Yesterday I finished the second Change novel, The Protector's War, by S.M. Stirling. I'm now reading Star Trek: Voyager: Protectors by Kirsten Beyer.
Finished reading the "A Time To..." Duology A Time to Kill and A Time to Heal. I really enjoyed these two books. Having read pretty much all the post-nemesis novels, I've read a lot of references to the events on Tezwa, so it was good to read the events themselves.
^ Nice, she lives really close to where I'm from, and I got to meet her informally by accident a few months ago when i was home visiting family and friends. Very nice lady with a great imagination. I'm about to finish Metamorphosis by Jean Lorrah. I thought it was a pretty decent episodic novel that dealt interestingly with some theological/faith issues, and although there's not a ton of action, it's a good character book for Data. That said, I wouldn't like to see this story on screen, I think it's best kept enjoyed in one's imagination. The writing mechanics were average, the story construction was average, but the result of the 'literary building' built by this writer was great. Meaning I thought the story was based on a pretty creative concept, and I enjoyed it. As far as episodic novels go, I give it an 7/10. Looking for something new in the morning, I kinda just want something action-heavy, where the Federation just gets in a fight with the Romulans or someone, and dialogue is mostly one-liners. Between this and Warped, I had to think a little more than I intended to when I picked them up.
Just finished "The Shocks of Adversity" and am about 40 pages in to "No Time Like the Past." Interesting crossover.
I read through the first short story and enjoyed it well enough. But the second one really felt disjointed and unpolished for no discernible plot reason. Putting that one on the back burner for the time being. Admittedly, I've been warned away from MZB so I don't know a lot about her work. Picked up The Martian ebook this weekend, hoping to get to that next. About 150 pages into Indistinguishable from Magic and enjoying it quite a bit. McIntee does get Geordi's voice and it's nice to see. Some of the other characters do feel a little off. Picard and Scotty both feel very young and their dialogue doesn't quite fit. There are also a few editorial errors that are distracting. (In the span of a page, the name of the commander of the Starbase changes.) Still, I'm curious about it. And I liked learning more about Rasmussen.
Still waiting on my copy of Vanguard: Declassified so finished the main arc today. David Mack - you are an evil bastard, but I'll still be reading Seekers. Talk about offing a load of characters I really liked! What's most impressive about those is they didn't feel cruel or capricious, there was a matter of fact style that made them far more effective. Had Vanguard been marketed as this Big-Epic-Where-No-One-Is-Safe, I'd have been considerably more cynical about it - even though, in a lot of ways, it is a ball-to-the-wall all-bets-are-off insane epic! Yeah, had quite a time this afternoon and the books make a very nice set on the shelf!
Belle Terre New Earth book 2 by Carey and D.W. Smith. I'm into this series. Going to be interesting from what I can tell.
Finished up reading the TNG "A Time To..." series with A Time for War, A Time for Peace. A good end to the series, I liked how it moved all the pieces into place for Nemesis, and set things up for Taking Wing. I particularly liked the development of Alexander.
OK, finished Linda Stratmann's "The Poisonous Seed," a Victorian mystery from the History Press's imprint, The Mystery Press. I thought at first I'd better steer clear of slagging this off, as 1) I want to sell a book to this publisher, and 2) Linda's one of the handful of people I know who certainly ought to be able to take me with a sword. Based on the first few pages, that could be difficult - constant swapping between viewpoints with sentences (let alone within paragraphs or sections), and evidence of horrendous lack of copyediting. Eeek. Fortunately that all stopped after a dozen pages, apart from a single instance near the end, and from then on in it was a nice well-thought-out mystery, written in a great pastiche Victorian style - to the extent that the prose actually seems to have the cadence of the dialogue (especially Julia's) in Murdoch Mysteries, and I really was hearing it told in Helene Joy's voice (despite knowing what Linda sounds like). So obviously we know who should read the audiobook. I sort of heard the police constable and Inspector characters as George and Brackenreid, but probably just because I already had Murdoch in mind. If ever they did a Julia Ogden spinoff, Linda should showrun. Anyway, the prose as I say was a nice period pastiche, the plot hung together properly even upon the reader going back to check earlier chapters when something is referred to later, the main character was engaging enough that I certainly want to read more of her. Downsides... There's one plot issue not resolved, about a character's last words, though essentially it's an irrelevant matter as the case is thoroughly solved anyway. The really bad thing, though, is with the typesetting at the printers- every couple of dozen pages there would be a line with no spaces, and occasionally a line with double spaces between every character. This is in the 2013 reprint edition, so I don't know if the original edition is similarly affected. I'd definitely recommend it, though, especially to Murdoch fans, or Sally Lockhart fans, or just folks who like a spot of Victorian pastiche.