Definitely Dead / Charlaine Harris

4 out of 5 stars

Since Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse has so few living relatives, she hates to lose one - even her cousin Hadley, undead consort of the vampire Queen of Louisiana. Hadley's left everything she has to Sookie, but claiming that inheritance has a high risk factor. Some people don't want her looking too deeply into Hadley's past, or Hadley's possessions. And they're prepared to do anything in their power to stop her. Whoever it is, they're definitely dangerous - and Sookie's life is definitely on the line...

2019 Re-Read

You know, I have library books that I can’t renew and that I should be reading. My kitchen is in chaos and I had cornflakes for supper last night. My to-do list is as long as my arm. And yet, I’m re-reading this series instead of doing any of that. Je ne regrette rien.

This is the heart-break volume, when Sookie finds out that she’s based a lot of ideas about her life on shifting sands—and doesn’t know what is exactly true any more.

“I’d been blindsided with the most painful knowledge: the first man to ever say he loved me had never loved me at all. His passion had been artificial. His pursuit of me had been choreographed.”

To add insult to injury, she is informed by an ancient vampire that she has fairy heritage and that is her big attraction for vampires, who are to fairies what cats are to catnip. He doesn’t even realize that he’s kicking her when she’s down. Quinn has entered stage right at exactly the right to time sooth Sookie’s wounded pride.

Despite the emotional turmoil and unending vampiric politics, Sookie has to deal with her doubly-deceased cousin’s belongings. During the clean-up of Hadley’s apartment, she discovers yet another body-in-a-closet.

“Was this the second body I'd found in the closet, or the third? I wondered why I even opened closet doors any more.”

At least she comes out of these events with a female friend, Amelia, plus some credit with the Queen of Louisiana. She’s going to need both.

Dead as a Doornail / Charlaine Harris

4 out of 5 stars

Small-town cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse has had more than her share of experience with the supernatural—but now it’s really hitting close to home. When Sookie sees her brother Jason’s eyes start to change, she knows he’s about to turn into a were-panther for the first time—a transformation he embraces more readily than most shapeshifters she knows. But her concern becomes cold fear when a sniper sets his deadly sights on the local changeling population, and Jason’s new panther brethren suspect he may be the shooter. Now, Sookie has until the next full moon to find out who’s behind the attacks—unless the killer decides to find her first…

2019 Re-Read

Just as telepath Sookie enjoys resting her mind around Vampire Bill, whose thoughts she can’t hear, I enjoy resting myself in this series that I’ve read and enjoyed before.

I’ve been consuming this series at a furious rate, seeing details that I just didn’t see on my first pass through. I believe that this is the volume where the private investigators show up to question Sookie, and we get an intersection between this series and Harris’ Lily Bard series. When I first read this book, I hadn’t been introduced to Lily yet, so this was a fun little detail. [It may have been the previous volume—I’m sucking back 2 books per evening right now and they are getting a bit blended in my memory].

However, on my first reading I certainly did see the assumptions of the men in Sookie’s life—they assume that she’s going to be open & interested in them, that they can easily manipulate her, and that when they speak she has to listen. And, as women, when we resist these assumptions, we are labelled as bitches. (Now I’m going to recommend a non-fiction book to you, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence—I think every woman should read it and every man who has a woman in his life who he cares about should too just to know what it’s like to be female in our world.)

They say when one door shuts, another one opens. But they haven’t been living at my house. Most of the doors I open seem to have something scary crouched behind them, anyway.

Dead to the World / Charlaine Harris

4 out of 5 stars

When cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse sees a naked man on the side of the road, she doesn't just drive on by. Turns out the poor thing hasn't a clue who he is, but Sookie does. It's Eric the vampire—but now he's a kinder, gentler Eric. And a scared Eric, because whoever took his memory now wants his life.

2019 Re-Read

Just as telepath Sookie enjoys resting her mind around Vampire Bill, whose thoughts she can’t hear, I enjoy resting myself in this series that I’ve read and enjoyed before.

"It's probably a bad indicator of your lifestyle when you miss your ex-boyfriend because he's absolutely lethal."

Wherein we learn that Sookie can certainly handle a shotgun or a baseball bat should the need arise. But she still wishes for a bit more back-up. Despite her misgivings, she proves repeatedly that she’s in many ways more street-smart and a better tactician than most of the supernatural beings that she hangs around with. Probably as a result of being a single woman, responsible for her own safety—an escape plan is a necessary fashion accessory.

