Reviews and ironies
Wednesday, February 25, 2004Let's see...wow. A ton! Some are older, tho, even though they're just live.
Fantastica Daily: (Feb 22-24)
Nano, by John Robert Marlow
When trillionaire Mitchell Swain is assassinated during a press conference, the world doesn?t realize that the biggest and most dangerous arms in history race has begun. Jen Rayne, a top notch investigative reporter, doesn?t know, either, but she?s determined to find out what major secret Swain was about to tell the world...and why it cost him his life. The trail leads to the man to whom Swain has sent billions of dollars -- John Marrek. She finds his lab, only to find John in the middle of destroying it. He would have been gone sooner, knowing full well that he is the only living man carrying this dangerous secret, but the data he wanted to save took five hours to download. (Which proves once again that you should keep full backups of everything on hand.) She gets there just before a group of federal looking agents attack, and the two run for it. Just as it looks like they?re going to get caught, John pulls out a gun...one that he is extremely reluctant to use. Jen, seeing that their choices in the matter are extremely limited, encourages him to do so, and witnesses first hand the destructive power of nano technology. John shoots a bullet, which bounces, seemingly harmless, off the agent?s body armor. Soon things begin to wiggle and make creepy chittering noises. It covers everything like a swarm, and the agents and the warehouse they?re all standing in, are devoured, or more correctly unmade by nano disassemblers.
City of Pearl by Karen Traviss
Shan Frankland was happy...she was going to retire from being an Environmental Hazard Enforcement Officer and go home to Earth, where she hoped to enjoy the rest of her years in relative peace. Then she was approached to lead a group of scientists and marines on a search and recover mission to the far off world of Cavanagh?s Star. Years ago a group of fundamentalist Christians went there with an invaluable gene bank of flora and fauna...a bank that the company that owns all the rights to the produce of our own planet want back. She was forced to take part in a suppressed briefing, which means that they gave her all the information she needs to complete the task, but she won?t remember it until she needs it...when she comes out, she knows that she wants to do the mission, that someone named Helen is important, and that she?ll have these feelings haunting her like an itch she can?t scratch until she?s done.
Beast Master's Circus by Andre Norton and Lyn McConchie
Laris, like so many, has had everything taken from her by the merciless alien Xik. The only way she could escape from the horrors of the refugee camp was by allowing herself to be sold as a bond slave to Dedran, the shady master of an intergalactic Circus whose menagerie of animals is only a cover for more profitable dealings. He?s been stealing animals from beast masters, not caring that the bond between the beast and its human is so deeply telepathic that it can destroy the creature if it?s severed, and make the human go mad. Laris is exceptionally gifted, and able to understand and take care of these creatures, though she loses many of them. One animal she didn?t lose was the kitten she found, now her best friend, Prauo. The large cat is nifty...not only does he have the ability, despite his size (I imagined a tiger size...) to squeeze through tight spaces, hide things in pouches hidden in his cheeks and use his sucker-padded feet to climb, but he has just developed the ability to mentally communicate with his sister-without-fur.
Mostly Fiction (Feb 22)
After Moses, Karen Mockler
Shoe, the oldest of the three Tumakin siblings, has been murdered, leaving a legacy in her will...her five year old son, Moses, has been given to her sister Ida, and her best friend, Emily, has been given to her brother Johnny. Moses? father, Max, comes to town, and he doesn?t reveal himself right away, instead, he courts Ida, a dreamy artist who has never left home, never really had a boyfriend unless you count Henry. Soon, the reason why Shoe left Max without telling him that she was pregnant becomes evident...leaving Ida with a hard choice.
Something's Down There, by Mickey Spillane
Something?s down there...at least, that?s what the native Caribs think, since several boats have been sunk by a mysterious creature lurking under the waves, the hulls looking like something big and nasty took a pretty good nibble on them. The more superstitious think it?s a monster, maybe even something from the Bermuda triangle, but Mako...and the government agents who come visit after a cruise ship is bit...is convinced that the truth must be a little bit more mundane.
The Jupiter Myth, by Lindsay Davis
When last we saw wise cracking Roman gumshoe Marcus Didius Falco, he?d just solved the mystery of the Body in the Bathhouse. Now he has to solve the murder of the body in the well. He and his family are staying with his uncle in law, the procurator of finance, which is why, when a centurion decides to send for a higher power to take a look at what has happened, Falco gets brought along. It?s the fact that he knows who the victim is that gets him in trouble. Readers may remember Verovulcus from the last book...and therefore remember that Verovulcus is King Togidubnus?s oldest friend. The King is also one of the best allies Rome has in what can best be described as a delicate political balance, so it?s up to Falco to discover who killed Verovulcus and why before the situation gets out of hand. What he soon discovers is that various establishments in the area...The Golden Shower, The Swan, Europa...all have more in common than names relating to Jupiter and his various amorous adventures. They are all establishments paying protection. He, his best friend Petronius and even his longsuffering wife Helena go undercover to find out just how far this plague has spread...and what it has to do with Verovulcus.
