Enjoyed THE HIDDEN PALACE by Helene Wecker so much that I'm rereading her earlier novel from eight years ago, THE GOLEM AND THE JINNI.
Since my last post I finished Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, and read the digital version of Chew Vol. 3: Just Desserts, which was written by John Layman with art by Guillory. I love this series, it's just so much fun, and completely bonkers. Definitely some interesting new developments in this one. After that I started digital version of The Amazing Spider-Man: The Gauntlet: The Complete Collection Vol. 2. It collects 15 different issues, with stories from 3 more, so as you can image there were a lot of artists and writers that worked on these issues, and I don't really feel like going through them all here.
Star Trek TOS Living Witness by Christopher L Bennnett. I thought this book was really good and Enjoyed the fact we finally got more information about Uhura's past and it's nice we get a story in the movie era before the Wrath Of Khan.
I'm getting back to reading the 90s 24th century trek books in chronological order. I'm currently on TNG Exiles by howard weinstein.
After reading 12 issues of Power of the Dark Crystal, the collection of 4 or 5 Chew issues, and the first two issue arc in the Spider-Man collection, I started to get burned out on comics and decided to start go back to prose. After a bit of internal debate, I decided to start Magic Rises by Ilona Andrews, the 6 book in their (Ilona Andrews actually the pen name for a married couple) Kate Daniels series. According to my Goodreads account, I read the previous book in the series back in 2018, but I've been meaning to get back to it for a while now.
STONEHENGE by Rosemary Hill. A book about a subject that’s under constant study is always at risk of being superseded by new discoveries, and, having come out in 2008, this one was before the latest revelation a year or so back that a version of the monument had been set up in Wales first and was physically brought with its builders to the site in Wiltshire and remade…. And that doesn’t matter, where this book is concerned. This book, you see, isn’t a history of the monument and how it developed. No, this is a book about the history of how it has been viewed and studied since its discovery- by Medieval chroniclers, 17th Century Antiquarians, Victorians, artists, archaeologists, architects, governments, and (of course) wannabe Druids. It’s a highly readable and fascinating tour through history, taking in why people in different eras thought it was built by Romans; how the different focus of architects, antiquarians, and archaeologists gave them different views; just how the various Druid wannabes got so intertwined with it and their internicine feuding, and sidesteps into intriguing and often amusing bits of the lives and works famous people in the abovementioned fields away from Stonehenge. (To pick a random example, how Frederick Bligh-Bond impressed the Church by discovering lost wings of Glastonbury Cathedral very quickly, then got fired for revealing he had been told where to look by one of the original builders in a séance). The chapter on more recent decades is also a good brisk eye-opener as to how it became a counterculture icon and the location for protests and violence in the 80s, and where English Heritage really spawned much of that. And of course there’s a great round up of the physical facts of Stonehenge to start with, and some tips on visiting and further reading to end with. Engaging, fascinating, good fun, educational, highly readable… Lovely bit of popular history. Very recommended.
I'm rereading The Empty Chair by Diane Duane. I've enjoyed re-reading Diane Duane's novels featuring Ael and the Bloodwing crew working with the Enterprise crew again.I really liked how she developed the Romulan culture in her novels.
Somewhat ridiculously, I am now rereading THE HIDDEN PALACE by Helene Wecker, since I just reread the earlier book, THE GOLEM AND THE JINNI, which I was inspired to reread by reading THE HIDDEN PALACE . . . . Not sure how I'm going to get out of this loop!
Last week I finished reading Magic Rises, which I loved. The Kate Daniels books have pretty consistently been one of my favorite series, and this was a pretty major entry in the series. It's kind of funny, because when I started it seemed like the story wasn't going to be that connected the arc that's been slowly building through the series, but by the end it ended up being one of the most important books yet. After I finished that, I started A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. I'm a big fan of post-apocalyptic stories, and I've seen this come up a looking around online, but I hadn't gotten around to reading it until now. I'm a few chapters in and so far it's off to a good start.
I've just finished my second read of the Rihannsu books by Diane Duane (first was in 2006). The characters and their interplay are the biggest strengths of the series, followed closely by some incredible ideas and world building. The pacing tends toward deliberate and leisurely. It took me a bit longer to read them than I would have liked, but I also can't point to anything that I would cut. Approach them with the intent to savor what you are reading, and you will have a grand time. The final scenes on ch'Rihan in The Empty Chair are very inspiring, especially after following real-world US politics more closely in the last five years or so. Almost anything having to do with Naraht or K's't'l'k is pure gold. (Rating: 4-4.5 stars for each book) I also have a non-Trek recommendation: Skywalker: A Family at War by Kristin Baver. It pulls in material from all of the movies, TV shows, books, comics, and video games (current canon), and it retells the saga with a focus on the central characters. The battles are minimized and frequently summarized in a few sentences. The book takes you into the characters' points of view, examining their thoughts, emotions, motivations, and reasons for their decisions. I have been a fan of Star Wars for about 25 years, and Skywalker: A Family at War enhanced my appreciation for each of the movies, even the original three that I have watched dozens of times. (Rating: 5 stars)
I finished Web of the Romulans by M.S. Murdock last night, which I prefaced by reading the fanzine version, "My One True Love" in Dilithium Crystals #1. It was Murdock's first professional sale (she later did a few more media tie-ins, and a handful of original novels.) It was interesting comparing the two versions. This is one of the most "fannish" of the early Pocket Books novels (well, Timescape novels, to be precise). It came from the slushpile in the early days, and was originally a fanzine story. But in spite of all that (or maybe because of that) I like it quite a bit. It's considerably better than some early Trek novels written by seasoned professionals. I'm going to try and read Marshak & Culbreath's two Pocket novels next -- The Prometheus Design and Triangle.
I gave up on A Canticle for Leibowitz a couple days ago. I'm an atheist, and know almost nothing about the Church and there were constant references to Church stuff that I was totally lost on. I actually know a fair amount about some of the biblical stories thanks to watching shows like Lucifer, Supernatural, and Dominion, and a few others that a referred to a lot in pop culture, but that's about as far as my religious knowledge goes. After I set that aside I started Wonder Woman: The Art and Making of the Film by Sharon Gosling.