Everyone keeps judging Sookie, thinking that she’s blonde & stupid, but she proves them misguided. She may not have the best taste in men (she tends toward the controlling, violent sort), but she’s an excellent practical psychologist (figuring out how people will act & why). Being a telepath has given her some insights that the rest of us could certainly use. Her general lack of experience in romantic relationships shows, but she’s learning gradually that she doesn’t need to put up with poor treatment. Amnesiac Eric shows her a bit of what a good relationship could be like—but I think Sookie is right, that it feels fake, knowing how proud the Viking vampire is when he’s himself.

As a friend of mine often says, “You get what you put up with.”

Club Dead / Charlaine Harris

4 out of 5 stars

Things between cocktail waitress Sookie and her vampire boyfriend Bill seem to be going excellently (apart from the small matter of him being undead) until he leaves town for a while. A long while. Bill's sinister boss Eric has an idea of where to find him, whisking her off to Jackson, Mississippi to mingle with the under-underworld at Club Dead. When she finally catches up with the errant vampire, he is in big trouble and caught in an act of serious betrayal. This raises serious doubts as to whether she should save him or start sharpening a few stakes of her own ..

2019 Re-Read

Just as telepath Sookie enjoys resting her mind around Vampire Bill, whose thoughts she can’t hear, I enjoy resting myself in this series that I’ve read and enjoyed before.

Although Sookie spends a lot of time in this book rescuing Bill, despite the fact that he’s a lying, two-timing vampire, I like it because she finally takes ownership of herself. She starts to realize that she’s being played: Half of me (pathetically) wanted to let him know I'd kept the faith; half of me wanted to get in the toolshed and sharpen me some stakes. Yes, Sookie, I think we’ve all “sharpened some stakes,” in our fantasies!

“They found the corpse in the closet of Alcide's apartment, and they hatched a plan to hide his remains." Eric sounded like that had been kind of cute of us.

"My Sookie hid a corpse?"

"I don't think you can be too sure about that possessive pronoun."

"Where did you learn that term, Northman?"

"I took 'English as a Second Language' at a community college in the seventies.”

Also:

Bill said, "She is mine."

I wondered if my hands would move. They would. I raised both of them, making an unmistakable one-fingered gesture. Eric laughed, and Bill said "Sookie!" in shocked admonishment.

"I think that Sookie is telling us she belongs to herself," Eric said softly.”

Oh how clearly Harris shows us how complicated our relationships are and how badly we can be hurt when they go awry.

Living Dead in Dallas / Charlaine Harris

4 out of 5 stars

Cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse is having a streak of bad luck. First her co-worker is killed, and no one seems to care. Then she comes face-to-face with a beastly creature which gives her a painful and poisonous lashing. Enter the vampires, who graciously suck the poison from her veins (like they didn't enjoy it).
The point is: they saved her life. So when one of the bloodsuckers asks for a favour, she obliges - and soon Sookie's in Dallas, using her telepathic skills to search for a missing vampire. She's supposed to interview certain humans involved, but she makes one condition: the vampires must promise to behave, and let the humans go unharmed.
But that's easier said than done, and all it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for things to turn deadly...

2019 Re-Read

Just as telepath Sookie enjoys resting her mind around Vampire Bill, whose thoughts she can’t hear, I enjoy resting myself in this series that I’ve read and enjoyed before.

I find myself really curious about Charlaine Harris’ writing practices—did she have this series planned out well in advance or did she just sit down at her desk each day to see where the characters took her? Maybe a hybrid somewhere in between? I feel like the general arc of the story must have been laid out in advance, but then some characters (the maenad, for example) just seem to appear without warning or explanation.

But Harris delivers some on-the-nose commentary about American society, despite the supernatural elements. Take for example the lawyer Hugo that Sookie is teamed-up with to investigate the Fellowship of the Sun:

I could tell Hugo was convinced that he would get to walk back up these stairs: after all, he was a civilized person. These were all civilized people.

Hugo really couldn't imagine that anything irreparable could happen to him, because he was a middle-class white American with a college education, as were all the people on the stairs with us.

I had no such conviction. I was not a wholly civilized person.

I’ve made assumptions like this—that life is safe and that bad things won’t happen. It’s these little observations that make this series more than just fluff. Just as Agatha Christie’s Jane Marple could gauge people from her village experience, Sookie has good psychological experience from being a woman, a telepath, and a bar maid in a small town. It’s true what they say, that everybody knows your business in a small town and this gives anyone who is paying attention a chance to educate themselves in the field of human behaviour!

