Jo and I have decided to steer away from the news this week as it just ends up making us angry. We're trying to limit ourselves just to Deadline : White House as it's a show we enjoy very much. Today we're catching up on Season 1 of Westworld. it's getting better and better.
I've a couple of new books; one from my lending library outside and one from Nearly New Books. See below and then I'll continue with my Author's A - Z.
New Books
"Two girls are forced into the woods at gunpoint. One runs for her life. One is left behind…
Twenty-eight years ago, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn's happy small-town family life was torn apart by a terrifying attack on their family home. It left their mother dead. It left their father — Pikeville's notorious defense attorney — devastated. And it left the family fractured beyond repair, consumed by secrets from that terrible night.
Twenty-eight years later, and Charlie has followed in her father's footsteps to become a lawyer herself — the ideal good daughter. But when violence comes to Pikeville again — and a shocking tragedy leaves the whole town traumatized — Charlie is plunged into a nightmare. Not only is she the first witness on the scene, but it's a case that unleashes the terrible memories she's spent so long trying to suppress. Because the shocking truth about the crime that destroyed her family nearly thirty years ago won't stay buried forever…"
"Raised in Natchez, Mississippi, Penn Cage learned all he knows from his father, Tom Cage. But now the beloved family doctor has been accused of murdering the African-American nurse with whom he worked in the 1960s. Now Penn is determined to save his father no matter the cost.
The quest for answers sends Penn deep into a dark conspiracy involving the vicious Double Eagles, an offshoot of the KKK controlled by some of the state's most powerful men. With the aid of a local reporter and his fiancée, Penn uncovers a bloody trail stretching back forty years, and is forced to confront a wrenching dilemma: does a man of honor choose his father or justice?"
Author's A - Z
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| Pierce Brown |
"The Earth is dying.
Darrow is a Red, a miner in the interior of Mars. His mission is to extract enough precious elements to one day tame the surface of the planet and allow humans to live on it.
The Reds are humanity's last hope.
Or so it appears, until the day Darrow discovers it's all a lie.
That Mars has been habitable - and inhabited - for generations, by a class of people calling themselves the Golds. A class of people who look down on Darrow and his fellows as slave labour, to be exploited and worked to death without a second thought. Until the day that Darrow, with the help of a mysterious group of rebels, disguises himself as a Gold and infiltrates their command school, intent on taking down his oppressors from the inside.
But the command school is a battlefield - and Darrow isn't the only student with an agenda.
Break the chains.
Live for more."
"With shades of The Hunger Games, Ender’s Game, and Game of Thrones, debut author Pierce Brown’s genre-defying epic Red Rising hit the ground running and wasted no time becoming a sensation. Golden Son continues the stunning saga of Darrow, a rebel forged by tragedy, battling to lead his oppressed people to freedom from the overlords of a brutal elitist future built on lies. Now fully embedded among the Gold ruling class, Darrow continues his work to bring down Society from within. A life-or-death tale of vengeance with an unforgettable hero at its heart, Golden Son guarantees Pierce Brown’s continuing status as one of fiction’s most exciting new voices."
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| Ken Bruen |
"The Guards by Ken Bruen is my first exposure to Bruen's writing, which was convenient as it is his first Jack Taylor mystery. I'd watched the TV series. Iain Glen plays Jack Taylor and now, having read the first book, he did an excellent job.
Taylor is an ex-Garda (the story is set in Ireland), who was drummed out for bad behavior and now he works as an independent investigator. Well, he actually spends most of his time soaking up booze but he still tries to help people when he can. In this case, his client is Ann Henderson, who wants Taylor to prove his daughter, Sarah, did not commit suicide. Taylor doesn't want to take the case, but ultimately, decides to help Ann.
How much help does he provide Ann? Well, that's debatable as Taylor spends quite a bit of this book in a state of constant drunkenness. But he does investigate and manages, after a stint in the drunk tank, to find out that other girls have also 'committed suicide' in similar circumstances. Now I won't get into the details too much, rather I'll mention the style of the story.
