I finished reading Ms. Peter’s The Golden One last night and while I found the book slow to start off; it definately picked up towards the end (nice punch, Bertie!). It’s my understanding that there are two more books after The Golden One, in the Amelia Peabody series; but we don’t have copies and frankly I’m ready for a break from reading mysteries. I started digging around looking for a copy of Asimov’s I, Robot as I’d seen the trailer for the new movie, with Will Smith, and wanted to refresh my memory of the story before the movie came out.

Unforuntately, I was startled to learn that I don’t have a copy of that book around the house (or at the very least, it’s nowhere that I could find it). To make up for the lack, I dug out my copy of THE BICENTENNIAL MAN and started reading throught that. I’ve nearly finished it –what do you expect? it’s really short!– and I’m just like, wow!

Reading Asimov was such a refreshing experience; the crisp, clean style just flows so easily past the eyes and though the stories in the book are fairly old (20-40 years, I think1they still don’t seem… entirely foolish, in the light of how the modern world has been turning out.

On another side note2, I was somewhat annoyed last night because I thought I had several used sci-fi books from the last library book sale but I couldn’t find them. So either my memory is worse than I thought (entirely possible) or they got moved around when we last straightened up the apartment because people were coming over. Grrr…

1 If I get a chance during my lunch hour, I’ll double-check the copyright years.
2 It occurs to me that many of the entries in this blog are little more than side notes and even the non-side notes are still peppered with side notes. What’s my point? I’m not sure, but I felt it was worthing makeing a footnote about my incoherent writing style which mostly consists of adding more side notes whenever I have another thought that I’d like to record.

I finished reading Elizabeth Peter’s Lord of the Silent. I really like how she’s altered the relationship between Ramses and Ameila to be more open and more like they’re equals rather than just mother and child; however the more I see Sethos in his new relationship to the Emersons, the less I like it. It just feels a bit cheesy and make Sethos less of an interesting character. Also, while I had fun reading this book; it’s definately not one of her better works. The plot felt fairly contrived, rather than flowing smoothly like most of her earlier books did. Still, overall it was a fun read; so I’ll give it 3.75 points out of 5.

Next up, I’m reading Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the 20th Century. I was in B&N the other night browsing their Sci/Fi-Fantasy selections, saying to myself that it was all schlock, when I stopped by the Orson Scott Card shelf to see if his latest Alvin the Maker book was in paperback yet (if it was, it wasn’t on the shelf) and noticed this Masterpieces book. When I saw that Mr. Card was the editor; it immediately peeked my interest as I’ve enjoyed his own work for many years now and I was curious to see who he’d pick for a collection titled Masterpieces. Then I looked over the cover and saw the top 6 names that had been choosen: Asimov, Clarke, Gibson, Heinlein, Le Guin and Pohl. All authors I’ve read and enjoyed, so I knew I’d end up buying the boo (though I made Ariesna wait a bit for me to read the first story in the book. Not very nice of me I suppose, but she’d gone wondering off looking at all the translated manga first; so I figured turn about is fair play. 🙂

Sidenote: While I was double-checking that I’d gotten the link to Mr. Card’s site correct; I noticed that apparently an Ender’s Game movie is in production! Hopefully, Hollywood won’t totally destroy it. For more details, go here.

I finished reading He Shall Thunder in the Sky and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by it. I had been finding Ramses and company to be more an annoyance than an interest in some of the previous books, but in He Shall Thunder in the Sky, they felt more like complete persons in their own right which made them far more interesting. Also, there was that surprising twist about Sethos’s past which was revealed at the end of the book. I liked that, in part because it caught me so off guard and because I think Ms. Peters wrote that scene particularly well.

Overall, I give this book 4.5 out of 5 points.

Next up, I’ll be reading Ms. Peter’s next book in the Amelia Peabody mysteries, Lord of the Silent. Till next, happy page turning.

I finished reading Elizabeth Peter’s The Falcon at the Portal last night and while I did enjoy it; I’m finding that I like the newer books in this series less and less. The idea that Ms. Peters is the Editor of Emerson family’s personal papers and has assembled the books from the remains of Ameila’s journals and some manuscripts/letters written by Ramses & Nefret just isn’t working for me. It didn’t help that this story took a darker turn that most of the Ameila Peabody mysteries (e.g. not all of your favorite characters walked away unscathed at the end of this book). For having a darker end than I cared for and continuing this trend of assembling the story from the “incomplete and scattered papers” of the Emerson family; I’m only giving this book 3 out of 5 points.

Since I knew that I was getting a bit tired of a steady reading diet of mysteries; I didn’t bring the next Amelia Peadbody mystery with me. Instead, I’ll be reading Dennis L. McKiernan’s Silver Wolf, Black Falcon next. Since I’m stuck at the home office all week, I will most likely finish this one in the next couple of days.

I just finished reading The Ape Who Guards the Balance, by Elizabeth Peters. We got to see a bit of all our favorite characters again and overall was a decent read, but I have to admit that I prefer the earlier books in this series. Ramses & co. just aren’t quite as interesting to me as Peabody & Emerson and unfortunately, Ramses & co. are taking a bigger and bigger role in the series. I’ve heard that isn’t necessarily true in the remainder of the series, but I’ll have to wait & see to find out.

I give this book: 3.5 out of 5 points.

The next book that I’ll be reading is Al Franken’s Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. Normally, I stick to fiction but this book got so much press that it intrigued me (plus some friends of mine have a copy that they’re lending me). I hope to have finished it in a couple of weeks, but we’ll see.