The Color of Water

By James McBride

Ruchel Zylska was born in Europe and immigrated as a child with her parents to the United States. Her father Fishel (good name for him as he was a kind of "fishy" guy) was a traveling rabbi, moving his family from city to city, from temple to synagogue. He was an unpleasant person and soon wore out his welcome at every new job. Finally he decided to give up the traveling rabbi business and opened a kind of general store in Virginia.
Fishel was neither a loving father or loving husband. He married his wife Hudis for her family connections and made no secret of his disdain of her. His children were obliged to work in the store all the time except on the Sabbath and when they were in school. They despised their father and quickly left home as fast as they could.
Ruchel, who was called Ruth, became enamored of a young black man and soon found herself pregnant. Her mother sent her to New York to stay with the mother's sister and an abortion was performed. But Ruth decided that New York was the place for her and, once back in Virginia, quickly escaped again, returning to her aunts in New York. It was there that she met the man she was to marry, Andrew McBride.
This was not what Fishel wanted for his daughter. He wanted to marry her off to a suitable Jewish man not to a black man and a Christian to boot. Ruth found herself cut off from her family, told that she was dead to them.
Ruth and Andrew had eight kids together and after he died she remarried and had four more with that husband. She never spoke of her past life to her kids, she never practiced the Jewish religion, becoming instead a born-again Christian. Her break with her past was total. Her kids never even met any of her relatives.
Her son James never knew his father. He died while Ruth was pregnant with James. Ruth was left in dire straits, with no support from her family and no money coming in. She did what she could, but the family always struggled, even after she remarried. She never talked to her children about her past, even about the fact she was Jewish. She had left her Jewish past behind. But as James grew older, he became curious about her past and his heritage and he gradually coaxed the story out of his mother. It was a journey of discovery that helped him to understand some of the puzzles that used to confuse him as a little kid and come to grips with his mixed blood heritage.

This was a interesting story. Ruth raised her twelve kids and saw to it that they graduated from high school and went on to college. Sure they struggled and times were hard, but somehow they all made it through. It is a story about a family who overcame the many strikes against them, with their determined Jewish mother as their guiding star.

Leaping to the Stars

By David Gerrold

After Jumping Off the Planet and Bouncing Off the Moon, Charles and his two brothers Stinky and Doug are now Leaping to the Stars with their fugitive computer HARLIE that is disguised as a toy monkey. And once again they are on the run as various factions are determined to gain possession of HARLIE and the power that it can deliver. So they are pretty much forced to leave the moon and decide on Outbeyond, a struggling settlement on a planet in a different star system. Problem is, due to the state of crisis on Earth, it will be a one-way trip with no chance of return. And no guarantee of survival once they get there. Plus the only reason the Outbeyond colonists are willing to take the fugitives is that they also want the HARLIE unit, which could be the key to the colony's survival on a hostile and dangerous and isolated alien world.

Currently this series is referred to as a trilogy, which leads the reader to the assumption that Charles and the rest will reach their destination and have all sorts of adventures in their brave new world. At least that's what I thought. So I was disappointed that this book is solely concerned with the journey and not the arrival. Once the author gets his players off the moon and resuming their journey, that's all the further they get. The rest of the story is situated on the colony ship headed to Outbeyond. So that was a let down.
This story mainly focuses on Charles' growing pains as he learns to negotiate life on the ship. His older brother and younger brother are merely bit players in this story as are his mom (the dad got left behind on the moon), popping up occasionally to offer bits of advice and wisdom. Even the HARLIE unit makes only brief appearances and has a few boring philosophical discussions with Charles. Speaking of philosophical discussions, the book is loaded with them, a real bonus if you like that sort of thing. I don't and found them tedious and sometimes preachy.
Anyway, the main thrust of the book becomes the conflict between Charles and a large group of passengers who are a bunch of religious zealots. They feel that the HARLIE unit is a tool of the devil and that Charles is its pawn. At first they try to convert Charles and when that doesn't work, they organize a mutiny.
I tried to like this book, but what I really wanted to read was a book about settlers on a new world, not about dissension between a bunch of people stuck on a spaceship. Still parts of it were pretty interesting and engaging even if the story ends before they ever arrive at Outbeyond.

Citizen Girl

By Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

Girl (that's the character's name) majored in women's studies and was pleased to get a job working for a feminist nonprofit. But it soon becomes clear that feminists are no different than most and her boss is taking credit for Girl's work and when Girl dares to mention it, she is abruptly fired. When she goes to file for unemployment, she finds out she is ineligible because her boss is claiming Girl quit.
But despite the rough-handling she received working for an avowed feminist, Girl is still committed to the cause and is thrilled to be offered a job at My Company, an online service that is interested in attracting the feminist element to their website and has hired girl as their expert in this demographic. But Girl soon discovers that My Company is not really interested in supporting feminism. No, what they really want is to sell stuff to feminists. And they want Girl to promote products as feminist that really have nothing to do with feminism, like cosmetics and skimpy underwear. Well, the job pays really well and My Company has promised to donate one million dollars to a feminist nonprofit that helps exploited women if Girl succeeds, and so she swallows her misgivings and gives it her best shot. But in the process she manages to really annoy her boss, Guy, while earning raves from Guy's boss. But in the end, nothing can save My Company and a new boss is brought in to run things. Finally, Girl has a boss she can admire, a woman who is organized, intelligent, competent and down-to-earth, everything Guy was not. Now maybe Girl can finally relax and breathe a little. Or not.

This was an OK story. I did think Girl was a little too naive and more than a little gutless. She seemed incapable of getting through to her boss and her fellow employees. She pretty much lets folks run over her, including her boyfriend, who comes off as a jerk and makes one wonder what she sees in him. I can't say I really liked Girl and it is hard to understand why it took her so long to figure out that business is all about making money and that any philanthropic impulse it has is merely a ploy to increase sales.

Bitter Is the New Black

By Jen Lancaster

Jen had the world by the tail. She had a well-paying job, a nice apartment, a sweet live-in boyfriend, and money to spend. She never imagined living any other way. But life has a way of kicking us in the ass, and Jen sure got her ass kicked, big time. She lost her job and was unable to find another despite her excellent work credentials and experience. But the boyfriend, Fletch, was making a very good living and, with a little effort and some minor economizing, they would be OK. Because, surely Jen would soon find a new job...
But she didn't. And then Fletch lost his job. And now the two are going to have to make some major changes or end up living on the street!

It's not a new story. There are tons of books about people who lose their jobs only to find themselves. But what set this memoir apart from many of those other books, fiction and nonfiction, is the author's very funny take on herself and her life. She knows she is a bit of a diva, she isn't ashamed to admit it and to laugh at her pretensions. It was a funny read and I liked it a lot.

From the Dust Returned

By Ray Bradbury

A collection of stories about the Elliot family, who live in the Midwest but are certainly not the typical Midwesterners. There's Uncle Einar with his great huge bat wings. Great-something Grandmere Nef, who is an Egyptian mummy and Nefertiti's mommy. Cecy, beautiful and young and always asleep but who travels in the minds of others. And there's Timothy, just a regular kid who somehow ended up in the care of this very odd family and who is torn between their midnight ways and normal life in the sunshine. It's a gathering of the strange, the spooky, the hidden and the ought-to-be-dead. But what these strange folks want mainly is to be left alone and yet not be forgotten either.

