Excerpts from longer works, such as novels.
So this week I’m reading Ramage, by Dudley Pope. No, “Ramage” is not Scooby-Doo trying to say “Damage”; it’s the first book in a 1960s-era naval series along the lines of the “Horatio Hornblower” novels — at least, I assume it’s along those lines, since I never read the “Hornblower” books or saw the television series. But look! Boats!
This week I’m still reading The Yellowstone Conundrum, by John D. Randall, which some 400-odd pages in has begun to morph from a natural disaster epic into an urban warfare epic: Another Battle of Seattle, if you will, only this time between marauding street gangs and various pockets of Our Heroes trapped in the city by the one-two punch of a 9.5 earthquake (which, in this book, is vastly the punier of the two big quakes) and subsequent tsunami (not puny at all). In fact, one group of characters even gives a shout-out to “Escape from New York” by assigning themselves characters from the film. Oh, and for those who were worried — spoiler alert! — the dog is still with us. (In case you were wondering, he’s designated as the Ernest Borgnine character in “EfNY”, Cabbie.)
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 3/8/2016: “The Yellowstone Conundrum” Is Still Conundruming”
So this week I’m reading The Yellowstone Conundrum, by John D. Randall, in which Old Faithful really blows its top. Hilarity ensues. No, wait, not hilarity. What’s that other thing? Oh right. Disaster.
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 3/1/2016: “The Yellowstone Conundrum””
So this week I’m reading Wolves of the Northern Rift, by Jon Messenger.
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 2/23/2016: “Wolves of the Northern Rift””
So last week I was reading a book called That Frequent Visitor, by K. Hari Kumar.
Continue reading “Teaser (Sort Of) Tuesday 2/16/2016: “That Frequent Visitor””
So this week, in addition to Boneshaker, I’m reading Eight Three Men Out, by Rex Stout, a trio of Nero Wolfe novellas, in which Wolfe does not travel to Montenegro. Ah, things are back to normal …
So this week I’m reading Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest, in which the release of rogue technology destroys much of Seattle and unleashes a toxic gas, known as the Blight, that kills most things it touches, and reanimates some of those things as the living dead. In other words, it’s just like the launch of Windows ME.
Last week I had a sad and didn’t do a post, but this week I’m back with a teaser from my current read, The Lady Astronomer, by Katy O’Dowd.
So far I would characterize this book as steampunk, but it’s steampunk that’s sort of been filtered through a Hayao Miyazaki “Kiki’s Delivery Service” meets “Howl’s Moving Castle” kind of sensibility. It’s cute, but don’t go in expecting something like The Difference Engine.
Lucretia was pulling some monster-like weeds that held a death grip on a pretty climbing rose when Mr. Trotters came belching and bellowing steam in her direction.
She sat back on her heels and regarded the steam-pig.
The steam-pig regarded her back.
“Lost your pipe again, Mr. Trotters?”
The steam-pig burped smoke and she sighed. “Come along then, we had better find it before you blow up.”
Mr. Trotters is, literally, a steam-powered mechanical pig. There’s also a miniature clockwork animal orchestra, a lemur (pictured on the cover), an owl (also pictured on the cover). It’s a veritable menagerie of natural and artificial creatures! And speaking of menageries, our old friend Bob seems to have encountered one, over in the world of Television Man …
Once Bob fired the shotgun, it was pretty much pandemonium. A half-dozen of the little monsters went down, but the rest of them rushed him in a mass. He blasted them again, sending black blood and umber fragments flying in every direction, but the next time he pulled the trigger it just clicked. Empty. He hadn’t even thought to look and see how many shells the gun could hold, let alone how many it contained.
Oops. Always remember to check your ammo, Bob.
So this week I’m reading Hard Bite, by one “Anonymous-9”, who as far as I know is not one of these guys:
So this week I’m reading Queen of the Tearling, by Erika Johanson, because the Calibre Random Book Picker told me to, and I already paid a buck ninety-nine for it a while ago, and Mango Momma advised me too late that I should read the reviews, which to be fair are mostly favorable, except when they’re scathing. (Seriously, read the scathing review — it’s one of the funniest I’ve seen since Meg took down Legon Awakening, a book I didn’t even manage to finish. Go ahead, I’ll wait.)
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 11/10/15: “Queen of the Tearling””
Viscosity 