Steve (swynn) reads and runs in 2022: Lap 3

I'm Steve, 53, a technical services librarian at a medium-sized public university. I live in Missouri with my wife and son and Buddy, a Terrier-mix chaser of squirrels, rabbits, opossums, deer, and (alas) skunks. This is my 13th year with the 75ers.

My reading follows my whims, but is heaviest with science fiction and fantasy. I also read mysteries, thrillers, and horror. I don't read enough non-fiction, but when I do it covers a range of subjects including history, language, popular science, unpopular mathematics, running, library science, and shiny stuff.

I'm usually reading at least three books:
(1) something on the Kindle app, which I read whenever I'm standing in line or when the lights are off;
(2) a paperback, usually from my own shelves, which I read while walking Buddy; and
(3) something borrowed from the library, of which there is usually a larger stack than I can reasonably expect to finish and which I call "The Tower of Due." Here's what it looks like now:

(A) The DAWs

For several years now, I've been reading through the catalog of DAW, the first American imprint exclusively devoted to science fiction & fantasy publishing. It launched in 1972 under the editorship of Donald A. Wollheim (hence the name), and continues today, publishing new books at a rate faster than I'm catching up. Last year I read 17; this year I hope to aim for about one a week but realistically I think I can get 30.

DAWs so far: 12
Next up: The World Asunder by Ian Wallace

(B) Bestsellers

For the last few years, Liz (lyzard) and I have been reading through American bestsellers at a rate of one per month. Last year I caught up to Liz, and hope to stay that way through 2022.
Bestsellers so far: 6
Next Up: The Matarese Circle by Robert Ludlum

(C) Banned in Boston

Another project I've been co-reading with Liz is a list of books that were "banned in Boston."

Too Hot for Boston so far: 3
Next up: Pilgrims by Ethel Mannin

(D) Kurd Lasswitz Prize

A new project this year is reading through the winners of the Kurd Lasswitz Prize for Best Novel. I don't have a good sense of how quickly I'll move through these, but with New Year's optimism I want to aim for one a month.

KLP so far: 0
Next up: Die Enkel der Raketenbauer by Georg Zauner

Diversity goals

Left to itself, my reading skews straight, white, and male. Wonder why. For the last couple of years I've tracked proportion of non-straight, non-white, and non-male authors in an effort to be more conscious of this. Last year I read: 18% LGBTQ, 22% authors of color, and 49% women and nonbinary authors. (Targets were 15, 20, and 50.) Targets this year are again 15%, 20%, and 50%. Recommendations welcome.

(E) Not Straight: 21 (20%)
(F) Not White: 25 (24%)
(G) Not Dudes: 52 (50%)

Other Good Intentions

Continue more series than I start. According to the spreadsheet where I keep track, I have started but not finished 309 series. My insufficient strategy for managing that number is to continue more series than I start and to finish a series every now and then. Last year I started 22, continued 18, and finished 7.

• (H) Series started: 15

Alliance-Union series by C.J. Cherryh
Annwyn by George H. Smith
Cassidy Blake by Victoria Schwab
The Daedalus Mission by Brian Stableford
Elric by Michael Moorcock
The Hate U Give series by Angie Thomas
Infinity Courts by Akemi Dawn Bowman
Kioga by Wiliam L. Chester
Lorens van Norreys by Andre Norton
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Nero Wolfe by Rex Stout
Renegade X by Chelsea M. Campbell
Rudder Grange by Frank R. Stockton
The Three Investigators by Robert Arthur
Vickery & Castine by Tim Powers


• (I) Series continued: 16

Annwyn by George H. Smith
Death on Demand series by Carolyn G. Hart
Dray Prescot by Kenneth Bulmer
Kioga by William Chester
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Lorens van Norreys by Andre Norton
Lynley & Havers by Elizabeth George
Nero Wolfe by Rex Stout
Persons non Grata by Cassandra Khaw
Rifkind by Lynn Abbet
Stephanie Plum by Janet Evanovich
The Three Investigators by Robert Arthur
Twin Pines by Louise Penny
Vickery & Castine by Tim Powers
Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire
World's End by Lin Carter
Year's Best Fantasy series (DAW)


• (J) Series finished (or up-to-date): 0

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Lorens van Norreys by Andre Norton
Persons Non Grata by Cassandra Khaw

1) What White People Can Do Next (FG)
2) The Book of Eels ()
3) Stone and Steel (EFG)
4) The Warmth of Other Suns (FG)
5) The Tides of Kregen (AI)
6) The Man Who Didn't Fly (G)
7) The Book of Accidents ()
8) The Wife Upstairs (G)
9) The Secret of Terror Castle (H)
10) The Year's Best Fantasy Stories: 2 (AI)
11) The Echo Wife (EG)
12) The Cruelest Month (GI)
13) The Wrong End of the Telescope (EF)
14) Jonathan Livingston Seagull (B)
15) The Rise of Renegade X (GH)
16) Daughter of the Bright Moon (G)
17) Earth Factor X (A)
18) The Prophets (EF)
19) A Whiff of Madness (A)
20) Underbug (G)
21) Dreamland Burning (G)
22) Sant of the Secret Service ()
23) Oil! (C)
24) The Hate U Give (FGH)
25) A Home for Goddesses and Dogs (G)
26) These Toxic Things (FG)
27) Checkmate in Berlin ()
28) Something Wicked (GI)
29) Wholehearted Librarianship ()
30) Fer-de-lance (H)
31) Felix Ever After (EF)
32) Rudder Grange (H)
33) Interstellar Empire (A)
34) Centennial (B)
35) Jesus and John Wayne (G)
36) Kioga of the Wilderness (AH)
37) Alternate Routes (H)
38) The Immortal of World's End (AI)
39) Local Woman Missing (G)
40) Nothing But Blackened Teeth (EFG)
41) The Black Flame (GI)
42) Mage of Fools (EFG)
43) A Complicated Love Story Set in Space (E)
44) Comfort Me With Apples (G)
45) Cultish (G)
46) The Florians (AH)
47) On the Come Up (FG)
48) The Women in the Walls (G)
49) Ragtime (B)
50) Brothers of Earth (AEGH)
51) The Hobbit ()
52) Slice and Dice ()
53) The Truth as Told By Mason Buttle (G)
54) The Ascent of Information ()
55) The Disciples of Cthulu (A)
56) Under the Whispering Door (E)
57) A Song for Quiet (EFGIJ)
58) From Man to Man (CG)
59) Elric of Melniboné (AH)
60) The Sword Is Drawn (GH)
61) Black Water Sister (EFG)
62) The King of Confidence (G)
63) The Infinity Courts (FGH)
64) The Fellowship of the Ring (H)
65) Kar Kaballa / Tower of the Medusa (H)
66) Wholehearted Faith (G)
67) Fireheart Tiger (EFG)
68) Playing the Cards You're Dealt (F)
69) The Two Towers (I)
70) Trinity (B)
71) The Second War of the Worlds (AI)
72) A Lesson in Vengeance (EG)
73) City of Ghosts (EGH)
74) Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot (I)
75) Mosquitoes (C)
76) Sword in Sheath (GI)
77) Clap When You Land (FG)
78) The Return of the King (J)
79) For the Sake of Elena (GI)
80) The League of Frightened Men (I)
81) Yesterday is History (EF)
82) Across the Green Grass Fields (EGI)
83) Body Becoming (EFG)
84) Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be (FG)
85) The Silmarillion (B)
86) Tunnel 29 (G)
87) Hawk of the Wilderness (I)
88) Into the Forest and All the Way Through (FG)
89) Bad Witch Burning (FG)
90) Redeeming Love (G)
91) Forced Perspectives (I)
92) Wordslut (G)
93) As Far As You'll Take Me (E)
94) At Swords' Points (GJ)
95) Chesapeake (B)
96) Hot Six (GI)
97) United States of Grace (EF)
98) Where the Drowned Girls Go (EG)
99) The Rubber Band ()
100) The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy ()
101) Until I Am Free (FG)
102) The Angels of L19 ()
103) Read Dangerously (FG)
104) Captain Singleton ()

Perry Rhodans so far: 20
Next Up: Perry Rhodan 191: Tschato der Löwe

Introduction to the Perry Rhodan saga:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/338133#7700316

The last Perry Rhodan update brought us to episode 185. Perry Rhodan and his closest advisors Atlan and Reginald Bull, along with Melbar Kasom and Andre Noir, have been missing for some time and are widely presumed dead. The team was kidnapped by Plophosers and injected with poison from which they will die in four weeks unless they get an antidote. They were then captured by a local resistance movement, and taken to a base which soon came under devastating attack by Plophosers. Perry and his team have now been abducted by forces unknown, along with Mory Abro, daughter of the leader of the resistance.

Episodes 186-190 follow Perry's team as they perform a task for their latest captors, then are (accidentally?) sent to a remote planet deep in Blues territory. An attempt to call for help mostly attracts hostile Blues ships -- but also a single Terran ship, crewed by mouse-beavers.



Perry Rhodan 186: Die Hypno-Kugel = "The Hypno-Sphere" by Kurt Brand

Perry and friends are snatched from almost certain death and transported to a strange spaceship under control of unknown forces. The ship takes them to a planet populated by multiple dangerous creatures, humanoid and otherwise, all hostile to one another, and all drawn hypnotically to the same mysterious location. Under constant threat, the team eventually finds their destination: a hypnotic sphere which both attracts the planet's inhabitants, and encourages them to attack one another. Andre Noir disables the sphere, which explodes and sends everyone into a deep sleep. When they awake, they realize that four weeks have now passed since they were poisoned -- apparently, the poison was neutralized by their cellular activators, and they never needed the antidote after all.

Perry Rhodan 187: Soldaten für Kahalo = "Soldiers for Kahalo" by Kurt Mahr

Perry and friends learn that last episode's events were a sort of audition to select defenders for the Kahals, large-headed aliens with highly advanced technology but no weapons. In their home system, the Kahals face an invasion of Flooths, intelligent insectoids with lots of weapons and and no scruples about using them. The Terrans soon conclude that, while the Bigheads have advanced technology, they have only the vaguest idea of how it works. Also on Kahalo is "The Great Kahal", a complex of six pyramids which has mystic significance for the Kahals; Andre Noir contacts an intelligence controlling the Great Kahal, which helps them defeat the Flooths. In gratitude, the Kahals put Perry's team onto a spaceship programmed to carry them to Earth.

