Per Lucca

A highway is an autobahn is an autostrada, to paraphrase some poet of note, so I can't say a great deal about the drive from Pordenone down to Lucca, save that it was at high speed, and very much resembled a drive through any rural countryside, punctuated by occasional transits of cityscapes.

We arrived in Lucca, a city north of Pisa, around rush hour and got checked into our room at the Hotel Principessa, a marvelously lucky find on the outskirts of town in the Tuscan hills. The hotel was first built as the villa of a Duke of Lucca just short of 800 years ago, and has seen a number of transformations, and it is located in beautiful gardens, furnished in classic opulence, very peaceful. 

We took a bit to freshen up, then headed into town, determined to do a bit of exploring, then to have a meal at the restaurant of two friends of our hosts, but our well laid plans went a touch astray. We barely cleared the city walls.

Joe and Mindy introduced us to their friends Michael and Anita, who run the strategically located Lucca in Tavola, and began one of the most amazing meals I have ever experienced. Our new friends visited our table beside one of the main pathways to the interior of the walled old city with their recommendations and commentary on a feast which began with crostini covered with Laredo and Tartuffe, continued through a meat and cheese platter of salami, capaccio, pecorino, prosciutto and olives. The ladies had rolled sole, stuffed with prawns and spinach, Joe had a perfectly cooked sirloin, and I ended up with home-made tagliatelle pasta, smothered with mussels, clams, and calamari and flanked by a pair of amazing shrimp.

All of this was accompanied by flights of prosecco and Chianti, punctuated by an encounter with a marvelous Australian couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary (who may join us for dinner tonite, as well) and topped off by special baked desserts filled with Chantilly cream and strawberries. The entire affair lasted until well into the evening, and we were left only with time for a short stroll to Piazza St Michele before we drove back to the hotel at midnight, replete.

La Serenissima

After a hearty breakfast in Portenone, we drove a short way down to Sacile to take a train into Venice. We got off at the main station, and grabbed a all day vaporetto (water buses is the only way to describe them, really) pass at a handy tobacco shop and then did a fast fade off into the old Jewish quarter, where we surmised that the crowds would be lighter, as most tourists head directly to St. Mark's square, the Doge's Palace, and the Grand Canal. A very successful strategy, actually.

The crowds were nearly non-existent in that part of Venice, and we were able to stroll about looking at little shops and just inhaling the atmosphere of this unique city. We managed to wander into some mostly residential areas along the northern edge of things, where we saw the little old grandmothers making their way home from shopping, trattorias packed with smoking locals, and a great little kosher grocery where we picked up a bottle of prosecco and four plastic cups to keep us from being too parched on the way out to the island of Burano.

Venice was first established in the swamps of the coast by the merchant princes in the 6th century to provide a very efficient machine for separating tourists from their money, and it retains those ancient traditions to this day. There are a zillion shops filled with kitsch, African street vendors illegally selling knock off Prada, and more than enough high end legitimate shops hawking local wares to give you reason to leave home without your American Express. Burano lace and Murano glass were ubiquitous, but most vendors are touchy about photos, so you'll simply have to come and see these amazing and exquisite creations for yourself some day.

We enjoyed late lunch in Burano at Su E Zo of sea bass, salmon and calamari, talked with local glass makers whose families have been in the business for centuries, and very charming little old nona in a lace shop. 

The day was too short to really see it all, so by the time we made it to St. Mark's the museums had closed, and we didn't get a chance to see them, but we had a marvelous dinner by the Rialto bridge on the Grand Canal at Cafe di Saraceno with a water side table where we got to watch the gondolas go by with their cargos of lovers, young and old. Spaghetti a la Vongole, Broiled Dorado, Beef Steak with Peppercorns, a couple of nice bottles of Chardonnay, capped by a boat ride back down the canal to the train station again made it a most memorable day.

Down Time

I may have picked up a bug on the plane, and ended up with some intestinal woes for most of the day on Monday, so we ended up hanging out in Pordenone at the house and resting up. Still no pictures. 