Dead Until Dark / Charlaine Harris

4 out of 5 stars

Sookie Stackhouse is just a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. Until the vampire of her dreams walks into her life-and one of her coworkers checks out....

Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend isn't such a bright idea.

2019 Re-Read

I don’t know how other people handle stress, but my favourite diversion is to re-read books that I know that I will enjoy. When my life is uncertain, I love the certainty of an entertaining book. So, as I prepare for major life changes, I picked up Dead Until Dark a few nights ago and found myself completely immersed in the life of Sookie Stackhouse in Bon Temps, Louisiana. How can you not have a good time in a town called Good Times? It’s silly, soap-opera type fun.

Since Sookie knows a thing or two about life changes, I started to wonder if that wasn’t why I had zeroed in on this particular series. In this very first book, we meet her when she is still an ordinary person. Or at least as ordinary as a telepathic bar maid in a small town can be. This is the first installment of the changes that open up her life, giving her access to a whole new world that she hadn’t previously been aware of.

I love the very first sentence: I’d been waiting for the vampire for years when he walked into the bar. Well, I’ve been waiting for years for retirement and I will achieve it shortly. As I watch Sookie change and adapt as her world opens up, I feel like I can change and adapt too, and adjust to this new reality.

Coriolanus / William Shakespeare

4 out of 5 stars

Not my first time seeing Coriolanus performed, but the performance that I have most enjoyed.  This was the Stratford (Ont.) version from 2018. Since I’ll be participating in two elections this year, first provincial, then federal, the nature of leadership and democracy are top of mind right now.  The friend who accompanied me to this screening also commented on the timeliness of the theme.

I must say that Lucy Peacock, playing Coriolanus’ mother, was amazing!  Who knew that Coriolanus had a Tiger Mother? She played her part in a way that made me laugh as she steered her son exactly where she wanted him to go.  Ms. Peacock stole every scene that she was in.

The play had a modern setting, something that I don’t always appreciate in Shakespearean drama, but with this play it worked.  A feature that my friend and I both particularly appreciated was a portion of the dialog which was done via text message. It received snickers from our theatre audience and was completely appropriate in its context.  While remaining true to the play’s dialog, it was a nifty updating.

If only we could send all of our politicians to see Coriolanus and hope that they would understand how contempt for the electorate does in a great military man!

The Fires of Heaven / Robert Jordan

4 out of 5 stars

In this sequel to the phenomenal New York Times bestseller The Shadow Rising, Robert Jordan again plunges us into his extraordinarily rich, totally unforgettable world: . ... Into the forbidden city of Rhuidean, where Rand al'Thor, now the Dragon Reborn, must conceal his present endeavor from all about him, even Egwene and Moiraine. ... Into the Amyrlin's study in the White Tower, where the Amyrlin, Flaida do Avriny a'Roihan, is weaving new plans. ... Into Andor, where Siuan Sanche and her companions, including the false Dragon Logain, have been arrested for barn-burning. ... Into the luxurious hidden chamber where the Forsaken Rahvin is meeting with three of his fellows to ensure their ultimate victory over the Dragon. ... Into the Queen's court in Caemlyn, where Morgase is curiously in thrall to the handsome Lord Gaebril. For once the Dragon walks the land, the fires of heaven fall where they will, until all men's lives are ablaze. And in Shayol Ghul, the Dark One stirs....

I would certainly have to say that I find this series addicting. Once I begin one of these mammoth tomes, I feel the need to keep reading until the end. Despite the reservations that I may have about the characterization of both men and women. Because everyone in this series seems to be as stubborn as mules and to have nasty tempers. Part of me really wants to know what Mr. Jordan was like--tempermental and hard-headed perhaps? Pure speculation on my part, but what else am I to think?

Only five volumes in, and I’ve already read thousands of pages, still with 10 volumes in my future. It’s good that I’m engaged in the story despite everyone’s general grumpiness. It continues to amaze me that this much detail can be kept interesting for the reader. Most series are wrapped up in 5 volumes, but this one is just gaining steam.

