Mar. 26th, 2012

hawkwing_lb: (DA2 isabela facepalm)
Books 2012: 37-49


37-40. Jack Campbell, The Lost Fleet: Courageous, Valiant, Relentless and Victorious. Orbit, 2010 and 2011. (First published USA, 2007-2010.)

The third through sixth and final books of Campbell's Lost Fleet series, these continue to follow Captain John Geary as he deals with conflict within and without his fleet, on its long, hard journey home. Solid space opera/milSF, well worth the price of entry.


41-43. Jack Campbell as John G. Hemry, Stark's War, Stark's Command, and Stark's Crusade. Orbit, 2011.

The first books Campbell/Hemry sold. This trilogy follows Sergeant Ethan Stark, fighting within a corrupt and inefficient US military on the moon, as he mutinies and leads his troops in a fight against all comers. Solid milSF, as long as you don't think too hard about the logistics. Very entertaining.


44-46. Jack Campbell as John G. Hemry, JAG in Space: A Just Determination, Burden of Proof and Rule of Evidence. Orbit, 2010 and 2011.

First three volumes of a four book series that follows Paul Sinclair, a junior officer in a peacetime US space navy, as he matures as a junior officer and as his duties as legal officer bring him in repeated contact with the military judiciary. Entertaining, as procedurals go.


47. David Weber, War Maid's Choice. Baen, 2012. ARC.

A Bahzall book. I would really like it if Weber rediscovered how to write. There's the bones of a good story in here, but far too much godly faffing around, and for a book called War Maid's Choice, the titular war maid doesn't get nearly enough to do.


48. Suzanne Johnson, Royal Street. Tor, 2012. ARC.

Not particularly good urban fantasy set in New Orleans immediately post-Katrina. Longer review hopefully forthcoming from Tor.com at some point.


49. Gemma Files, Rope of Thorns. Chizine, 2011.

Files can write. In Rope of Thorns, the occasionally baroque and overwritten prose of A Book of Tongues has matured into something leaner and more pointed. Thorns is leaner and sharper all around: better written, better paced, more wrenchingly tense.

Tongues was good. Thorns is better.

Chess Pargeter, now a hex and a god, is crossing Arizona towards a showdown with his former lover Reverend Rook and Rook's goddess-wife at the city they have raised in the desert. Pargeter is accompanied by the former Pinkerton Ed Murry, now Pargeter's lover, and Yancey Colder, a girl whose character develops in very interesting ways. Pargeter's steps are also dogged by his and the goddess's Brother-Enemy, Allen Pinkerton and Doctor Ashbury, who have combined magic and science, and a dead Sheriff made of salt.

I enjoyed this book a hell of a lot. (Hopefully I can convince someone to let me review the forthcoming third volume, and spare my pocketbook - but if not, I am going to be reading Tree of Bones anyway.)
hawkwing_lb: (Bear CM beyond limit the of their bond a)
I walked up Lykavittos hill this evening. It is a very steep hill, but worth it for the view of the whole of Attica spilling out before you once you rise above the trees.

All the spring plants were flowering in the woods. White woodruff, and camomile, and rosemary and sage, and mint with white flowers, and yellow toadflax, and purple deadnettle, and a yellow flower that looked like a cross between gorse and laburnum, and a tiny deep blue flower, and a scattering of little red ones. Ferns, too - black spleenwort, mostly, with some bracken. Some juniper bushes. And many other things which I cannot identify even with the aid of the googlemachine.

(Dear universe: I wish I had a handbook for the flora of Greece. No? No? Okay, then. No it is.)

It's so freaking beautiful. I wish I'd brought my camera, but just walking was wonderful.




I believe I have figured out how come I am breathless and not so great at the running thing since I've been here. The air quality in Athens is pretty shit, even compared to Dublin's city centre. (It is somewhat worse than street level that one time I was in Manhattan, by me. Not much worse, but somewhat.) And I do not live in the city centre, at home. I has the country air, and the sea air.

So I think I may be walking mostly. And maybe hiring a bike, if I get out to Aegina.

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