For the most part I enjoyed the stories, like "Uncle Einar" who flew into an electrical line and lost his night vision and thus his ability to fly at night. And "West of October" where the minds of four rambunctious young men end up occupying the body of a 4000-year-old man, the mummified husband of Great-something Grandmere Nef. Some of the stories didn't appeal to me but overall it was an entertaining and enjoyable read.

Available Light

By Ellen Currie

Kitty is afraid to commit herself wholeheartedly to her lover, Rambeau, and as a consequence, he has moved out of their home. Only after he is gone does Kitty come to realize how much she really does love him. She spirals down into depression and is not helped at all by her jealous, neurotic sister Eileen or by their wasp-tongued, house-bound, decrepit Irish mother. At one point, Kitty believes she is pregnant and her sister believes that she too is pregnant and it seems from appearances that their mean old mother is acting like she is pregnant too. Add in a mean-tempered pit bull (is there any other kind?), an amoral teenager who really is pregnant, and a lecherous, elderly neighbor, and you have a cast of characters who are strange, repulsive, nasty and all more than a little bonkers.

I can't say I cared at all for this book. For one, it is billed as being funny. But it isn't. Unless you are the kind of person who laughs at the disabled and thinks heartbreak and tragedy are hilarious. Because this is not a happy story. One character gets mauled by the mean dog. One character and her unborn child die in a car crash. The mean old mother has a series of strokes. And speaking of mean, it seems like the favorite activity of these character is making each other feel lousy. I didn't find it funny and beyond that, these people all act like escapees from a loony bin. I just couldn't relate to their insanity, their pointless cruelty to each other.

Water Witches

By Chris Bohjalian

Scottie Winston is a lawyer in Vermont and one of his firm's major clients is a local ski resort. Times are rough in the ski industry, what with competition from the big Western resorts and with the drought that Vermont has been suffering through that has reduced the amount of snow on the ski slopes. Lots of resorts have gone under. But the local resort has plans to prevent their own decline. They want to expand the ski trails, build a new ski lift and expand their snowmaking capacity. Of course, all these plans will have an impact on the surrounding wilderness, and most especially on the nearby river the resort wants to tap to supply its snowmakers. The drought has seriously depleted the river and locals and others are afraid that if the resort is given the go-ahead on the snowmaking, it will cause the river to run dry. Not to mention all the trees to be removed for new ski trail and parking lots and all the other development the resort wants to do.
Scottie is kind of caught in the middle. On the one hand, the resort is a major client and Scottie believes in the economic benefit the expansion will bring to the local community. But on the other had are his wife, his daughter and his wife's friends and family. Because Scottie is married to a water witch, and his little daughter is a fledgling water witch and his wife's whole life and family are tied to and involved with water witches and water witching and they are all up in arms over the proposed ski resort expansion. How can he please both his clients and those who are closest to his heart?

The first two thirds of this book were really interesting and enjoyable, reading about Scottie's odd family and relatives and water witching. But then it gets bogged down in politics and protesters and legal battles and it got really boring really fast. The author drags the main character's little girl into the legal battles but that just wasn't enough to make it interesting again. And I felt the whole business about the cougars was kind of contrived and, as before, it just wasn't enough to make that part of the story as interesting as the part about the water witches and Scottie's family.

The Uplift War

By David Brin

Garth is a planet that was abused greatly by its previous tenants has been granted to humans and neochimps to colonize. Their mission is to provide a home for a growing colony of neochimps and to restore and bring into balance the planet's ecology. It's just too bad they end up as pawns in an interstellar conflict.
Although the humans and neochimps put up a gallant defense against the Gubru invaders, they are out-gunned and out-numbered and soon the Gubru are ruling the roost, literally. (Gubru are bird-like beings who like being on a perch.) Their purpose in seizing Garth is to blackmail Earth into doing what the Gubru want. Failing that, they will use the inhabitants of Garth to prove that humans don't deserve to be Galactic citizens and that humans should be indentured to a more advanced, superior race, like the Gubru. Also that humans are botching the Uplift (genetic engineering) of chimps to neochimps and that someone more qualified should take over the neochimps' Uplift. Someone like, oh, I don't know, maybe...the Gubru?
Well, the Gubru might think they are an advanced Galactic culture, but basically they are out to get whatever they can. And if it means gassing humans and destroying forests and imprisoning and brainwashing neochimps and holding entire worlds hostage, well, that's just too bad. The Gubru may look like a flock of birdbrains but they are a ruthless bunch of intergalactic baddies.

This was an OK story. It was too long and slow, I thought. The romance between one of the main characters and an alien girl was not very satisfying and also kind of disturbing. The neochimps came off as too human. And I never did understand the whole thing about the gorillas coming into the Gubru-controlled town and crashing some ceremony intended to raise neochimps to Galactic citizenhood. And, strangely enough, even though the Gubru are stinkers, I felt sorry for the way it turned out for them in the end. It felt like a real lost opportunity for something wonderful and magnificent.

The Devil in the Junior League

By Linda Francis Lee

Texas socialite Frede (pronounced Freddie) Ware was certain that her husband loved her and wanted to have children with her. After several years of marriage and no babies, followed by numerous trips to the fertility doctors and lots of medical tests, Frede finds out that she has been living in a fantasy. Not only does her husband, Gordon, not want to have kids with her, he had a vasectomy before they were even married. Further, he has been having an affair with his homely secretary. And, as Frede later finds out, he has swindled Frede out of her large fortune, her house, her expensive artworks and has even replaced her fabulous jewelry with fakes. For the first time in her over-privileged life, Frede is going to have to stand on her own two feet.

Only, of course, she doesn't. She turns for help to some old friends and to some new friends and together they manage to pull her ass out of the flames. Only after being rescued does Frede finally leave her warm and cozy rich-girl enclave and set out to find herself. And that is where the story ends.

Frede Ware must be just about the stupidest rich girl there ever was. Why else would she blindly sign whatever paper her conniving husband sets in front of her, signing away her trust fund, rescinding her prenuptial agreement, and even signing over to her hubby her house and expensive artworks? This girl is just too stupid to live. But besides being stupid, Frede is one of the most stuck-up, arrogant, judgmental and all-around-stinkers of a heroine. If a woman shows up wearing a flowered print dress or, god forbid, spike heels, they are written off in Frede's book as NC: No Class. Not-One-Of-Us. This Frede is such a pill who so does not deserve her good fortune that I sort of wished the errant hubby succeeded in ripping her off at the end.
Other than the fact that Frede is a prig and a very unsympathetic heroine, sneering as she does at every little infringement she sees of her precious social code (for instance, she is shocked to see her friend is wearing animal print socks under her slacks), this story was pretty engaging. A behind-the-scenes look at the lifestyles of a particular class of society that was quite interesting. However, I did feel that Frede's husband and his complict girlfriend get off too easy. I didn't find their punishment very satisfying. And as for Frede, she's just lucky her creepy husband only swindled her.

The Boy Who Looked Like Shirley Temple

By Bill Mahan

Billy and his family leave their home for the greener pastures of California in the 1930s, hoping for better times there. They find a place to rent in Culver City and are down to just a few dollars. The dad is a hopeless hypochondriac and the mom finds a job only to have her boss skip town without paying her for two weeks of work. Looks like it's up to the two kids to support the family, which they manage to do pretty well by stealing lima beans from a nearby farm and selling them on the street. The customers are lining up for the discount beans but then the mom finds out what her two kids have been doing and puts a stop to it, despite the fact that the family is on the verge of being evicted from their crummy little house. But then cute little Billy gets discovered by Hollywood and things start to look up...maybe.

