Thursday’s Tale: The Little Red Hen

by Carol5 Comments
Amber's 17 now, so I don't really have much need to look at little kids books except for Christmas and my nieces' and nephews' birthdays, and then I always buy physical books. I just learned today that a bunch of the Little Golden Books I remember as a kid are available for Kindle, with the same illustrations and everything. In the tale, the little red hen finds a grain of wheat and asks for help from the the duck, the goose, the cat, and the pig to plant it, but they all decline. They each are doing something fun, as the pictures show. At each later stage (reaping, carrying the wheat to the mill, making the flour into dough, and baking the loaf), the hen again asks for help from the other animals, but each time no one wants to help her. Finally, the bread is ready and the hen asks who will help her eat the bread. This time, everyone volunteers, but...
Read More

Scattershot by Bill Pronzini

by Carol1 Comment
Nameless is having a really bad week. Three cases, all of which should be quick, easy money, go awry, landing him in the hot seat. And, to top it off, thing are not going great with his girlfriend. I don't really have much to say about the book, even though I definitely enjoyed it. It's a quick story and I love how Nameless manages to solve the crimes. All three are basically locked room mysteries and getting to the answers take both seeing the clues and having that flash of insight. I also appreciated that even though we do have three mysteries, they're actually unrelated. Too often in mysteries, everything conveniently ties together; here they don't, which feels  more realistic to me. I could have done without the moping about the girlfriend. I'm pretty sure that his pressuring her was not helping their relationship. This is the first full-length Nameless story I've read, so I'm not sure how it compares to others, but...
Read More

The Last of August by Brittany Cavallaro

by Carol5 Comments
To be honest, I don't really have much to say about this one. I enjoyed the first in the series, maybe partly because of the novelty but also because it was fun for the most part. This time around the Watson and Holmes were both a little more annoying and we didn't get to spend much time with the characters I liked. Maybe overall is was a little too full of YA drama for a mystery for me. Yes, you're angry and jealous and whiny - I'm tired of hearing about it. Yes, you have a variety of issues, few of which are your fault, but you should definitely see a therapist. Can we get back to the mystery? But then the mystery's a bit disappointing. And I hated the ending. The thing is, I really want to like this series. Since it's only a trilogy, I'll probably borrow the last from the library when it comes out and hope it makes up for...
Read More

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

by Carol4 Comments
Six Wakes is one I picked up based on the blurb - a locked-room mystery in space, a sci-fi mystery. The sci-fi hook this time around was cloning. The laws around cloning are strict, but basically, we have figured out how to make mindmaps, putting all of a person's memories, thoughts, personalities into a code that can be transferred into that person's cloned body, making an individual practically immortal and able to inherit their own belongings/money. There's some philosophical discussion about what makes a person a person, what is a soul, etc., but it's not really dealt with in depth. The mystery set up is great. Six people wake up in fresh clone bodies, with the clear evidence that their previous bodies had been murdered, obviously by one of them, since everyone else on the generational ship is in "storage." One or more of them is the killer, but no one knows who - their memories from the last 25 years have...
Read More

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

by Carol2 Comments
The Collapsing Empire is my first Scalzi book, but since it's the first in a new series in a new world that wasn't a problem.  I have to say I really enjoyed it. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was getting good review and I needed an audio for the Sci-Fi Readathon. Now, I'm a little upset that I have to wait for the next in the series, which, at least according to Goodreads, isn't expected until 2019. :( The Flow has allowed humans to build a far-flung empire, the Interdependency. The Interdependency is set up so that all the colonies must depend on each other, hence the name. The problem is the flow is changing, moving, becoming inaccessible - outposts will be cut-off, unable to send or receive supplies or people. Eventually, it's going to be a matter of survival, but now it's a political issue, one that the brand-new Emperox has to handle. It's clearly the first in...
Read More

The End of the Day by Claire North

by Carol5 Comments
Charlie is the Harbinger of Death. It's his job. He's a mortal, has no super powers except a support staff at an office somewhere who are great at making reservations, getting him across borders and out of jail, and paying ransoms. He meets good people and terrible people, and sometimes he's sent for ideas or ways of life and not individuals. He celebrates Life and we travel with him. That's what we do, we see what he sees, hear what he hears, including random snippets of conversation, go where he goes. We're with him when he meets people, gives them gifts, tells them he is the Harbinger and sometimes he comes as a warning and sometimes as a courtesy. We're with him as he listens to people's life stories and when he is beaten and held prisoner. After all, not everyone is happy when the Harbinger of Death shows up; some are though. Yes, sometimes we see slices of the lives of the...
Read More