Venice on the horizon today, however, and the weather is looking good.

Aviano

We piled in the car mid morning and headed up to Aviano Air Base to attend a bazaar. Plenty of local artists and merchants displaying their wares, which ranged from the sublime, like Murano hand-blown glass, to the ridiculous, like macrame owls. A huge thunderstorm blew up while we were in the airplane hanger they were using for the venue, but for the most part we remained inside warm and dry. Didn't really take any pictures there, either. Still nothing much on the camera.

Back to the house for the  reposata - the traditional mid-afternoon nap, and dinner at a local hangout, Comela. The sandwich I had was very good, and the house limoncello was delicious.

Stone Soup

Some time ago, when I was cooking in, and later managing, restaurants, it was often my job to come up with a daily special soup. Occasionally, when I had a fair amount of leftovers to clear out of the walk-in cooler, I'd tell my customers we were having "Stone Soup". This of course often elicited puzzled looks and questions, so I would tell them a story I remembered from my childhood.

A wandering band of vagabonds or gypsies comes to a village and fills up a large pot with water, lights a fire underneath it, and places a round smooth stone in the water. When the curious villagers begin to gather, and ask them what they are doing, they reply that they have a magical stone, and that by boiling the stone in water, they can create a delicious soup. 

As the water is heating, one of the travelers says, "This is going to be such a wonderful soup, but it would really be remarkable if only it had a carrot or two in it."

One of the villagers admits that she might have a few carrots, returns to her home and gets them, and they are quickly chopped up and added to the magic stone soup.

Little by little, the villagers are conned into contributing to the soup, and at the end of the tale, the entire band of travelers and the village feast on the Stone Soup.

I applied those principles to my creation of Stone Soup, and would grab random complementary ingredients from the cooler; a tub of mixed veggies from a few nights back, some diced onions getting a little mushy, leftover roast beef, and maybe some kale from the salad bar garnish...you get the picture.

I just happened to be thinking about stone soup this morning as a friend was creating Bloody Mary's with the spices available in a borrowed kitchen, and decided to google the name, to see what the Internet remembers of the tale, and got a serendipitous surprise, the probably source of my recollection of the story. 

"The story is the basis of Marcia Brown's 1947 children's book, Stone Soup (1947),^[6] which features soldiers tricking miserly villages into cooking them a feast. The book was a Caldecott Honor book in 1948^[7] and was read aloud by the Captain (played by Bob Keeshan) on an early episode of Captain Kangaroo in the 1950s, as well as at least once in the 1960s or early 1970s"

I am betting that my early childhood library contained a copy of Ms. Brown's tome. 

Getting There is Half the Fun

After a long flight over the ocean, a stop in Frankfurt, and a quick hop south, we arrived safely at Marco Polo airport around 1800 hours local time, and were met by our hostess, Mindy, who whisked us away to her home in Pordenone. We spent the evening in delightful conversation with her and a pair of expats living in Cortona, who are visiting as well, and sampled a good bit of the local vino. 

No picturesque photos to share so far, but I'll be sure to share here as we venture into Venice and beyond.

The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold

This is the book that introduced me to the world of Lois McMaster Bujold, and which has forced me to buy every sequel that she's published over the last few decades.

Son of Count and Regent Aral Vorkosigan and Cordelia nee Naismith Vorkosigan, Miles has some big shoes to fill, especially when you add in the riding boots of his Grandfather, Piotr. He has put everything he has into successfully passing the entrance exams for the Imperial Military academy, and the story begins with the tragedy of him washing out of the physical portion of the test after shattering his legs trying to leap tall buildings...or at least an obstacle course wall.

Mentally cut adrift, he determines to take a trip to Beta Colony for a visit with his maternal grandmother, dragging along his childhood friend, Elena, daughter of the dour and faithful Sergeant Bothari, his batman. He hopes that they'll be able to solve the mystery of who Elena's mother was by poking around in cemetery records there, since that knowledge is still classified burn before reading on Barrayar, tied up as it was with Prince Serg's disastrous armada and glorious death (Read Shards of Honor).