This was a fun and enjoyable read, a great trip back to a time that makes our current economic struggles look like child's play. It was a real hand-to-mouth existence but Billy and his older sister managed to keep the family going despite their parents' incompetence. I really enjoyed this very amusing story of a Depression-era family coping with hard times.

Potatoes Are Cheaper

By Max Shulman

It's 1936, the heart of the Depression, and two young men, Morris Katz and his cousin have hit on a way out of poverty to a better life. They'll enroll in college and find rich, homely Jewish girls and woo them and marry them.
They get the necessary cash together for the first semester and they are off and running. Morris hits upon the only daughter of a local theater magnate, wooing her with poetry written by his cousin Crip. But then the girlfriend sends the poem into the college literary magazine and it is a big hit with the editor, a gorgeous gentile girl, Bridget, who Morris falls for hard. Now he has to choose between money and security and love and happiness, with everyone in his family pulling for money and security, while his heart and loins are pulling for love and happiness. He better make the right choice because his whole future depends on it. And even if he does marry the gentile, he tells himself, "Of course she [his mother] might topple over dead when I told her about Bridget, but that didn't seem too likely. Jewish mothers do very little actual dying from shicksas. A lot of hemorrhaging, of course. But actual dying is seldom."

This was a very funny and entertaining novel. Morris and his various family members are all amusing as are his two prospective brides. Eventually, Morris makes his choice and it turns out to be the best one and the story ends happily, dilemma solved. And it was a lot of fun getting there, for sure.

Healer

By F. Paul Wilson

Steve Dalt was trying to locate a lost spacecraft when he encountered some hostile natives and took shelter in a nearby cave. He was briefly puzzled that they didn't come after him:

But his five pursuers were doing nothing. They sat astride their mounts and stared dumbly at the cave mouth. One of the party unstrung his crossbow and began to strap it to his back. Dalt had no time to wonder at their behavior, for in that instant he realized he had made a fatal error. He was in a cave on Kwashi, and there was hardly a cave on Kwashi that didn't house a colony of alarets.
He jumped into a crouch and sprinted for the outside. He'd gladly take his chances against the crossbows rather than alarets any day. But a warm furry oval fell from the cave ceiling and landed on his head as he began to move. As his ears roared and his vision turned orange and green and yellow, Steven Dalt screamed in agony and fell to the cave floor.
Hearing that scream, the five Tependian scouts shook their heads and turned and rode away.

Only one in a thousand can survive an alaret attack and it turned out that Steve Dalt was that one. When he regained consciousness, he discovered he was no longer alone in his own head. He was now sharing his body with a powerful new presence and he would be forever changed. And this amazing change will enable Steve Dalt to save humanity from an implacable, unseen new enemy.

This is a good story. Steve's adventures in his partnership with the alaret who invaded his body make for quite a good read. For it turns out that the alaret has given Dalt the gift of virtual immortality, an immortality that, as the years flow by, seems more of a burden than a gift. A burden that Steve learns to bear as it becomes apparent that his unique gifts make him a kind of savior to humankind, always ready to step up when needed. I enjoyed reading this book again, having read it in the past more than once.

Amazonia

By James Rollins

Nathan Rand's father disappeared on an expedition to discover lost tribes of the Amazon. A few years later, one of the members of that expedition came out of the jungle but died within hours without revealing the fate or location of the rest of the members of the expedition. This man, a former Special Forces soldier, had lost an arm previously but when he came out of the jungle, his arm was back.
News of this miracle sends a new expedition into the Amazon, to attempt to trace the dead man's trail and lead them to find out how the man regrew his arm. And Nathan Rand is part of that expedition and he is determined to discover what happened to his father. Plus they have a new, urgent quest: to discover a cure for a new and terrible disease that apparently came out of the jungle in the tissues of the dead man and is spreading like lightning throughout Brazil and the United States where the man's body was transported for study before anyone new that it was the bearer of a plague.

This story is part adventure story, part horror story and part mystery novel. The expedition has lots of exciting adventures, including encounters with giant piranha who have legs and can walk; gigantic caimans, a kind of alligator; a pack of huge jaguars and with a gang of thugs who want the discovery of a medicine that can regrow human limbs for the unscrupulous pharmaceutical company who has hired them. Heads will roll and so will a lot of other gory stuff but the story is certainly exciting and the source of the cure is simply amazing and fascinating and it is too bad it is just a fantasy. This was a very good read, if you don't mind all the gruesome stuff.

Startide Rising

By David Brin

Some time after humans have achieved starflight and become a rather unwelcome part of the galactic community, an experimental mission consisting of a crew of a few humans but mostly "uplifted" dolphins sets out on a shakedown flight that ends up turning the whole galaxy on its ear.
First, the galactic community, consisting of many different intelligent species, has existed for millions of years. They have pooled their knowledge into a vast Library which they share among themselves.
The origins of this community are pretty much unknown, but the common mythology is that a race of intelligent Progenitors established the Library, started the process of "uplift" and developed the galactic culture and community and then disappeared. Consequently, a fundamentalist-type of religion has developed in the galaxy that maintains that someday the Progenitors will return and establish a new, perfect community and reward the true believers.
"Uplift" is the process whereby an intelligent species takes a species that is just verging on becoming self-aware, and using genetic manipulation, push it into intelligence and then the uplifted ones spend a long time, maybe thousands of years, as servants and slaves of the species that uplifted them.
Uplift is the main reason that humans are not liked in the galactic community, because humans developed intelligence on their own and are not beholden to anyone. Plus humans uplifted some Earth species and did not make them slaves or servants to humanity, namely chimps and dolphins. This the galactic community finds outrageous because it flaunts millions of years of tradition.
So when this spaceship of humans, a chimp, and mostly dolphins discovers a graveyard in space of huge, moon-sized spaceships, the galactics, believing that the spaceships are those of the Progenitors and herald the beginning of the return of the Progenitors, will do anything to get their paws, flippers, tentacles, whatever on the location of this graveyard. The little spaceship becomes a target and gets shot down on a water world and its combined crew is in for a fight to the death to not only save their own lives but to protect the hugely valuable information that all their many enemies are dying to possess.

This is an ingenious and interesting story about a most unlikely situation, namely a spaceship crewed by a bunch of dolphins and that spaceship in turn trying to face down an armada of enemy ships determined to possess it. It was an exciting and intriguing read and I enjoyed it a lot. The only quibbles I had with the story were the dolphins, which I thought seemed too human in their behaviour, and the religious fanaticism of the galactics, which came off as too primitive for such supposedly highly advanced species. But other than that, it was a very enjoyable read.

Mannequin: My Life as a Model

By Carolyn Kenmore

The true story of a work-a-day model's life trying to make it in New York City.
Carolyn graduated from college but decided she would like to be a model so she left her home town in New England and set out for the big city. She never really explains why she chose this route instead of finding work in the field for which she spent four years in college.
Anyway, she details the effort to get started in the business, acquiring a portfolio, clothes, learning about hair and makeup, posing and so forth. Plus dealing with sex-obsessed and demanding clients, challenging shoots, not to mention the rejection inherent in a career based on looks.
It's an interesting look behind the glamour and the glitz and even though it was written in the 1960s, I don't suppose much has changed except for the introduction of the cell phone, which has probably helped with the time management and maintaining contacts in a big way.
From what she writes, I don't think she ever made it to the big time, certainly not to the stature of a Heidi Klum or Kate Moss or even Twiggy, who was a very famous model at about the same time as this book covers. But still, she gives a detailed picture of the life of a typical model. It made for a pretty good read.

