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Star Soldiers

Norton, Andre
Consists of the books Star Guard (c1955) and Star Rangers (c1953). Good classic space opera!

Read:

8/2011

Read:

12/2023

Storm Over Warlock

Norton, Andre
Forerunner, #1. Shann has worked himself up from poverty to finally being assigned to a menial job on a Terran Survey party to the new planet Warlock. Almost all the Terrans in the party are killed by the alien Throg task force. The two survivors must figure out how to keep the Throg from killing the Terran colonists when they finally arrive.

Quote:

"See that! It's a copy of the one I had; it must be!" -- Really? Just 'cause it looks like it from fifty feet away?

Quote:

"I die--you follow--" Shann tried to make that promise emphatic.
...
"Perhaps, the Throg returned. "But you die the first."

Read:

2/2025

The Defiant Agents

Norton, Andre
Apparently this is Time Traders *3, I haven't read *2 yet, at least not as far as I can remember. I read the Project Gutenberg e-book edition on my phone. Travis Fox is sent with the Apache group to an unsettled planet, they are shot down (yikes!), turns out the Reds are there with a Tatar group. Lots of stuff happens. Good story.

Read:

7/2022

The Sioux Spaceman

Norton, Andre
Kade Whitehawk is assigned as a Trader to a planet run by a bunch of oppressive aliens. He introduces horses so the slave race can free themselves from said aliens. SDHS discard.

Read:

3/2003

The Time Traders

Norton, Andre
Ross Murdock is offered choice: Go to prison, or participate in a government program. Roos chooses the government program, which turns out to be a SECRET government program, and involves POed Russians, POed alien, and time travel. Good story, I read it when I was a kid, this time it was the Project Gutenberg e-book edition.

Read:

7/2022

Voodoo Planet

Norton, Andre
Writing as Andrew North, Ms. Norton give us another exciting story in the Solar Queen series. This is #3. Dane Thorson gets involved in a conflict between apparent magic and poachers.

Read:

7/2022

Star Surgeon

Nourse, Alan
Reading this in my youth, now read the Project Gutenberg e-book edition. Pill pushers in space, to quote the text. Good story, very enjoyable.

Read:

7/2022

A Deadly Education

Novik, Naomi
Lesson one of The Scholomance. So Galadriel is a student at this place called, you guessed it, The Scholomance. It is a school for magicians. With no apparent staff. And no one can leave, mostly, until they graduate. Which isn't a given as there are tons of "mals" trying to kill them. I like the character, I'll be looking forward to the next book.

Read:

1/2021

Spinning Silver

Novik, Naomi
A Hugo nominee for 2019. Pretty good story, a version of Rumpelstiltskin. I got lost more than twice, 'cause sometimes I couldn't figure out which character was speaking for a few pages!

Read:

6/2019

The Golden Enclaves

Novik, Naomi
The Scholomance, #3. The third and last book in the series, it was pretty good, and pretty much had a happy ending. Finally.

Quote:

[...] and far beyond them glimpses of the glasshouse roof, clearly designed by someone who'd visited Kew and though how small [...]

Read:

4/2025

The Last Graduate

Novik, Naomi
The Scholomance, #2. El finally gets to graduate, right on the very last page. Lots of magic, very exciting.

Quote:

She wasn't a committed suck-up like [...], just too sensible to do anything that--well, that stupid. Unlike certain other people who will remain me.

Quote:

"Holy shit, El,"

Read:

3/2025

Uprooted

Novik, Naomi
Hard to describe. A girl is unexpectedly selected to serve the magician "ruler" of their valley. But it's more complicated than that, and there are many twists and turns along the way. Great book, but didn't care for the smoochie parts. At least there were only a couple of those.

Read:

6/2016

Tijuana Straits

Nunn, Kem
Surf Noir crime novel. Gritty.

Read:

12/2004

21

O'Brian, Patrick
The last book of Patrick O'Brian. Only a few pages were written. I wish the publisher had typescript the last few hand-written pages, I was unable to read them!