Perry Rhodan 188: Die Lebenden Toten = "The Living Dead" by K.H. Scheer

The spaceship did not take them to Earth. Instead, it travelled in the opposite direction, into the galaxy's "Eastside" deep in Blues space, to Roost, a backwoods planet occupied by warring factions descended from stranded Springers and stuck at medieval-level technology. Also on the planet is a complex of pyramids resembling those on Kahal. But these pyramids are dangerously radioactive and inhabited by beings who use the pyramids' hypnotic technology to keep the planet's population at war and to provide the pyramids with sacrifices. The Terrans build protective lead suits for Atlan and Melbar Kasom, who enter the pyramids, battle the badguys, and disable the transmitter. Atlan tries to find radio equipment to send a distress signal, but the complex self-destructs and he must flee before he can do so. Unknown to any of the Terran team, the complex's destruction create a shock wave in space that spreads to the wider galaxy.

Perry Rhodan 189: Die Expedition der Mausbiber = "The Mouse-Beaver Expedition" by Clark Darlton

Way back in Episode 98, Gucky rescued a group of fellow Ilts (i.e., "mouse-beavers") from his doomed home planet. The survivors have since established a colony on Mars. Now, with the Terran Empire disintegrating and Perry Rhodan missing, the Ilts request and receive permission to undertake their own search under leadership of the mouse-beaver "Admiral" Gecko. The mouse-beavers soon stumble into danger: attacked by intelligent insectoids called "Hunters", they make an emergency landing on an unknown planet. (Echoing my own thoughts, Gecko wonders: "What's with all the intelligent insectoids?") On the planet, they meet "Dreamers," ghostlike beings who turn out to be the astral projections of the inhabitants of another planet in the system, and long-time adversaries of the Hunters. Working together with the Dreamers, the mouse-beavers defeat the Henters, repair their ship and move on.

Perry Rhodan 190: Admiral Gecko by Clark Darlton

Continuing their search for Perry Rhodan, the mouse-beaver crew picks up shock waves originating deep in the Milky Way's "Eastside." They determine the source of the shock waves, and arrive in the system at about the same time as a couple of Blues ships. The mouse-beavers explore the system for an explanation, especially focusing on the second planet, whose atmosphere is similar to Earth's. As more Blues arrive, the mouse-beavers are about to give up the search, when two of the psychic mouse-beavers report they have detected the thought-patterns of Perry Rhodan and Andre Noir. Rescue is impossible because of the increasing and increasingly hostile Blues activity, but Gecko drops a shuttle with two mouse-beavers to establish contact, then retreats in hope of sending a distress signal to Terran forces. Meanwhile on the planet's surface, Perry & team make a series of retreats to evade Blues landing parties.

99) The Rubber Band by Rex Stout
Date: 1936

Third in Stout's mystery series featuring eccentric orchidist Nero Wolfe and his two-fisted assistant Archie Goodwin. In this one, Wolfe agrees to help a young woman who hopes to recover an old debt owed to her late father, involving a Wild West poker game and escape from frontier justice. Wolfe correctly suspects that the girl is a pawn in some larger game, and he and Goodwin soon find themselves protecting their client from charges of larceny and suspicion of murder. The plot is complicated, but the snappy narrative is entertaining.

Happy new thread, Steve!

Thanks, Anita!

Happy new one, Steve. Delighted to see Paper Girls in the Tower of Due.

100) The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy by Robert Arthur
Date: 1965

Third in the long-running (they're still writing new ones in Germany) juvenile mystery series featuring boy detectives Jupiter Jones, Bob Andrews, and Pete Crenshaw. In this one the three investigators receive a letter from Alfred Hitchcock about a whispering mummy: Professor Yarborough, an egyptologist and owner of a nearby private museum which has recently received a mummy from a museum in Egypt. Recently, while examining the mummy, Prof. Yarborough heard it whispering in what seemed some dialect of ancient Arabic. Shortly after the boys arrive, a statue topples in the room where the mummy is kept. The weird events recall legends of a mummy's curse, which Yarborough doesn't believe in, but still. The boys investigate, propose explanations, encounter mild peril, and meet Hamid, an Egyptian boy who has followed the mummy to America with his father, believing that the relic is a distant ancestor whom he & his father must return to Egypt. There is theft and more peril before the boys unravel the mystery, which is not terribly puzzling but perfectly satisfying. I've mentioned before that these are strongly nostalgic for me, and I find it difficult to criticize them. So I mostly won't but I can't not mention that there is a brief explanation about ownership of the mummy, which raised my 54-year-old 21st-century librarian's eyebrows ... but that's not the point is it? It has dated much less badly than many of its peers.

>8 MickyFine: Thanks, Micky. And yes, Paper Girls will be another "Thanks Micky!"

Happy new thread, Steve!

Happy new thread!

Have you started Les fleurs du Mal yet?

>11 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul!

>12 figsfromthistle: Thanks Anita! I have started Les Fleurs du Mal, though I'll probably be working on it for awhile, and may not finish. It's part of (yet another) project, of brushing up my very limited, very rusty French skills, which had been unexercised since my undergraduate years. Le Fleurs du Mal seemed to be a reasonable thing to start with, considering its short pieces, multiple available English translations, and freely-available audio version on Librivox. It is of course not necessarily for entry-level speakers, and I spend more time with a dictionary and imitating the Librivox readers than I do making progress. But I feel like I'm making progress.

I've never grokked Baudelaire in English translations, but even with my bargain-basement skills I feel like I feel him in French. I don't think "vast birds of the sea" is the same thing as "vaste oiseaux des mers." That's probably exoticism speaking, but still.

**RUNNING POST**

Miles last week: 9
Total miles: 209
Longest run: 3 miles

Soundtrack: Baby I Had an Abortion by Petrol Girls
BPM: 163

Man, I did not have this becoming the Kansas state song on my 2022 bingo card. But here we are.

Happy new thread, Steve. I never read the Three Investigator books as a kid - would kids today like them?

>15 BLBera: Thanks Beth! Depends on the reader as always, but I suspect the original stories would probably feel pretty stale to today's kids. There's a bit in The Whispering Mummy for instance, when Jupiter demonstrates how the mummy's whisper could have been produced by radio transmitter -- which would have been hip use of consumer electronics back in the 1960s but today's kids would probably need an explanation why that's the best solution in his box. Besides that, there are dated expressions -- "Gleeps!" had me chuckling in this one. And Alfred Hitchcock makes cameo appearances: he needed no introduction in the early 1960s, but he probably does today. (Or maybe not: maybe kids would accept his existence in the books, then a few years down the road post on Instagram, "I was today years old when I learned that Alfred Hitchcock was a real dude who made old movies.")

Checking in on the new thread, Steve.

>17 alcottacre: Hi Stasia, thanks for stopping by!

>16 swynn: I was going to resist, but nah. It wouldn't be my thread if I didn't add: The Three Investigators series has mostly run its course in the U.S., but it's still crazy popular in Germany, where new books, audio dramas, graphic novels, and spinoff series are regularly produced. On YouTube there's an interview with actor Oliver Rohrbeck where he says that he frequently is recognized in public as the voice of "Justus Jonas" (Jupiter Jones).

So if it's kept up-to-date, the series does still have legs. For some audiences, anyway.

You can see the series' very active webpage here:
https://www.dreifragezeichen.de/
In Germany, "The Three Investigators" are "The Three ???", which is pronounced "The Three Question Marks," or auf Deutsch: "Die drei Fragezeichen"

In 2007 and 2009 there were two films produced in attempt to launch a film franchise. Since there haven't been any since 2009, I assume that the film franchise plans have been temporarily shelved, but the first two films do exist in English-dubbed versions:

The Secret of Skeleton Island
The Secret of Terror Castle

Happy New Thread, Steve!

>19 swynn:

You're amazing. :D

Thanks, Liz!

>19 swynn: Thanks Steve. That is pretty interesting.

Happy new one, Steve!

Just to let you know, I have finished The Matarese Circle and placed it in TIOLI #14: I think it's sufficiently sprawling and over-the-top enough to fit the parameters. :D

>23 drneutron: Thanks, Jim!

>24 lyzard: Works for me, Liz. I'm going more slowly than expected on a 600-pager, so probably won't start on Ludlum till later next week

101) Until I am Free by Keisha N. Blain
Date: 2021

This discusses the work of Fannie Lou Hamer, a civil rights activist who worked in the 1960s and 1970s for rights of women, black, and poor people (and especially on the rights of poor black women). Her preference for grass-roots work and her impatience with hierarchy sometimes brought her into conflict with leaders of the civil rights movement, which adds dimension to my understanding of that movement. It's especially useful in making connections to work yet undone. Enlightening, inspiring, recommended.

102) The Angels of L19 by Jonathan Walker
Date: 2021

Liverpool, 1984. Robert is a recent convert in an evangelical congregation. He's also a sensitive and socially awkward young man dealing with the death of his mother and a father damaged by war. When he starts having visions of supernatural beings who might be angels, he interprets them in the context of his evangelical mythology, which leaves the reader with another puzzle of interpretation: how much of what Robert experiences is supernatural and how much is Robert's tenuous grip on consensus reality just coming loose? In either case, Walker pokes a stick at darker fantasies of evangelicalism, particularly its imaginings of spiritual warfare and its devaluing of critical thought. It's a coming of age story, a period mood piece, a surrealist horror tale, and a very unsettling read for me. I'm still sorting out my thoughts about it.

103) Read Dangerously by Azar Nafisi
Date: 2021

The author of "Reading Lolita in Tehran" presents a series of essays on reading as a tool for resisting authoritarianism, with the background of the Iranian revolution and Trump-era American politics, in the form of letters to her book-loving father. It's pensive and personal, and expanded my TBR list. (It also reminded me of things that have been in the Swamp forever but haven't yet made it to my eyes -- Steve, why have you not yet read Reading Lolita in Tehran? The Satanic Verses? The Handmaid's Tale? Fix it, man.) I saw this on Beth's (BLBera) thread, so thanks for pointing me to it, Beth!

104) The Life, Adventures, and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton by Daniel Defoe
Date: 1720

The original subtitle contains a nice summary: "Containing an account of his being set on shore in the island of Madagascar, his settlement there, with a description of the place and inhabitants : of his passage from thence, in a Paraguay, to the main land of Africa, with an account of the customs and manners of the people : his great deliverances from the barbarous natives and wild beasts : of his meeting with an Englishman, a citizen of London, among the Indians, the great riches he acquired, and his voyage home to England : as also Captain Singleton's return to sea, with an account of his many adventures and pyracies with the famous Captain Avery and others." The frequent episodes involving enslaved people and human trafficking make it difficult to enjoy today. But it has interesting points, especially in the second half when pirate captain Singleton takes aboard a Quaker physician who joins the crew and becomes such a close friend that he & Capt. Singleton set up house together in retirement. Their close companionship is something I hadn't expected in an 18th century text, and the jokes about pacifist piracy are fun. Still, it's probably mostly of historical interest for most readers.

