Now Reading

I'm not actually reading all of these right now, I've mostly finished them and have just been remiss in blogging.

The Gripping Hand by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, summarized at the linked Wiki article. This is the sequel to the classic "first contact with an alien race" novel The Mote in God's Eye. This one was enjoyable, and had an interesting space battle; however, it's more about diplomacy and conniving, with less sense of wonder than Mote.

We Few, by John Ringo and David Weber. The cover lists Weber first but I'd bet Ringo did most of it, aside from some of the space battle scenes which bear Weber's usual "millions of missiles" imprint. This is the fourth book in the series that starts with March Upcountry, and you really have to have read the first three to know what's going on--which I have, but not lately. One key point which I'd forgotten is that Prince Roger is not just unreasonably strong and fast because of Authorial Favor; he's actually bioengineered and there's a good reason for it. If you've read the first three, you'll want to read this one.

Moon Called by Patricia Briggs is the story of a skinwalker (and auto mechanic) who's trying to deal with the werewolf and vampire subcultures in Washington State. There were a couple of times when I felt the author gave a character a special power in the midst of things--"it turns out that, in addition to being a shape shifter, you're immune to some forms of magic"--but overall it was enjoyable.

Second to None by Alexander Kent. This is number 24 in the Bolitho series, and is more of a "Now not reading" book. Some of the earlier ones were good--not as good as the Hornblower series, but enjoyable. In this one, however, there's no action for the first couple of chapters; instead, you have pretty much all the major characters from the first 23 books, reminiscing about what happened in previous books. "Alice saw Bob, and remembered how Bob's mistress Charlotte had looked when they had rescued her. But then Charlotte had gotten pregnant by Bob's uncle Daniel, and jumped off a cliff when the baby died. Alice remembered how lovely and sad Elizabeth, Daniel's sister, had looked when they brought in the ...." and so on and on and on. I felt like saying "Okay, okay, everyone knows everyone. Now someone shoot something!"