Read:

8/2012

Blue At The Mizzen

O'Brian, Patrick
Well, here we are at the last book published during the author's lifetime. Things are looking up!

Words I Had To Look Up:

fritillaries (pg. 52) -- Well, it's a kind of plant. That's what I get from wikipedia.
Lammas (pg. 52) -- August 1st is Lammas Day, a festival of the wheat harvest.
distraints (pg. 53) -- The legal right of a landlord to obtain a court order and seize tenants'possessions to pay for back rent.
euphroes (pg. 234) -- A suspended batten or plate of wood or brass pierced with holes through which the cords of a crowfoot are rove to suspend an awning.

Read:

8/2012

Desolation Island

O'Brian, Patrick
Jack and Stephen get ponged by an Antarctic iceberg.

Words I Had To Look Up:

Clarissa Harlowe (pg. 164) -- The heroine of one of Richardson's novels, exhibiting a female character which, as described by him, is pronounced to be "one of the brightest triumphs in the whole range of imaginative literature," is described by Stopford Brooke "as the pure and ideal star of womanhood." Interesttingly, the famous nurse Clara Barton's real name is Clarissa Harlowe Barton.
vitiated air (pg. 267) -- To reduce the value or impair the quality of.

Quote:

"What's the buzz, Bob?" -- (pg. 157)

Quote:

...and she had read right through Clarissa Harlowe without hanging herself (although that was sometimes only for want of a convenient hook)... -- (pg. 164)

Read:

8/2012

H.M.S. Surprise

O'Brian, Patrick
Aubrey heads off to India.

Words I Had To Look Up:::

the ladies of the town had sequi me (pg. 107) -- "Follow me"

madder (pg. 149) -- A red dye made from Rubia tinctorum.

spirketing (pg. 204) -- The planking from the waterways up to the port sills.

ultima Thule (pg. 269) -- A distant unknown region; the extreme limit of travel and discovery.

Heautontimoroumenos (pg. 283) -- The title of a Latin play by Terence, an adaptation of an earlier Greek work.

Batavia (pg. 327) -- The name of Jakarta, Indonesia (formerly Dutch East Indies) during the colonial period.

...ast illi solvuntur frigore membra... (pg. 384) -- But the other's limbs are benumbed by cold, and injured life with a groan flees beneath the shadows.

Read:

6/2012

Master And Commander

O'Brian, Patrick
Jack Aubrey receives his first command, the sloop/brig Sophie, and sails around the Med during the 1800s. Reading the paperback edition with tiny little letters was a chore!

Words I Had To Look Up:

creta alba (pg. 229) -- Chalk or calcium carbonate. There's a web site for this stuff at Master and Commander medical terms

barca-Longa (pg. 253) -- A two or three-masted lugger found on the coasts of Spain and Portugal as well as more widely in the Mediterranean Sea. And here I thought it was some kind of reclining chair!

membrum virile (pg. 345) -- Uh, penis.

squills (pg. 348) -- Sea squill is a bulb which sends up a tall stalk topped by an inflorescence of small white flowers, followed by a rosette of large dull green leaves, that last until the following summer. The bulb can get quite large, reaching over five pounds in weight.

Read:

1/2012

Post Captain

O'Brian, Patrick
Jack gets promoted.

Words I Had To Look Up:

to lie in such a dismal plash (pg. 176) -- A heavy rain.
No Gretna Green (pg. 199) -- A village in Scottland where many eloping couples are married.
coxcombery (pg. 300) -- Behavior that is characteristic of a coxcomb : foppery.
fanfaronade (pg. 300) -- Empty boasting.
sharks are mostly gammon (pg. 300) -- Misleading or nonsensical talk; humbug.
an unrivalled cholagogue (pg. 332) -- A cholagogue is a medicinal agent which promotes the discharge of bile from the system, purging it downward..

Quote:

...a thunderous, long, long fart.
"I beg your pardon," said the midshipman in the silence.
"Oh, that's all right," said Diana coldly. "I thought it was the horse." -- pg. 46

Read:

1/2012

The Commodore

O'Brian, Patrick
Jack and Stephen head off to Africa to harry some slavers, then up to Ireland to thwart the French. Tears of joy at the end.

