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.

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.

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: The Empty Quarter by David Robbins

The heroes of this book are the members of the Special Ops US Air Force pararescue jumpers, known as PJs. In The Empty Quarter, the second book in a series about them, they are working to rescue a Saudi princess in Yemen and in the Empty Quarter region of Saudi Arabia. But there are all sorts of competing factions. The princess' husband is in conflict with her father; there are various groups of bandits who show up; there are terrorists and brigands.

I thought the best part of this was the portrayal of how the PJs work and what they do. I hadn't even heard of them before this, but they are apparently the elite of the elite (e.g. their members are all former Rangers or Seals or similar) and they devote their expertise to rescuing people, including American troops of various kinds.

It was also interesting to read more about the conflicts in this part of the world.

Book review: Significant figures by Ian Stewart

Significant Figures: The Lives and Works of Great Mathematicians does what it attempts to do about as well as it could. Whether that is "good enough" depends on what you want.

Stewart's goal here was to briefly cover what the subtitle says about a range of mathematicians from various eras. He does not include anyone who is still alive and does not claim to cover the greatest mathematicians - this precludes a lot of arguments about who is included and not. He ranges from Archimedes to William Thurston. 

In each short chapter, Stewart summarizes what is known about the life of the person and tries to give a sense of the contribution that he or she made to mathematics.  The problem, especially in some of the later chapters, is that understanding the contributions requires a lot of background math. Stewart is writing for a lay audience - people who may have taken some math in college, but not professional mathematicians  He has a lot of experience doing this and he is reasonably successful, but if you are expecting a lot of deep mathematical results, you may be disappointed.

Book review: The Last Queen of England by Steve Robinson

Queen Anne (b. 1665, d. 1714) was the "Last Queen of England" because the act of union occurred in her reign.  She was pregnant many times, but none of her children survived.  Or did they?

Genealogist Jefferson Tayte is at a conference in England when his friend and colleague dies in his arms. Tayte and Prof. Jean Summer take on the job that his colleague was working on, which involves the long-ago execution of five members of the Royal Society and a possible heir to the throne via Anne's line of descent.

Soon, though, it also involves murder in the present day, motivated by both politics and greed.

This is the third book in the Jefferson Tayte series,  but I don't think you need to read the others first.

Book Review: Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper

• How do dictionaries get written?
• What is it like to be a lexicographer at a major dictionary?
• What word took Kory Stamper the longest to define?
• What word brought her death threats?
• Should dictionaries be descriptive or prescriptive?
• Why don't dictionaries use the international phonetic alphabet?

If these sort of questions interest you, then Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries is your sort of book. Kory Stamper writes well, with humor mixed in with the description of working at a dictionary. I found it fascinating.

Book review: Mercy by Victor Methos

Mercy is the second book in the Neon Lawyer series by Victor Methos.  Methos knows how to keep the pages turning and writes with a nice, unobtrusive style, but, in Mercy I think he throws in one plot twist too many, with a resolution that isn't completely worked out. 

In Mercy Brigham Theodore is hired to represent a man who is accused of murdering his wife; one twist is that it's a "mercy killing" - his wife was in horrible pain and about to die from pancreatic cancer. This raises some very interesting and tricky ethical questions but the mystery/trial format of this novel isn't that well suited to dealing with them.  And Theodore himself is conflicted about the case.  Then Methos adds the sort of plot twists that are typical of a trial novel; he does a good job of this, but that detracts from the other aspects.

In short, I think there's a conflict about what this novel is about:

• A trial novel about who did what and whether they will be found guilty
• A novel about the ethics of killing someone who is dying and the ramifications of such killing

Still, it kept me turning the pages and I will be reading more novels in this series. 

What I read in April

Here is a list of books I finished in April.  Links go to my reviews.

• Dark Lanterns by Aaron Solomon.  Historical fiction set in Richelieu's France.
• The Cutting Edge by Jeffery Deaver. The latest in the Lincoln Rhyme series.
• Command Decision by Elizabeth Moon. Fourth book in the Ky Vatta series of military SF.
• Expert Hand Evaluation by Augie Boehm. About the game bridge.

Book review: The Neon Lawyer by Victor Methos

The Neon Lawyer by Victor Methos is a fun, short read. The protagonist, Brigham Theodore, has just graduated from law school in Salt Lake City.  He worked his way through law school as a janitor. He has no success finding work in anything like a traditional law firm, but he gets hired by Tommy Two Balls, who runs a somewhat unscrupulous firm.  His second case is a murder trial that forms the basis of most of the book.