We learn very nearly all we need to know about Miles in the first hour or so on Beta Colony, when he pokes his nose into something that is most definitely none of his business, and ends up rescuing a pilot, Arde Mayhew, and buying a ship by mortgaging part of his inheritance - some radioactive swampland. From this point forward the tale skips from frying pan to fire and back - repeatedly. Along the way, he also picks up a Barrayaran deserter, Baz Jesek, who is stranded offworld, and to keep him from being arrested, swears him in as his personal armsman, tying up the diplomatic teams of both planets in a snarled mess.

In order to pay off the mortgage on the ship, Miles takes on a dubious cargo of "agricultural equipment", which is to be delivered to the losing side in a planetary war, past a blockade maintained by a mercenary fleet. Miles plays the role of a devil may care mercenary a bit too well, and we begin to wonder if his personality is splitting at the seams. When they encounter the blockade, all is going reasonably well, the cargo is well concealed, and the shakedown bearable, until the leader of the boarding party decides he needs to take a hostage, too - Elena.

When Miles and his companions reach their breaking point moments later, they overwhelm the bored and out of shape mercenaries, then turn the tables, boarding the mercenaries ship and taking command. When faced with the need to keep the mercenaries, who outnumber them, too busy to launch a counterattack, Admiral Naismith and the Dendarii Free Mercenaries are born!

Simply one of the best, most entertaining stories I have ever read...and re-read...and re-re-read.

Truancy

I've been slacking off on my reviews here...just the business of life again, and lack of motivation to write anything about what I've been reading lately, for the most part. I have a few queued up now, and then we'll have some travel blogging to do, if I can make my iPad do the job.

Quantum Night by Robert J. Sawyer

This one had some really interesting things to say about the nature of consciousness, and how it is dependent on a quantum state in the microtubules within our neurons. A college professor realizes late in life that the psychological testing he submitted to as a student has had some serious repercussions in his life, including turning him into a psychopath for a time, and causing him to lose six months of his memories.

The "thriller" portion of the book relates how he digs up all of the secrets about his past, the experiments, and other dangerous ideas.

It turns out, according to Sawyer, that approximately 1 in 7 people in the world are actually really conscious, think about their lives, reflect on the consequences of their actions, while 2 in 7 are psychopaths, with varying degrees of evil intent, ranging from the ruthless business man to the brutal dictator (not surprisingly, most of the politicians of the world fall into this category), and the final 4 in 7 - four billion of them, are what he calls "p-zeds" - basically thoughtless, herd-following automatons.

This theory explains a lot, eh?

Anyway, once we get to this point, and find out due to the results of another experiment performed by our protagonist and his girlfriend, a physicist, which brings her brother out of a coma and shifts his mental state from one category to another, it is inevitable that they are going to use the technology to bring peace and justice to the world, especially when the psychopaths in power in the U.S. and Russia bring the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe.

Sawyer, as always, tells a tale guaranteed to amuse for a few hours.

Shadow Rites by Faith Hunter

In synopsis form:
Jane's home and person are scanned by witches unknown, leaving behind a curse, of sorts.
Jane is attacked by Gee di Mercy, nearly getting killed, which ties back to the scan and an earlier spell cast by Gee.
Bruiser traces a brooch left behind to a location where a missing master vampire has been held captive for a couple of years.
The witches conclave is beginning soon, and Evan and Molly and the kids (Angie and Evan Jr) are coming to stay with Jane.
Jane is having troubles shifting.

Everything else logically follows from those issues, and there's nothing truly surprising in this installment of the Yellowrock saga. In fact, it's mostly more of the same old, same old.

Jane gathers more friends and allies about herself.

Jane has the obligatory sweat lodge session, complete with hallucinogens.

