A Tuesday Update

I'm going to finally mow the lawn this afternoon but first a quick update on new books, completed and just started.

Just Finished

1. To Journey in the Year of the Tiger by H. Leighton Dickson (Upper Kingdom #1). A new series for me. Most enjoyable.

"To Journey in the Year of the Tiger is the first book in the Upper Kingdom series by fantasy author H. Leighton Dickson. What an interesting intro to what I hope will be a most entertaining series. Let's see, it kind of reminded me of Planet of the Apes, from the apes (or in this case, Cats) perspective or also a bit like Phyllis Gotlieb's Space Cats Sci-Fi series (but only from the aspect of cats as major players)

The story is set in the Upper Kingdom, in a future Earth, the Upper Kingdom being in Asia, mainly a future Nepal. The Empresses Captain of the Guards, one Kirin Wynegarde-Grey (a grey lion) is sent by the Empress to the monastery of Sha-Hadin, where the 7 Seers are dying. He is to ascertain why and try to stop any further deaths (murders?). Accompanying him are his twin brother, Kesser, an explorer who will guide them and also take care of the horses; the Scholar, Fallon Waterford, a tiger; Sherah al Shiva, a leopard and the Alchemist; and Major Ursa Laenskaya, a snow leopard, Kirin's right-hand woman; plus 8 leopards of the bodyguard. Firstly, let me say that I love the character's names. There must be an explanation in later books where they came from; some Russian, some English, etc. Just fascinating.

The journey to Sha-Hadin is interesting and what takes place at the monastery just adds to the interest in this world that has been created by Dickson. There will be a twist that makes you go, huh? Wow! (I'm sort of paraphrasing Fallon Waterford, a wide - eyed innocent and a bit of a Valley Girl, but just adorable). The characters are all fascinating, each with their own characteristics, Kirin, with his strait - laced personality and his belief in Bushido, Laenskaya, filled with anger but with the best skills as a fighter maybe, Fallon, I've already mentioned; Sherah, mysterious, almost magical and filled with sensuality... Kerris is a gadabout, free spirit. I haven't yet mentioned Sireth, the Seer, a mixed breed cat, who will be the link to another world, in the person of Solomon (I won't say anything more about him)

The journey to Sha-Hadin will result in another journey, along the Great Wall and carrying into the 2nd story. It's a great introduction to this series. I loved the culture; the characters and the story were well-crafted and so interesting. It takes a little while to get into the story itself, but it's worth the effort. Try it, you'll like it! (4.0 stars)"

Currently Reading

1. Day Shift by Charlaine Harris (Midnight, Texas #2).

"There is no such thing as bad publicity, except in Midnight, where the residents like to keep to themselves. When psychic Manfred Bernardo finds himself embroiled in a scandal and hounded by the press after one of his regular clients dies during a reading, he turns to enigmatic, beautiful, and dangerous Olivia Charity for help. Somehow, he knows that the mysterious Olivia can get things back to normal. As normal as things get in Midnight..."

New Books

1. Roadside Picnic by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky (1972). Back a couple of years, I had a list of Sci-Fi books I wanted to explore. I couldn't find a copy of this particular book (or it was too expensive to order) but the other day when Jo and I were out for a walk, I saw it in one of my local bookstores, Blue Heron Books. 

"Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a “full empty,” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he’ll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems.

First published in 1972, Roadside Picnic is still widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction novels, despite the fact that it has been out of print in the United States for almost thirty years. This authoritative new translation corrects many errors and omissions and has been supplemented with a foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin and a new afterword by Boris Strugatsky explaining the strange history of the novel’s publication in Russia"

2. Agents of Dreamland by Caitlin R. Kiernan (2017). I just saw this in 2nd Page Books, and it looked kind of neat.

"A government special agent known only as the Signalman gets off a train on a stunningly hot morning in Winslow, Arizona. Later that day he meets a woman in a diner to exchange information about an event that happened a week earlier for which neither has an explanation, but which haunts the Signalman.

In a ranch house near the shore of the Salton Sea a cult leader gathers up the weak and susceptible — the Children of the Next Level — and offers them something to believe in and a chance for transcendence. The future is coming, and they will help to usher it in.

A day after the events at the ranch house which disturbed the Signalman so deeply that he and his government sought out help from ‘other’ sources, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory abruptly loses contact with NASA's interplanetary probe New Horizons. Something out beyond the orbit of Pluto has made contact.

And a woman floating outside of time looks to the future and the past for answers to what can save humanity."

3. Young Men in Spats by P.G. Wodehouse (1936). I've enjoyed Wodehouse's humour in previous books, his Jeeves & Wooster plus others.

"These eleven stories describe the misadventures of the delightfully idle "Eggs," "Beans," and "Crumpets" that populate the Drones club: young men wearing spats, starting spats, and landing in sticky spots. For the first of his many appearances in the Wodehouse canon, Uncle Fred comes to what he believes to be the rescue."

4. A Cursed Inheritance by Kate Ellis (Wesley Peterson #9). I've enjoyed Ellis's mysteries so far.

"The brutal massacre of the Harford family at Potwoolstan Hall in Devon in 1985 shocked the country and passed into local folklore. And when a journalist researching the case is murdered twenty years later, the horror is reawakened. Sixteenth century Potwoolstan Hall, now a New Age healing centre, is reputed to be cursed because of the crimes of its builder, and it seems that this inheritance of evil lives on as DI Wesley Peterson is faced with his most disturbing case yet.

As more people die violently, Wesley needs to discover why a young woman has transformed a dolls house into a miniature reconstruction of the massacre scene. And could the solution to his case lie across the Atlantic Ocean, in the ruined remains of an early English settlement in Virginia USA?

When the truth is finally revealed, it turns out to be as horrifying as it is dangerous."

There you go. I hope you see something interesting.