At Day's Close: Night in Times Past

By A. Roger Ekirch

This book takes a look at how people lived in the days before the invention of modern lighting. How did they spend their evenings, once it got too dark to work? How did they spend their nights?
Turns out they spent their nights a lot like we do. Most people didn't go to bed and get up with the sun. They were out and about, visiting, working, getting up to no good. They just had to do it in a lot darker conditions than most folks nowadays.
For some, nighttime was the only time when the conventions and restrictions of their daytime lives were lifted. At night, you could do in darkness what you feared to be seen in the light. Sexual adventures, gambling, drinking, general rowdiness, and crime all thrived under cover of darkness. Crime especially seemed to know no bounds after nightfall. Housebreaking, robberies, muggings, hijackings, prostitution all benefited from cover of darkness.
Yet, even though life was riskier after dark, people still got out and about, visiting, working, socializing, even travelling in the darkness. In many ways, it all sounds familiar, if a lot harder and more dangerous given the lack of light.
As he brings his book to a close, the author describes something that he says has changed a lot because of modern lighting and that is our actual sleep habits. According to the author, people used to practice what they called first sleep and second sleep. First sleep lasts about fours hours or so at which point the sleeper awakes and stays awake for up to an hour or two and then goes back to sleep until morning. This interval between sleeps was a time for thinking over the day or for contemplation, for prayer, for quiet conversation with a bedmate or even for sex. The author feels our modern lives are the poorer for losing this quiet awake time in the middle of the night. I personally think he is wrong about that. I don't think most people sleep straight through the night. They would probably like to but don't. I know I don't. It is a rare thing for me not to wake up after about four hours sleep. I get up, let the dog out, use the toilet, get a drink of water, get the dog back in and head back to bed. True, I don't spend any time thinking about the day or contemplating my existence; I just want to get back to sleep. Maybe what has changed is not that people have stopped waking up in the middle of the night, but that our expectation is that our sleep should be uninterrupted and so we are less accepting of being awake then.

The Girl Watcher

By James Lawson

Arleigh Eliot is a middle-aged executive in New York City who is at a point in his life where his main preoccupation is sex. He visits massage parlors, peep shows, strip joints, makes obscene phone calls and is a window peeper. One day a beautiful young woman caught his eye. She seemed to him to be the epitome of young, desirable womanhood. So he began to stalk her. He became so obsessed that he even left his wife and moved into an apartment across the way from the woman's so that he could spy on her.
Eventually his attraction to this young woman led him to make contact with her and to his surprise, she was attracted to him also. They get together and Arleigh finds that he isn't as deliriously happy as he thought he would be, that a fantasy girl friend may be better than the real deal.

Arleigh is a guy who makes no bones about his own desires and selfishness. Although at the end of the novel he admits that some day it may all catch up to him, he really doesn't seem to care. He does what he wants in his personal and professional life. He is a creep. But as despicable as Arleigh is, still his frankness and openness are refreshing and amusing and entertaining. Arleigh is a scoundrel, but he is a lot of fun to read about and an unforgettable character.

Glory Lane

By Alan Dean Foster

Seeth is a young punk who, with his brother Kerwin, who's a bit of a nerd, see something strange at a bowling lane: a bowling ball with a mind of its own and a bowler who has seven fingers. But before they can get a closer look, two thugs show up and start dragging the seven-fingered bowler and his ball away. Seeth, being a kind of anti-establishment sort of person, steps in to challenge the two thugs and in the ensuing hassle, he and his brother and the stranger manage to escape. But not for long, because the two thugs come after them, shooting not guns but some kind of beam weapon. And as their new friend, Rail, explains, the thugs will not be satisfied with anything less than all their deaths. So all three of them, and the bowling ball, and a air-headed young woman who gets dragged into it all also, have to leave Earth and flee in Rail's spacecraft to seek refuge from the relentless thugs who are after one thing: the bowling ball.

This book tries real hard to be funny but it just isn't. Mostly it is dull. Seeth is a creep, his brother is a zero and the young woman, Miranda, is just a parody of a woman, constantly obsessed with shopping. The whole universe is after the bowling ball, and lots of aliens pop in and out of the story, but even the aliens miss the mark too. About the only thing that was engaging in the story was the puzzle of the bowling ball. It was the only thing that kept my interest and I found the solution of the bowling ball satisfying and surprising. So for the sake of the bowling ball part of the story, I think this book gets a fair rating.

Sunburn

By Laurence Shames

Vincente Delgatto is an old man. He should be retired but he isn't. He is the Godfather. And he is in Florida to visit his son, Joey Goldman. He has two sons, Joey in Florida and Gino Delgatto in New York. Joey is not involved in his father's business but Gino is. Joey is smart and Gino, not so much.
As an elderly man, Vincente is looking back at his life and feeling a heaviness about some of things he has done. He is thinking maybe if he had someone to talk to about it, it would help him feel better. So he gets together with a friend of his son Joey's, a newspaper man named Arty. Toghether they are writing the Godfather's memoir.
Gino is also down in Florida, trying to arrange a deal without his father's knowledge but the deal goes sour. In order to save his own life, he reveals that his father is writing a memoir. To prove himself, Gino is told to kill Arty, to stop the memoir from being written.
Also interested in the memoir is the FBI. They want it, badly. So badly that they try to squeeze Arty into giving it to them. Poor Arty is getting it from both directions. But not to worry, he has the Godfather on his side.

This is a story about gangsters. It is also a story about an old man who loves his sons and who just happens to be the Godfather. It's a story about how the choices people make twist their lives. It's about regret and love and compassion and duty. And about friendship, old friends and new friends, old loyalties and new ones. The gangster stuff is pretty routine, but Vincente's personal life, his connection with his family, his old friend, Bert the Shirt and his new friend, Arty, that makes this story surprisingly warm, sweet and touching. I enjoyed it.

Wasteland of Flint

By Thomas Harlan

This story is set in the future of an alternate timeline, where the Japanese discovered the Americas and where the Aztecs are the rulers of known space. So the story is set in a future where humans have spread out from Earth to other planets. In their travels they have discovered the remains of past spacefaring civilizations. Gretchen Anderson, a xeno-archaeologist, is an expert at alien remains and she and her team are sent to a desolate, desert planet to investigate what has happened to a previous team that has been out of contact. They travel on a military ship to the planet because the Empire is worried about what dangers may be on the planet.
When the team arrives, they find the first team's spacecraft in orbit, empty and silent, with no sign of the crew. The ground team is OK, but terribly worried about their fellows on the spacecraft. Investigation reveals that an artifact uncovered on the planet and brought on board the spacecraft ignited and destroyed all the organic compounds on the ship, including the crew, their clothes, food, furnishing and even some of the cheaper components of the electronics. Anything inorganic was left untouched.
When this is realized, it is decreed that the planet is off limits by the Empire's man, Hummingbird, who is a kind of cross between the secret police and a witch doctor. He and Gretchen go down to the planet to destroy any traces of humankind on the planet and to retrieve one missing member of the first team who has flown off in an ultralight to do some surveys. And while they are doing that, the rest of Gretchen's crew will be getting the derelict spacecraft back in working order. The military ship will be tracking down and removing, without attracting any hostile attention from the desolate planet, a mining ship in a nearby asteroid belt.