Jane and Bruiser grow closer.

Jane needs to protect the people around her, and they show her they don't always need to be protected.

Jane plays dominance games with the Master of the City of New Orleans.

Hope this series turns around soon.

Burned by Benedict Jacka

The title of this book is just far too appropriate. We begin the story when Alex Verus finds out that a vote has been taken by the council to issue a writ of execution against him and all of his dependents, for reasons unknown. Upon confering with his friends, they determine that there are only two courses of action open to them; to get enough council votes from the members who weren't present when the writ was issued in order to counter it, and to make sure that Anne and Vari and Luna are not longer his dependents, but are either assigned to other mages, or have immunity through a change in their own status.

In the meantime, and entirely different group of mages have decided that Verus is a threat in some unknown manner, and are issuing threats and sending minions to first intimidate Alex and later to assassinate him. The Keepers have also become aware of an effort under way by Verus' old master, Richard Drakh, to acquire a powerful magical artifact, and he is recruited to accompany the team sent to keep Drakh from getting the object.

Burned...Alex's home and business are burned to the ground, Alex is "burned" by the council's death warrant, and a number of twisty betrayals in the latter half of the book, leave him "burned" in the classic sense.

Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs

This story begins when Mercy and the werewolves and Joel get called out to fight a bridge troll. What's not to like here? I mean bridge...troll...rollicking battle...good times.

After the smoke clears, it becomes apparent that a small group of the Fae are trying to reestablish their hold on the area, after years of peace.

Zee and Tad show up, having escaped from a Fae dungeon with a changeling child in tow, called Aiden. His stay in the Underhill has changed him, giving him a unique relationship with the element of Fire. Mercy offers him the sanctuary of the pack, which triggers a bit of a power struggle with Adam's people, and sets the pack up in opposition to the power hungry Fae.

But Mercy aligns herself with another faction, and they undertake a dangerous mission into the land of Faerie to recover an artifact which is the price of peace.

There's some good tie-ins here with some of the short stories in Shifting Shadows, and Mercy's powers are getting a bit stronger with every novel in the series. Fun to see where Briggs is going with this.

Marked in Flesh by Anne Bishop

This book is, if not THE climax, at least a climactic point in Bishop's series about The Others. The most powerful of the natives, who are seldom seen by humans, or even some of the more public Others, have finally come to the conclusion that the human race must be culled, and removed from the lands they acquired by treaty and subsequently violated its terms. I'm sure that any parallels to the story of native Americans and early settlers in this country are merely coincidental, aren't you? The story seems to serve as one of those "what if?" parables, given the premise that the technology of the Europeans turned out to be less powerful than the magic of the natives, who in this world are not at all human, instead of the all too human Indians they encountered in reality.

The question is not whether the humans must be culled, but how deep the cuts should go. We are stuck with hoping that the humans who have been cooperating with the Others in places like The Courtyard will be granted reprieve from the general slaughter which is to come.

The only issue after the end of this novel is exactly where Bishop will take us next, whether to tales of rebuilding and survival, or into some utopic time of cooperation between the survivors and the Others.

Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold

Though this novel was actually published a number of years after The Warrior's Apprentice, where we meet Miles Vorkosigan for the first time, it precedes that book in the Vorkosiverse timeline. It picks up shortly after the end of Shards of Honor. Cordelia and Aral are married and living on Barrayar, expecting their first child. Emperor Ezar is dying, and needs Aral to act as Regent for the five year old boy, Gregor, until he reaches his majority. Aral definitely does not want the job, but Ezar points out to him the serious flaws in all of the other candidates for the position, and Aral is forced to do the task.

His appointment, followed shortly by the death of the Emperor, triggers plotting by those who wanted the power for themselves. One of those consequences is the soltoxin grenade attack on Aral's home, which leaves him and Cordelia briefly poisoned, while the antidote to the poison threatens to destroy the skeletal structure of the child in her womb. They take the drastic measure of placing their child in one of the recently acquired uterine replicators (which Aral fortuitously took charge of at the end of Shards), bombarding the baby with massive amounts of bone-enhancing therapies while he is growing.