Happy new thread, Steve!

>30 bell7: Thanks Mary!

>28 swynn: You are welcome, Steve. I'm glad you liked it. Re: the TBR list, we just have to live forever.

>32 BLBera: Agreed on living forever, Beth. It's a hard assignment, but if one must ...

In the department of "Answers to Questions Nobody Asked" ....

Over on Liz's thread we recently had a discussion about the status of Alfred Hitchcock in the Three Investigators series. In the early books of the original series, Hitchcock is a secondary character, a famous director of suspense films who often tosses the boys an intriguing mystery. But in later printings and editions, "Alfred Hitchcock" appears as a private investigator, or is replaced altogether by the character "Hector Sebastian, well-known novelist." One assumes that these changes were made because the property's owners felt they could no longer assume their middle-school audience recognized the name "Alfred Hitchcock."

Having recently mentioned the series' continuing popularity in Germany, I wondered how the Germans handled the question "Who is Alfred Hitchcock and what do we do with him?" So I got a couple of the cheapest editions I could find on Abebooks, and ....



Here's a copy of the German translation of episode 30, The Three Investigators and the Secret of Shark Reef. Translation is copyright 1982; this is the 11th printing from 1999. And this is interesting:



"Alfred Hitchcock" appears at the top of the page. The first American edition had "Text by William Arden based on characters created by Robert Arthur." Here we have, besides "Alfred Hitchcock": "Told by William Arden, from an idea by Robert Arthur, \translated\ from the American by Leonore Puschert." (Yes, "American" and "English" are different languages. Object if you like, but this is 100% normal for publications in German.)

And just in case you're thinking, "But surely they're not suggesting Hitchcock actually wrote the book?" I'll guide your attention to the note on the facing page:

The Author: Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) ranks among the most famous film directors in the world. He is a master of psychological mysteries, and became a model for many filmmakers. In addition to directing more than 50 films, he was also active as an author. He wrote an entire series of exciting juvenile mysteries, and especially popular is his series, "The Three ???"

The book opens with a "Warning to Sensitive Readers" purportedly by Hitchcock, and he appears as a character in the final chapter (as a famous director)

I also got a German-original volume, Die drei Fragezeichen und Fussball-Gangster (rendered into American: "... Soccer Gangsters"), copyright 1995:



This one still has "Alfred Hitchcock" prominent on the cover and on the title page, but there is no biographical note. No introductory jokes, and no appearance in the denouement. There is, however, apparently a guest appearance by the Three Investigators' girl-detective counterparts, "The Three !!!" which is a whole 'nuther story, and you can see their website here: https://www.diedreiausrufezeichen.de/



I don't know much about the most recent stories, but images on the "Three ???" website suggest to me that Alfred Hitchcock has been retired from the series.

Well, a week later I make my way hither. I'm sad that Alfred Hitchcock is fading from consciousness, I'm surprised at what the Germans are reading these days, and launching a general "happy summer" wish.

You're welcome any time, Richard, and a happy summer to you too!

>34 swynn:

First one legit, second one a continuation?

The double acknowledgement of Robert Arthur and William Arden is interesting: The Mystery Of The Moaning Cave is the handover point, and if you're conscious of that you can recognise shifts in the language and style; though the general presentation is the same, so presumably the outlines that Arden was working from were fairly comprehensive.

Do we have any text tampering before 1980? The more I think about it, the more it seems likely that they chose to move away after Hitchcock's death (might have seemed a bit macabre otherwise, though he probably would have appreciated that!), rather than a case of "these kids today".

>37 lyzard: The point about moving away from Hitchcock after his death is an interesting possibility. It would especially explain what happened in the 1990s reissues in the United States, where he was erased and replaced by a fictional novelist. It doesn't so well explain the editions where the name was kept but he became a private investigator I think for that change to work, the editors have to assume that their target audience does not recognize the name.

105) How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith
Date: 2021

This is a collection of personal essays based on visits to sites that explicitly or implicitly commemorate slavery: Monticello, Whitney Plantation, Angola Prison, and others. Smith contemplates how history is represented at these sites, how the representations are interpreted by visitors, how the representations compare to historical documents, and how the stories we tell continue to affect our lives. It's a brilliant idea and brilliantly executed. Highly recommended.

I "read" this on audiobook, which is narrated by the author, in this case an excellent choice.

It's also one from my "Recommended by 75ers" list. Thanks Stasia! (alcottacre) It was a good one.

106) Queen of Teeth by Hailey Piper
Date: 2021

In a near-future alternate Newark, one in which Nancy Reagan was elected president in 1988, and in which a genetically-synthesized virus has been accidentally-or-maybe-not released into the general population. In rare cases, the virus causes the birth of "chimeras," children with two sets of DNA. Sometimes the second set of DNA starts to assert itself in adolescence, causing health problems. AB Pharmaceuticals, the company that engineered the virus, is ordered to provide health care for chimeras, and also is awarded intellectual property rights in their patients' bodies. You read that right.

Yaya Betancourt is a chimera, half owned by a corporation with a strong interest in finding a way to profit from her. One night she has a one-night-stand with a stranger whose name she doesn't remember (it's "Doc"), and in the morning discovers teeth in her vagina. She is understandably cautious about ABP finding out but of course, that's *exactly* the sort of thing ABP wants to find out -- including "Doc," who turns out to be a physician in ABP's employ. A game of cat and mouse ensues. For clarity: in this case the "cat" is a cold-blooded corporation monetizing its IP rights in human beings; and the "mouse" is a young woman with an increasingly hungry, increasingly dominant, increasingly dangerous thing of teeth and horns and tentacles growing from her (decreasingly) private parts. Put that way, perhaps you'll wonder whether the "cat" and "mouse" thing should be the other way around. Put that way, I expect you won't be disappointed.

I certainly wasn't disappointed. Author Hailey avoids the most obvious ruts, and delivers a smart, slick, and squicky piece of body horror/dystopia/queer romance that had me looking for what else she's written.

>26 swynn: Adding that one to the BlackHole. It fits in nicely with my African American experience reading. Thanks for the mention, Steve.

>28 swynn: Dodging that BB as I have already read it.

>39 swynn: Glad to see you enjoyed it!

Have a wonderful Wednesday, Steve!

I also enjoyed the Clint Smith book - I read it but good to know the audio is a good one.

>40 swynn: Well, that one caught my eye!

>43 drneutron: It's an odd one but a gem. Hope you like it if decide to try it out!

>39 swynn: I hope to get to that one before I die.

Happy weekend-ahead's reads!

So apparently, 2022 is when I see a story that parents' groups are objecting to Stephen King's It because its title is a pronoun and pronouns are offensive and I spend a few minutes on Google looking for corroborating stories because it sounds like a joke but I'm not sure because it's 2022.

It's a joke.

>45 richardderus: Hope you like it when you get to it, Richard!

>46 swynn: Snort. For now...

>47 swynn: Me, too. As always.

>46 swynn: Ha!

It seems a little gauche to pop in to a thread for the first time in (checks calendar) August and say Happy New Year, so I'll skip that and say that I enjoyed catching up with your reviews. I'm glad you're along for the ride with Nero & Archie and the Three Investigators — both some of my most favorite mysteries ever.

>48 MickyFine: I know, right? That someone might object to It surprises me not at all, but because of pronouns? And then: oh crap, this crowd, maybe ....

>50 rosalita: Welcome Julia! I'm enjoying those series too. Nero & Archie are new to me and they haven't entirely won me over yet, but I can see it happening.

>51 swynn: They will win you over, I promise! If you aren't completely hooked by Some Buried Caesar I'll eat my hat. :-)

Speaking of things where you can't immediately be sure whether it's a joke or not, this came up in my Twitter feed.

Horrifyingly enough, it appears that in this case the answer is 'no':

>53 lyzard: Some of those who came to America for "religious freedom", generally including the opportunity to enforce their own particular beliefs, felt that The Bible was the only book anyone needs. Others might grudgingly allow other uplifting or inspirational books.

This is IMNSHO, of a piece with that history.

>54 ArlieS: It is exactly that, Arlie, "your education/expertise/freedom to be Not Like Me infringes my liberty to force people to live my way!"

>53 lyzard: I feel physically sick as well as psychically assaulted.

Hi Steve.

>52 rosalita: I look forward to being won over!

>53 lyzard: This one is even harder to tell, but Snopes calls it "Originated as Satire": https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/florida-book-bans-schools-libraries/

That said, every title on the list is frequently challenged in library collections-- if you removed every book that somebody objects to, then these would all be gone. It's the selection that makes it look suspicious to me -- the crowd that wants to ban "The Hate U Give" generally has small overlap with those objecting to "Huckleberry Finn." (In fact, I have talked to a parent who was angry that his child was assigned "The Hate U Give" in an AP English class, and told me that Huck Finn -- based on the "All right then, I'll go to hell," scene -- was a much better book for discussing race relations. Which also sounds like a joke, but wasn't.)

>54 ArlieS: The "I want the freedom to deny you freedom" crowd definitely has deep roots. Sigh.

>55 richardderus: Hi Richard.

It is horrifying that you can look at a list like that and just not be sure. I was sure that it was, at least, a list of challenged books.

We went through a phase under our previous government wherein certain religious groups were, in effect, demanding simultaneously to be legally protected from discrimination while having the legal right to discriminate against others.

(They're not actually being discriminated against, they've just had the shits since the Marriage Equality Bill passed.)

So the government sponsored a Bill granting all sorts of unnecessary protections, all of which were just a smokescreen for the fact that they wanted the legal right to expel kids from their schools on the basis of their sexuality.

The then-opposition, now government, responded with a scary but brilliant bit of political manoeuvring that cut that clause out from the rest---creating a situation where they could have all their other freedoms but not that one. And as soon as they couldn't have that one, they lost interest in the rest.

>57 lyzard: Gaah. They're everywhere, I guess.

The book-protesters have always been with us, but my sense was that it had died down in recent years. I had naively thought that perhaps, with ebooks being so easy to get everywhere, that there wouldn't be a point to book bans any more -- you can get nearly any variety of porn in seconds from anywhere in the country, after all, and protests won't change that -- and turned my worries to wondering how long before the bean-counters decided libraries were obsolete. You can get nearly any variety of curricular and extra-curricular materials in seconds from any device, after all. Maybe you have to sign licenses for some of that, but you have people reading software licenses already in IT services anyway.

Then here come the morals police, and I have to worry about both them *and* the bean-counters *and* wondering whether it's all part of a single master plan.

Just in case you're wondering how my nightmares have been lately.

That's horrifying.

