Second in van den Boom's "Cold War" trilogy, in which Earth's space colonies are invaded by nearly-indestructible "cold walkers," whose incursions leave entire worlds frozen and lifeless. This is a terrific follow-up to the excellent first volume. It fills in background, builds political intrigue, and raises the stakes. Am I eager for book 3? Ya damn right I am.

Nat Kobean gets caught sleeping with another man's wife. Too bad for Nat, the husband is a scientist whose current project is a serum that allows patients to travel into the future by taking naps, during which patients do not age. Now every time he falls asleep Nat wakes up fifty years later. I'm not a fan of Goulart's broad humor, and his ethnic and homophobic jokes haven't aged well. At least there are fewer boob jokes than usual in this one.

When pollution makes Earth unlivable, humans send expeditions to plant colonies on other worlds. Eve is the sole surviving crew of one such expedition and is determined not to repeat humans' mistakes. She teaches peace and harmony to her vat-grown children and to their naturally-born children. But humans are unavoidably human.... Despite a lack of suspense, minimal conflict and a silly resolution it held my interest, though I'm not sure how.

Romance isn't my thing, but Lovecraftian adventure is, and this has enough of the latter that I didn't hate it. Heck, I might even read the sequel.

Just before the dawn of WWII, out-of-work British engineer Nicky Marlow takes a position at an Italian munitions firm. But his predecessor in the position had been supplying information to foreign spies. It's not long before Marlow is deep in intrigue and counter-intrigue and scary secret police. Ends with a thrilling flight across fascist Italy. Fun, but the passive and sappy Marlow is a less satisfying protagonist than other Ambler heroes.

In an alternate Brittain, Celts are frequently born with green skin and are second-class citizens. Told through the eyes of a visiting Indian scientist (officially "Saxon") who may have discovered the genetic key to green skin: a discovery various interests wish to control. It's a satire, sometimes funny, sometimes uncomfortable and sometimes leaving me feeling I'd missed a joke I might have gotten if only I knew more about 1970s British politics.

A black-market surgeon who specializes in cybernetic prosthetics goes on the run with an assassin whose employer wants to have her cybernetically enhanced against her will. Cyberpunkish and barely romancey, it moves fast enough you mostly don't mind how things don't always make sense.

"Forever" is right -- I think that's the term you'll find next to "Time remaining:" when you open this monster on an e-reader.

Still, I was happy to find it nowhere near as awful I had expected. The historical color is convincing, especially in some gruesomely effective chapters that take our heroine through the Great Plague. The book's worst sins are its length and Amber's shallow character, which lengthens the long length to longer than long.

P.I. John Persons is hired by a 13-year old kid to kill the kid's stepfather. The boy thinks his stepdad is a monster. Persons believes it's possible-- after all, he's a monster himself. It's a noir thriller set in Lovecraft land, and it's just delicious with creepiness and gore and a hard-boiled heart. Also it's short so: more please!

This is DAW's second anthology of Fritz Leiber's work, fiction and non-, selected by the author. (Why does Litsy give "Brenda Jackson" credit?) It's a mix of hits, misses, and things that have aged poorly. As the cover art implies there's a Fafhrd/Gray Mouser story "Trapped in the Sea of Stars," but it's not one of the better ones. For me the highlight was"Belsen Express," a creepy Twilight-Zonish story about a xenophobe's dreams of the Holocaust.

Thirteenth in Tubb's series about Dumarest, a traveler searching for the lost planet Earth. In this one he catches a rumour about a planet "Nerth," perhaps a corruption of "New Earth"? This is such pulpy plot-driven fun that I was caught off-guard by a twist near the end that ... um ... hasn't aged well. (Spoiler in the comments.)

"To all the monsters hiding in this world,
I hope the children will skin you alive.

To the children in the world,
let no one say you can't make your monsters bleed."

Now *that* is a dedication. This is gonna be gooood.

On Sigma Draconis, 19 light-years from Earth, the remains of an alien civilization are discovered. A scientific team searches for clues to the Draconians' demise, while back home Earth faces a crisis of its own. I quite liked the alien biology and culture. I less liked the wooden characters and thin plot, but can forgive those for a sufficiently interesting puzzle, and Brunner delivers that.

Third in Nava's series about gay Hispanic L.A. lawyer Henry Rios. This one has Rios returning to his rural hometown to defend the brother of his high school crush. His client is a pedophile-- but is he a murderer? To find out, Rios digs up painful pasts. The mystery is just okay, but the development of Rios's character is terrific.

Every book I read by the Strugatskys makes me love them more. Far Rainbow tells about the last day on a colony planet where scientists research instantaneous transportation -- and accidentally trigger a global death-wave. It's paired with "The Second Invasion from Mars," the story of a Martian invasion through the eyes of a rural pensioner whose sources are richer in rumor than in fact. It's a funny and still-timely satire of communication.

