Book Review Catch Up 1
As previously noted, my reviewing backlog has got out of hand, so here are ten nine books I read at some point earlier in the year. (In my first attempt I managed to include one that has previously been posted).
1. Chasing Vermeer
In this crime/puzzle book for kids, Petra and Calder find themselves caught up in weird events around Vermeer’s paintings. One has been stolen and the thief holds it hostage, demanding that some other Vermeers are outed as fakes.
There’s more, about coincidence, with a book by Charles Fort and pentonimoes as omens. This makes the book more interesting, but the puzzle more frustrating as it relies on unexpected things that people would normally deny seeing.
Read This: There’s several cool things jammed together in an easy to read kid’s way
Don’t Read This: It doesn’t come together for me
2. Professor Stewart’s Hoard of Mathematical Treasures
A sequel to Ian Stewart’s Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities, which is a much better title. Stewart collects mathematical ideas, theories, jokes, games etc and puts them into a book. Some of them build on one another – in general the further you go on the more advanced the ideas are though that doesn’t stop him putting some tough stuff in at the start.
There’s some good clear explanations, some genuinely fascinating stuff and at least one good joke.
Read This: For a bunch of mathematical facts, fun and puzzles
Don’t Read This: If you want some systematic explanations
3. Fools’ Errand
Fifteen years after Assassin’s Quest and Fitz lives quietly on a farm with his wolf Nighteyes and his adopted son Hap, occasionally livened by visits from Starling the minstrel. Of course that doesn’t last; Chade the assassin comes to see him, and so does Jinna the witch and Fitz falls out with Starling, and finally the Fool returns, richer than ever and at least as odd.
All of this starts to come together; Hap’s old enough to be an apprentice but Fitz doesn’t have the coin. Chade wants Fitz to come back and teach Prince Dutiful the Skill (the royal magic). And the Fool, who is a prophet, says that he should come with him, and in fact something will happen if he doesn’t.
Something happens; Prince Dutiful vanishes. The Old Blood who use the animal magic of the Wit are involved and Fitz is the only one who can help.
The story takes a while to get going and meanders a little. But even the bits that don’t pay off are never dull, even the quiet moments when Fitz is contemplating the farm. Hobb keeps the ever-present concerns of the outside world in play and by now we’ve got used to her working on the texture of the world.
Read This: Hobb manages to make a small adventure have weight and interest before throwing larger concerns in towards the end
Don’t Read This: If you don’t care about seeing Fitz and the Fool back together
Paul Sinclair (now a Lieutenant (junior grade) in the US Space Navy, the promotion from Ensign coming as expected after one year in grade without a major cockup, see A Just Determination for the near miss on that cockup) continues aboard the Michaelson. A new officer comes aboard, Lieutenant Silver, and although he has an admiral for his dad, he’s not very good at his job. But he is bright and friendly, so he gets on okay.
Then there’s a fire aboard ship, while tied to the dock, one day while Sinclair and Silver have duty. Silver seems frozen; Sinclair takes command of the damage control party. There’s an investigation, but unfortunately the investigating officer is Captain Shen, the father of Sinclair’s girlfriend who is against him. Sinclair is mildly criticised, Silver gets a medal.
Then evidence turns up that makes it look like Silver is hiding something and Sinclair, the ship’s legal officer, finds himself caught up in yet another court martial.
Read This: There’s some compelling scenes based on the author’s experience with the (current) US Navy
Don’t Read This: If a straightforward story of a driven young man trying to do his best in a bureaucratic military organisation with people of mixed abilities and morals is not for you.
Greg Mandel, psychic detective, is back! An old perv of a research scientist/genius is murdered. It’s done in the style of a notorious serial killer, but he’s been locked up for years. There was a storm the night it occurred (and after the Climate Overturn England gets monsoon weather) so the only suspects are the six students living in his manor house.
Greg must use increasingly weird technologies to figure this out.