When one of Aral's colleagues in the council of counts decides he must have the regency for himself, he takes Princess Kareen, Gregor's mother, hostage, claims that Aral has had the boy murdered, and begins to imprison and execute any of Aral's loyalists he can find. Ezar's old head of Security, Captain Negri, escapes the fighting with the boy emperor and in his last dying effort, delivers him to Aral for safekeeping. Aral's father and Cordelia and Sargent Bothari take the boy and escape into the mountains to hide, leading Vordarian's troops on a wild goose chase while they attempt to capture him.

When the man charged with fetus Miles' care shows up suddenly to tell Cordelia and Aral that Vordarian has seized the replicator and that it is being held hostage in the palace, Cordelia defies Aral and heads into the capitol to rescue her son.

This book is filled with ties to tons of the other events in the rest of the Vorkosigan series, and provides a number of in jokes later on for dedicated readers, as well as filling in some of the gaps in characters' backgrounds. Another one of the books that has grown on me with time.

The Emmaus Code by David Limbaugh

This turned out to be one of those books that I actually had to purchase a copy of  for my personal library, so that I can refer to it whenever I feel the need. Despite the title, there's no "code" involved, just a serious and thorough study of the Old Testament which reveals the promise and presence of Christ permeating the text far more than I, after years sitting in the pews, had ever realized.

Limbaugh gives us some good information summarizing the contents and purpose of each of the OT books right up front, covers the locations of a surprising number of recapitulations of the history of God's redemption plan for his people from Deuteronomy through Psalms, then continued in the New Testament, put there for both for the purpose of reminding the Israelites of the things he had done for them already and his plan for their future and for the disciples to demonstrate how that history set the scene for Christ's gospel.



One little tidbit that I hadn't understood before was concerning the origins of the Samaritans (remember the tales of the Good Samaritan, and of the woman Jesus met at the well?). When Assyria conquered Israel in 722 BC, they removed a large portion of the population, and replaced them with forced settlement by other conquered people. When these settlers intermarried with the remnants of Israel, they eventually became the Samaritans.



There is a nice section on all of the biblical covenants (most Christians could probably only identify the Mosaic and New Covenants), from the Edenic to the Adamic, Noahic and Abrahamic, Mosaic, Palestinian and Davidic, culminating in the New Covenant established by Christ. Like the repeated histories, the essence of the covenants is repeated many times throughout scripture, beginning in Genesis and ending in Revelation. He also explains the difference between conditional covenants, where God promises to do certain things in response to Man's behavior, versus the unconditional covenants, where God's actions are not predicated upon Man's actions, but will be fulfilled by God without fail.



Limbaugh also clarifies one little doctrinal issue that I'm sure I've heard preached on before, but simply forgot - the difference between Dispensationalists and non-Dispensationalists. The Dispensationalists believe that the New Covenant promises are still applicable to Israel, while the other side believes that Israel has lost the favor of God.



Many biblical prophecies are a type of progressive revelation, wherein God reveals a bit of his plan at first, gives more information at a later date, and eventually fully reveals what he has in store for Israel and/or Christians.



In Chapter 8, Limbaugh begins to discuss the subject of Titles, Christophanies, Typology, Prophecy and Analogy in the OT. He explains the difference between the pre- and post-Incarnate appearances of Christ, and shows examples of the appearance of the triune godhead in the Old Testament.


All in all, I found this a very enlightening book, and will definitely return to it for reference in the future.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

The first two thirds of this book were somewhat entertaining, though perhaps a bit of a ripoff or maybe a veiled sendup of Harry Potter and Hogwarts, written for the disaffected loner teen genius crowd. The hero, Quentin, arrives at an interview with an Ivy League alumni who can recommend him for his alma mater to find the man dead, and is given a mysterious package with his name on it by one of the paramedics. The package leads him to an entirely different interview and series of tests that end with him being admitted to Brakebills, a college for magicians in upstate New York.