It's a sort novel set in a world where murder victims don't die ... usually. Tony Valdez is a dispatcher, a sort of designated killer hired to murder people near death in order to give them an opportunity to return. Now a colleague has disappeared and Valdez has to work with the police to find him. The premise doesn't stand much scrutiny, but Scalzi's light touch makes it fun while it lasts.

Book one in a space-opera trilogy with an interstellar empire under assault by "Cold Walkers," lanky alien creatures with heat-stealing and invisibility technology (or maybe biology, nobody knows). This entry assembles the team. It has six viewpoint characters, which is a little overwhelming, but they are all interesting and their stories crack along. Looking forward to the next, then I expect to wish the third would hurry up and get published.

Wow. And ick. I have deeply conflicted feelings about this one: it's the best of the Darkover novels I've read so far: well structured, carefully paced, with interesting characters and thoughtful ponderings on heritage -- what one owes one's culture and what it owes in return. But there's also a thread of physical and sexual abuse, which recalls ugly revelations about the author's private life, making it hard to read as a purely fictional trope.

It's a hard-science caper story set on a lunar colony. I know it has gotten mixed reviews, but I find myself solidly Team "Pick." I loved the moon-tech geekery, and would be on board for a sequel (or series, Mr. Weir?)

Third in Davis's series featuring Roman detective -- I mean "informer" -- Marcus Didius Falco. In this one Falco is hired to investigate a suspected black widow, and gets neck-deep in the deadly world of Roman real estate. It's pretty good. The series started out as a sort of first-century-Sam-Spade, noirish affectations and all. There are still bits that feel ahistorical, but it's growing into its own thing, and I look forward to the next.

Second in the Iron Druid series, this one has Atticus and friends fighting an invasion of German witches in Phoenix. It's unheavy, the cast is a hoot, and the dog never dies. What's not to like?

Irish werewolves in Tennessee. The story is not bad, but the prose is cliched and the dialog is so wooden you could slay a vampire army with it. The cover, on the other hand, rocks out loud. It's by Alex McVay.

(1927) This is a collection of stories based on the author's experiences as a circus laborer in early 20th-C. America, exposing the trade's unsavory underbelly. It's not always an easy read even today, especially scenes of racist violence as the circus travels through the South. I quite liked the direct prose and colorful cast, also the charming pen-and-ink illustrations by William Gropper.

Book. Bar.

Rarely have I felt so understood.

The world makes no sense, characters act contrary to their motivations just to advance the plot, and the writing is muddled. I'm not going to be a fan, I'm afraid. I wondered, and now I know.

It's a historical crime novel, based on the early life of O. Henry and an actual series of killings that took place in Austin, Texas while Will Porter was just a young man trying to figure out his way in the world. The mystery is intriguing, the characters and setting feel authentic, but for me the star is the well-crafted prose, which always knows exactly what it's doing and how to do it.

(1975) Ninth in Kenneth Bulmer's sword-and-planet series featuring Dray Prescot. In this one Prescot infiltrates the enemy country Hamal in order to learn the secrets of their flyer technology. He is only partially successful but he does get into a lot of fights. Plenty of action, which I'd have appreciated more if it hadn't been for some casual homophobia early in the book, which soured the taste for the rest.

It's a middle-grades novel based on a Caribbean folk tale about a girl who goes into the forest and catches the attention of something that has lived there a very long time .... Fun, fresh, and the right sort of spooky for its audience. I'll read the next.

The author was a guest earlier this month at my employer's Children's Literature Festival. I didn't catch her presentation but heard enthusiastic reports that she is an excellent storyteller.

Lowenstein explains why 19th century banking sucked; the options for reform; and the political maneuvering and countermaneuvering that resulted in the Federal Reserve Act. It's not always easy reading -- sometimes it's like a crash course in monetary policy -- but the personalities are entertaining, the controversies intriguing, and I very much appreciate the insight into the origin of an institution I only vaguely understood.

(1975) The nearby star Briareus Delta goes supernova, after which humanity becomes barren and a few develop psychic gifts. One crackpot conjectures that Earth has been invaded by Briareans. It's a pretty good piece of seventies science fiction, with trippy ideas about group consciousness, free love, and the soul. Dated but interesting.

(1975) The U.S. Constitution has been stolen and replaced with a copy, which seems authentic in every way but one: in place of Alexander Hamilton's signature is Aaron Burr's. The investigation turns up a tangle of parallel worlds, all shaped by the Hamilton/Burr rivalry. It's a hoot of a novel, with a seat-of-the-pants plot and light, clever prose. I didn't recognize the author's name, but will look for more of his work.