I suppose we've had kerfuffles here over assigned school texts but not to a degree that you're aware of without researching it. And generally I think parents tend to take the traditional stance of, "At least s/he's reading something."

And our libraries are effectively sacrosanct, though most are government-funded and, you'd think, vulnerable either to complaint or to political ideology. But even the newly departed nutjobs never focused their interference in that direction. And (though again it may be happening) I'm not aware of efforts to cut hours or services. On the contrary, there were huge efforts to keep library services functioning during the worst of the pandemic.

A lesson in blessing-counting.

The book-protesters have always been with us, but my sense was that it had died down in recent years.

Oh no, quite the opposite - they've increased exponentially in the last year. If you're interested in keeping track (and want a reason for your blood to boil), Kelly Jensen at BookRiot has a weekly Censorship News Roundup that's worth paying attention to. A lot of it has been in schools, but there have been challenges in public libraries, too, and even a Barnes & Noble in Virginia is being sued (there's going to be a hearing on Tuesday that I'll be looking up).

It's scary.

Seriously, people, if you don't want your kid to read a book, deal with it; don't take the book away from all kids.

>59 lyzard: Despite the cranks, there's still a huge amount of goodwill towards libraries, though I worry every time I hear about a bond issue that doesnt' pass or "bookless libraries."

>60 bell7: Yeah, the last year or so is what has surprised me. And it shouldn't have, I guess, because the hate crowd is looking for enemies and Dangerous Books are a tried & true standby. I think this iteration is especially nasty because of its smear campaigns and threats of violence targeting teachers, librarians, and even volunteers. The campaign against Drag Queen Story Hour is a kind of morally vacant meanness for which I have no word. Beyond scary.

>61 BLBera: This.

So I have a few comments to post, and I'll probably get to them over the next few days, but August has been pretty disruptive to reading life. This isn't the place for details, but I'll mention that my mother, who has been living alone since my father passed away about two years ago, will be moving in with us next weekend. It's been a month of long conversations and preparations, and not so much one of sustained solitary reading. That trend will probably continue, as we'll have a new conversationalist in the house, who also enjoys board games and jigsaw puzzles. And it's going to be good -- but maybe not so good for reducing the Tower of Due.

107) DAW #126: The World Asunder by Ian Wallace
Date: 1976

Second in Wallace's "Minds In Bodies" series, after the weird-and-sort-of-ick Pan Sagittarius. Also the 5th in his "Croyd Spacetime Maneuvers" series if you count it in that series, which the author does not seem to do. In this one, psychologist Lilith Vogel and married policeman Diodoro (Dio) Horse have an interested-but-chaste relationship until one day outside Dio's apartment building, they see Dio's wife exit the second-story window with an old flame of Lilith's. The couple ascend a magic rope to disappear into the sky. Dio is determined to find his wife, and Lilith volunteers to help. Their surrealist journey involves waking dreams, time-travel, cosmic consciousness, and a plot that stretches from prehistoric cave painters to a distant 2002 where civilization is threatened by a weapon that can literally tear the world asunder. It has the huge scope and the unexpected plotting I love in Wallace's work, but there's also ick: Wallace anticipates some criticisms in a foreword, promising that he's not really a sexist, that's just the way his characters are. (Actually, considering that caveat, it wasn't as awful as I braced myself for.) Also, attempted rape is a plot point, so TW for that.

Wishing you all the best as you transition to the new arrangement, Steve!

>63 swynn: That is a big step, Steve.
I hope all goes well with the move next weekend.

>65 MickyFine:
>66 FAMeulstee:

Thanks for the well-wishes, Micky & Anita. It will be an adjustment, but I'm optimistic.

108) The Zero Stone by Andre Norton
Date: 1968

Murdoc Jern is the son of a gem merchant with interplanetary connections. When his father is killed and Murdoc is shut out of the family business, he signs on to a gem trader's ship taking with him his father's most prized item: the zero stone, a mysterious unlovely gem found in interplanetary space. He suspects that the zero stone is the reason for his father's assassination, and sure enough danger follows Murdoc as well. Perilous adventure ensues; along the way Murdoc picks up a traveling companion: a telepathic cat-creature Eet which is just about the most Andre Norton thing I've encountered yet in an Andre Norton book.

This is a good one. There's plenty of incident, exotic locations, and mystery; and Norton's language hits its sweet spot: rich enough to enhance the exotic mood, but not so mannered as to hinder enjoyment.

Thanks Richard for recommending I jump ahead to this one. I think I may not have noticed the connections to the Van Norreys series if I'd waited.

109) Rome's Greatest Defeat by Adrian Murdoch
Date: 2006

Around the time of the birth of Christ, the Romans had conquered Gaul and were establishing outposts east of the Rhine in Germania. In 9 AD, a group of Germans attacked Roman forces under the command of the region's governor Publius Quinctilius Varus, slaughtering three legions and a total of (who knows?) 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers (even more than that, says Wikipedia) and other Romans traveling with the army. The Germans were a confederation of warriors from multiple tribes under the leadership of Arminius, a "prince" of the Cherusci tribe who had been trained in the Roman military, and was among Varus's trusted advisors. The consequences of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest -- which the Romans called the Clades Variana and the Germans the Varusschlacht -- can hardly be exaggerated. In the coming years Rome led retaliatory campaigns but none with decisive success. Roman expansion in Europe was effectively ended, and Germans were handed a founding myth and folk hero: no longer "Arminius" but "Hermann." Post-Enlightenment, Arminius/Hermann became a frequent theme in German drama, fiction, and opera, and a figure of national pride. In the 19th Century, a monument to Hermann was erected on a ridge of the Teutoburg Forest. The 19th-century Hermann faces and raises his sword westward, not southward -- apparently no longer concerned with Rome he defies France. Because 19th century. When I was an exchange student to Germany in 1986/87, my hosts' home was in the North Rhine-Westphalian village of Heiden, where Hermann was visible on the horizon from the back yard. So I have a sentimental interest in the story.

Murdoch's account is a concise and engaging one. He follows the Latin accounts of the battle (from Tacitus and others) with comments about just what we know and what we don't. He explodes some of the popular myths about the battle. For example, the governor Varus is often depicted as an incompetent bureaucrat, but Murdoch documents Varus's pre-Germania career to show that he was not an unreasonable choice for governor, and that his traditional scapegoating is probably unfair. He also shows that Arminius's role was complicated, with some Germans opposed to his leadership and others plainly on the side of the Romans. He also tempers some estimates of the body count, arguing that the legions were probably not at full strength. Especially interesting is a chapter on Arminius's afterlife in literature, drama, and popular culture -- an afterlife which is now complicated by our awareness of the dangers of the nationalism that fed on his myth. Also interesting is a chapter on archaeological finds at the battle site, which was only identified in the 1990s.

I wish you the best during your transition, Steve.

Thanks Beth!

110) Mystery of the Green Ghost by Robert Arthur
Date: 1965

Fourth in the Three Investigators mystery series. This one starts with Bob and Pete investigating a spooky old mansion that once belonged to businessman Matthias Green, who died decades ago in a fall descending stairs. Bob and Pete are poking around the mansion when they here a scream; running to investigate, they see a luminous green figure in robes "like a Mandarin" descending the stairs where Green met his end, floating along a hall, and prowling about the house. That night, the ghost is seen elsewhere outside the house, including in a cemetery where it is seen by the chief of police. Shortly after, a secret room is found hiding the body of Green's wife, together with a string of rare pearls ... which go missing shortly after discovery. It's the first of the series that I've found disappointing, with an antagonist modeled on Fu Manchu (of whom I've had plenty, thanks) and an altogether unsatisfying solution to the nature of the ghost. Still, it's the Three Investigators so I can't dislike them much.

Oh, and I solved the mystery of The Three Investigators and the British Jargon. Back in episode 1, I expressed puzzlement that although the series was set in California, they called a car's trunk a "boot" and a flashlight a "torch". It turns out (of course) that there were American and British versions of the series. Both editions of Green Ghost have digitized versions in Internet Archive, and I can confirm that each uses a vocabulary appropriate to its market.

>72 swynn: I'm glad you solved the AmE/BrE confusion, Steve!

>68 swynn: The concept of a "duty child" was one of the very, very weird moments in this book for me. I keep trying, decades later, to imagine what gave Miss Norton the idea for them.

Eet's genesis was so deeply odd, wasn't it, but perfectly Norton. Uncharted Stars does something...trippy...with that subplot, too.

Struggling with the Ludlum, are you? Well, I don't blame you. :)

>72 swynn:

But how do the British editions handle "Hector Sebastian, well-known novelist"? Inquiring minds want to know! :D

Anyway, yet another reason to choose my reading copies with care (though whether I'd even notice boots and torches is debatable).

>74 richardderus: Yeah, that's an especially creepy feature of her world, isn't it? If she'd written it in 2022 I'd say she got it from the newspaper, because it resonates with the stories about evangelicals promoting adoption-as-mission-work.

And Eet: yes. Looking forward to the "trippy" in Uncharted Stars

>75 lyzard: It's just been a matter of competition for my attention this month. The last weekend of September, I knew I could finish either The Matarese Circle or Apostles of Reason, and the latter won. I hope to finish Ludlum this weekend, but it will have competition from the Big Move.

The British versions of both The Secret of Terror Castle and The Mystery of the Green Ghost had Alfred Hitchcock (the film director) as the boys' mentor.

>76 swynn:

A perfectly sensible choice and I don't blame you for that either.

I'm fighting an impulse to take a comprehensive look into all these variants: I have quite enough projects on my hands as it is!

Ah, yes: I hope everything goes well for you and yours with the new arrangements. :)

I've been reading some ...



111) Apostles of Reason by Molly Worthen
Date: 2014

This is an intellectual history of American evangelicalism, from roughly the late nineteenth century forward. Worthen argues that this history exposes a crisis (or crises) of authority with respect to positions on conflicts between faith and reason, relationship to Jesus, and public faith. I'm pretty sure I did not follow the grand argument; and to the extent I did, I remain unconvinced that it applies uniquely to evangelicals. For me, the theme is how a particular set of theological positions took over a rich range of traditions for the greater benefit and empowerment of white men. In Worthen's account, denominations that once had nuanced or even progressive positions on (e.g.) biblical inerrancy, ordination of women, and economic and racial justice, were flattened by a steamroller of conservative Calvinist doctrine on its way to increased social and political power. Her book leaves me mad and sad, but also with an increased appreciation for the history of the conservative Methodist denomination which raised me.

112) The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure by Robert Arthur
Date: 1966

When their offer to help investigate a jewel robbery is refused, the Three Investigators help an author of children's fantasy books who reports an infestation of gnomes. Suspecting something ridiculous, the boys investigate anyway and stumble upon a criminal plot ... and peril. As with others in the series, some well-intentioned ethnic characterizations have not aged well, but the mystery in this one is a cut above the last.