I liked very much how it was written; a very much stream of consciousness, but still easy to read. At times, very poetic or maybe more like song lyrics. It flowed very nicely, from scene to scene. The story is peopled with interesting characters, some threatening, some lovely. It was an easy read and a book that was difficult to put down. How much help was Taylor to Ann? You'll have to check it out. I liked this a lot and will move on to the next book now that I've tried Bruen's work. (4 stars)"
"Jack Taylor is walking the delicate edge of a sobriety he doesn't trust when his phone rings. He's in debt to a Galway tough named Bill Cassell, what the locals call a "hard man." Bill did Jack a big favor a while back; the trouble is, he never lets a favor go unreturned.
Jack is amazed when Cassell simply asks him to track down a woman, now either dead or very old, who long ago helped his mother escape from the notorious Magdalen laundry, where young wayward girls were imprisoned and abused. Jack doesn't like the odds of finding the woman, but counts himself lucky that the task is at least on the right side of the law.
Until he spends a few days spinning his wheels and is dragged in front of Cassell for a quick reminder of his priorities. Bill's goons do a little spinning of their own, playing a game of Russian roulette a little too close to the back of Jack's head. It's only blind luck and the mercy of a god he no longer trusts that land Jack back on the street rather than face down in a cellar with a bullet in his skull. He's got one chance to stay alive: find this woman.
Unfortunately, he can't escape his own curiosity, and an unnerving hunch quickly turns into a solid fact: just who Jack's looking for, and why, aren't nearly what they seem."
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| John Brunner |
"Norman Niblock House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of a few all-powerful corporations. His work is leading General Technics to the forefront of global domination, both in the marketplace and politically—it's about to take over a country in Africa. Donald Hogan is his roommate, a seemingly sheepish bookworm. But Hogan is a spy, and he's about to discover a breakthrough in genetic engineering that will change the world ... and kill him. These two men's lives weave through one of science fiction's most praised novels. Written in a way that echoes John Dos Passos' U.S.A. Trilogy, Stand on Zanzibar is a cross-section of a world overpopulated by the billions. Where society is squeezed into hive-living madness by god-like mega computers, mass-marketed psychedelic drugs, and mundane uses of genetic engineering. Though written in 1968, it speaks of 2010, and is frighteningly prescient and intensely powerful."
"An enduring classic, this book offers a dramatic and prophetic look at the potential consequences of the escalating destruction of Earth. In this nightmare society, air pollution is so bad that gas masks are commonplace. Infant mortality is up, and everyone seems to suffer from some form of ailment."
"A savagely lacerating satire, this is an example of the sort of literature of ideas sf was before commercial formulae & interminable series took over. A lot of today's readers won't get it & may be pissed off by its unresolved ending. But it's a very good story—though perhaps not quite as good as the socially conscious SF Brunner was producing during his peak a decade previous—& its unapologetic defiance of convention is a breath of fresh air when nearly everything today seems an attempt at a franchise & some authors are happier chugging out Star Wars novels for an easy paycheck than coming up with original sf.
Players at the Game of People is an attack on the leisure class, that fundamentally European institution of bygone days translated into a near-future milieu. Godwin Harpinshield is one of a select number who've entered into this quasi-Faustian arrangement with mysterious beings referred to as "owners." His every desire is catered to. He always gets the best table, the best women. He can travel across the globe & even, apparently, through time in the endless & yet increasingly futile pursuit of pleasure. He has only one obligation: he must recruit someone. This he does by rescuing a pathetic & naturally vulnerable young prostitute from her dead-end lifestyle while she still has a spark of hope & ambition. While it isn't altruistic, this act spells the beginning of the end. Unexpectedly, he meets the girl's mother, who's come looking for her. This encounter not only offers up a surprising personal revelation, it also prompts him to be bold about questioning the nature of the owners & what they're getting out of all this."
There you go. Maybe some future reading for you?
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