed very weak to me, killing people just to keep anyone from finding out the truth about what happened 250 years in the past. I just didn't find that believable. But other than that, I liked it.

Gateway

By Frederik Pohl

Bob Broadhead grew up in the food mines, in a world starved for resources. His was a brutal, dead-end existence, so when he won a small fortune in the lottery, he bought a one-way ticket to Gateway.
Gateway was a base established by the Heechee, now long abandoned and recently discovered by humans. Almost nothing is known about the vanished Heechee, except that they had a penchant for building space bases and leaving their ships at the bases, destinations already set and ready to launch. Humans do not understand the technology that drives the ships, nor have they figured out how the settings work. But unable to resist the opportunity, brave souls set forth on these ships, with their pre-programmed destinations and returns, hoping to find treasure, namely Heechee artifacts and technology and also hoping to come back alive and well. But climbing into a space ship without knowing where it will end up and when it will return is, at the very least, a risky business. Lots of trips lead nowhere and lots lead to death, something Bob failed to grasp before he came to Gateway.
His first flight out leads to nothing, as does the second. But the third flight hits paydirt, but out of the ten people who went, he is the only survivor. And although he is now set for life, wealthy beyond his wildest expectations, the guilt and sorrow he feels has blighted his life and he wrestles everyday with depression and sadness.

This was an OK story. It is told in a series of flashbacks, as the now-wealthy main character tries to deal with his guilt and feelings of loss. The character's psychological state is an important (and, to me, boring) part of the story. We get to follow the young man as he learns the truth about the Gateway missions and as he struggles to face his fears and leap off into the unknown and possible death or possible success. Gateway thrives on people's willingness to risk it all for a chance to become wealthy, or if not wealthy, then at least able to afford the finer things in life like food, water, clean air and a better life for their kids.
I liked the parts about Gateway and its people. The parts about Bob's struggles with his survivor guilt just didn't appeal to me at all.

Code Blue -- Emergency

By James White

Cha Thrat was a warrior-surgeon. As her people had been at peace for a very long time, the warrior part of her title was mainly an indication of status only. But Cha Thrat came from a very stratified society, with just three classes of people, serviles, warriors and rulers. As a surgeon, Cha Thrat was very traditional, which made her unpopular with her peers. But she was one of the best surgeons. So when an injured human was found in a wrecked craft, and Cha Thrat was on vacation in the area, it only made sense that she should attempt to put back together a gravely injured being, even though she was totally unfamiliar with human anatomy. But she did such a good job that the man's life and limbs were saved and his superiors were so impressed with her skills as a surgeon that she was invited to join the staff of Sector General, the huge multi-species space-hospital that served as a treatment facility for fifty-plus different species of beings.
Due to pressures at work, Cha Thrat felt obliged to accept the offer and shortly found herself in a completely alien environment, surrounded by strange and often fearsome-appearing creatures, gabbling in a bewildering variety of languages, and all part of the massive conglomeration that was Sector General. How she would ever find a place within this complex and confusing hospital remained to be seen, and even more disheartening was that she had to become a student again, required to take classes and attend lectures and start her professional life over. Further, it seemed everything she did upset her superiors and she found herself the talk of the hospital and banned from every ward, finally ending up working as a maintenance technician. She didn't give though because even maintenance techs are a vital and important part of the smooth running of the giant institution that is Sector General.

This was a good book, with Cha Thrat trying to adapt to a strange new environment and her fellows trying to adapt to her in return. White's aliens are always strange and interesting and following Cha Thrat struggles was quite engrossing and entertaining.

Fat White Vampire Blues

By Andrew Fox

Born and raised in New Orleans, Jules Duchon can't imagine being anywhere else. Fat and happy, Jules loves dining on the rich, cholesterol-laden blood of his hometown neighbors. It's why he has gotten so fat. Apparently even vampires can have weight issues. But something has to change because now Jules is starting to feel the effects of his fatty diet: shortness of breath and aching joints. Plus the love of his life, the woman vampire who made him, Maureen, wants nothing to do with him. He is just too fat to love.
But soon his weight isn't the only problem Jules has to deal with. There is a new, aggressive young vampire in town and he is muscling in on Jules' territory. In fact, he is trying to run Jules out of town, even going to far as to burn down Jules' house. Jules is forced to leave town, leading to an unfortunate incident with a real bitch, but comes back ready to face down Malice X, the mean new vampire and his gang of bullies. But to do so he'll need a little help from his friends, namely his plus-size ex-girlfriend and stripper, Maureen, and his sidekick from the good old days, a crossing-dressing homosexual vampire called Doodlebug. Together, they will stand and in the process maybe Jules will finally grow up.