>78 swynn: Sounds grim to my hostile outsider's ears. But you got something interesting out of it, so I won't put it on the list of "books needing burning" when the Revolution comes.

113) Uncharted Stars by Andre Norton
Date: 1969

Sequel to "The Zero Stone" (See Post 68 above) In this one, Murdoch Jern and his telepathic shapeshifting cat/alien partner Eet go looking for the source of the Zero stones, but also must establish themselves as space merchants in order to keep eating and pay bills. They find themselves working against the Thieves' Guild and the Space Patrol, both of whom suspect that Jern knows more than he admits; also against competing traders, and maybe even against their own star pilot, whose background and motives are shady. Too bad that there are only two in this series, because it has Andre Norton in top form. I'd read a dozen more.

>80 richardderus: I agree that my own biography made it the rewarding read that it was. Wouldn't recommend it to anyone uninterested in details of evangelical theology and history. But to those who are ... check it out.

>82 swynn: Warning heeded.

>81 swynn: Too bad that there are only two in this series, because it has Andre Norton in top form. I'd read a dozen more.

Me too! And the Big Reveal about Eet was pretty cool, no? A Forerunner woman, not a cat at all!

>83 richardderus: I had mixed feelings about that. I like the idea of a Big Reveal about Eet's identity, and I'd welcome the development if the secret were an opening to another adventure. But as the bow tied on the series it feels a little too worn: you won the day now you get a girl? There are other books I can read for that. I'll console myself with the thought that Author Norton probably had another series entry in mind she just didn't get around to writing. Our loss.

114) Paper Girls, vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan
Date: 2016

It's a graphic novel about paper girls and duelling factions of time-travelling warriors with unclear motives. Fun, but the ending comes out of nowhere and there is exactly one way to find out where the series is going with *that* so I guess I'm hooked for at least another entry. Thanks, Micky!

115) The Matarese Circle by Robert Ludlum
Date: 1979

The bestselling novel in the U.S. for 1979 was this thriller about two rival superspies, one American and one Soviet, who team up to fight a secret international ring of assassins. The action is over-the-top and the plot stretches credibility, so it should be right up my alley and I can't get over the feeling that it's a case of right book, wrong time. For whatever reason I found it very difficult to engage with and very easy to find reasons to read something else instead. As Liz points out in her comments about the book, the hero we're supposed to be cheering for is not easily cheerable, leaving the book to rely on violence and plot to move forward. But even many of those seem overused: are there any characters here who aren't motivated by revenge? Back in 1979 the "Women in Refrigerators" trope had not yet been named, but there are so many examples here you could open an appliance store. Goodness knows that violence and surprise have sufficed to engage me in many other books, but not this one this time.

>84 swynn: I certainly understand that response, seen from my present age...and I suspect that series was not as dear to her as the Escore/Estcarp ones were because it was pretty much her last gasp of the 1950s-era boy's-adventure type stories. I think only Forerunner Foray was similar in action but even it centered the psychometry/women's magic that was the rest of her career.

116 The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco
Date: 2017

Resisting snark to say it's very YA, and YA is increasingly not my thing, so why did I read this? (That's not really a question, just a cry to the void because I'll probably read the next. I got it in an omnibus edition, after all.) In any case, I'm a poor source for information on whether you'll like it if it does happen to be your thing.

>85 swynn: Excellent! So glad it was a hit with you.

117 Shift by Hugh Howey
Date: 2013

Here's one from the lower stories of my virtual tower of unread Kindle books. It's the follow-up to the author's Wool, a post-apocalyptic story in which human survivors are living in underground silos. This one works mostly as a prequel, explaining the apocaplyptic event and the genesis of the silos through the eyes of a politician and architect who helped design them. It's okay, though overlong and spends time on incidental dramas that don't (I think) much affect the arc of the larger story. But I'm looking forward to the third, where the narrative threads of the first book and this one come together for a resolution to some smoldering conflicts. I hope it offers some resolution, anyway.

118) Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews
Date: 2008

Second in the urban fantasy series featuring Kate Daniels, a mercenary in an Atlanta where natural laws periodically fluctuate between physics and magic. In this one Kate and friends deal with an incursion by the sea-demon minions of a Celtic godling. It's light and fun.

119) The Secret of Skeleton Island by Robert Andrews
Date: 1966

Sixth in the Three Investigators series; in this one, the boys are hired to investigate a series of thefts at a movie production location. Pete's father is working on the production, which is an island off the southeast coast of the U.S. Once home to pirates, more recently home to an amusement park, the island is now abandoned and a perfect site for filming a mystery thriller. And a good one for a middle-grades mystery too, with a haunted carousel, scuba diving, pirate treasure, and kids who save the day. It's formula, but an entertaining one.

120) A Question of Navigation by Kevin Hearne
Date: 2021

Physicist Clint Beecham is abducted by aliens who plan to colonize Earth and use humans for cattle. Not Clint, of course: Clint's scientist skills are useful to them so they offer to spare him, and even offer him a T-shirt with the slogan, "Do Not Eat." But Clint is no fool, nor are the handful of other scientists who have been abducted with him. They know that the t-shirt warning is good only so long as they are useful. If humanity is to have a future, Clint and his coabductees must stop the aliens from reporting back to their home planet. It's action-driven fun, best read at a pace rapid enough to avoid thinking too hard about it.

Happy weekend-ahead's reads, Steve!

>93 swynn: Hi Steve, I really like Hearne's writing, especially his series The Iron Druid and Ink & Sigil, but this is a new one on me. I'll have check it out.

>94 richardderus: Thanks, Richard! I finally got this month's cinder-block out of the way, so I do expect weekend reading to be happy!

>95 rosalita: Do check it out, Julia! It's a novella so even if it doesn't work for you then it's not much time lost. I read the first volume of the Iron Druid series and enjoyed it, but never got around to continuing. Probably should fix that. You know, someday.

>96 swynn: So many books, so little time!

121) The Covenant by James Michener
Date:1980

The "cinder-block" referenced above is this thing, the bestselling novel in the U.S. for 1980, and exhibit n+1 that readers in the last half of the twentieth century were more interested in quantity than quality. My paperback edition runs to 1,235 pages. (And friends we got another incoming next month.)

At that length, one wishes for a more rewarding book. It's Michener's usual schtick, a multigenerational story in the form of interconnected novellas enlightening the history of a geographical area, in this case South Africa. The stories span precolonial times through the twentieth century, seen mostly through the eyes three families: the Nxumalos, black South Africans who deal with the arrival of European settlers; the Van Doorns, Dutch settlers who tame the veldt and eventually author apartheid; and the Saltwoods, English missionaries and businessmen who try to temper but also benefit from the Boers' worst habits. Following the formula, we watch the families as they participate in or observe key historical events and movements, in this case including the founding of Cape Colony, the Great Trek, the Xhosa cattle killing, the Zulu revolution, the Anglo-Boer Wars, and apartheid. Whatever criticisms I have, Michener certainly provoked me to learn more about South African history.

I went into this nervously, having finished Chesapeake not that long ago, which I both admired and found off-putting because of Michener's technique of adopting the perspective of his often-unpleasant characters. It was bad enough with the slaveowners, Confederate sympathizers, and racists of Maryland. How bad would it be for the characters of South Africa?

Pretty bad, it turns out.

Michener's preferred characters are clearly the Europeans: he finds them more interesting, more complex, more sympathetic. But he also wants their perspectives to be historically accurate. And so we get 1,200 pages in the headspace of colonizers, slave owners, and the architects of apartheid. Which is a lot of pages to spend there. At least with Chesapeake one could make the argument that for most of the time covered, white culture was the dominant one, but here you've got Europeans outnumbered millions to one and yet indigenous African perspectives are *still* in the minority. Worse, in contrast to his complex European characters, Michener's black characters tend to be either stock types or insane.

As usual, Michener includes some naturalist writing and that is welcome. But the experience was too long and too exhausting and leaves me needing a 1,200-page shower.

>98 swynn: I ate that one up in 1980. I am completely positive that I'd wither into a mandrake root, complete with insanity-inducing screams, if I tried it now.

I am torn between sending an intervention team chez vous or merely staring bemusèdly at your entries when I see these things have actually been entered into your brain.

It was not a pleasant month. Highlights have been the lighter books I read to take a break.

The next bestseller is another saga of cultural conflict served up by another wordy white dude: James Clavell's Noble House. I read Gai-Jin about thirty years ago and remember liking it but also thinking the value didn't merit the length and haven't read any Clavell since. This one is longer. Intervention is not unreasonable but I'm diving in anyway.

>100 swynn: Well, you know there's nothing compelling you to do this dangerous, painful thing, and your inner being still insists it's a good idea, so...have at, my old, I'll be here should you need help detoxing.

122) Dear Church by Lenny Duncan
Date: 2019

This is a series of essays/sermons by a black queer minister in the ELCA ("Evangelical Lutheran Church of America", or as the author calls it "The whitest denomination in America"), addressed to his congregation on subjects like race, sex, toxic masculinity, and social justice. I found them enlightening and challenging, and 100% the kind of gospel I'd be looking for if I were in the market for church.

I picked this up because of how much I appreciated the author's insights in United States of Grace. The ground this covers overlaps with that, but I found both valuable.

>98 swynn:, >101 richardderus:

There is so too something compelling him! :D

I'll say this for Michener: at least his hundreds of pages deal with hundreds of years; Clavell spends just as long over ONE FRICKING WEEK.

>103 lyzard: Longer, probably: my paperback copy of Covenant was 1,235 pages; but the hardcover edition in my library's collection was "only" 877.

On the other hand, the hardcover edition I picked up of Noble House is just over 1,200 pages. But the paperback edition has 1,370.

Which only makes your point more forcefully, so ... seven days, huh? I oughta knock that one out quick. Ha.

I sort of expected that as I slogged my way to obsolescence I would find younger generations increasingly inscrutable and vaguely threatening.

Instead, I keep finding reasons to think the kids are all right.

In related news, I was very surprised but especially relieved to read election updates this morning.

Thanks to everyone who voted! Especially the kids -- you can cross my lawn any time.

>105 swynn: If Victor Shi and so many like him had not stepped up to undo the awful curse of the Boomers, we might've been looking at a Musk-level hellscape. Instead it's still a battleground. Plus I think women are realizing they actually LOST rights that were, whether one chose to exercise them or not, there...and nothing makes people madder than LOSING something they had (even if they didn't use it).

>106 richardderus: Yep.

Also, Stacey Abrams is still a goddamn rock star in my book.

