I liked the first book so much I read it twice, then I bought the second book and several others by the author. I signed up for his emails and I got one that asked if I wanted to get free preview copies in return for a review. I don't think the author has seen how poorly I write!
A complicated future cybernistic world with replicators and all kinds of stuff. Robin is some sort of undercover espionage soldier. Took about 80 pages to get going. Good story. Some Prisoner references, some library stuff.
Words I Had To Look Up:
Verminous (pg. 21) -- Having to do with vermin. Obvious!
Auto-da-fe' (pg. 90) -- Act of faith.
Osmotically (pg.115) -- by means of osmosis . Another doh!
Apoptosis (pg. 115) -- A form of cell death.
Panopticon (pg. 131) -- A prison constucted so all prisoners can be seen at one time. I think I've looked this up before.
Sic transit gloria panopticon (pg. 168) --Thus passes the glory of the, well, panopticon!
Louche (pg. 240) -- Of questionable taste or morality; decadent.
Quote:
Be seeing you. (pg. 275)
Quote:
Neither Janis--nor I--is remotely qualified to be a real dark age librarian, with their esoteric mastery of catalogue systems and controlled information classification vocabularies, but we can run a small municipal lending library and reference section with a bit of scurrying around and a lot of patience. (pg. 127)
Crime in near-future Edinburgh. Lots of cybertalk, very Neal Stephensonish, but about two hundred pages shorter. On Amazon a commenter says the book is told in second person. I don't know if that is correct, but it certainly is written in a different-than-usual style.
Earth is taken up and stuck on a big, flat disk. A really BIG, flat disk!
On page 86, if Lenin is one head, Stalin is another, and the big is third, who is the fourth head mentioned in the text. And I quote, "Gagarin brings his binoculars to focus on the fourth head." Not to mention that the illustration on the facing page shows three heads...
The book jackets says this is the "Signed, Lettered Edition" priced at 150 bucks. But I don't see any signing, nor lettering. Did the library get ripped off? Is this some scam edition?
Words I Had To Look Up:
Dirigiste (pg. 44) -- Directed by a central authority.
S Doradus (pg. 62) -- The brightest star in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Gnomically (pg. 78) -- In a gnomic, didactic, or sententious manner. Yeah, cleared THAT up!
Fraught (pg.84) -- . "...boring and fraught." 1. Filled with a specified element or elements; charged: an incident fraught with danger; an evening fraught with high drama. 2. Marked by or causing distress; emotional. I think, it's #2.
Instantiations (pg. 96) -- A representation of an idea in the form of an instance of it
I was afraid I had already read this, but it turned out I read a previous book. Edinburgh Detective Inspector Liz Kavanaugh runs a unit that specializes in finding criminals using the internet. I'm not quite sure how the book ended. I was not always able to decipher the author's mixture of computer jargon and Scottish accent.
Bob Howard, UK investigator of the occult, goes to a lot of meetings in between saving the world incidents. Really hate the typeface used on chapter and sectional headings!
Book three in the The Merchant Princes series. Miriam gets in serious trouble, gets engaged for a few minutes, and is either a prisoner or on the run most of the book. Mike the DEA agent and former date of Miriam shows.
A sort of parallel world corporate science fiction import-export story. Pretty good stuff.
Words I Had To Look Up:
Aeron chairs (pg. 13) -- Never heard of them until my son mentioned the other day, and here they are in this book!
Demesne (pg. 95) -- manorial land actually possessed by the lord and not held by tenants.
Plaited (pg. 153) -- A braid, especially of hair. Or in this case, complicated family relationships.
Orangery (pg. 203) -- A sheltered place, especially a greenhouse, used for the cultivation of orange trees in cool climates.
Quotes:
...discreetly holstered M-16s... (pg. 177) -- Big holster! But these were on horses, so maybe they are in scabbards.
...patented dumb-schoolgirl simper... (pg. 177) -- I just like that image.
...the locket from the chair around her neck...(pg. 202) -- I've heard of millstones around the neck, but a CHAIR?
...that a prince's wife wll not die of childbed fever... (pg. 127) -- semi-dup.
...some countess doesn't succumb to childbed fever... (pg. 247) -- semi-dup.
Miriam finds out stuff about her mother. Miriam starts up her business. Lots of people die, bloodily. More confusing Wu/Lee stuff.
Words I Had To Look Up:
hunting hide (pg.102 ) -- A camoflaged tent, used in hunting game. electric shower (pg. 89) -- A mini water heater, located in the shower! Ames rooms (pg. 123) -- A distorted room that is used to create an optical illusion. nevergreen tree (pg. 178) -- "Deadly Nevergreen, that bears fruit all the year round". The gallows. coves and queans (pg. 199) -- Men and desruptable women, i.e., prostitutes..
Quote:
... a Dahon mountain bike, built out of chromed aluminium tubes. (pg. 32) -- I see a red aluminium Dahon, and a Reynolds 631 steel Dahon, but I doon't see no chromed aluminium Dahon.
Quote:
Patricia Thorold-Hjorth and Alfredo Wu (pg. 248) -- So Miriam is a Wu? Where is this plotline going?
Book four of the The Merchant Princes. Things just get more and more complicated. I'm losing track of the Wus and the Lees.
Quote:
It was like standing in that baseball court at the University Of Chicago i942, when they finished adding graphite blocks to the heap in the middle of the court... (pg. 115) Baseball? I thought it was a squash court.
Book Five in the Merchant Princes series. Those backpack nuclear weapons were clearly a bad idea. And who knew the v.p. was such a bad guy?
Words I Had To Look Up:
perotation (pg. 196) -- 1 : the concluding part of a discourse and especially an oration. 2 : a highly rhetorical speech. solecism (pg. 196) -- A violation of etiquette. inchoate (pg. 198) -- 1. In an initial or early stage; incipient. 2. Imperfectly formed or developed. toiles (pg. 274) -- A mock-up model of a garment.
The sixth and final book of the Merchant Princes series. Things are finally wound up in the last thirty pages, with a boom. And I was wondering how he was gonna end it up. Awesome description of nuclear carpet bombing.
Book three in the Bartimaeus Trilogy. A tremendous battle is the climax, with a stunning ending. I haven't wept yet, I'm a bit in shock, still.
Words I Had To Look Up:
buxom caryatids (page 23) -- A sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column. estuary Egyptian slang (page 60) -- A semi-enclosed body of water flowing into the sea. On reflection, it is obviously referring to the slang used by the peoples of the Nile estuary, since this scene takes places in Alexandria. anthropophagi (pg. 258) -- Cannibals.
Bartimaeus #1 series. A boy with magical abilities is sold to the British government by his parents. In this the first book we learn about the early years of his apprenticeship, but mostly the circumstances of Big Insult and the Subsequent Revenge.
In this prequel to the Bartemaeus trilogy Asmira, a Hereditary Guard of the Queen of Sheba, travels to Jerusalem on a secret assignment.
Words I Had To Look Up:
tumuli (pg.9) -- A mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. gout (pg. 27) -- A mass or splash, as of blood; spurt. Or in this case, lightning. I think.
The first book in what looks like it is going to be the Lockwood & Company series, I bet. I enjoyed reading this adventure of young investigators in the business of riding London of paranormal beings. I hope the author fleshes out the characters more.
I really enjoyed reading this book about Olive and the people in her town in Maine. Lots to think about.
Quote:
Who, who does not have their basket of trips? It isn't right. Molly Collins said that today, standing out the by the church. It isn't right. Well. It isn't. -- Pg. 180