I really enjoyed this book. It was funny and I liked that the vampires are the traditional, old-fashioned vampires. In fact, these vampires are so old-fashioned that they can't even talk to a priest without starting to roast a little:

"Uh, forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been . . . let's see . . . eighty years since my last confession; maybe eighty-five years. Lemme think here . . . uh, I have purchased pornography..." "Excuse me, my son. Surely you realize that smoking is not permitted in the confessional booth." Jules was slightly stunned at having been interrupted midconfession by the priest. "But I'm not smoking, Father."
"I smell smoke."
Jules waved his arms around, trying to disperse the smoke, but his exertions only made his skin burn faster.

I also liked the way the author logically extended the traditional vampire power of transmogrification. Plus the book is just plain funny. And creepy. But most of all, a good, enjoyable read.
For another review see  http://shinybookreview.com/2011/03/08/fat-white-vampire-blues-title-says-it-all/

Isle of Palms

By Dorothea Benton Frank

Anna didn't have a happy childhood. Her mom was a tad indifferent, her father conservative and busy, her grandmother harsh and judgmental. But the one thing Anna really cared about was the place where she lived, Isle of Palms. Close to Charleston, South Carolina, Isle of Palms was where Anna wanted to be. But after her mom died and her grandmother moved in, her father moved them away from the island. It left a hole in Anna's life and a yearning that took her years to gratify.
After being drugged and raped on a date in high school, Anna became pregnant. Her best friend Jim stepped up and married her. But Jim was a homosexual and the marriage soon floundered. Anna moved back in with her dad and began a career as a hair stylist, just plugging away at life, taking care of her dad and her daughter, coping but not really enjoying life. But after her daughter went off to college, Anna decided she wanted to move back to the Isle of Palms. She bought herself a little house, opened her own salon and met an exciting new man. And with the help of her best friend, some new friends, some old friends and even with the help of her stodgy old father, Anna is finally feeling like she has come home.

I enjoyed reading about Anna and her interesting and often funny life, like the night she and her new boyfriend got naked on the dock, then climbed into a boat because Anna felt too exposed on the dock. They both fell asleep and the boat drifted away from the dock and out to sea. Fortunately and unfortunately, they were discovered by the coast guard and had to resort to wearing garbage bags to cover their nakedness. It was a good story and I liked Anna and all her fun and annoying friends and family.

Nennonite in a Little Black Dress

By Rhoda Janzen

The author reminisces about her life after her husband left her and she was injured in an auto accident. Feeling somewhat at loose ends and slowly recovering from her injuries, Janzen went to stay with her parents. Her folks were traditional Mennonites, not to be confused with the Amish and their rejection of modern conveniences. Mennonites use electricity, drive vehicles, have telephones, computers, dishwashers, etc. But they are conservative and early in her life, Janzen decided it was not for her. She chose a different path, a more worldly path, one that included marrying a homosexual, abusive man who eventually left her high and dry and in financial difficulties.

This book just kind of meanders along, revealing snippets of the Mennonite way of life. It is mostly entertaining and often amusing. The only real drawback is the author's extensive vocabulary that too often went over my head. For example: "Sure, from a ratiocinative point of view, the invention of angels on the wall seems an unlikely way to achieve virtue in praxis." I have no idea what this means and my spell checker didn't know either ratiocinative or praxis. Another example: "...my brothers don't follow events in the belletristic world..."  Belletristic? Really? I looked it up ... which didn't help because I didn't understand the definition either.
So other than the annoying difficult vocabulary, I pretty much enjoyed her story.
For a better review see: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/books/review/Christensen-t.html?_r=0