Her concession speech was a model of tact and restraint. I'm pretty sure she's not DONE-done, even though she's done.

>105 swynn:

A big factor here is that "the younger generation" is paying no attention at all to the mainstream media: the Murdoch press is screaming louder and louder (and frankly crossing the line from mere right-wing propaganda into outright cooker insanity), but no-one's listening.

Good. And yeah, the Murdoch channels have been bonkers here for years and since the Trumpzeit they've been competing with even nuttier voices further right. As I expect you're aware.

It's my sense that you're right: the kids who grew up on a rich diet Internet discourse recognize crap information more quickly than earlier generations. Or at least the ones who make it to higher ed do. They don't always know what to do about it, but in today's students I see much better instincts for information consumption than were general in my cohort.

Ahem.

Have you seen NEXT month's best-seller?? :D

>111 lyzard: Yes. A similar situation obtains, BTW. Pretty sure it's the storybook again.

Looks like a good chance for me to catch up. :)

>112 swynn:

The shift from 1000-page monsters to 50-pages-including-illustrations is doing my head in. But in a good way! :D

A quick look hasn't revealed a storybook for this one, but I might leave it to you to confirm, if that's okay?

>113 lyzard: I haven't checked the PW archive yet, but it's another case where Wikipedia has the novelization and Books of the Century has the Storybook:

https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~immer/books1980s

I'll double-check PW when I get back to the library. I'm curious anyway about where to find the rankings by units sold

>114 swynn:

I had a quick squiz around and couldn't find anything that looked like a storybook version so please let me know ASAP if you do.

Oh, fulfillment. Yes, it's not a problem for me as my home library has a copy. I checked Worldcat for Australian libraries with holdings on the same record, and saw there were disappointingly few -- although the Western Australian Museum Library apparently keeps a copy in "Locked Bag 49", which intrigues me. The library closest to you with holdings in Worldcat may be the Waverly Council Library in Bondi Junction?

https://library.waverley.nsw.gov.au/libero/WebopacOpenURL.cls?ACTION=DISPLAY&amp...

Thank you as always for books, thank you for this group and thanks for you. Have a lovely day, Steve.

>116 swynn:

Ah! - no, we're good: I think I was leaving 'Kahn' in my search before. Since William Kotzwinkle did do the E. T. one.

ETA: Which I've just been adding to the Elton challenge: how did you get along with Noble House??

>118 lyzard: how did you get along with Noble House?

Mostly I'm just torqued that if it were the length it should have been, I could have read Noble House and three other books too. But I think even in that case I'd have been lukewarm about it.

>119 swynn:

I get a bit resentful that way too: how dare one book take up so much of my reading-time.

I'm interested and a bit relieved that you say that because I had what I was categorising as a female response to it. But maybe it wasn't just me. :D

>120 lyzard: i read in Wikipedia that Clavell was a fan of Ayn Rand. It's Wikipedia, so I don't know whether that's true, but if it is then I feel like it explains a lot.

>121 swynn: He was a big giver-outer of the book when he met fans
*shudder*

>122 richardderus: Sounds about right, I'm afraid.

123) Paper Girls, vol. 2
Date: 2016

I still don't know what's going on but whatever it is, it's keeping my attention. On to volume 3.

124) Pilgrims by Ethel Mannin
(1927)

Louis Van Roon is born disreputably to an unmarried Dutch mother who dies while he is still an infant. Louis is taken in by an aunt and uncle, respectable and financially secure, who try to raise Louis to respectability and financial security, but Louis has no interest in any field but art -- and not the potentially profitable style of the masters, but rather experimental styles like impressionism and worse. Failing at repeated attempts at a career in business, Louis eventually moves to Paris where he gets involved in the art scene, loses his virginity, starves some, has a few successes, and develops opinions about art and love. The writing is pretty good, but excessively editorial, full of romantic clichés about Art, and ends on a dissonant note. It was banned in Boston, presumably for multiple extramarital relationships and a couple of references to "urnings."

125) Why I Left, Why I Stayed by Tony and Bart Campolo
Date: 2017

This is an alternating series of essays by evangelist Tony Campolo and his son Bart, who "left Christianity" and became a humanist chaplain at USC. Collectively, it's a conversation about what each finds valuable in their chosen faiths, and what they find lacking in the other's. It's admirably respectful and there's a surprising amount of common ground. It helps that Campolo Sr. seems to align with a more progressive variety of evangelicalism which I wish were more common.

126) The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang
Date: 2018

This one is an adorable story about a prince who likes to wear dresses, and the dressmaker he hires for a personal coutourier.

It's also banned in the Nampa (Idaho) School District, apparently because it's about a dude who likes to wear dresses. Just in case you thought we'd come a long way since the Boston bans.

127) The Apothecary's Poison by C.J. Archer
Date: 2017

Third in a Victorian romantic fantasy series featuring a magical watchmaker and a gentleman whose health depends on a magical watch. In this one, they investigate the death of a magical apothecary. The romance is angsty (though I'm not a fan of romance so maybe it's delightful, YMMV) but the cast is fun, the story entertaining, and it passed the time on a couple of long drives.

128) The God of Vengeance by Sholom Ash
Date: 1907

Another banned book: this one is a Yiddish play about a Jewish brothel owner who wants his daughter to have a "pure" life independent of his own transgressions. The daughter has other ideas. It's an unsettling story about irrational faith in unachievable ideals. In the 1930s it was purged from German libraries and burned and it's not hard to see why: Jewish characters, Yiddish text, and a same-sex kiss.

129) The History of Nourjahad by Frances Sheridan
Date: 1767

It's an 18th-century novella, an "oriental tale" about a Sultan's friend who is granted his wishes for inexhaustible wealth and eternal life. The premise is fun, and if the Valuable Lesson is heavy-handed then at least it's short.

130) Noble House by James Clavell
Date: 1981

This overlong potboiler was the bestselling novel in the U.S. in 1981. It is set in 1963 Hong Kong and involves business deals and spy games. Ian Dunross becomes the head of the firm Struan's (whose founding apparently was chronicled in Tai-Pan) at a time when the company is overleveraged and teetering on bankruptcy. As Dunross maneuvers to pull it back from the brink, a rival tai-pan launches a scheme to take over Struan's through stock market manipulation. Meanwhile, the Soviets, Americans, and Chinese all have spies running around Hong Kong doing spy things. To its credit, the business-war plot is as engaging as a business plot can be, and there is plenty of incident: murders, kidnappings, gun-running, blackmail, fires, natural disasters, and of course sex. But it leans too heavily into HK caricatures, spends too much time spinning connections to earlier books, relies too much on the assumption that business deals are interesting and way too much on the assumption that successful businessmen are heroic. (And yeah, I do mean "...men" not "...persons" because oh man the sausage in this book ...) At a more efficient pace and stripped of sprawl, it could have been a tight little noir caper story; but at such length, so full of itself, and so overburdened with subplots and paraplots, it's mostly an endurance challenge for the reader.

>124 swynn: Yay!

>131 swynn: You are entirely too kind and forgiving.

>129 swynn: ...!!...
They *did* such things back in the Oligocene Epoch?! wooooow

>127 swynn: Oh yay! I'm always glad to see people making the most of this magic moment. I don't know how much longer it will last, so gogogo and publishpublishpublish!

>126 swynn: *sigh*

>125 swynn: "Urnings" is even uglier-sounding than "faggots". That takes some doin'.

Happy new-week's reads.

>125 swynn:, >133 richardderus:

I got that wrapped up yesterday; I'm still trying to work out how far we're supposed to take it at face value.

It took a stretch to get to its ban-able material: for a while I was wondering if it wasn't Mannin's personal politics that got it banned rather than its content but then, hello. I hadn't actually heard "urnings" before.

BTW I have noted this on my thread but will repeat it here: our next book, Horizon, is by Robert Carse with an 'a', there's typo on the list.

>131 swynn:

Well done! I wish I could be that terse but I think I'm going to get angry. :D

Congrats on your review rush, and keep those banned books coming!

>133 richardderus: Re: the kiss in The God of Vengeance: That surprised me too, given the script's age and my probably-inaccurate assumptions about what would have been permissible on stage at the time. I'm not entirely sure how to read it. It occurs in a context that it could be staged as a sign of platonic affection. But sexual interest would also be consistent with the script. And I'm almost certainly missing cultural context.

Re: "urnings" -- This term was new to me. And yeah, thank goodness it hasn't survived.

>134 lyzard: Looking forward to your take on Pilgrims. As you've inferred, I read it pretty straight so I'm interested in your thoughts on "face value."

Also looking forward to your response to Noble House. Whatever rant you have brewing is going to be well deserved, I expect.

>135 swynn:, >134 lyzard: "Urnings" is in the same time-family as "uranians" as a German-led gay rights drive led by Magnus Hirschfeld. I think they're both hideous-sounding words, but I think "homosexual" is a monster of a word. The language isn't always pretty, is it.

131) Benny Rose, the Cannibal King by Hailey Piper
(2020)

A Halloween prank turns into a gorefest when a bunch of teenagers accidentally make themselves targets of a child-killer who is supposed to be an urban legend. It's graphic, short, and 100% committed to its "mean girls meets 80s slasher franchise" vision.

132) Crime and Punishment by Fyodr Dostoevsky and David Jane Mairowitz
(2008)

I met and fell in love with Crime and Punishment in college. I was never likely to fall in love with an "Illustrated Classics" version of it -- its allure for me has little to do with anything that can be graphically rendered and everything to do with its wordy stream of ideas. I expected the graphic adaptation to disappoint me, and the best I can say is that I was not disappointed any more than expected.

Still, it doesn't deserve to be banned, but here we are. This adaptation is being removed from school libraries in Missouri. Now, if you heard that a graphic adaptation of Crime and Punishment was being removed from school libraries, you would be excused for thinking maybe the complaint addressed gruesome depictions of an ax murder or animal cruelty. Pfft. This is Missouri: the problem is boobs. A new Missouri law forbids "explicit sexual materials" in school libraries, with wording that is generally interpreted to ban any images of naughty bits. There are vague exceptions whose definitions few schools wish to test at trial. Schools are purging naked pictures from their collections. Graphic novel in particular are closely scrutinized, and this adaptation of C&P is one casualty.

133) The Mystery of the Fiery Eye by Robert Arthur
(1967)

Seventh in the Three Investigators mystery series. In this one Jupiter, Pete, and Bob help a British boy whose American uncle has left him a mysterious inheritance and the only clues to its location are in a cryptic letter left by his uncle. It's a tidy little puzzle, and the Three Investigators do what they do.

>138 swynn: Boobs! They don't interest me, but what the heck is it with these yahoos and Baby's First Feedbag?! They're on bodies representing just over 50% of humanity...quit.worrying.about.these.losing.battles.