First of all, why the people in this story have a different history than ours is never explained. Apparently the story is based on some video game or something created by the author in which this alternative history is all worked out. But coming into it without being familiar with this back story made for a rather confusing start. Secondly, a large part of the story is concerned with the military ship and its crew and its hunt for the mining ship, with descriptions of weapons and tactics and technology, that I just found completely boring and also felt that it added nothing to the main story. Thirdly, the whole Aztec empire stuff and all that mystical mumbo jumbo just did not appeal to me. I thought the Hummingbird character was a giant pain in the ass who should have been shoved out an airlock without a spacesuit.
The only part I really enjoyed was when Gretchen and her crew are figuring out what went wrong on the derelict spacecraft and when Gretchen is down on the planet helping Hummingbird with his investigation and tracking down the missing person and trying to understand the weird ecology of the devastated planet. That part was fascinating and kind of scary.
So I only enjoyed about a third of the story, the rest was confusing, unappealing or just plain uninteresting.

Death and the Visiting Fellow

By Tim Heald

Tudor Cornwall has been invited to spend a semester as a Visiting Fellow at a university in Hobart, Tasmania. But when he arrives, his old friend from his college days who was supposed to pick him up at the airport, Ashley, is nowhere to be found. And as Tudor finds out, not only has Ashley vanished, but Ashley, who is also a professor at the university, is being accused of sexual harassment by some female students.
Tudor takes up his position at the school and soon receives emails purporting to be from Ashley, claiming that he had to disappear for awhile and asking Tudor to do a favor for him. Tudor isn't convinced that the emails are from his friend, but still agrees to do the favor, which is to mix up a mulled wine drink, using Ashley's recipe and ingredients, to be entered into a school competition.
Tudor makes the beverage and disaster strikes. A woman who drinks some of it, turns out to be fatally allergic to one of Ashley's ingredients and dies before anyone can help her. Now Tudor is in the middle of a big mess and still his old friend is nowhere to be found.

This murder mystery is a bit different. The location, for one, is very exotic, and at times, I didn't know what the author was talking about, with the down-under and British terms. A book like this could use a glossary in the back. The first one that stumped me was shooting brake, which sounds like a it would be a hunting blind but means a car like a station wagon or an SUV. Then there's wattle, which I never did figure out what that is. There's a few more, but I don't recall them exactly.
Also different is that the murder victim is not the obvious choice of the missing professor but is the woman who drank the mulled wine. But the biggest difference between this book and most murder mysteries is the ending. Bit of a spoiler here: the killer, though revealed, is not brought to justice. Very unsatisfying ending, I thought. So, even though I found the exotic locale interesting and the story engrossing, because of the crappy ending, I can only rate it as fair.

The Mind Pool

By Charles Sheffield

At a time when humans have expanded among the stars and encountered alien races and space travel is instantaneous due to a human invention, that very human inventiveness has placed everyone, human and nonhuman, at risk. A biological machine, developed by human scientists, has unexpectedly run amok, turning against its own creators. In the battle that ensued, most of the constructs were destroyed, except for one that escaped. But the only experts on the constructs were killed in the battle.
The one that got away has been located hiding on a jungle planet. A conference of aliens and humans has decided that teams composed of one member of the four different types of intelligences will be assembled and trained and sent in, one at a time, in an attempt to subdue and neutralize the rogue construct. But the conference has decreed that the human component of the team has to meet certain very limited conditions, which means that only a very few humans will qualify to become team members. Which is how two street kids end up being key components of a race to protect intelligent life from a machine that seems determined to destroy it. Together with their alien comrades, these kids will set off into the jungle to come face to face with the smartest, most dangerous being ever encountered. And before it is all over, what they learn will change everything.

I liked this book. The future human society is weird and different, yet still familiar. The aliens are weird, but not in a bad or threatening way. The interactions between the aliens and humans were entertaining and comforting, not monstrous or implacable, as aliens are often portrayed. I liked the aliens, I liked the puzzle of the rogue construct and I really liked how the teams came together to solve the puzzle. I found this to be an enjoyable and enthralling read.

Voyagers II: The Alien Within

By Ben Bova

Keith Stoner was an astronaut who was given the chance to investigate a derelict spacecraft that had drifted into Earth orbit. When disaster struck the mission, he decided to stay on the spacecraft even though it meant his certain death. He froze to death and his body was recovered and kept frozen until the technology advanced to the stage that he could be successfully thawed and revived.
A large, multi-national corporation came up with a method to revive Keith successfully many years later, and once he was back among the living, the corporation head felt that Keith was, in effect, corporate property. Of course, Keith didn't agree with this attitude at all. But even more than his personal feelings, Keith was sharing his body with that of an alien intelligence, an intelligence acquired during his time on the alien spacecraft. And this intelligence did not approve of humankind's messy emotional attachments and it overrode Keith's own human instincts, making Keith a sort of alien even among his own kind.
Keith managed to slip away from the control of Vanguard, using special abilities given him by the alien presence within himself. And he set off on a journey of exploration, trying to figure out why humanity was in such a mess and who was behind all the many little wars spreading across the land.

This was a pretty boring book. The constant sneering of the alien within Keith at human desires and emotions got pretty old, pretty fast. And the political stuff was just dull. Keith becomes a kind of superman but all it gets him is nearly starving to death in some refugee camp in Africa. He eventually pulls off some kind of peace conference and figures out who the bad guy is behind all the conflicts. But none of it was very interesting.

I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections

By Nora Ephron

A collection of humorous essays on growing old by Nora Ephron, written when she was sixty-nine. She writes about, of course, not being able to remember things very well, but she also talks about her start as a young journalist in New York City and about divorce, meat loaf, chicken soup, egg white omelets, getting together with friends for Christmas, email, loss and so on. The pieces are entertaining and often funny, sometimes sad and very enjoyable. I liked it quite a bit.

(I changed the book image a little to make the letters more visible.)

Here Be Demons

By Esther Friesner

An archaeology professor's summer job is leading tours to dig sites and letting the tourist try their hand at digging for a couple weeks. The latest site is in Egypt and the professor, who has never had a successful dig, is hoping to discover the location of an ancient monastery. What he doesn't know is that the site he and his merry band will be staying at is infested with demons.
The demons are outcasts from Hell, sentenced to stay in this desert location until they succeed in tempting at least one human to sign away his or her soul. The demons are an unpleasant lot but turn out to be no match for their human quarry because, deep down, the demons are just not that demonic.