Read This: For an efficient, entertaining science fiction murder mystery
Don’t Read This: If you hate that the solution will involve a weird use of a fictional technology
Virigina Woolf’s novel of Orlando, who lives from the Elizabethan age to the day the book was published (11 October 1928). Orlando changes gender, plays with gender, finds herself caught up in the various literary scenes of the times, fall in love, falls out of love and has weird adventures. It’s inspired by the history of the family of Woolf’s friend and lover Vita Sackville-West and illustrated with pictures of Sackville-West and her family, and sundry others they liked. Meanwhile Woolf has Opinions on how the literary state of England is effected by the spirit of each age Orlando live through.
There’s a lot going on is what I’m saying.
Read This: For a gloriously written love letter that is both personal and about literature
Don’t Read This: If a nobleman and later noblewoman having weird adventures that push the gender boundaries of the time(s) in order to talk about the literature of the day sounds bad.
Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen, thieves and conmen, fled the city of Cammora with Locke injured and suicidely depressed at the end of The Lies Of Locke Lamora. In flashbacks we see how he got his mojo back and the new game they’re playing. In the present, they are in the Sinspire, the greatest and most decadent gaming house in the city or Tal Verrar, whose master is also the link between the city’s criminals and the legitimate merchants. The merchant council, the Priori is at odds with the military commander, the Archon.
Most of this would be irrelevant but having annoyed the Bondsmagi in the previous volume, they out Locke and Jean to the Archon who feeds them a latent posion and then insists they go out and play at pirate for him, the one crime they have no experience at. He wants a pirate war so he can return victorious and put down the Priori.
At this point the situation becomes complex.
There’s some good jokes, some spookyness from history and pre-history, some of which then ties into the actual plot, there's even some romance and a finale in which twists build on twists to a final brilliant and unexpected reveal.
Read This: Fantasy crime heists with incompetent piracy
Don’t Read This: It gets a little maudlin and there are a few extra turns that are gratuitous and unnecessary; the prologue cliffhanger adds little.
The third in the series of Paul Sinclair, a junior officer in the US Space Navy who has the collateral duty as his ship’s legal officer. The South Asian Alliance have been rattling sabres both on Earth and in space, so there’s a multi-national exercise which includes both Sinclair’s ship and his girlfriend’s (Lt Jen Shen). Later there is an explosion and Shen is put on trial for it, despite it being obvious from anyone who has read the previous two books that she would never.
Caught up in a kafka-esque situation where being good at her engineering job is taken as being able to sabotage the ship, she feels helpless, abandoned and persecuted. Sinclair has to solve the case as no one seems interested in finding the truth now they have a scapegoat, and also save his relationship.
Read This: Again for a very real feeling space navy, bureaucratic warts and all, based closely on the 20th century naval experience of the author
Don’t Read This: If combining a naval thriller with a legal thriller seems like a bad idea.
At the end of Fool’s Errand Nighteyes, the wolf that Fitz has been bonded to for fifteen or more years died in the process of rescuing Prince Dutiful. This flavours almost everything that follows, including Fitz’s almost miraculous ability to mess up every relationship just when it seems he’s getting on top of the situation.
The Outislander Narcheska gets betrothed to Prince Dutiful despite many complications and problems. In the end she gives him a challenge – to go the Outislands and lay the head of the dragon IceFyre, entombed in a glacier, on the hearthstones of her motherhouse. The envoys from Bingtown object for reasons that will be obvious to readers of The Liveship Traders trilogy.
Fitz half-heartedly tries to gather users of the Skill, the royal magic, and teach Dutiful how to use it. This culminates with a miraculous healing after Fitz is stabbed when the inevitable confrontation with the Piebalds from the previous book comes to a head.
Meanwhile the Fool reveals some secrets and also prophesises he will die on the island where IceFyre is, so Fitz plots to leave him behind when they go.
Read This: If you are already into the Fitz and the Fool, then here we meet Fitz’s most self-destructive moment, maybe again?
Don’t Read This: If grinding revelations of failure and error and betrayal and mistrust, even with moments of glory and wonder isn’t for you and your fantasy novels
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