Honestly. You'd think they were never weaned.

>141 swynn: The obsession with keeping them from teenagers' gaze is baffling to me, especially now that we live an world where any condition of body-drapery is instantly, conveniently, and freely scrutinizable in high definition. *Especially* in a context where graphic violence gets a shrug.

134) Murder By the Book by Claire Harman
Date: 2018

Harman describes a nineteenth-century murder and moral panic that influenced the careers of Dickens and Thackeray. In 1840, Lord William Russell was murdered in his bed. With no signs of forced entry, suspicion turned to the servants, and investigation resulted in the confession of Russell's valet, Swiss immigrant François Courvoisier. Courvoisier's account of his crime changed with each interview, as did his claimed motive. In one interview Courvoisier blamed his actions on having recently read William Harrison Ainsworth's book Jack Sheppard, a picaresque novel based loosely on the life of the notorious criminal of the same name. Panic ensued: See what the commoners are reading! And watching on the stage! No wonder it ends in murders of the better-bred! Something must be done! In Harman's account, the public outcry about sensationalist crime fiction caused Dickens and Thackeray to distance themselves from such gutter lit, and not only in their literary personas. Prior to the murder, Dickens and Ainsworth had been socially close, but with the panic over Ainsworth's novel, Dickens distanced himself from his former friend.

It's an interesting story. There remain unanswerable questions about Courvoisier's culpability: Did he really do it, or was he covering for someone? If he did kill Russell did he do it alone? Harman offers intriguing alternatives. But for me the really interesting content is the lit history, and I appreciate Harman for her insight into Dickens's and Thackeray's development, and for her introduction to Ainsworth.

135) The Heart Forger by Rin Chupeco
Date: 2018

Second in Chupeco's "Bone Witch" trilogy, a high-fantasy YA series featuring a necromancer and her friends. I wasn't a fan of the first -- too angsty, too clunky, too meandery -- but I got the whole series in an omnibus deal, so I tried the second anyway. And yay, I liked it better. It's still angsty and clunky in parts, but the plot has much better direction, and on balance I liked it well enough to look forward to the last volume.

136) When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Date: 2002

It's a small, lean story about a Japanese-American family forced into an internment camp during WWII. It's powerfully effective in communicating both the experiences of the imprisoned family, and the outrage of the nation's actions.

It's highly recommended by me; and also banned from the curriculum by the Muskego, Wisconsin school district for being "too one-sided." Which pretty much tells you which side the school board is on.

>142 swynn: What a nasty little climber Dickens was. Ick.

>141 swynn: I'm a lot more worried about the desensitization of continual shootshootshoot in games as well as the media we consume. I don't think that gets the attention it deserves whereas boobage causes hand-wringing.

>142 swynn:

Ha! - just been Ainsworth-ing a bit on my thread, have him up next in one of my challenges. :D

>145 richardderus: Yes, the more I know about Dickens's personal life the more I wish I didn't.

>146 lyzard: I noticed -- thank you for yesterday's link to your blog post on Rookwood, which sounds like an even lovelier mess in your account than in Harman's briefer one (into the Someday Swamp!).

>142 swynn: This sounds like one I would like, Steve. Great comments. I also liked the Otsuka.

>147 swynn:

Thank you for visiting. It's a mess all right, though on the whole an entertaining and rather creepy mess.

BTW I've been meaning to have a word with you about the best-seller challenge. I don't know how far you feel inclined to take it, but I've been toying with the notion of calling it off at 1995---which would (for me) have the double attraction of giving us 101 years, which is how I like to wrap such challenges, and of taking us through to December of next year.

My issue is that, soon after that, the lists go to hell because of all the publishing houses buying each other out and books not getting listed just on sales but who published them: as is always pointed out, the Harry Potter books didn't officially make the American lists because they came from the "wrong" source.

So I'm just putting that out there for you to think about, though of course you can follow on if you prefer.

>148 BLBera: I hope you like it as well as I did if you seek it out, Beth!

>149 lyzard: Thanks for the heads-up, Liz. I feel like you've mentioned this before, so I wasn't unprepared. I'm not sure how I'll feel when 1995 hits -- maybe I'll continue on and maaybe not. I did peek ahead and it looks like 1995 is at the beginning of a streak of works by an author whose works I am not enthusiastic about, so my own interest may quickly wane. We'll see.

And you're right, Rowling never cracks the list. Which we know should not be the case.

137) Patternmaster by Octavia Butler
Date: 1976

Butler's first published novel is about a power struggle for control of a society of telepaths. The ruler -- the "Patternmaster" -- is injured and his power is waning. His two sons are the most likely competitors for succession. While the older sun Coransee is already a significant social and political power, he also recognizes that his yunger brother Teray represents a threat. Coransee attempts to neutralize Teray, while Teray attempts to lead his own life.

We're in Butler territory here, with issues of class and power imbalance, wrapped in an engaging story. But there are notes that don't ring quite right -- some of the violence feels gratuitous, the resolution feels very genre-conventional, and there are plot threads left unfollowed. But it's still really good, and worth a visit.

138) Horizon by Robert Carse
Date: 1927

Robert Carse was a seamen-turned-newspaperman-turned-writer, who specialized in works of naval fiction and nonfiction in the early and mid-20th century. This was Carse's first novel, a coming-of-age story about a seaman-turned-newspaperman-turned-writer. When Duncan Dunn was thirteen, his mostly-absent father breezed briefly through his life with a warning: that the Dunn men are wanderers and that if Duncan ever feels the urge to move on:

Here's what I've been pawin' at, sir. That thing -- that thing in your blood -- that cravin' to mosey off an' never come back. To go -- an' then go some more, like a gypsy -- like a bum -- a tramp, yes -- if that comes to you, sir -- go. Go -- chico -- let 'em cry, an' curse, at home ... But, there's no stayin' there's no holdin' that down, Dunc ... No chance at all ... That's why I'm telling you this -- like this -- for I -- I'm like that Dunc ... An' you're my son ...

(The prose maintains this style of punctuation throughout. I swear there are so many dots and dashes that you begin to suspect there is a subtext in Morse code.) Duncan does feel that urge his father warned him about, the impulse to move on. When his mother remarries to a rich but dull man, Duncan goes to sea. When he meets a captivating woman in Marseilles he goes to New York and starts writing for a newspaper. But everywhere he goes there are things (jobs and women mostly) that want to tie him down.

It has its moments. The sea scenes especially are vivid. But the main character is a bit much, and his unironic ambition of evading all responsibility wears thin early. It's not difficult to see why this work is largely forgotten, but less easy to identify what made it banned in Boston. Probably sex or scenes in disreputable settings or both.

139) E.T. the Extraterrestrial Storybook by William Kotzwinkle
Date: 1982

This was the bestselling book in the U.S. for 1982. It's a brief fictionalization of the Spielberg film, aimed at a younger audience and generously illustrated with stills from the movie. It does the job it's given, though I'm finding little to say about it. It adds background about E.T., and adds some depth to the character of Eliot's mother -- apparently Kotzwinkle explored these themes further in the full-length novelization. The most surprising change is that Reese's Pieces don't appear: Eliot tempts him with M&Ms instead. I'm curious why the product placement deal didn't extend to derivative works.

140) The Return of the Jedi Storybook by Joan D. Vinge
Date: 1983

PW's bestselling book in the US for 1983 was the "storybook based on" the latest Star Wars film. Same format as the E.T. bestseller, but this one sticks closer to the script. Not much to say, and though I'm glad to have had the break from Michener and Clavell, I'm also ready for something with a little more ... more.

141) The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama
Date: 2022

This kind of self-help generally turns me off, but I picked it up anyway because I liked Becoming. The Obama family anecdotes make it a little more interesting than the average self-helper, but it's still not for me. Which is fine-- it's pretty much what it's advertised to be, and I don't disagree with the messages. Sounds like it's finding its audience and I wish it well.

142) Boy-Crazy Stacey by Ann M. Martin
Date: 1987

Stacy and Mary Ann go to the Jersey Shore for a couple of weeks as "mother's helpers." Stacey is distracted by a 15-year-old lifeguard, leaving Mary Ann to do more than her share of the babysitting.

I've never read a Babysitters' Club book, figured it wasn't my thing, but I saw this one in PEN America's list of book bans and picked it up out of curiosity. Per PEN, it was banned from libraries in Missouri's Fox C-6 School District. PEN doesn't name the reason for the ban, and no offense is obvious. My guess is, it's the bit where the 13-year-old narrator talks about her "skimpy" bikini and how pleased she is at "filling in" the top. Innocuous, but for some readers it doesn't take much I guess. In any case, Stacey's swimwear seems to be a concern for cover art. The original 1987 cover (above) had Stacey wearing a bikini that looks more like a windbreaker over a sundress; my library has a later edition with a different cover, in which Stacey does in fact wear the yellow bikini described in the text, but with a towel artfully draped. Apparently even the towel wasn't enough for some previous reader of the library's copy, who thoughtfully placed a sticker to help Stacey maintain her modesty:

143) A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers
Date: 2022

(2022) I haven't always been a fan of Becky Chambers's low-conflict, low-plot stories, but for some reason the Monk and Robot books hit a sweet spot for me. I find their friendship charming and just want to hit the road with them. This second volume reinforced that feeling, and I'm hoping for more adventures.

>156 swynn: I definitely read this as a child (I DEVOURED a lot of BSC books around the age of 9) but absolutely no memory of the plot.

The book bans are definitely adding an interesting mix of titles to your read list.

>150 swynn:

I can't remember if I said anything before, though I've been pondering this for a while. No need for a decision now, we can certainly revisit at some point next year.

I suppose it depends how "pure" we want to be. :)

>153 swynn:, >154 swynn:

Look at you, rushing ahead! I keep worrying that I'm going to forget to read ROTJ this month: I should leave a big splashy note to myself somewhere so that I just get it done when I'm finished with Kim.

>152 swynn:

Averting my eyes, of course.

>158 MickyFine: I had never expected to pick up a BSC book, so the book ban reads are definitely expanding my horizons.

I know the BSC books were very popular, and I understand they still are. Not my thing, but then shape-shifting robot dinosaurs are somehow not everybody else's thing so I point no fingers. I never imagined them as controversy magnets, but hello 2022. When I shared this story on another platform, a school librarian informed me that there are now graphic-novel versions of the BSC books, and that she has heard complaints about the graphic adaptation of "Boy-Crazy Stacey" because of a picture of people kissing.

>159 lyzard: At this pace, I could get through a year's worth of bestsellers in a weekend. But the next one gets us back to grownup-length books. (But thankfully not weightlifter-length books just yet.)