This is one of those books with an amusing cover & an blurb on the back describing it as "a hell of a lot of fun." But it is just not that funny or even mildly amusing. One of the characters you meet at the beginning is Steve Ritter about whom you are given fascinating glimpses that he is more than he appears. But then, he fades into just a minor character until the end of the story when his true identity is revealed. I was wanting to read more about the mystery of Steve, but not much more is said, except for some mysterious and not very enlightening conversations he has with the demon trying to tempt him.
I also found the story rather directionless, the characters being pushed and pulled without really getting anywhere until the last part when several of them are snatched away to some place that isn't Purgatory but is in the same neighborhood. There is a lot going on but it all seems rather pointless as media types descend on the dig, earthquakes uncover tombs and ancient temples still filled with nubile priestess prostitutes pop up out of the sand then sink back down again. I think there was maybe too much going on in the story and it all made for a kind of a mish-mosh. To me, the most interesting part of the story was when several people are taken down to the Purgatory-esque place and each has their own unique encounter there. My two favorites were Honest Ariel's Sandwiche Shoppe (Ariel is an angel who still hasn't decided whether he is on the side of God or the Devil and even though he is indecisive he is an excellent chef) and the temple of the fish god, who turns out to be a pretty decent guy. I did find some aspect of the ending a bit confusing, though.
Anyway, even though I thought the story was lacking and not funny, still I did like the last part so I will say it made for a fair read.

Check out Battle Hymns for another review of the book.

No Touch Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late

By Ayun Halliday

Halliday's travel memoir of some of her various trips around the world, told in a self-deprecating and frank way and including lots of adventures and misadventures of herself and her traveling companion of the moment.

This was an OK book. The book is supposed to be funny but at the most I found it mildly amusing. It just didn't grab me. I especially didn't like reading about her drunken binges or stupid drug trips.

Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden

By M. C. Beaton

Agatha Raisin is in Wyckhadden, a seaside British resort, during the off season. She had a run-in with a vengeful hairdresser who doused her head in hair remover leaving Agatha with several bald spots on her head. So she has retired to Wyckhadden to rest and recover and hopefully grow her hair back. But Wychhadden in the winter is a dismal sort of place and the hotel where she is staying seems to be full of old people who live there year round. Chatting with some of them, Agatha finds out about a local witch, who is said to have many effective potions for sale. Agatha pays a visit to the witch and not only does she buy a hair tonic she also buys a love potion, with a notion of using it on an old lover who seems rather indifferent lately.
After her fur coat is vandalized, Agatha decides to visit the witch again, thinking the witch maybe have been the one who vandalized the coat, only to discover the woman dead, with her head bashed in. So once again, Agatha finds herself involved in a murder investigation.

This was a pretty good read. I liked Agatha, even though she is a bit of a nut. She doesn't think twice about doping the men around her with the witch's love potion just to see if it works. She also doesn't have many qualms about stringing a new guy along when all she really wants is to make the old boy friend jealous. Which works, even though Agatha doesn't know it, as the old boy friend becomes so enraged that he totally writes Agatha off.
So even though there are two murders to solve and Agatha eventually figures out who the killer is, she is not able to figure out the mystery of why Agatha is so alone. The story ends on a down note, as she returns home to her cottage with no one but her cats to keep her warm.
Still, despite the rather morose ending, I found Agatha Raisin to be an amusing if rather unscrupulous heroine and I enjoyed this story which is not only about two deaths but is also about the death of Agatha's youth. It was a good read.

Death of a Cad

By M. C. Beaton

Captain Peter Barlett is a cad. He steals, he cheats, he chases women, he boozes, he lies. He is an all-around bad fellow. So how does he end up being invited to an exclusive week in the Scottish countryside at a select party for an up-and-coming new London playwright? Basically it's because, when he wants to, he can really turn on the charm. But at this gathering, he seems to be on his worst behavior, and therefore it is no surprise when he is discovered dead in the morning.
At first, it seems as if he has shot himself accidentally while out hunting. But local policeman Hamish MacBeth soon discovers that the scene was staged to look like an accident when it is actually murder. Now Hamish has to discover which of the guests at the party is the killer when it becomes apparent that pretty much everyone had reason to hate Peter Bartlett.

What a poisonous lot the people at this country gathering are, starting with the overbearing hosts of the party and including not only their guests but their hot-then-cold daughter Priscilla who is engaged to the guest of honor but is sneaking around with local policeman, Hamish MacBeth. In fact, the only likable person in the whole story is Hamish. It is hard to imagine why anyone would want to spend even an evening with these pills, much less a whole week or weekend, which ever it was. In fact, if it wasn't for Hamish, the whole story would be a wash, but Hamish not only saves the day, he saves the story. Without him, it would not be worth reading. So, thanks to Hamish, this is a good read.

Five Card Stud

By Elizabeth Gunn

Detective Jake Hines is used to solving crimes so the report of a dead body on the side of the road is nothing new to him. It's not common for people to freeze to death during the winter in Minnesota, but it is also not that unusual either. This latest victim is laying, partly clothed, which is also not uncommon in hypothermia cases where the victim can experience the delusion of heat when in fact they are dying of cold. But it soon becomes apparent that their unknown victim didn't freeze to death when the body is turned over and the huge, bloody hole in his head is revealed. It's murder and the first thing the police have to do is figure out just who this man with no wallet or identification is. Once they know that then they will have a better handle on understanding how he ended up where and how he did.

Jake Hines comes across as a real likable character in this story. He has a girl friend now and they have bought a house together and he seems much happier which also seems to reflect on his professional life, as he tries to deal fairly with his investigators and not make their lives any harder than they already are. This is a really good story and like this Jake much better than I did when I read TRIPLE PLAY. Altogether, I liked this story and Jake a lot, more than I did the previous book I had read.

The Color Purple

By Alice Walker

Pulitzer Prize for fiction, 1983.

Celie is a black girl in rural Georgia in the 1930s and she has a hard life. She was raped by her step-father and had two babies by him. He then gave the babies away, without her approval or knowledge. She was then given in marriage to a widowed man who needed someone to help raise his kids. Celie did not care for this man but she wasn't given any choice in the matter. The man, who she calls in the story Mr. _____, beats Celie, mainly because she is not Shug Avery, the woman Mr loves. Celie's sister Nettie lives with her and Mr briefly, in order to get away from the attentions of the cruel step-father. But Mr starts bothering Nettie too and she leaves, promising Celie that the only thing that can stop her from writing is death. But Celie never receives any letters and assumes Nettie is dead.
Nettie, meanwhile, has found refuge with the minister and his wife who adopted Celie's two lost babies. Nettie and the minister and family head off to Africa to start a mission. She writes to Celie, but never receives a reply because Mr has been hiding her letters. When Celie finds out what he has been doing, she wants to kill him. But Shug, who had been staying with Mr and Celie and who has become very close to Celie, talks her out of it.
Eventually Celie and Shug leave Georgia and move to Tennessee. Shug is a successful singer and, under her sheltering wing, Celie is able to start her own business. She even forgives Mr, who has seemingly changed his evil ways, acquiring some wisdom and grace with age. At about this time, the long lost Nettie and the two babies, who are now grown, come back to Georgia and the two sisters are reunited after decades apart.

This was a pretty good story, especially the part about Celie and the other characters in the Georgia part of the story. The letters from Nettie to Celie about her life in Africa were not quite as captivating as Celie's story, but still added a different and informative perspective. And everything seems to work out for the best despite all the suffering endured, so the book ends on a high note, which is what I prefer. I always like a happy ending and this book provides that.

The Star Treasure

By Keith Laumer

Ban Tarleton was a young Lieutenant on a Navy starship. He accidentally became entangled in a conspiracy to thrown down the ruling forces which resulted in his deserting his post when he thought the starship was being taken over by the conspirators. He fled to Earth where he hid out in extreme hardship, nearly starving to death in the process. He eventually fell into the hands of the authorities and was court-martialed and sent to work the mines on a hot, desert planet.
Life is brutal there and once again, Ban runs afoul of the conspirators, who are convinced that Ban has information vital to their cause, despite his protests to the contrary. He also refuses to join them, maintaining his loyalty to the status quo. His stubbornness results in his being framed for a crime he didn't commit and being cast out of the mines and into the implacable desert of this dry, hot, barren planet. But he doesn't die. Instead he stumbles onto a secret that will not only save his life but will gain him his freedom.

