Monday, 15 December 2003
Recent Reading
- King of the Wood, by John Maddox Roberts, Tor, 1986. This is one of
the early, fantastic works of Roberts, who may be best known now for
his SPQR mysteries featuring Roman Decius Cecilius Metellus. King of
the Wood is an interesting alternate history where the pagan Norse
colonized what we knows as easter North America and introduced the
horse, followed by Christian Norse, and the Aztecs still flourish,
mixed with straightforward adventure and an appealing mixture of
cultures.
- The Wizard Hunters, by Martha Wells, HarperCollins, 2003. Its good
to see a fantasy that avoids the psuedo-medieval trappings of so much
fantasy, and even better to find one that uses a setting that is more
Edwardian, perhaps, though it is set in a world that is clearly not
our own, despite some inklings of a common background. As this is
labeled “Book One of The Fall of Ile-rein” I look forward to
reading the rest.
- Ode to a Banker, by Lindsey Davis, Mysterious Press, 2001. Another
volume in Roman mystery series featuring wise-cracking private
informer Marcus Didius Falco, this caries the series forward
adequately. It is good to see that he has avoided monetary
embarrassment for a while longer.
- Crown of Slaves, by David Weber & Eric Flint, Baen, 2003. Billed as
the start of a new series set in the universe of Honor Harrington,
this book features Harrington only in a cameo appearance, focusing as
it does on other characters, some introduced earlier, and does a good
job. I recently read someone who had a very low opinion of the Honor
Harrington series, and it once again brought to mind the fact that
people are looking for different things in their entertainment, and
that this can blind them to those things that other people are looking
for in their entertainment. In an event, I think that this book, as
with the other books set in Harrington’s universe, does a very good
job at what it sets out to, and is an enjoyable read for anyone who
enjoys military/special ops/espionage science fiction.