>161 swynn:

With the Christmas / New Year break coming up I peeked ahead in case I needed to get an ILL moving, and I actually own the next one! - if I can find it...

>156 swynn: I can happily live the rest of my allotted span without reading it, but I've ordered one just to be sure the Voice of the Market is heard. I'll chuck it into the Little Free Library when summer comes.

>155 swynn: The publisher's moaning because sales aren't up there with Becoming. *sigh* of course not, it's self-help in a year when buyin' a book is more of an indulgence than it was in 2018.

>152 swynn: That's very annoying.

Hope y'all's Yule is a winner.

>163 richardderus: Yeah, I'm not a BSC convert either. They're very much for their target audience, which is terrific.

I'm surprised they expected The Light We Carry to sell in the same volume as Becoming. Obviously, she has a fan base (on whose fringes I, apparently, am.) But they're very different books, we're several years from where we were then, and ... well, lightning striking n+1 times, etc.

>162 lyzard: Good news! I'm pretty sure I have a copy too around here somewhere, but so far I've only found the sequel. Worst case, the library has a copy.

Malaysia's branch of the 75er's wishes you and yours a happy holiday season.

>166 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul! Happy holidays to you & yours as well.

144) Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews
Date: 2009

Third in the authors' series featuring magical mercenary Kate Daniels. In this one, her werewolf friend Derek nearly dies, and in order to investigate the reason and exact revenge Kate and frends sign up for the Midnight Games, a tournament of no-holds-barred arena fighting. Meanwhile, Kate and the shapeshifter king Colin go through a tedious cycle of (1) oh-my-god-we-must-fuck-right-now followed by (2) a contrived interruption followed by (3) oh-thank-goodness-we-were-interrupted-because-fucking-would-be-a-really-bad-idea-for-us-see-you-tomorrow? Arena fighting and chronic sexual frustration aren't my favorite tropes, but the cast is fun, and the larger story arc that explores Kate's heritage and talents is fleshing out nicely. Looking forward to the next.

145) The Trayvon Generation by Elizabeth Alexander
Date: 2022

Here's a collection of essays on being Black and raising Black children in America. Alexander observes how public monuments, schools, law enforcement, and correctional institutions rely on the diminishment of Black lives, and accompanies her thoughts with poetry and artwork by Black artists. It's a powerful volume, with necessary themes.

146) The Necessity of Stars by E. Catherine Tobler
Date: 2021

I loved this novella. It's a pensive, melancholy story set in a future earth devastated by climate change. The narrator is an older woman, a UN diplomat, dealing with early stages of age-related dementia ... and the creature who just appeared in her mysteriously thriving garden. Thematically and textually it's packed full and so rewarding. Recommended.

147) DAW #217: The Year's Best Horror Stories, Series IV, edited by Gerald W. Page
Date: 1976

Fourth in DAW's annual "best horror" series, and for me the first disappointment. No standouts here, though I think Avram Davidson's "And don't forget the one red rose" and Ramsey Campbell's "Christmas present" are fine. Others range from near-misses like Brian Lumley's, to snoozers like Hal Clement's, to cringey please-don't's like Fritz Leiber's.

Forever Stand the Stones by Joe Pumilia.
Something something Stonehenge and Druids and time travel and murders something.

And Don't Forget the One Red Rose by Avram Davidson
Warehouse worker Charley Barton discovers a bookstore with unique stock and equally unique prices.

Christmas Present by Ramsey Campbell
On his way to a Christmas party the narrator is joined by a surly student, who has a Christmas gift he wants to give to someone at the party.

A Question of Guilt by Hal Clement
A father in ancient Rome tries to cure his son's bleeding disorder with a premodern device for blood transfusion. Intended to be a rationalist origin story for the vampire myth, it's too long and the opposite of horror.

The House on Stillcroft Street by Joseph Payne Brennen
A writer retreats to a rural village to get some work done. On his daily walks, he notices a house increasingly overgrown with ivy, and wonders about the well-being of the reclusive man inside the house.

The Recrudescence of Geoffrey Marvell by G. N. Gabbard
An Englishman wandering in the Black Forest comes upon a castle whose resident collects ghosts.

Something Had to Be Done by David Drake
Vietnam veterans and vampires.

Cottage Tenant by Frank Belknap Long
When his son Timothy has visions of a monster rising from the sea, Crewson initially blames an overactive imagination and the mythology books Timothy has been reading. But when events start to reflect his son's visions, Crewson consults a Jungian psychologist.

The Man with the Aura by R. A. Lafferty
Thomas Castlereagh has an aura, which projects a trustworthiness and honesty that Castlereah himself does not possess.

White Wolf Calling by C. L. Grant
Shortly after a family of Slavic immigrants moves to town, there are reported sightings of a white wolf -- and those who see it die shortly after.

Lifeguard by Arthur Byron Cover
The summer after his third year of college, the narrator returns to his hometown where he works part-time as a lifeguard, spends as much time as possible smoking weed with his high school friends who never made it out of town.

The Black Captain by H. Warner
Surrealist story about a man who has to avoid darkness.

The Glove by Fritz Leiber
The narrator recounts his single encounter with the supernatural, which occurred after the rape of an older woman in his apartment complex. The woman's attacker dropped a glove, which was given to the narrator for safekeeping until it could be given to the authorities. But the glove had a mind of its own.

No Way Home by Brian Lumley
George Benson meets a stranger who claims to be from a town that sounds sort of familiar, but can only be reached by taking a highway exit that doesn't exist. Except sometimes it does.

The Lovecraft Controversy--Why? by E. Hoffman Price.
Price discusses two recently-published biographies of Lovecraft, one by L. Sprague De Camp and the other by Frank Belknapp Long. Apparently De Camp's volume had been criticized for errors and for insufficient respect toward its subject. Price acknowledges flaws but defends De Camp, and explains how both biographies succeed on their own terms. Considering the 21st century's issues with Lovecraft, this tempest feels very teapotty.

148) Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee
Date: 2016

I first read this when it was new back in 2016. I loved it but never picked up the sequels because ... <wave target='stack of books'> well, you know. </wave>

And now, of course, there's no way forward without a reread so I reread it. It holds up well.

149) Hide by Kierstin White
Date: 2022

This one is a thriller about a reality-show competition with a bunch of contestants playing hide-and-seek in an abandoned amusement park. Or so they've been told. I picked this one up from Jim's list and found it a kick.

150) Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha Lee
Date: 2017

The follow-up to Ninefox Gambit is worthy in every way. It picks up shortly after NF leaves off, so it's hard to describe the premise without spoilers. So I'll just say it's a fascinating world, a twisty plot, complicated characters, and some things to say about social structures that inflict suffering on some in order to secure comfort for others. Also, lots of things explode. And that's the kind of read that makes me happy.

>169 swynn: This sounds like a worthy addition to my endless TBR list, Steve.

>175 rosalita: I hope you find it as rewarding as I did, if you get around to it, Julia!

151) Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn
Date: 2021

Here's a Nebula- and Ignyte-nominated novella, set on board a ship of climate refugees whose homes were lost first to human conflicts and then to rising sea levels. Iraxi, one of the boat's passengers, has a full-term pregnancy which is cause for some hope, because no pregnancy has been successfully brought to term since boarding the boat. But Iraxi is a misfit: angry, resentful, and convinced that something is not right with the child she carries.

Mostly it works for me. It's atmospheric and deliberately paced, and the dread builds steadily. It's a bit angsty for something not YA, but it serves a plot purpose so I'll cut it some slack.

>174 swynn: Congratulations on reaching 2 x 75, Steve!

>178 FAMeulstee: I echo Anita — a double 75 is a tremendous accomplishment. Here's to another great reading year in 2023.

>177 swynn: One more than double for the (thankfully departed) year! Excellent.

See you in the new digs.

Well done on your 150! I have another grievance against our chunksters that I fell just short for the year. :D

>178 FAMeulstee:
>179 rosalita:
>180 richardderus:
>181 lyzard:

Thanks for the congrats. Just a couple more posts then it's a wrap.

But first, I'll set up 2023.

152) Borne by Jeff Vandermeer
Date: 2017

Rebecca is a survivor of some sort of environmental apocalypse, precipitated at least in part through meddling of giant biotech corporations. The corporate experiments remain, in genetically-altered humans and not-humans for instance Mord, a giant flying bear so terrifying and powerful that it is worshipped as a god. While scavenging, Rebecca discovers a small anemone-like creature tangled up in Mord's pelt. She brings it home. She names it Borne. It grows. Eventually it grows large, communicates with Rachel, and keeps her safe -- though Rachel's partner Wick worries that Borne might be an even greater threat than the things it protects her from.

Like so much of Vandermeer's fiction, the thing that drives Borne is its absorbing strangeness. The world is so bizarre and the rules and explanations only hinted at, like a museum whose placards contain only references to even more peculiar exhibits. In this one, the relentless weirdness supports themes of identity, nature/nurture, and damn what are we doing to our planet but the aesthetic is really "Now look at this next weird thing." This style of narrative is not for everybody but reader it is for me.

153) Paper Girls, vol. 3 by Brian K. Vaughn
Date: 2017

And speaking of weirdness, I am amazed by Vaughn & team's acrobatic act of teasing coherent plot while throwing random complications. I still don't know what's going on -- I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to -- but the clues are accumulating (not as quickly as the mysteries but that's the ride we're on, y'all).

Glad to see Paper Girls is still entertaining you.

154) The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone
Date: 2011

This was the latest selection by a "deconstruction" group I marginally participate in, and for me it's been the best selection so far. Theologian Cone explores striking parallels between the cross and the lynching tree: two methods of execution designed as brutal public spectacles carried out against marginal communities, intended not only as ruthless "justice" for infractions real or imagined, but as warnings to the marginal communities to stay in their place. Despite the similarities, white theologians in the 19th and 20th centuries failed to draw parallels between crucifixion and lynching, though Black theologians, poets, and musicians often did -- think Countee Cullen's "Christ Recrucified" or Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit." Cone discusses the history of crucifixion/lynching rhetoric (and its absences) with special attention to Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Luther King, and the Harlem Renaissance poets. In a final chapter, he discusses the dangers of viewing suffering as redemptive, especially drawing on the womanist theology of Delores S. Williams and others.

Cone's book gets a single, continuous "yes" from me, though I am embarrassed to be almost completely unfamiliar with its theological context. I have some reading to do.

>185 MickyFine: Thanks for the rec, Micky. It's quite a ride.

And 2022 is officially done. Visit me in 2023 here:

Steve reads stuff he shouldn't in 2023

>186 swynn: Well, that sounds really interesting, Steve. I'll have to look for it at the library.