Zoom ...

Hands are better, playing more guitar, but I still seem to be reading more. Watching almost 0 TV, 1-2 movies/month. I'll prolly start watching some college basketball soonish. Reading-wise, a lot more novella length stuff (plus 1 very short story).

1. "Firewalkers", by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2020, 165 pages, 45k words. Book 2 of the Terrible Worlds: Revolutions series. Book 1 was blogged here. In a globally warmed world, venturing outside of the air conditioning is a perilous occupation. But, for those with nothing to lose, eh, it's a job. A quick and targetted read.

2. "Flint and Mirror", by John Crowley, 2022, 292 pages, 90k words. There have been so many works of Crowley's that were things that gave me hope. Here's the query of my blog for his stuff. This novel makes you turn the pages, but, overall, I didn't find the content that interesting. And, what should have been the defining turning point of the book, faery rides in support of the Irish vs the English, is a total shit sandwich. :-( Characters, etc., are of course well done. Set mostly in Ireland, towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth I of England.

3. "Precious Little Things", by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2021, 26 pages, 7k words. Wow, a very short story, apparently the prequel to a novella level piece. A really nice concept, that a moment frozen in time with a wizard casting a spell provides the magical energy for many generations of puppets to animate their puppet children. The Zombie Apocalypse via Pinocchio. :-0

4. "Dogs of War", by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2017, 264 pages, 82k words. Book 1 of "Dogs of War". Just purchased book #2 in the series "Bear Head", starring Honey, FTW! Anytime I meet a dog, I immediately ask "What is his/her name?". And then it's "Good boy, Gambino!". "What a good dog, Gambino!". "Good dog!", "Good boy!".

   So now we have the cyborg dog Rex with lots of human DNA, 7' tall at the shoulder, with laser-targetted cannons mounted on his shoulders. And Rex REALLY REALLY wants to be a good boy! Plus his teammates Honey, the uplifted bear/philosopher; Bees, the honeybee group mind; and Dragon, the 12' long iguana/gecko/who knows, who likes to climb buildings to get a nice sniper vantage point for his back-mounted sniper rifle. Plus the sadist who conditioned them all to kill whomever he says, in exchange for a "good boy". Very compelling, very well-paced.

5. "Starling House", by Alix E. Harrow, 2023, 367 pages, 114k words. Harrow has written some really great, compelling stuff lately. Here is the query for Harrow in my blog. I am so sad that Harrow is no longer my neighbor, 30 miles to the SE in Madison County, KY - I read where Harrow was relocating the family to Virginia. :-(

   Well, before they left, they left a gift to their old KY neighbors. This book is set in Muhlenberg County, just like in the John Prine song "Paradise", but in a town called "Eden". The magical Starling estate has some very nice coal seams below it, so, civilization ho! Time to revisit verse 3 of "Paradise".

   Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
   And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
   Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
   Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man

   My friend, excellent singer/guitarist Marty Nelson, was playing this song, I got up to sing harmony on the choruses. But, verse 3 came along, I was screaming these lyrics as loud as I could, and crying.

   So, point is, my KY sensibilities were inflamed by this book. It is a great story, not a haunted house, but, maybe, a possessed house, with a purpose.

   I just today was talking with a bridge engineer who had designed a bridge to carry the 250,000# dump trucks carrying coal ash to whatever location they have decided to environmently destroy. He said he always liked to go look at the bridges he designed, but, not that one :-(

   My wife was active in Sierra Club for many years. Maybe ~10 years ago, we went to a site in far western Louisville/Jefferson County, KY. On the east bank of the Ohio River, LG&E had mountains of coal ash: 10 stories tall x 1/4-1/2 mile. The extent of these coal ash mountains was completely jaw-dropping.

   There was a residential community nearby. Their kids would go outside to play, and come back inside covered in coal ash. They complained. LG&E hired "scientists" to come study the problem. "What problem? That coal ash on your children is totally harmless! No problem!". Yeah, fucking right. Driven To Tears.

6. "The Dispatcher: Murder by Other Means", by John Scalzi, 2021, 137 pages, 37k words. The Scalzi novella "The Dispatcher" came out in 2017, blogged here. How was I not notified of these 2 follow-up novellas being published? Kobo is normally pretty good about this, as opposed to Apple & Amazon, who salivate for me to subscribe to their streaming music and all-you-can-eat ebook services. WHICH I WILL NEVER, EVER DO, ASSHOLES.

   Anyway, the premise of these novellas is totally odd and off-the-wall, but, it makes for an interesting universe in which to have murder mysteries. A quick and fun read. The King of Snark almost never disappoints (I didn't like "Red Shirts" much - so of course, it won the Hugo Award).

7. "The Dispatcher: Travel by Bullet", by John Scalzi, 2023, 133 pages, 41k words. Well, I liked #2 in the series, and it was short, so I decided to plow on through to #3. More of the same, a well-paced, enjoyable read. The protagonist has just a little bit too kind of a heart. Good for him.

8. "After Many A Summer", by Tim Powers, 2023, 62 pages, 19k words. What an odd book, but it totally felt like vintage Tim Powers. Short and punchy, and then ... it just ends! Better than the last of his I read.

9. "The Power", by Naomi Alderman, 2017, 343 pages, 106k words. Not sure where I got this from, but, OMG, must read! (Mostly) Women develop the abiity to deliver up to and including lethal electrical shocks from their hands. Mmm, does the balance of power between males/females shift, maybe? We'll find out 5,000 years in the future, when this mess sorts itself out?

   I recommended to my wife, who started watching the Netflix series version. Not sure if she is going to continue. But I told her, as bad as some episodes of "Breaking Bad" were, there will probably be episodes of this show much worse. OMG, I get it, but, well, damn, I'm lying curled up on the floor, kick me in the head, back, wherever a few more times, for good measure.

Okay, removed these 9 books from the Unread collection in the Kobo eBook app on my iPad, Unread collection is down to ... 147 books. Well, I got that going for me. It's always good to have things going for you.