I also appreciate that although this is a quest tale, Jordan has written something original--The Wheel of Time is so distinct from LOTR. Tolkien’s work may be the roots of this genre, but Jordan proves that he has made it his own. And he has taken Frank Herbert’s concept of the Bene Gesserit and made the Aes Sedai into a force to be reckoned with while still making them humanly attainable. I love the different colour groups with their associated behaviours and their bonds with their Warders. I do tire, however, of his constant struggle for control between men and women. Why can’t they acknowledge their mutual interdependence? It seems like the Aes Sedai and their Warders are the only mixed-gender teams that are working well together.

Nevertheless, I hope to read at least one more volume of WoT before this year is finished!

Book 313 in my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project.

The Five Red Herrings / Dorothy L. Sayers

3.5 out of 5 stars

The body was on the pointed rocks alongside the stream. The artist might have fallen from the cliff where he was painting, but there are too many suspicious elements - particularly the medical evidence that proves he'd been dead nearly half a day, though eyewitnesses had seen him alive a scant hour earlier. And then there are the six prime suspects - all of them artists, all of whom wished him dead. Five are red herrings, but one has created a masterpiece of murder that baffles everyone, including Lord Peter Wimsey.

Give this volume about 3.5 stars, I think. For me, it has been the least enjoyable installment of Lord Peter Wimsey. And still, it had its great moments. Dorothy Sayers is the only author that I have read who had produced Scots dialog on the page that hasn’t annoyed me to death! I found it was effective and even a bit humorous from time to time.

Where this book fell down for me was the intricacy of the clues. I know that Sayers prided herself on not “cheating,” giving the reader all the clues that they needed to solve the mystery right along with Wimsey (see Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul by Barbara Reynolds). However, I would have needed to make myself a detailed flow chart if I was going to solve this mystery! So I just drifted with the flow of her writing and enjoyed other details along the way.

The last few pages, including the re-enactment of the crime, were absolutely the best part of the book. I don’t usually laugh out loud when I’m reading, but I know for a fact that I produced several outbursts as I enjoyed this production! Well worth enduring all the train time tables!

Remarkable Creatures / Tracy Chevalier

4 out of 5 stars

From the moment she's struck by lightning as a baby, it is clear Mary Anning is different. Though poor and uneducated, she learns on the windswept, fossil-strewn beaches of the English coast that she has a unique gift: "the eye" to spot fossils no one else can see. When she uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near her home, she sets the religious community on edge, the townspeople to gossip - and the scientific world alight with both admiration and controversy. Prickly Elizabeth Philpot, a middle-class spinster and also a fossil hunter, becomes Mary Anning's unlikely champion and friend, and together they forge a path to some of the most important discoveries of the 19th century.

I’ve just recently read a non-fiction book about Mary Anning (The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World by Shelley Emling) and I was anxious to read this fictional account of Anning’s life before the details had faded too much in my mind. Chevalier sticks to the big, important details, but takes the liberty that those who write fiction often do, to write in drama and make a better story.

It’s always a tricky business, writing fiction about real historical figures. I appreciated Chevalier’s depiction of the friendship between impoverished, working class Mary Anning and genteel spinster Elizabeth Philpot. It was a real friendship, made across class boundaries and well documented in the written records of the time. What either woman was actually like personally is an unknown quantity (to me at least), but well filled in by Chevalier.

The official record doesn’t offer much drama beyond Mary and her family being on the edge of going to the poor-house most given days. Very suspenseful if you are experiencing it, but not the most riveting plot for the reader. So I completely understand why Chevalier creates the rivalry between the two women for the attention of one un-noteworthy man. Still, it disappoints me. One the main ribbons running through this book is the changing role of women during this time period—getting recognition for their minds, not just their appearances, and loosening some of the conventions that bound them to child-rearing and household roles. Both of the main characters and all of the marine reptiles are indeed remarkable creatures.

Some details are extremely fictional—there’s no indication that Mary’s mother, Molly, ever set foot on the beach or ever searched for a fossil. She was only reluctantly won over to fossil selling as a way of earning cold, hard cash. I know Mary’s dog, Tray, was killed in a landslide, but I don’t think that Mary herself was caught in it (although it made good, dramatic sense in this version). I also wish that Chevalier had captured more clearly the intellectual achievements of Mary and the expertise that she drew on to educate many of the fossil-hunting men who came to her for assistance. There was definitely an auction by Lieutenant-Colonel Birch to fund the Anning family, but no indications that it was Elizabeth who shamed him into it or that he was romantically involved with either woman.

In short, this was an enjoyable, dramatic telling of a famous woman’s life, but don’t take every detail as gospel. As they say of movies, “Based on a true story.”