His client shot a man five times, killing him, in clear view of a bunch of people, including several police officers. The only issue is why she did it and her state of mind at the time: The person she killed had kidnapped and tortured her young daughter to death.

I'm not sure how realistic this all is, but the book is a lot of fun and keeps the pages turning.

Book review: The Cutting Edge by Jeffery Deaver

The Cutting Edge is the latest novel in the Lincoln Rhyme series, which is one of my favorite series.  For those who don't know, Lincoln Rhyme is a criminalist who is also a quadriplegic. He's one of the best in the world at analyzing crime scenes but, since he became disabled, he relies on others to be do the physical examination of the scenes.  This novel can be read without reading any of the earlier ones (although I think reading the series in at least rough order would be more enjoyable).

As in all of the books in the series, Rhyme is called in to help on a serial murder case. Relatively early on, we learn that the villain, who is crazy, is killing engaged couples because of their diamond rings - he thinks making diamonds is horrible.

Also as in all the books, there are twists and twists until the final page. Deaver is a master of fitting together all the pieces of his plots so that they make sense. However, I think he takes it one step too far in this book, so it's not my favorite of the series.  But it's still very good and will keep you turning the pages.

NOTE: There are scenes of extreme violence in this book. If that turns you off, you shouldn't read it.

Book review: Command Decision by Elizabeth Moon

Command Decision is the fourth book in the Vatta's War series.  Kylara Vatta continues her long term strategy of rebuilding the Vatta business and hunting down her and their enemies.  In this one, she allies with people including Ransome's Rangers - led by the irrepressible and rich Teddy Ransome - and makes use of new technology devised by her genius relative Toby.  Meanwhile, her friend Rafe takes over from his father as head of ISC.

Like the earlier books in the series, this is good fun and well-done with no need for any big points about anything.

Book Review: Expert Hand Evaluation by Augie Boehm

Expert Hand Evaluation is a good short (141 pages) book on evaluating the worth of your hand in contract bridge. Beginners learn to count high card points (ace = 4, king = 3, queen = 2, jack = 1) and may learn about adding points for length or shortness of suits. But how does the value of your hand change as the auction progresses?

Expert Hand Evaluation is composed of 29 short chapters. There's some repetition across chapters and it reads a bit like a collection of columns.  That's fine and doesn't detract from the book's usefulness, but the book would have been even better with some more general principles propounded.

Recommended for a wide range of intermediate players who want to bid better. 

August (Augie) Boehm is a bridge player and teacher in New York City. He has decades of experience and has written numerous bridge columns and books. 

Book review: Engaging the Enemy by Elizabeth Moon

Engaging the Enemy (link to purchase) is the third volume in the Vatta's war series. The first two were Trading in Danger and  Marque and Reprisal  (links go to my reviews).

Ky Vatta continues to be utterly amazing while irritating all sorts of people. In this one, she gets into fights with bureaucrats and with her family.  Also, many Vatta family secrets are revealed and the start of a force to fight pirates is recounted.  All this is good fun and Moon writes well and keeps the pages turning. 

There's some interesting cultural differences across planets, including one where sexism has not died out and much depends on "honor", defined in ways that most 21st century Americans would find a bit odd.

Book review: Marque and Reprisal by Elizabeth Moon

Book: Marque and Reprisal
Author: Elizabeth Moon
Year published: 2005


Review: This is the second book in the Vatta's War series (the first is Trading in Danger (link goes to my review). At the start of Marques and Reprisal most of Ky Vatta's family has been killed. Most of their fleet is destroyed. It seems most of the universe is out to get her and them.  That might stop an ordinary human, but it isn't going to stop Ky Vatta!  Or it might make an ordinary person consider another line of work.  Not Ky Vatta!

She sets out to rebuild Vatta and punish her enemies.  She'll use whatever it takes (including her own body as a weapon).

This is all kind of silly, but it's a very good silly.  Moon is a very good writer and this book is a lot of fun and has lots of action. Moon manages to make all sorts of new technology seem believable in battle (that's not easy) and keeps the pages turning.

Book review: Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon

Book: Trading in Danger
Author: Elizabeth Moon
Year published: 2004

Review: Good, fun military/adventure SF.  Kylara Vatta is the daughter of the chief financial officer of a large corporation. She's just been dismissed from the military academy and is assigned to pilot an old spaceship to the scrapyard on a distant planet.  But things don't go as planned and lots of adventure ensues, which I won't spoil for you.

This is old-fashioned stuff, but it's good old-fashioned stuff. It's well-written and the plot keeps the pages turning. I stayed up late to finish. But, unlike the author's Speed of Dark, this book has nothing really profound in it that I could see. That's OK, and this sort of book is fine with me, it's just a little unexpected since I just finished Speed of Dark a few days ago.

