Richard:

I usually have two books going at a time. When there’s free light available I’m re-reading something from my dead tree collection. Otherwise I’m reading or re-reading something on my tablet. My last dead tree re-read campaign was Neal Stevenson’s trilogy The Baroque Cycle. Unlike most of Stevenson’s stuff this one comes to not just one but several satisfying conclusions in a series of epilogues. I’ve since then started a re-read of Neal Asher’s trilogy The Rise of  the Jain set in his Polity Universe. Someone here recently said that he took a stab the Polity with Gridlinked, the start of the Agent Cormac series, and couldn’t get into it. Like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series the first two books of Agent Cormac aren’t the best place to start. That series ends fantastically but a better introduction  to the Polity is Dark Intelligence the first of the Transformation trilogy.

On the tablet I’m nearing the end of a re-read of Ben Aaronovitch’s  River of London series which is excellent up until what at this point is the most recent novel Amongst Our Weapons. Aaronovitch is clearly rebooting the universe with a hope for movie productions aimed at “the modern audience” which is too bad because the original cast of characters was already quite diverse. But no. The two male protagonists  are being shunt aside and a whole slew of new women, homosexuals, and transsexuals introduced. The story sucked too.

Queued up next on the tablet is Turtles All The Way Down: Vaccine Science and Myth which someone here recently mentioned and a neighbor  has been urging me to read. It has an astonishing 4.9/5 rating on Amazon.

 

Fourscore:

This month’s book is Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond, same guy that wrote Guns, Germs and Steel. I got this book as a Christmas gift from my son, I had read Guns… several years ago, but I can’t remember much of it, it’s been a while.

Diamond compares four collapsed historical societies with Montana in 2005. How societies transition from a success to a spiral down and finally failure. It was released in 2005 but if we look hard enough we can find similarities in today’s world.

According to the author there are five points that every society shares. I’m only a little ways into the book (500 pages of small print) but in my opinion he seems to play down the role that the government shares in the grand scheme of things.

Very interesting, a little too heavy for a fun read for some of us, though. Still, it’s challenging.

 

The Hyperbole:

Ian Rankin The Black Book (1993) ***Inspector Rebus book 5. Brian Holmes (Rebus’s underling) uncovers evidence of a long gone cold murder/arson case but when he is bashed in the head and hospitalized Rebus takes over.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan of the Apes (1912) and The Return of Tarzan (1913) **** It’s Tarzan, ’nuff said.

Ian Rankin Mortal Causes (2011) *** Rebus Book 6. A victim is given a ‘belfast sixpack’ before being murdered, is it terrorist or drugs? As much as I have enjoyed this series so far Ian is going to have to step up his game or I can see myself losing interest fast. Good writing can only carry a series so far and then it gets redundant, Looking at you Hap and Leonard, and Jack Taylor.

James Carlos Blake The Pistoleer: A Novel of John Wesley Hardin (1995) ***** The Life of John Wesley Hardin, one of the wild wild wests’ most feared killers, as told through the eyes of many people whose paths he crossed, One of the best books I’ve read in a very long while. Each chapter is told by a different narrator- Family, friends, whores, lawmen, and outlaws. Will definitely be reading more from JCB.