Book review: Honor's Knight by Rachel Bach

Honor's Knight is the second book in the Paradox series by Rachel Bach; the first was Fortune's Pawn (link goes to my review).

Honor's Knight continues the adventures of mercenary extraordinaire Deviana Morris. It has its good points and it has a few problems.  It's at its best when it is a straight up adventure SF novel. Bach is good at writing battle scenes and spices it up with an occasional romantic scene and that's fun. But there are two sorts of problems.  The first is that, in this book much more than the first, Bach adds moral issues. They don't fit well with the rest of the book and they are not Bach's strength.  The second is that there is too much "hand waving" - that is, things we have to believe without any reason and that seem contrary to the way the universe works

(Minor spoilers follow).

The first two are common to many SF novels: We have to believe that faster than light travel is possible and we have to believe that we will meet aliens who are close enough to us that we can have wars that are not utterly one sided.  Fine. I'll give her those. You can't really have this sort of book without those assumptions.

But then we are asked to believe that there is something called Plasmex that is part of all living things, including us and aliens from different planets. This seems fundamentally wrong.  Then we are asked to believe that there are entities that have almost no physical reality but that can easily destroy planets.  Then we are asked to believe that one way of stopping them involves the torture of children. And, finally, that our hero has some capacity to stop these entities.

If you can ignore all these hand waves and just enjoy the fighting, it's a good book.  But it's a lot to ignore.

Book review: Fortune's Pawn by Rachel Bach

Fortune's Pawn is the first in the Paradox series by Rachel Bach  (Paradox is the name of a planet).  This is good military science fiction with an interesting female protagonist.  It's set in the distant future, there are four known intelligent species in the universe, humans are divided into two big groups (Terrans and Paradoxians).

While this isn't great literature, Bach does a few things well.  For one thing, the plot zips right along. That's important in this sort of novel.  Another is that she makes future technology believable and makes the battle scenes realistic. Finally, the characters are fairly interesting. The main one is Deviana Moris, a mercenary who gets hired aboard a spaceship that is full of unusual people. Part of the fun here is finding out about those other people.

I'll be reading the rest of the series.

What are you reading? July 7, 2018

• Started this week
• Fortune's Pawn by Rachel Bach.  Military-adventure SF with a female protagonist.  Fun stuff. I am on p. 205.
• In progress this week
• Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics by Dan Harris. I am on p. 37.
• The Machiavellian Moment by J. G. A. Pocock. I am on p. 31. Multidisciplinary social science/history.   
• This Idea is Brilliant edited by John Brockman.  Short essays on a wide range of ideas by experts. I am on p. 165.
• A New History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny. This is a very good history of the subject, well written and clear.  Kenny follows an unusual strategy in that he takes two approaches: He first covers each era in a more-or-less chronological order, then he looks at the big topics of that era in a systematic way.  I am on p. 643, in the Enlightenment.
• The Drawing of Trump and its Postponement by Fred L. Karpin.  I am on p. 53. A classic on the play of the hand in bridge.   
• Bridge Squeezes Complete by Clyde Love. An advanced topic in bridge, so I am taking it slowly. I am on p. 25.
• On hold this week (books started but put aside, without prejudice)
•  Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker. Why the Enlightenment is still important, why life is still good.  I am on p. 55. 
• Death in Brittany by Jörg Bong.  A mystery. I am on p. 25. 
• Finished this week
• There Was and There Was Not: A Journey through Hate and Possibility in Turkey, Armenia and beyond by Meline Toumani. About Turkish views of the Armenian genocide (which the Turks say was not a genocide).  My review

Book review: There Was and There Was Not by Meline Toumani

Meline Toumani is an American of Armenian extraction who was born in Iran. All her life, whenever she is with other Armenians, there is conversation about the genocide of the Armenians by the Turks in 1918. She decides to visit Turkey to help herself puzzle out the implications of this and of the Turkish refusal to admit or even acknowledge the genocide. The result is a remarkable memoir: There Was and There Was Not: A Journey through Hate and Possibility in Turkey, Armenia and Beyond.