I'll be reading the rest of the Vatta's War series, of which Trading in Danger is the first.

Book review: Dodger by Terry Pratchett

Book: Dodger
Author: Terry Pratchett
Year published: 2012

Dodger is quite a departure from Pratchett's beloved Discworld series, but it is a very good book.

The title derives from the Artful Dodger of Dickens' Oliver Twis. This Dodger does share some characteristics of that one: Both live in London in early Victorian times. Both live with elderly Jews. Both are somewhat shady characters not averse to a little petty theivery, yet with a good heart underneath it all. But there are many differences as well:

• The person this Dodger lives with is a watchmaker and does not run a criminal operation; in fact, he disapproves of Dodger's thievery.
• In this book, Dodger and Solomon (not Fagin) live alone
• In this book, Dodger's main source of income is not picking pockets but "toshing" - that is, digging through London's sewers looking for coins or other items of value.
• In this book, Dodger rescues not Oliver Twist, but a beautiful young woman who is being beaten.
• In this book, Charles Dickens is a character, not the author

At the start of Dodger, our hero sees a woman being beaten. He jumps into the fray, chases off the bullis, and thinks that is the end of it. But it isn't. Because this young woman is very special indeed. Thus, the adventure begins. The tale is fast-moving and well-plotted; anyone who has read books by Terry Pratchett will know that the man is a great storyteller. Along the way, there are major appearances by Charles Dickens (as a young author and journalist, not yet famous); Henry Mayhew (who chronicled the life of London's poor) and Robert Peel (founder of the "peelers" - a new London police force). There is also a brief appearance by Queen Victoria (she is amused).

About the author:  Terry Pratchett was most famous as the author of the Discworld series. His books have sold tens of millions of copies and been translated into many languages. He lived in London.

Book review: The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon

The Speed of Dark is a science fiction novel first published in 2002.  It is astonishingly good. The main reason it is so good is the voice of the protagonist. 

In the novel, therapies for autism that treat it in early childhood have been found. However, the protagonist, Tom, is too old for them.  He is definitely autistic and he also has a great many abilities. In particular, he has an extreme ability to see patterns. This serves him well in his job (which is never specified too exactly, but involves some sort of high level pattern matching) and in his hobby of fencing, where he picks up on the patterns of his opponents.

Tom lives an ordinary life in extraordinary ways. He has a job, he has attractions to a woman and worries if she reciprocates, he has a hobby, he has friends - some of them autistic and some not. At his job, he has a sympathetic boss but that boss's boss is very unsympathetic boss.

Moon, who has an autistic son, manages to show all this through Tom's eyes while using that to make us see Tom very vividly.  She also puts in some plot twists which I will not detail in order to avoid spoiling the novel for you.

Book review: Distraction by Bruce Sterling

It's 2045. The United States is on the ropes. The government is completely dysfunctional, the armed forces are committing robbery to support themselves, there is a new cold war between Holland and the United States, and there are 16 political parties with seats in Congress. Louisiana is under the control of "Green Huey", a populist with a personality cult. Things are looking pretty grim.

Enter Oscar Valaparaiso, political spin doctor extraordinaire, and chief strategist for Alcott Bambakias, billionaire architect and candidate for senate from Massachusetts. Valapariso has a "personal background problem" (he's not exactly human) but he doesn't let that stop him.

Soon, Valaparaiso is off to Louisiana, where he falls in love with a genius neurologist named Greta Penninger. Together, they need to derail Huey, channel the neural revolution into more benign paths, rescue American science, restore the country and stop a war. And they are up to it.

Distraction by Bruce Sterling is a brilliant book. Distraction portrays a dystopian near future that nevertheless has room for hope. The extrapolation of the current political and scientific milieus is fascinating, and Sterling is up on his science. The ideas just keep coming; one example is smart building material, where each brick and pipe is programmed to tell the builder where it should go. Another is the existence of gangs of people who have dropped out of society completely. Another is neural modification that allows people to think of multiple things at once.

Distraction reminds me, in some ways, of The Grapes of Wrath another novel set in a dystopian America (although one that didn't need to be imagined), but Sterling's style is nothing like Steinbeck's. And "Green Huey" is obviously reminiscent of Huey Long, who also governed Louisiana during bleak economic times. Strengthening that analogy, the president in <i>Distraction</i> (an American Indian known as Two Feathers) unites the country, engages in a war, and has revolutionary ideas.

In short, if you like well-written science fiction that throws ideas at you at lightning speed, Distraction is for you.