There is an entire literary genre that I think of as "Books that could be improved by an invasion of giant killer robots." And dear sweet gods of bestsellers past does this book ever scream for robotic rescue from talky tedium.

It's better than the movie, but only just.

(1975) This has some great stories like Harlan Ellison's "Whimper of Whipped Dogs" and Ramsey Campbell's "The Man In the Underpass," but also a couple misfires like Steve Chapman's "Burger Creature," a sort of gonzo romance in which the male lead is literally animated ground beef. I understand Chapman expanded it into a novel, on which I'll pass. Anyway: how about that Michael Whelan cover?

A "comic dystopia" set in a near-future in which all our needs and desires are satisfied by algorithms -- and if you happen to disagree with the algorithms, then it's you who are wrong. Case in point: Peter Jobless and his quixotic quest to return the sex toy that he no, really, doesn't want, honest, and shouldn't he know? (No. Not when the algorithm has decided he does.) Funny and frightening, and speaks to some of my own paranoid worries.

Kiki sits at the counter of an open cafeteria and watches a man who repeatedly beats his head against the wall. For some reason not clear to Kiki the crazy man suddenly stops and comes into the cafeteria as if nothing had happened. He orders a green smoothie and sits at the stool next to her.

"What was that about?" asks Kiki.

"You mean, why was I beating my head against the wall?"

"No," says Kiki. "That impulse I understand. Why did you stop?"

Part Dungeons and Dragons, part Spinal Tap, all fun. I could have done with fewer penis jokes, but the juvenile humor is by design, and often unexpectedly charming. I'll read the next.

Pretty good collection of horror stories about flying, with a nice mix of older and newer stories. For me the pleasantest surprise was Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Horror of the Heights", which is the opposite of new but nevertheless new to me and deliciously effective.

You know, like those bands on their third Farewell Tour.

Giant.
Intelligent.
Spiders.

Heck YES!

That is all.

An excellent thriller about an American reporter with gambling debts who agrees to smuggle a package over the German/Austrian border. When he delivers the package the reporter finds his contact murdered and himself on the run from his contact's allies and enemies. Oh, and the Austrian police like him for murder. Does what a thriller's supposed to do, and with style.

I think I've mentioned my crush on Michelle Obama. Nothing has changed.

Goodness but I miss the Obama administration.

A woman awakes in a dead volcano, no idea who or what she is. A voice tells her she is cursed, and as she flees the mountain erupts. I've bounced off Tanith Lee's works in the past, so I'm happy to report that this was finally the right book at the right time: it's surreal and enchanting. It's a little overexplainy at the end, but for everything that led up to it I'm cutting it some slack. Yes, I'm forty years late to the party but I'm here now.

Dear Marc-Uwe Kling,

You made me laugh before the g*****n title page. I am yours to lose.

Modern Templars versus zombies and demons. It's okay for what it is, which is a throwback to testosteroney mass-market "men's fiction" series like "The Executioner." It's manly men doing manly things to prevent the end of the world. (Only two women characters: one dies in the backstory, the other on arrival.) There are continuity problems and a sense of humor so lacking that it's accidentally funny, but the prose is brisk and the story moves fast.

Published in 1944, this one begins with an interracial relationship and ends with a lynching and in between reads like a catalog of ugliness in the early-20th century American South. (And let's face it, not just the South). The prose is sometimes a bit overdone, but really it's the relentless angry-making subject matter that makes it a difficult read. Trigger warnings for, well, everything. Not perfect, but I'm calling it a pick for its insights.

Second in Ashby's "Machine Dynasty" series. I quite liked the first, "vN", which was a terrific robots-on-the-run action story. This one goes deeper into the series' darker themes: how humans use the robots to act out our worst impulses. I have mixed feelings about it, due to some very uncomfortable bits and then a resolution that did not satisfy. But at least one thing it gets right: the promise of a major showdown in book 3. I'm in.

Back in my twenties I read a lot of Anderson's works. I loved his richly-detailed environments and his moral dramas set in declining civilizations. But I find I've lost my taste for his stylized prose, which I once found poetic but now feels forced, making this collection a bit of a chore. The highlight is "The Queen of Air and Darkness," which still works for me despite its stilted language.

Well, crap. I think I have fallen in love with a murderbot. That can't be good.

Except, oh yes it is.

It's a Bradburyish story about boyhood in small-town mid-twentieth century America. It's pretty good for what it is, but a bit long. I guess I prefer my sentimentalism in smaller doses.

Alt-history in which Dewey really does defeat Truman in 1948, throwing greater support to a national space program; then a meteor strike accelerates the program in order to save the human race through space colonies. The tech is plausible, the characters appealing, and Kowal tackles head-on the crap that women and POC would have faced in the 1950s (Not that any of that has been solved, exactly ...) Will read the next.