Dead Over Heels / Charlaine Harris

3 out of 5 stars

What's the world coming to - when you can't relax with an ice-cold beverage in your own backyard without a body falling from the sky and landing in your garden? Part-time librarian and frequent amateur investigator Roe Teagarden has good reason to ask herself this question when the remains of one of the Lawrenceton, Georgia police department's finest catapults into her flower bed one beautiful sunny morning. Roe's friend and bodyguard, the long-legged, bikini-clad Angel Youngblood, is mowing the grass and Roe is reclining on a lounger when a small red-and-white plane flies low overhead and drops its unlikely debris more or less at Roe's feet. Roe's husband of two years, wealthy businessman Martin Bartell, immediately wonders if the killer chose his dumping place to send some kind of message to Roe. And the mystery deepens when two federal agents arrive in town to investigate the murder. It's only when Madeleine the cat provides a clue that Roe and Martin realize Roe herself may be in danger and that using Roe's yard as a temporary landfill for dead bodies was no accident.

What do you do when you’re suffering from a severe case of insomnia? If you’re me, you wander to your bookcase and say to yourself, “Which of these books is interesting, but I’ll be willing to set it down when sleep finally feels possible?” I gave up at about 2 a.m. on Saturday morning and started to read--finally, at 4 a.m. I managed to set down the book and sleep for a while.

I’d have to call this both a cozy mystery and a Southern mystery. Charlaine Harris includes so many of the details of Southern life--the churches that people attend, the community conflicts, the everyday lifestyles of her characters. Some readers obviously love these details--I must confess that they are why I chose it as a “sleeping pill.”

Despite that, Aurora is a character that drew me in and made me care what happens to her. This is the fifth book in the series after all, I’m still reading them, and I have no doubts at all that I’ll continue on with her adventures when I have another sleepless night.

Random Family / Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

2.5 stars out of 5

In her extraordinary bestseller, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc immerses readers in the intricacies of the ghetto, revealing the true sagas lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour, gold-drenched drug dealers, and street-corner society. Focusing on two romances - Jessica's dizzying infatuation with a hugely successful young heroin dealer, Boy George, and Coco's first love with Jessica's little brother, Cesar - Random Family is the story of young people trying to outrun their destinies. Jessica and Boy George ride the wild adventure between riches and ruin, while Coco and Cesar stick closer to the street, all four caught in a precarious dance between survival and death. Friends get murdered; the DEA and FBI investigate Boy George; Cesar becomes a fugitive; Jessica and Coco endure homelessness, betrayal, the heartbreaking separation of prison, and, throughout it all, the insidious damage of poverty.

Charting the tumultuous cycle of the generations - as girls become mothers, boys become criminals, and hope struggles against deprivation - LeBlanc slips behind the cold statistics and sensationalism and comes back with a riveting, haunting, and true story.

I guess that I’m not entirely sure what the author was trying to achieve with this book. There’s no introduction, there’s no conclusion--I don’t enough about her to know her motivations. To be charitable, it would seem that she is trying to show, through the lives of three main people, the ties that bind people into poverty, drugs, and crime.

I have no doubts about how difficult it is to escape poverty. When your parents are uneducated, violent, and poor, who can you look to for an example of how to get out of that situation? During this time, in this place, boys were fathers in their teens, dropped out of school, and could only earn money through drugs and other criminality. Girls are pregnant in their teens, dropped out of school, and can’t provide for themselves and their children on minimum wage jobs. Sexual abuse is common because children get left with people that can’t be trusted. Girls skip from one man to the next because they’ve watched their mothers do the same thing. No one has enough education to properly fill out government forms to obtain benefits or to budget what little money they have. Boys take advantage of their male status to have sex with as many girls as they can talk into it. Girls can’t afford birth control and view having children as a way to bind boys to them.

Add to these problems that being a generous, good person can work against you. How many times did these women feed people who were only “random family”? Someone connected to someone who was part of the family? When girls have children by 2 or 3 different men, all of their relatives somehow become part of the web of family and women like Coco feel badly about denying them food and/or housing. Yet she knows that it’s bad for her own children in the long run.

These people are in a virtually inescapable situation. Their only pleasures are food and sex and they indulge when they get a chance--who wouldn’t? But when all the food is gone and there are more babies on the way, once again their lives worsen.