This was a pretty good read. Poor Ban get the stuffing knocked out of him but he keeps on going, even when it looks hopeless. This is a real adventure story, first with Ban trying to escape detection while as a fugitive on Earth and then as he struggles to survive on the prison planet. And the last part of the story is really satisfying, as Ban stumbles on to the secret that will completely turn his life around.

The Cats of Our Lives

By Franklin Dohanyos, Editor

A collection of stories and anecdotes about cats. Mainly, it is a short reminiscences about the cats that have shared their lives with people. Some of the stories are interesting, some are amusing, and some are predictable, but all illustrate what amazing creatures cats are. Not exactly a scintillating read, but it was OK.

Devil May Care

By Sheri McInnis

Sally Carpenter is a struggling actor in New York City. While on an audition for small TV role, she falls into casual conversation with a man, a man it later turns out is the head of the network and who, it seems, has taken a bit of a fancy to Sally. Suddenly she finds she is the darling of the network, backed by her powerful new acquaintance. But as she becomes more involved with this man, and as bad things begin to happen, Sally starts to think that this man is the devil. Literally. But that's not the worse part. The worse part is that she loves him.

What to say about this book? First of all, the main character comes off as a nut job. A series of coincidences convince her that her new man is the devil, on the flimsiest of evidence. Second, as a romance novel, the ending just sucked. It was frankly depressing. Third, speaking of depressing, I found the whole book depressing. One of the first things you find out about Sally is that her father killed himself when she was a little girl. And that just sets the tone for the rest of the book. Contrary to the blurbs on the back that proclaimed it to be "genuinely funny" and "clever fun" and to have "dead-on comic timing," this book is most definitely not funny, if anything it is just sad. A real disappointment.

A Choice of Gods

By Clifford D. Simak

Set about 5000 years in the future and humanity is no longer a presence on Earth except for a few isolated bands of people. At the beginning of the 5000 years, most of the people just disappeared, vanished in an instant. Those who were left behind discovered that they suddenly had magical new abilities like telepathy and teleportation. They could now go anywhere in the universe by just thinking it. And so they did. A few homebodies stayed on Earth with all the leftover robots, who now had nothing to do.
One of the universe-travelling people discovered a vast, implacable intelligence at the center of the galaxy. In his wanderings, he also discovered what had happened to all the people who had so mysteriously vanished thousands of years ago. He returns to Earth to tell the few people there what he has discovered and to warn them that they may now be in danger.

This was just a weird book. Suddenly everyone disappears and just as suddenly those left behind are now super-beings with magical abilities who live for thousands of years. Plus there are a bunch of robots who, built to serve humanity, now have no one to serve. So they become robot monks and set about trying to figure if God is real and other robots who are building a super computer which manages to contact the evil intelligence at the center of the galaxy. So much going on in this book, like a wandering boy able to heal everyone, including a "can of worms" who wants to have a soul, and Indians living in the forests of Minnesota and it all doesn't add up to very much at all, as far as a story goes. It is more like someone's wishful thinking. Just a fair read, I think.

The Magic Army

By Leslie Thomas

Before the D-Day invasion of German-controlled Europe during World War II, the Allied planners realized that their troops would require many weeks of rehearsal before they could attempt such an invasion. Apparently beach invasions are almost never successful. Since the beaches of England were very similar to their counterparts across the English Channel, it was decided to practice for the invasion in England. It was also decided that the troops would be training under fire of live ordinance. So the powers that be ordered that all the locals in the training area be removed, for their own safety. Suddenly, productive farm land and little country villages are abandoned and American troops are moved in, setting up camps, security, mines and guns. This is the story of that time, when the United States invaded and took over a large section of the United Kingdom, much to the chagrin and disgust of the locals.

This sounds like it is a combat story, but it really isn't. It is more concerned with the interactions between the locals and the Americans and how the two different populations came to view and to understand each other. It is a very fascinating story, often touching and often funny and I enjoyed it tremendously. It was a very good read.

Tomorrow is Too Far

By James White

Jim Carson is the head of security at a rocket and jet engine manufacturing plant. It's a huge complex with thousands of employees and Jim has his nose into everything, sniffing out anything that may threaten the security at the plant. So when he suspects that there is a super-secret project at the plant that he has not been informed about, his nose gets put out of joint. And he decides he is going to discover exactly what is going on, for the sake of security. Oddly, he finds out that the super-secret project seems to revolve around a mildly-retarded janitor who works at the plant. But as Jim gets closer discovering whats going on, people start to disappear and die. And Jim maybe next in the killer's sights.

Although this is a science fiction story, it was more like reading a mystery story. The only science-fictiony aspect is the secret project, which the reader doesn't find much about until almost the end of the novel. So that was somewhat disappointing. But, taken as a kind of mystery story, it was a pretty good read. Still, I will rate it only fair, as it was rather short on the science fiction.

The Sensible Courtship

By Megan Daniel

Lord Richard Devlin and Lady Francesca Waringham had met and kissed before. But he was preparing to leave for an extended trip around the world and she valued her independence too much to let a man into her life. So, although their attraction to each other was undeniable, they were both too stubborn to give in to it and so they went their separate ways, each with a bit of a chip on their shoulder about the other.
Five years later and Lord Devlin is back in England. He has decided it is time for him to settle down and so he is looking for a wife. He figured a good place to start would be the great estate of Hockleigh, where a large assembly of the gentry has gathered to enjoy the hunt.
It just so happens that Lady Francesca is also a guest at Hockleigh. Still unwed, Cesca has also been thinking of marriage. Although she hates to give up her independence, she has realized that she wants to have children and that requires a husband.
When she and Devlin discover that are both after the same thing, they make a little bet as to who can catch a spouse first. Daring, dashing Devlin, who thinks he wants a meek, mousy, biddable woman for his wife, sets his sights on shy, little Priscilla. And fiery, independent Cesca, who thinks she wants an indifferent, pliable husband, aims for Caspar Maltby, a mild-mannered fellow whose main passion is botany.
They say that opposites attract. Then why are Devlin and Cesca secretly disappointed when both their selected mates agree to wed them?

This was a pretty good read. True, the plot was rather predictable. Of course, Cesca and Devlin belong together and of course mousy Priscilla and boring Caspar are made for each other, so that was no surprise. There is a kidnapping and a jealous, conniving widow to liven things up, but they play a pretty minor role in the story. But it all works to make for a surprisingly enjoyable and interesting story.

An Idiot Girl's Christmas

By Laurie Notaro

Funny Christmas-themed stories about the author and her family including stories about the neighbors like Frank, who electrified his yard to protect his Christmas decorations from vandals and Kyle/Lyle and Annie who refused to return the author's cheerful greetings and the two little neglected neighbor kids who used to bum food when their mother was too drunk to get out of bed. Also included are stories about Nana, author's grandma and also about her mother, who has turned worrying into a competition sport, leading to a showdown over a Christmas tree that the author kept standing clear into March. All the stories are amusing, all are familiar (who hasn't been embarrassed by the overly loud complaints of an elderly parent or grandparent: for me, it was my grandma who had to let the whole airplane know that she thought the service was lousy) and I thoroughly enjoyed reading them.