During her stay in Turkey, she comes to like the city of Istanbul and to make Turkish friends, but her Armenian heritage is always lurking in the background, both in her mind and her attitudes towards the Turks and in their attitude towards her.  The Turkish attitude toward the genocide is absolutely uncompromising: It is a crime to discuss it in Turkey. But the Armenian attitude, at least as described by Toumani, is also uncompromising.  The genocide - and getting it recognized as a genocide - informs a huge portion of what it means to be Armenian.

In addition to being very thoughtful and brave, this book is very well written and a pleasure to read. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the topics it touches on.

What are you reading? June 30, 2018

• Started this week
• There Was and There Was Not: A Journey through Hate and Possibility in Turkey, Armenia and beyond by Meline Toumani. About Turkish views of the Armenian genocide (which the Turks say was not a genocide).  Really well done. I am on p. 172.
• Bridge Squeezes Complete by Clyde Love. An advanced topic in bridge, so I am taking it slowly. I am on p. 25.
• Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith. The first Arkady Renko mystery. I am on p. 133.
• In progress this week
• Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics by Dan Harris. I am on p. 24.
• The Machiavellian Moment by J. G. A. Pocock. I am on p. 31. Multidisciplinary social science/history.   
• This Idea is Brilliant edited by John Brockman.  Short essays on a wide range of ideas by experts. I am on p. 165.
• A New History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny. This is a very good history of the subject, well written and clear.  Kenny follows an unusual strategy in that he takes two approaches: He first covers each era in a more-or-less chronological order, then he looks at the big topics of that era in a systematic way.  I am on p. 641, in the Enlightenment.
• The Drawing of Trump and its Postponement by Fred L. Karpin.  I am on p. 53. A classic on the play of the hand in bridge.  
• On hold this week (books started but put aside, without prejudice)
•  Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker. Why the Enlightenment is still important, why life is still good.  I am on p. 55. 
• Death in Brittany by Jörg Bong.  A mystery. I am on p. 25. 
• Finished this week
• Close Your Eyes by Iris Johansen and Roy Johansen. A mystery/suspense novel with an interesting protagonist.  My review.
• Sight Unseen   by Iris Johansen and Roy Johansen. The second book in the above series. My review.

Book review: Sight Unseen by Iris Johansen and Bill Johansen

Sight Unseeen is a Kendra Michaels book. Kendra, introduced in Close Your Eyes was born blind but had her sight restored at age 20. She's incredibly smart and incredibly observant and uses those skills both as a music therapist and as a consultant to law enforcement.

In Sight Unseen, she first interrupts a date to go to the scene of an apparent accident and tell the police it was a murder. But that gets her wrapped up in finding a serial killer - and this is one of the nastiest I've read about.

If you can put aside a little bit of disbelief about the basic idea of the series, then this is a real page-turner for people who like this sort of psychological nasty suspense novel (it might appeal to Silence of the Lamb fans).

Book review: Close Your Eyes by Iris Johansen and Bill Johansen

Close Your Eyes is a mystery and the start of a series featuring an interesting and unusual protagonist. Kendra Michaels was born blind and got her sight restored at age 20. She's also incredibly observant and inquisitive and uses those skills both as a music therapist for troubled kids and as a detective.

In this novel, she's helping find a serial killer. Then things get even nastier.

 The first quality a suspense novel like this should have is to keep you turning the pages and Close Your Eyes does this very well. It's also well-written and the characters are reasonably well-developed (especially compared to some other suspense novels).  But there are some problems.  The biggest one is that it isn't entirely clear that a person who was born blind could learn to see at age 20. The research isn't too encouraging and this isn't even discussed.  But there are some more minor ones (e.g. who wears a leather jacket when it's 110 degrees?).

Still, I enjoyed it and will probably read more in the series.