It was depressing reading because I know that the same things are probably happening to the children and grandchildren of Jessica, George, and Coco. Reading this made me realize how incredibly fortunate I am to have been born into the family that I’m part of, into the communities that I’m part of, and to be a citizen of my country. The fact that the adults around me didn’t lecture me about how to live, they just lived it and let me watch & learn. I learned to work, to live within my means, to value education, to regulate my emotions, all those skills that are necessary to living well.

I’d like to think the author meant this book as more than just downward social comparison, but I wish that she had addressed her purpose directly. What would have made things better? Are there programs that could actually assist people in these life circumstances? Ultimately, without this kind of analysis, I wonder why she wrote it?

When True Night Falls / C.S. Friedman

4 out of 5 stars

Two men, absolute enemies, must unite to conquer an evil greater than anything their world has ever known. One is a warrior priest ready to sacrifice anything and everything for the cause of humanity's progress; the other, a sorcerer who has survived for countless centuries by a total submission to evil. In their joint quest, both will be irrevocably changed.

There was never any doubt that I would read this novel—I enjoyed the first installment a great deal and it is part of my Science Fiction & Fantasy reading project. Not only that, but I found all three volumes at the popular used book sale in my city and had them on hand. If all of that wasn’t enough, last year at the When Words Collide writers’ conference, Peter V. Brett recommended it. He was on a panel about female characters in fantasy fiction and I came away quite impressed with his views. (He thinks that male and female characters should reflect reality, i.e. have equal numbers of male & female characters, among other things).

So, I was fired up to read this series and I have been enjoying it. I was somewhat dismayed, however, that Celia Friedman leaves behind one of her main female characters in this volume (Ciani) and I was left with only Hesseth, a female native of Erna, to carry the flag for women. Friedman does offer us the female child, Jenseny, but that doesn’t last all that long. By book’s end, we are left with just the guys.

I can certainly see, however, that Brett gathered some inspiration from this fantasy series. His Demon Cycle seems to owe a debt to the demons of this Coldfire Trilogy. One of my great pleasures in reading my long list of speculative fiction is seeing the various influences between authors, so this correlation pleases me.

Book number 311 in my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project.

Quartet in Autumn / Barbara Pym

4 out of 5 stars

This is Pym's poignant story of four elderly single people who work in the same office. Their work is their chief point of contact with each other and with the outside world. When the two women retire, the equilibrium of the quartet is upset. Quartet in Autumn is a gently compelling story of human dignity in the midst of hopelessness.

This little novel probably appealed to me so strongly because these four people are in the zone that I currently inhabit—they are reaching retirement age and wondering if they are ready for this next phase of life.

I’m currently flailing around, trying to determine if I have the financial resources necessary to pull the plug, because like Letty and Marcia, I never married and I’m now responsible for my own future. But how times have changed—I’m no longer at the mercy of the government pension to determine how my future unfolds, and I’ve been able to plan better things for myself.

Still, I understand the uncertainties of retirement. How will my days be structured? What activities will fill my time? Will I still be able to afford many of the activities that I currently enjoy? Poverty in old age is a perennial worry, something that has soaked into my bones. I think single women of my vintage have a horror of becoming bag ladies and having to eat cat food. Financial advisors rarely understand this worry—they don’t live on the same financial edge that many older single women do.

I remember when one of my friends was looking for housing for her elderly mother in the U.K. She told me she looked at too many places where “You wouldn’t want to leave your coat, let along your mother.” I think we’ve all heard horror stories of homes for the elderly where they are abused and/or neglected. The problem of where to live is the big one. Does one stay at home and go odd, like Marcia? Or take small steps towards taking control, like Letty?

I’m hoping to be in the Letty camp—once I’m retired, I hope to start looking around for the next living situation and plan out the next number of years. I think most of us still feel younger than we are in our own heads—referring to myself as elderly seems ridiculous to me, but I’m sure I seem that way to the younger people in my life. Still, I need to get planning adventures for the post-work phase of life and this book has been both a comfort and an inspiration for that.

Snow Crash / Neal Stephenson

3 out of 5 stars

In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he's a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that's striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous… you'll recognize it immediately.

I guess the cyberpunk part of the science fiction world is just never going to be my favourite thing. As far as the cyberpunk novels that I have read (not many), this is so far my favourite.