Fire on the Waters/A Country of Our Own, by David Poyer
The closet thing to sailing that Elisha Eaker has ever experienced was the time he went out on Cornelius Vanderbilt's yacht...and even then he didn?t make the open water. Yet he finds himself volunteering to ship out on the U.S.S. Owanee. He has recently discovered that he is sick, and hopes that the sea air will do him good. He also goes to defend his country if the southern states do, indeed, decide to go to war. He would rather die on the deck of a ship than in a sick bed. He leaves behind an angry father and a fiancee, Araminta Van Velsor, whose desire to act and to become an abolitionist is something her domineering uncle would like to crush, even as he has often tried to control and crush his own son?s will. Onboard, Eli meets the other main character of this story, Lieutenant Ker Calibourne, who will soon find himself a captain with mixed loyalties.
The SfSite )(mid-month update)
There Will Be Dragons, by John Ringo
In the far flung future, the world is perfect. A huge super computer named Mother watches over everything, making sure that the Earth's balance remains unchanged. People use nannites to do everything for them. Disease, poverty, it has all gone. Of course, not everyone's content to leave well enough alone. Paul, part of the council, thinks that mankind has gotten soft. Several of the council are with him, several are opposed, and the ensuing battle between the two factions drains the energy that runs everything else. Neither side can relent, for fear that the other faction will blast them and emerge victorious. What does this mean for everyone else? Utter disaster.
Path of Fate, by Diana Pharoah Francis
Reisil spent her life being passed from one family to another, an orphan and burden being shared by all the village. Now a grown woman, she is a skilled Tark, or healer, living in a tiny house in the very town she grew up in. As part of the agreement, she's working for them for six months, a sort of trial period, after which if they decide they want her, she can stay. And it looks like she's staying. In short, she finally has everything she has ever wanted, something many of us have and take for granted -- a home and a dependable career. So it is no wonder that, when an ahalad-kaaslane goshawk flies towards her,
Dragon's Kin, by Anne and Todd McCaffrey
Kindan has spent his life in the coal camp of Natalon, where he helps his father tend the watch-whers that are so vital to the safety of the mines. A distant relative to dragons, they have large eyes that are painfully sensitive to the sun, and an ability to tell if the air in a mine is bad. A tragic accident robs Kindan of his family and the mine's only watch-wher. They need a watch-wher, and since Kindan is the only person there who knows anything about it, he gets to ride on a dragon to get a new one. Kisk will do more than become the mine's new watch-wher.
Gotta Write
Dance With the Dragon, E. F. Watkins
Peggy Walsh had no idea why the men kidnapped her...and no thoughts could prepare her for the reality of her situation. The Church of Eternal Life, a cruel cult led by the charismatic Stephen Farkas, has captured her. It is a hard colorless life he offers...they live in freezing cold sheds, they farm for their food, what little there is of it, the only thing keeping them in line is the promise of life everlasting. Worse, they become the cows for Farkas and his Elite...those who have received eternal life by becoming vampires. Peggy is the daughter of a Senator who will stop at nothing to get her back, including accepting the help of a psychic named Dr. Armand Renascut, whose track record with the government is less than stellar since they discovered that all his information, from social security card to drivers license is fake. He and his partner, Kat Van Braam, may be the only people who hold the key to freeing Peggy and ending this cult once and for all.
Purse Master Pieces (a non fiction book on all sorts of purses) Handkercheifs (er...well, what it says) and The Encyclopedia of Warfare are my recent nonfiction Reviews: http://gottawritenetwork.com/referencebooks.html
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And as for ironies...I have a very small one. Yestrday I dyed my hair...I have brown/gold/red bride of Frankenstien without the mousse hair, when I don't, and I may be going to a job interview soon and I don't want to relive what happened last time, where the woman who was obviously a few years older than me asked if I minded taking orders from someone younger than me. (Her.) I wanted to ask, "How old do you think I am, anyway??" but restrained myself. So, dye job it is. After Barb taught me (brillant lady) it was abreeze. I now have very, very dark red borwn hair and no grey, except for a spot I missed behind my ear. Anyway, I'm working away last night, enjoyning new hair euphiria, when a news caster comes on, holding a bottle of dye not unlike the one I just applied to myself, saying, "Can you get cancer from your hair dye?"
Of all the days. Now you see why I think that the world plans itself around trying to get my goat.
Not that I beleive it. But the timing was beautiful.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 9:22 PM
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