His studies there are somewhat amusing and interesting, with a more R-Rated take on life in a school filled with very very bright teens.

Quentin has been obsessed for most of his life with a series of books about a land called Fillory - a slightly twisted version of the chronicles of Narnia - wherein a family of youngsters experiences adventures in a magical land, until they are too old to return.

The book turns much more serious and sadder when Quentin and his companions are finally given what they've dreamed of, entry into the land of Fillory to free the land from evil powers. The story goes through a number of unexpected twists from that point forward, and Quentin is, we hope, a much wiser magician at the end of it all.

There are sequels. I might pick them up on a slow reading day.

Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Somewhere in my meanderings, I found glowing recommendations for the Broken Empire series by Mark Lawrence, so I put them on my hold list at the library.

Finally picked up the first book in the series, Prince of Thorns, and unfortunately after about fifty pages, I gave up.

The writing is good, but the protagonist, Jorg Ancrath is such a hateful anti-hero that I quite simply could not bring myself to care about him and his horrid band of thieves.

If you love a hero who rapes, murders and pillages the guilty and innocent alike, in response to the way he was treated in the past, you'll love this one.

If not, give it a pass.

Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold

It's hard to believe that I never got round to writing about some of the early books in the Vorkosigan saga, but it appears that Memory came out during the early days of this blog, and I never went full retro, as I did with Cole & Bunch's Sten novels. I recently finished Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, and it led me to re-read Shards of Honor (and continue through to Barrayar) in a moment of temporary new novel drought, as I had copies on my tablet ready to hand.

There are certain stories which I cannot read without sentimental tears coming to my eyes at times, and Bujold has written a fair number of them. A Civil Campaign is the weepiest one for me, but Shards did a pretty good number on me, too, and as I mentioned before, I began grieving for Aral all over again while reading Gentleman Jole. Crazy thing is, Shards used to be my least favorite story in the series. But I began by reading The Warrior's Apprentice when I was in my twenties, and now I'm in Cordelia's demographic. Odd, that.

This is, at the moment, the true beginning of the story. Captain Naismith is in charge of a peaceful survey expedition on an uninhabited planet (later named Sergyar), which is attacked by a small Barrayaran force which has arrived to garrison the planet and prepare a stockpile for their invasion of Escobar (we find this out over the course of the first half of the book). Also caught up in the scuffle is Captain Aral Vorkosigan, a man of strong personal integrity who has run afoul of the secret political police, and who is assaulted by one of his own crew and assumed to be dead, though  it turns out the conspirators really didn't truly understand the motivations of the man they picked to murder him.

Cordelia is left with one crew member dead and another nerve-damaged, when Aral arrives on the scene to make her his prisoner, technically, though the relationship soon develops into something far different. Together they journey for a week or so, facing the dangers of an untamed planet, followed by the dangers of untamed Barrayaran soldiers. Aral retakes command of his ship, but is forced to fight against another round of mutineers, and Cordelia manages to flee to freedom in the confusion.

Intermission.

Cordelia is now the commander of a top secret mission to supply the Escobaran forces with a secret weapon, a force shield which will reflect the Barrayaran (space) navy's weapons straight back at their own ships. The mission is successful, but she and her crew are captured by the Barrayarans and she is taken aboard the flagship as a prisoner - again. The fleet is commanded by Admiral Vorrutyer and Prince Serg, heir to the Imperium. These two are well suited to partner up, as they are both sexual sadists, and Cordelia is dismayed to learn that Vorrutyer has taken a personal interest in her, but she is rescued in a surprising manner, and then encounters Aral again on the same ship.

I don't want to say too much more, cause there's plenty of spoilers, but I think we all know the end of the story, if we've been reading Bujold for a while.