I’m not into computer programming or virtual reality and I really don’t idolize hackers or their culture, so I am not the target audience for this sub-genre. However, there were a lot of clever details in it, like the name of the main character, Hiro Protagonist—no mistaking who is the star in this one. Stephenson did what so many good writers do—he took contemporary trends and played them out to extreme lengths, reminding me a bit of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. He also wove in quite a lot of esoteric scholarship, namely Sumerian history and linguistics, ancient Semitic religion, and brain physiology, which he expertly entwines with computer programming. This use of ancient & modern details in such a complex way reminded me strongly of Tim Powers’ Last Call.

If you are a fan of the cyberpunk genre, I would encourage you to pick up this book. Stephenson is an excellent writer and the story is both amusing and entertaining (although I did feel like the ending just kind of petered out instead of really resolving anything). If you enjoy the fiction of Tim Powers or William Gibson (Neuromancer or The Difference Engine), I think there is a strong chance that you will appreciate Snow Crash too.

Book number 312 in my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project.

DreadfulWater Shows Up / Thomas King

4 out of 5 stars

From award-winning literary author Thomas King (aka Hartley GoodWeather) comes a stylish mystery debut featuring ex-California cop Thumps DreadfulWater, a smart and savvy Cherokee Indian whose witty exterior belies a clever, stubborn sleuth.
With his cop life officially behind him, Thumps now makes his living as a fine-arts photographer in Chinook — a western town snuggled up against a reservation that's struggling for economic independence via investment in a glitzy new resort and casino complex called Buffalo Mountain. It's a slow-paced, good life for Thumps and his eccentric cat, Freeway. Most of the time. But when a dead body turns up in one of the just-completed luxury condos, things change fast — and not for the better. Photographing corpses is not part of Thumps's master plan.


A delightful mystery, written by one of my favourite writers, Thomas King, under his silly pseudonym Hartley GoodWeather. He was obviously having fun with this mystery novel and indulging his wonderful sense of humour. But King just seems to write gorgeously under any circumstances and this story was a wonderful way to spend a Friday evening after what felt like an interminable week at work.

Thumps DreadfulWater is a non-detective, or so he keeps saying. A former policeman who couldn’t solve a murder that impacted him personally, he has moved into a small town in the North West States (it’s not clear yet exactly where Chinook is located, although that name would hint that it’s east of the Rockies) and he has switched professions, becoming a photographer.

I heard King interviewed on radio about Thumps’ name—Mr. King apparently subscribed to a magazine by phone and spelled his name carefully. When he received the first issue, it was addressed to Thumps King, so he concluded that the person who took his information had pretty poor handwriting, to turn Thomas into Thumps. However, it was too good a name to just let go of.

I read the whole thing in one evening and it was just the antidote to a stressful week. I’ve already put a hold on the next book in the series (and I’m not the only one, I am number 20 in line for 3 copies, so it will be a while). I’m also glad to hear that Mr. King has plans to write further adventures of Thumps DreadfulWater and I look forward to reading them all!

Innkeeper Chronicles / Ilona Andrews

March 2019 Re-Read

When life is getting me down, I turn to Ilona Andrews.  I powered through the Hidden Legacy series and still needed an infusion of light-hearted fun and fantasy.  Enter the Innkeeper Chronicles.  I debated long and hard before I sank my cash into these volumes, but I’m so glad that I did.  There’s nothing like Dina, Caldenia, Sean, and Arland to make me smile and feel better.  I am so relating to Dina missing her parents right now—my mother’s last sibling passed away at the end of January and I am missing her, my parents and all the other aunts & uncles.  Spending time in Red Deer, Texas, helps me feel a little less lonely.

So yes, I’m avoiding life right now and re-reading old favourites.  I’m not sure when this tendency will end, but I’m enjoying my vacation from reality.

Hidden Legacy Series / Ilona Andrews

 March 2019 Re-Read

When life is getting me down, I turn to Ilona Andrews. Particularly the Hidden Legacy series. There’s some strange alchemy in this series which just makes me feel better. The closeness of the Baylor family when I’m missing my family dreadfully. Nevada’s dedication to her company when my work situation is feeling less than ideal. The relationship between Nevada and Rogan when I haven’t seen my guy for longer than usual. Sometimes I’m stunned at how much I enjoy the extreme violence in the books, but that also seems to be a peaceful way for me to purge my own desire to punch people.

I love this fantasy world—the magic, the Houses, the dialog, Nevada’s internal commentary, the Baylor family, all of it. I’m so glad that the Andrews decided to continue on with a Catalina series, which I am awaiting impatiently.