Read:

8/2012
20 books displayed
[Abadzis - Addison] [Aiken - Alexander] [Alexie - Anderson] [Anderson - Asimov] [Asimov - Backman] [Backman - Baldree] [Balf - Barnard] [Barnard - Barnes] [Barnes - Barr] [Barr - Beanton] [Beanton - Beaton] [Beaton - Beaton] [Beaton - Bender] [Benedict - Block] [Block - Block] [Block - Bohjalian] [Bond - Bova] [Bowen - Briody] [Brodie - Buchanan] [Buck - Bujold] [Bujold - Cain] [Cain - Card] [Card - Carlson editor] [Carr - Chambers] [Chambers - Choldenko] [Clagett - Clarke] [Clearly - Cody] [Coel - Colfer] [Colfer - Collins] [Collins - Connelly] [Connelly - Constantine] [Constantine - Corcoran] [Corder - Cornwell] [Cornwell - Crais] [Crais - Crichton] [Crichton - Curry] [Curtis - Cussler] [Dahl - Dean] [Deaver - Disilverio] [Dixon - Dorsey] [Dorsey - Dowell] [Dozois - Duncan] [Dunning - Elkins] [Elkins - Evanovich] [Evanovich - Fairstein] [Fairstein - Ferris] [Ferris - Flanagan] [Flanagan - Flynn] [Foer - Fournier] [Fournier - Francis] [Francis - Francis] [Francis - Freedman] [Freedman - Gaiman] [Gaiman - Gayle] [Geist - Gold] [Goldberg - Grafton] [Grafton - Grant] [Grant - Greenwald] [Greer - Grimes] [Grimes - Haddix] [Haddix - Hale] [Hale - Hallinan] [Hallinan - Harland] [Harper - Hebden] [Hebden - Heinlein] [Heinlein - Henry] [Henry - Herriot] [Herriot - Hiaasen] [Hiaasen - Highsmith] [Hillerman - Hobb] [Hobb - Hornung] [Hornung - Huff] [Huff - James] [Jemisin - Jones] [Jones - Kaminsky] [Kaminsky - Kellog] [Kellog - King] [King - Kline] [Klise - Kowal] [Kowal - Lamott] [Lampman - Lawrence] [Lawrence - Lee] [Lee - Lescroart] [Lescroart - Liebster] [Lindsay - London] [Long - Lowry] [Lowry - MacDonald] [MacDonald - Maguire] [Mallios - Martin] [Martin - Mass] [Mass - McBain] [McBain - McCrumb] [McCrumb - McInerny] [Mcmanus - MiĆ©ville] [MiĆ©ville - Moody] [Moon - Morden] [Morden - Mullane] [Muller - Niffenegger] [Nimmo - Norton] [Norton - O'Brian] [O'Brian - O'Connell] [O'Conner - Otto] [Owens - Paretsky] [Paretsky - Parker] [Parker - Parker] [Parker - Patron] [Patterson - Paulsen] [Paulsen - Pelletier] [Pennac - Philbrick] [Pickard - Posey] [Powell - Poyer] [Poyer - Pratchett] [Pratchett - Prineas] [Prior - Pullman] [Pullman - Quinn] [Quinn - Reeve] [Reeve - Riggs] [Riggs - Robinson] [Robinson - Rowling] [Rowling - Russo] [Russo - Savage] [Savin - Scalzi] [Scalzi - Scott] [Scott - Sedgwick] [See - Shetterly] [Shields - Skloot] [Sleator - Snelling] [Snicket - Springer] [Standiford - Stephens] [Stephenson - Strahan] [Stratton-Porter - Stross] [Stross - Tapply] [Tapply - Thuy] [Tolan - Turtledove] [Turtledove - Van Draanen] [Van Draanen - Veglahn] [Villasenor - Watson] [Watts - Webster] [Weeks - Wells] [Wells - Westlake] [Westlake - Wiles] [Wiles - Winterfeld] [Wise - Woodring] [Woodruff - Zahn] [Zahn - Zusak] 

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