One little note that made me laugh out loud was when Cordelia bamboozles a pilot officer into smuggling her off of Beta Colony, one step ahead of the authorities. The pilot officer's name will be very familiar to anyone who has read The Warrior's Apprentice, and we wonder why the man didn't run screaming the minute he heard the name, Naismith.




Great story. Barrayar to follow.

A Rose-Red Chain by Seanan McGuire

You know, a person can slog along, trying to finish reading books over longer than normal periods of time, and begin to think that it's because they're distracted, too busy, under the weather, or some sort of excuse to justify matters. Then, suddenly, you pick up a book that is quite simply so riveting that you have to force yourself to put it down so you can get a decent night's sleep before work, finding yourself halfway through it in the first hour, and tearing through the rest as soon as it is possible to pick it up again. This latest book in the saga of Toby Daye is one such book. Loved it.

The book opens with Toby, the bridge troll Danny, her squire Quentin and her fiancee, Tybalt battling a large group of supernatural Mauthe dogs that has gotten loose from one of the inner realms of faerie. When Toby realized that the Mauthe were not hostile, but rather terrified of the modern world and decided to rescue them instead of killing them all, I made a mental note of this, thinking that the dogs would end up in the role of calvary to the rescue later on, but it turned out that they were simple a device to introduce us to Madden, one of the "dog" Sidhe, who becomes the first casualty when war is declared on the Kingdom of the Mists by the Kingdom of Silence, where one of the villains of a previous novel has taken sanctuary, and seduced its King into attacking Arden's domain.

In the category of Really Bad Ideas Arden's subsequent decision to send Toby as the chief diplomat to begin negotiations with Silence to try to halt the war really ranks near the top. Toby and her fetch, May, Tybalt and Quentin, and her friend the alchemist, Walther all journey to Portland where Silences is located in the physical world. Why Walther? The Sea Witch tells Toby she should take someone who knows the lay of the land with her, and Walther was born there before a coup by the present ruler, and fled to the human realm, where he has hidden ever since.

As it turns out, Walther is key to the success of the mission. It turns out that he is related to the former royal family in Silences, and that he also is the only person with the skill, combined with some of Toby's special knowledge, to create a potion which can waken the elf-shot true rulers of the land, who have been kept asleep for more than a century now, as conditions in their rightful kingdom grow more and more oppressive.

This plot moves right along, never a boring moment. After nine novels, McGuire's tale is still going strong.

Nocturnal Interlude by Amanda Green

One might begin to think that all of the bad guys in the shapeshifting society are out to get Mac, from the way things are going. She and Jackson return from a trip to Hawaii, where they have lots of fun in and out of the sun, and decide to tie the knot in a small ceremony, and find out that Mac's partner, Pat, has disappeared, apparently kidnapped, by an unknown entity who has abducted shifters and weres in several other cities previously - none ever being seen alive again.

Mac gets recruited, technically her enlistment in the Marines is re-activated, to detached duty for a division of Homeland Security which is aware of the existence of shifters and is committed to making sure that the "torch and pitchfork" scenario never comes to pass when shifters are finally outed to the public, which is only a matter of time, given modern forensics. Her cousin, Matteo, is part of the unit, and her grandmother, Ellen, has been aware of its existence for some time now, though her former colleagues in the Conclave are not.

Another good story in the series. Book # 4 is out already, and I think I'll pick it up next week on Kindle.

Nocturnal Serenade by Amanda Green

Another fair tale in the saga of McKenzie Santos, wherein we learn a bit of her family's history. It turns out that Mac's mother was freaked out by the family's furry moments, and refused to tell Mac about them when she was young, and had forbidden her own mother, Ellen, from telling Mac either. So we know now why Mac was shocked and appalled to find herself changing with the phases of the moon after being attacked by a were.

But when the brother of the villain Mac vanquished in the first books turns up on the scene and makes it his goal to destroy Mac and her family, and Mom is attacked and hospitalized, old issues rear their heads, and Mac and Mom must make up. Grandma Ellen turns out to be quite a handful, and will probably provide her granddaughter with some much needed training in the shifter skills.

Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen

I needed my Vorkosigan fix way too much by the time this book came out. It had been long enough since the last one that I had completely forgotten the death of Aral Vorkosigan, Miles' father, and found myself grieving once again with Cordelia, three years later in book time. Cordelia, herself, and Aral's long time protege, Oliver Jole, now an admiral in his own right, and as we learn fairly early in the story, Aral's lover.

The menage a trois evidently worked quite well when Aral was alive, but Oliver and Cordelia were unable to kindle any fire between the two of them when Aral was gone, so they simply lapsed into being friends, and Jole ended up in charge of the Sergyar fleet, while Cordelia continued to serve as Vicereine of the colony.

These chapters of their lives are drawing to a close, as Oliver approaches his "twice-twenty" years of service to the Emperor in the fleet, and Cordelia considers turning over the reins of power to a younger person as the colony matures. She has also decided to quicken some of the fertilized eggs that she and Aral put in cryogenic storage back before Miles was born, and to raise a number of sisters for the new Count and his wife, Ekaterina's children to play with.

Always even-handed, she also gifts Oliver with some of the embryos, leaving the choice up to him of whether and when to start a family of his own, with the children of the man he loved.

So, this book isn't filled with all of the danger and frying pan to fire goodness that we've come to enjoy from our old friend Miles and his cousin Ivan (who doesn't even put in a cameo here), but at least we get to spend a bit of time with some old friends and to see the man whom Miles has become, now that he's not off derring and do-ing.

Ctrl Alt Revolt by Nick Cole

Very much like Armada, by Ernest Cline, Ctrl Alt Revolt is an example of going one too many times to the well in using computer gaming as the scenario to play out real world events in a novel. Fun once, but after that it grows old quickly. It was my choice when I got a free week of Kindle Unlimited, and I never really did get into it enough to regret not having finished it when the week ran out.

This novel ended up being independently published when the editor at one of the major publishing houses took offense to the AIs (artificial intelligences) in this novel concluding that humans were a murderous species after observing the number of abortions that take place each year, but there were far more attacks on progressive shibboleths throughout the book that probably would have given her apoplexy should she have actually finished reading.

Wonder if Cole simply got tired of all of the lazy writing by liberal authors in their depictions of dystopias caused by global warming and so forth, and just decided to shake the tree and see what fell out.

Personally, I'd recommend that you either pick Soda Pop Soldier or this book to read as an example of Cole's gaming-based works. Two of them is one too many.

Soda Pop Soldier by Nick Cole

This is another one of those books that is a lot of fun for hard core computer gamers to read. Professional gamer Perfect Question falls into the middle of deep plotting by multinational corporations trying to get the monopoly on marketing through battles fought in a Halo-like environment. He is a mid level officer for Cola Corp's online army, and as the novel begins they're getting their tails seriously kicked by a competing army. As his pay for gaming is based on victories, things are starting to get a little tight in the real world, and when his girlfriend (whom we get to know not at all other than a quick description at the beginning of things) runs off with someone in show business who can help her career, he has to join an online fantasy game on the dark net to try to win some money to pay the rent on his apartment.

The mix of live and online game action in this one is tons of fun and a roller coaster ride through a world that reminds me of my first impressions of Neuromancer, back in the day.

Betrayal by Amazon

Shortly after I first began book blogging, I decided it was taking way too long for me to scan an image of the book cover for what I was reviewing at the time, uploading it to blogger, etc. I discovered that if one became an Amazon associate, you could create a link to Amazon where the book was on sale, that included the cover picture, and so I signed up for associate status. Never made any money from people buying books at the link, but at least I had a nice image on every post.


A few months back, I noticed that the images on all my older posts had disappeared. Amazon changed the image URLs, and it was all cut adrift. Now, to make the blog look nice once more, I either have to go out and re-link those images, scan some independent ones, or simply delete all of the images from over a thousand posts.


Thanks Amazon!