So yes, I’m avoiding life right now and re-reading old favourites. I’m not sure when this tendency will end, but I’m enjoying my vacation from reality.

Kill the Queen / Jennifer Estep

4 out of 5 stars

In a realm where one’s magical power determines one’s worth, Lady Everleigh’s lack of obvious ability relegates her to the shadows of the royal court of Bellona, a kingdom steeped in gladiator tradition. Seventeenth in line for the throne, Evie is nothing more than a ceremonial fixture, overlooked and mostly forgotten.

But dark forces are at work inside the palace. When her cousin Vasilia, the crown princess, assassinates her mother the queen and takes the throne by force, Evie is also attacked, along with the rest of the royal family. Luckily for Evie, her secret immunity to magic helps her escape the massacre.

Forced into hiding to survive, she falls in with a gladiator troupe. Though they use their talents to entertain and amuse the masses, the gladiators are actually highly trained warriors skilled in the art of war, especially Lucas Sullivan, a powerful magier with secrets of his own. Uncertain of her future—or if she even has one—Evie begins training with the troupe until she can decide her next move.

Easily the best book of Ms. Estep’s that I have read to date! There are definite threads of similarity to her Elemental Assassin series—like that series, this one has a detailed and complex magic system. Estep does a great job, however, of introducing the reader to the system without lecturing about it. She is also adept at creating extremely tough heroines—capable of taking a licking and keeping on ticking. Just like Gin Blanco of the Elemental Assassin series, Everleigh Blair has hidden talents that she can use to her benefit. Early in this book, Everleigh is thrown from a great height into a river, reminding me that Gin Blanco also had a big fall/jump into a river, although I can’t remember which book it happened in. I’ve got to get back to that series eventually.

Another similarity which made me smile—both women (Everleigh and Gin) are bakers! When we are first introduced to Lady Everleigh, she is baking pies for a royal event. Ms. Estep must either be a baker herself or a devotee of good baking, as she lovingly describes the confections that her characters produce.

I hope that my library is planning to acquire the second volume, Protect the Prince.

The Fossil Hunter / Shelley Emling

3.5 stars out of 5

Mary Anning was only twelve years old when, in 1811, she discovered the first dinosaur skeleton--of an ichthyosaur--while fossil hunting on the cliffs of Lyme Regis, England. Until Mary's incredible discovery, it was widely believed that animals did not become extinct. The child of a poor family, Mary became a fossil hunter, inspiring the tongue-twister, "She Sells Sea Shells by the Seashore." She attracted the attention of fossil collectors and eventually the scientific world. Once news of the fossils reached the halls of academia, it became impossible to ignore the truth. Mary's peculiar finds helped lay the groundwork for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, laid out in his On the Origin of Species. Darwin drew on Mary's fossilized creatures as irrefutable evidence that life in the past was nothing like life in the present.

Give this about a 3.5 star rating for my general reading experience. I knew the basic outlines of Mary Anning’s story—a woman with a talent for finding marine reptile fossils, held back by her social status, her lack of access to education, and her gender. In a world which favoured wealthy men with leisure time, she was at a tremendous disadvantage and achieved a great deal despite that.

This book filled in the gaps in my knowledge of the woman and made me admire her fortitude all the more. The author is a journalist, so it is written in a rather journalistic style—not surprising. There is some speculation, trying to guess what may have been going on in Ms. Anning’s mind, but nothing that is too unreasonable. Since the author seems to have done her research on the time period, she makes safe assumptions.

I found it interesting that on pages 209-210, more current research was referenced:

”And new species of plesiosaurs—a most diverse group of aquatic carnivores—are being discovered to this day. One of the oldest and most complete skeletons of a prehistoric aquatic reptile has been uncovered in North America, representing an entirely new group of plesiosaurs. This 8.5 foot specimen, known as Nichollsia borealis, is one of the most complete and best-preserved North American plesiosaurs from the Cretaceous Period.”

It is too bad that the author didn’t mention that this creature is named after Elizabeth (Betsy) Nicholls, who was a paleontologist specializing in Triassic marine reptiles at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta, Canada. Betsy worked on a back-breaking dig in northern British, excavating Shonisaurus sikanniensis, a Triassic marine reptile and she probably would have identified with Mary Anning’s perilous labours. Nicholls at least got the recognition for her work, receiving awards and having marine reptiles named in her honour. Sadly, both Anning and Nicholls died young of breast cancer, another thing they have in common.

Nichollsaura borealis  (source: Wikipedia)