Timeline

By Michael Crichton

On an archaeological dig in France, a cryptic message is uncovered on a piece of ancient parchment. It says, "Help me 4/7/1357." Impossible though it may seem, the archaeologists come to the conclusion that the team leader, Professor Johnston, has some how ended up back in 1357's France and needs to be rescued.
So three of the most qualified archaeological workers are talked into traveling back in time  to rescue their professor. There's Andre Marek, who eats, breathes and lives the 1300s; Kate Erickson, grad student, mountain climber and architecture expert; and Chris Hughes, also a grad student and an expert on the ancient buildings of the dig site. Accompanied by two hired mercenaries to keep the three archaeologists safe, things go bad from the very start upon arrival in 1357 when both the mercenaries are killed by a small troop of mounted men. One has her head loped off and the other takes an arrow in the chest. In the confusion, the three archaeologists split up and escape, running from danger and facing a reality that is a lot more brutal than what they have ever known.

This story is chock full of action, as the time travelers tumble from one disastrous encounter to another. They are caught in the middle of a war zone, as two groups of vie for control of the area.They are constantly on the run, barely escaping with their lives multiple times.  A little too much action, for my taste.

See also the review by Publishers Weekly.

Cathy Twentieth Anniversary Collection

By Cathy Guisewite

This fun collection, celebrating twenty years of Cathy comic strips, starts out with some of the earliest Cathy strips from 1976 and continues on through 1996, with commentary from the real Cathy.

Pearls Blows Up

By Stephan Pastis

A Pearls Before Swine Treasury, copyright 2011. Pearls Before Swine is a very successful newspaper comic strip. Probably the last one, as people switch from reading newspapers to reading news on the internet.
I have enjoyed reading these comic strips. Pastis' Pearls Before Swine is right up there with the greats of daily strips: Charles Schulz's Peanuts, Gary Larson's Far Side, Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes, Berkeley Breathed's Bloom County, Cathy Guisewite's Cathy and Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury.

Pardon My Planet : Omigawd! I've Become My Mother

By Vic Lee

Cartoon collection copyrighted 2005.

I don't really know much about this cartoonist, Vic Lee. I just happened upon this collection and it looked funny, so, yeah. I don't know where his work usually appears or how long he has been doing cartoons. He seems to have a cast of somewhat recurring characters, but I could be wrong about that. Some of them look similar, but are they the same person? I don't know.
Anyway, these cartoons are funny and twisted and very enjoyable.

I'd Scream Except I Look So Fabulous

By Cathy Guisewite

Daily Cathy comic strips copyrighted 1999.
Cathy loses her regular job when Irving comes back into her life. He arrives at her job hired to "restructure, reoganize ... you know ... redirect the personnel..."
Despite her long past relationship with Irving, he doesn't save her job. Instead she is told will be working from home on a part-time basis and she will be able to freelance. Good bye steady income and benefits!

I really felt for Cathy as she struggled to deal with her new, scary reality. This collection is funny but it also is truth.

Down in the Black Gang

By Philip Jose Farmer

A collection of science fiction stories.
1. Down in the Black Gang: ETs use human emotion to power the universe but one of their fixers gets fed up with manipulating humans and flees.
2. The Shadow of Space: An experimental space ship finds itself in unspace due to sabotage and can't figure out how to get back home or if home even exists anymore.
3. A Bowl Bigger than Earth: Morfiks finds himself sliding into a new world in a new body. But the new body is sexless and hairless and the new world is filled with people who look and sound exactly like him. Individuality is forbidden and any infractions result in everyone being punished.
4. Riverworld: Tom Mix, old timey cowboy movie star, finds himself reincarnated on Riverworld along with the rest of humanity. Riverworld is a massive, possibly artificial world featuring a single central river valley surrounded by impassible mountains. Tom falls in with a woman who knew Moses and with a man who doesn't want to admit that he is Jesus Christ and just as human as everyone else.
5. A Few Miles:  A novice monk is ordered by the head of his order to take passage on a space ship to another planet, Wildenwooly. But he has to figure how to get out of the city where the monastery is located and out to the city limits where the spaceport is all on his own with any help or money. He has many adventures, including helping a man with a broken oven, fighting off a gang of union thugs, falling in with a couple of dangerous teens, getting attacked by an alien animal and having his clothing stolen.
I think this was the author's attempt at a humorous story.
6. Prometheus: The monk from the story, A Few Miles, goes to the planet of the alien animal that attacked him in that story. At first dismissed as merely talented mimics, rather like parrots, it soon becomes apparent that these beings, called horowitzes (named for the man who discovered their planet), are capable of learning what the monk teaches them. Soon, they are speaking and understanding the monk's language, learning to make fire and cook their food. Learning agriculture and making tools of flint and weapons for hunting and defense. But questions arise about what happens after death and the monk must decide if he will give them religion or let them develop their own philosophy.
7. The Blasphemers: The sphinx people have developed quickly and have even made a faster-than-light drive for their space ships. They explore the galaxy, looking for planets to colonize. They ruthlessly suppress the beings of any planet who they deem to be vulnerable. But then they discover our planet and the big sphinx statue in Egypt and it blows their minds.
8. How Deep the Groove: A scientist invents a mind-reading machine and discovers a disturbing truth about humankind that drives him insane.

This was an OK read. I'm not really a fan of short stories and I wasn't particularly impressed or entertained by this collection.

$14 In The Bank And A $200 Face In My Purse

By Cathy Guisewite

This collection of Cathy comic strips was published in 1990. In this collection Cathy has her little dog Electra and hasn't been dating her long time boyfriend, Irving for quite awhile. She briefly dates another fellow, Simon, but soon finds him boring. But still gets upset when a friend from work starts seeing Simon after Cathy is no longer interested.
Electra, Cathy's dog, seems sad and Cathy thinks the dog may be missing Irving. So Cathy invites him over and is surprised to find that he has quit his job and gained thirty pounds. Which he proceeds to lose in one day by merely skipping lunch.

Typical Cathy comic, with all the usual struggles with diet, exercise, overeating, overspending and over-dramatizing everything. Familiar territory but still a lot of fun to read.