The Ancaster Demons

By Norman Russell

Dean Girdlestone is a man of conscience. And as the head of Ancaster Cathedral, his conscience tells him that the beautiful stained glass window of the cathedral and the four statues of angels on the roof of the cathedral are idols that need to be destroyed. To take care of the window, he plans to build a school that will block the sun from shining through the window. To take care of the statues, he orders them removed. Of course, many people are outraged at his plans. One of those people is Nicholas Arkwright.
Nicholas has known Gridlestone since they were boys at school together and he has always disliked him. He has even had dreams in which he killed the Dean. So when the Dean turns up murdered, Nicholas, who is on powerful medication, thinks he must have done it and confesses to the police.
But there is more going on with the cathedral than Girdlestone's destructive plans. Someone has been embezzling from the cathedral accounts. And the finger points to Girdlestone himself. But then why was he killed? Because of his planned alterations to the cathedral or because he knew who the real embezzler was?

This was a pretty good book. It is set in late-Victorian England and takes the reader into the world church politics and small town rivalry. Nicholas is a dopey, but appealing character and Girdlestone, whom you want to hate because of what he wants to do to the cathedral, turns out to be pretty decent if misguided. The other characters are just as interesting, including Girdlestone's widow who fairly dances for joy when she learns of her husband's demise. It was an interesting mystery and an enjoyable read.

A Gift from Earth

By Larry Niven

A colony has been established on a hostile planet. The only place fit for humans is on a high plateau. Below the plateau, the atmosphere is deadly and it is boiling hot.
After being established, a peculiar social system arose in the colony. The space ship crew became the elites, and the settlers the downtrodden masses. As a result, the punishment for crimes, even fairly mild crimes, such as traffic tickets, was death. The reason for the harsh punishment was to supply the crew with body parts for transplants to extend their lives beyond the normal seventy to eighty years. Needless to say, this created a lot of anger and resentment among the settlers. And of course, rebels.
Matthew Keller, a miner, accidentally fell in among the rebels when he came to a party at rebel headquarters. The police raided and captured most of the rebels but Matthew managed to escape. Problem is, he is now a hunted man. And since he now has nothing to lose and nowhere to run he decides on a bold plan: he will try to rescue the captives before they are executed and cut up for their organs. And why does he decide to risk his life for a bunch of people he barely knows? Because there was this really cute girl at the party and he just has to get to know her better.

The premise of this book doesn't really ring true and neither does Matthew's decision to stage a one-man raid on police headquarters to rescue his lady love who seemed completely indifferent to his charms. But despite that, this is an interesting and exciting story even though set in a rather unlikely location. I mean, why would any one establish a colony on a planet that only has one small location that is livable? However, if you can accept the premise, it makes for a very good read. I liked Matthew and his weird talent and I enjoyed reading his story.

Coyote

By Allen Steele

At the time of the story, a livable moon has been discovered orbiting a gas giant planet in a star system about 46 light years away. This moon, named Coyote, is bigger than Mars but not a big as Earth. The United States no longer exist as a political entity, instead a right-wing cabal has taken over the government, calling itself the Liberty Party, it is instead a force for oppression and has pretty much destroyed the Constitution under the guise of security concerns. As a boost to the party and also to insure the survival of their regime, the powers that be have come up with a grand scheme to build a ship to carry about 100 loyal colonists to Coyote.
DI's or Dissident Intellectuals have been targeted by the government for removal to a reeducation camp that is really a death camp. So they have hatched a plot to take over the space ship, the Alabama and smuggle 50 DI's on board. The ship's captain and several key crew members are part of the plot and together they are able to take control of the ship and leave the government back on Earth looking stupid.
Since the voyage will take more than 200 years, everyone on board is put into biostasis, a kind of hibernation, only to be awakened when they reach their destination.
Coyote, when they finally arrive, turns out to be a beautiful place, with a temperate climate and rich soils and plenty of water. The colonists arrive a little late in the year for growing much in the way of food, so the first year is pretty lean. Plus the local fauna are proving to be not just pestiferous but also deadly. But the colonists work hard and manage to make a home for themselves despite the tensions caused by two opposing factions forced to cooperative to survive, the rebels versus the loyalists.

First book in the Coyote series, this was a good read. The story is told through the experiences of several key characters including the Captain, Robert E. Lee, and a couple of teens, Wendy and Carlos, Wendy the daughter of a loyalist who was part of a plot to blow up the ship and Carlos, son of one of the DI's who took over the ship. It's a story about survival and of exploring a new land, of people making a home for themselves in a strange new place and learning to get along despite their differences. I enjoyed it a lot.

Saturn's Children

By Charles Stross

It's the future and humankind is extinct as is life on Earth due to a huge environmental catastrophe when Earth became so hot that the oceans boiled. But fear not, mankind has a successor in the many robots created before our unwept demise.
Most robots were constructed to be obedient and subservient to humans. After humans died out, the robots continued on building, exploring, developing, doing those activities for which they were designed. They created a sort of freedom for themselves, building cities and outposts on distant planets. They created a hierarchy, with a few rich robots running things and the rest in service to the bosses. But that wasn't enough for some so they hatched a plot. If they were able to bring back to life one human, they could use that human to enslave the rest of robotkind and rule the solar system, due to the automatic circuit in most robots that forced them to do what any human wanted. But other robots are not willing to give up their freedom and will do whatever they can to thwart this plan.
Into this mix comes Freya, a sex robot, designed to be a concubine for humans. In a system where humans no longer exist, Freya is obsolete. So she makes her way trying to stay free and not the robot slave of other robots. She does whatever is necessary to survive. She finds herself ensnared in the struggle between the two factions and facing danger and eminent destruction. Her adventure will take her all over the solar system and she will find there is almost no one she can trust, not even her own self.

This was a strange story. Freya is just too human. She sweats, she eats and drinks, she falls in love, she feels pain, she has orgasms, she has robot sex. All the robots seemed very human in their desires, especially the desire to rule all the other robots. And everybody is double-dealing and you don't know where they stand or whose side they are on. Although the future society depicted in the story was fascinating, it couldn't make up for how unreal it all felt. I can't really say I liked it but I didn't hate it either.

No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club

By Virginia Ironside

Marie Sharp is 59 going on 60 and has decided to keep a journal of her sixtieth year. She is divorced and has a grown son Jack who is now married with a babe of his own on the way. Marie is looking forward to being elderly and is determined not to try to hang on to her youth which she feels is rather pathetic. She is also determined not to partake in those activities popular in her age group, such as joining a book club. She wants to live her life on her own terms, facing the future with fearless calm. Of course, she is not quite able to live up that, finding herself with sudden attacks of terror about her new grandson and, naturally, facing the sort of declines that everyone faces if they manage to live long enough: achy joints, failing eyesight, faltering memory and the possibility of degenerative disease. In the meantime, a very dear friend is diagnosed with cancer and only has a few months left.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. Marie often castigates herself but she really is a sweet lady, and sharing a little of her life was pretty enjoyable. In the course of the story it turns out that Marie has been there and done that and is now ready for a more laid back life. She even swears off sex, claiming it just messes everything up. For the most part it was an entertaining story, although I found the last part rather dreary as it chronicles her friend's decline and death. But overall, it was a good read.