Mastodawn

#Reading in Week Thirty-Six of 2025 | Sep 01–07 | ~1300 words | ~7300 characters | Tag to mute: #BokBooks
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●●●○○ The Eighth Artifact {Artifact 08} - David Collins (nov) 2025
Our young crew (with their hyper drive that's so much faster than regular warp drive) has always specialized in finding spaceships in trouble and rescuing their crews. In this book they find two such ships, as well as a planet where someone's transportal experiment grabbed scores of ships for World War II Earth and dropped them on a dinosaur planet.

The series is soft scifi, and the plots are anything but novel, but they're fast reads and pleasant, like watching an episode of some show you liked long ago. Also, I simply like stories with lots of aliens – I should see if the next Sodality novel is out – and this one adds two or four races every book.

●●●◐○ Crow's Feat - Jack Campbell (ss) 2000
A mid-list science fiction author meets an inventor at a party, gets to talking about Shakespeare, and how an unlettered man from Stratford on Avon could hardly have written the plays. Turns out the inventor has a time machine, and a pocket of Elizabethan coinage, and offers to send the author back to see if he's right…

●●◐○○ The Flying Weathercock - Edward Page Mitchell (ss) 1884
A clergyman causes a brick meetinghouse to be built on a New England hill, only to find out that Satan had claimed the ground long ago. Posing as a mortal, he had contributed a fancy weather vane to the building project, and the night the building was completed, it had magically come to life and flown off with the building, depositing it in a nearby meadow. Later on, there's a discussion between the preacher and Satan.

●●●○○ Enigma of Migration - Leona C R (ss) 2025
Earth was suffering ecological collapse¹, so for two generations the Supreme Council had directed civilization toward the goal of leaving Earth. Society was utterly regimented, and people used past exhaustion, and still problems remained to be solved.

Some individuals discovered that, when research was stalled, there was usually an unrelated event that gave a scientist a new idea. Some humans managed to find the source of the inspiration: an alien race that was hiding among humankind in synthetic human shells. It turned out that they were secretly helping humans on their quest, because while Earth was washed up according to picky humans, they thought it was still worthwhile, and were prepared to inherit it.

●●○○○ The Successful Life of Jack Rybicki {Middle Falls 11} - Shawn Inmon (nov) 2019
A dull novel of quasi-reincarnation², in a series not known for excitement. Jack was an average student and a decent football player. He entered a public-speaking contest to spend a weekend away from home with his girlfriend, and by a fluke, was noticed by a talent scout.

Jack's first life then proceeded, with him becoming a television and movie star, drifting away from his girlfriend, and dying in his thirties in a DUI accident. In his second life, he decided that Hollywood wasn't for him, and he stayed in Middle Falls to run his father's auto body shop. But his girlfriend want away for college, and ended up meeting someone else, leaving Jack to grow up alone and sad. It took a third life (which is low, given some people require dozens) to get things right.

●●●●○ Quantum Hauntings {Dark Frequencies 01} - Lorna Blackwell (ss) 2025
For a week, Mira had heard tapping on her bedroom wall ever night at 3:17am. Problem: it was an outer wall, in a sixth-floor apartment at the end of the building. Also, the Q-Link instantaneous communications project she was working on kept activating at the same time. Then on the seventh night, she heard more than tapping. She heard a girls voice say “Mira, please help.” What had her device connected to?

●●●○○ Lefty Feep Catches Hell {Lefty Feep 10} - Robert Bloch (ss) 1943
Broke Lefty takes Kitten to a cheap Italian restaurant, Regretti's. When he can't oay the bill, the sole proprietor tells Feep he has to take his place for a few hours, while Regretti went out with Kitten. Turns out Regretti had sold his soul to Satan, and Lefty was now filling in. Feep was called to Hell, where he got his marching orders – and a temporary tail.

Regretti, besides damned, was also an Axis spy, planning to pump Kitten for her war factory office info. Lefty was ordered to help in this task, with his tail enforcing the order. But of course Feep was up to the task, as his alliterative and pun-filled tale showed.

●●●○○ The Scarlet Citadel - Robert E. Howard (nvt) 1933
The very first Conan the Barbarian story is not what I expected. Tricked into fighting a much larger force, King Conan's army is almost wiped out, and he's captured. Conan spends most of the story in the evil wizard's dungeon of many tunnels, facing a giant snake, and many more eldritch-horror sorts of creatures.

You get loads of phrases like “Cold sweat beaded his skin” and “A cold horror shook him” and “Conan's skin crawled.” Not how I usually thinks of the Cimmerian. But Conan eventually finds a man being tormented by a giant sentient plant, and frees him. The man turns out to be another sorcerer, and he gets the pair of them out of the tunnels, and Conan back to his capital before it falls to the combined armies of his enemies.

●●●○○ The Case of the Hobbled Hero {Miles Grant 6} - Jack Dearborn (nov) 2018
An ex-Marine who lost his leg in Korea is killed outside the building where he works as a barman. The police haven't found the killer in six months. Since the man has no family, a friend who knew him in the military hires Miles to find the killer.

Miles conducts his interviews, and does his stakeouts, and comes to conclude that a crooked cop is the culprit (second time in six books; third if you count the cops covering for a politician), which requires excessive care and evidence to prove, but he manages it in the end.

●●●●○ Renegat - Logan Thomas Snyder (ss) 2015
No one's sure exactly why, but in November 1983, the United States and the Soviet Union launched nuclear missiles at each other. It was a short war, but fortunately not as bad as it could be. And just like in World War II, WW3 resulted in internment camps, this time for people of Russian descent. This is the story of how Calvina the guard and Anatoly the prisoner found each other, and how things went badly, then better.

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Cumulative 2025 totals as of Week Thirty-Six:
215 ss | 26 nvt | 05 nva | 88 nov | #books
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[1] But you could still walk outside without an oxygen mask, so not really, compared to most other planets. Again, it's a story that vastly underestimates the cost of constructing huge spaceships in a non-FTL reality, compared to the cost of fixing Earth's ecosystem. And even if building a 10,000-person generation ship was as cheap as building a jumbo jet, there's no way enough could be built for everyone, so any migration story starts with the idea of 99.99% of humanity left behind.

[2] You're not born into a new body without any memory. Your mind is re-inserted into your younger body at a pivotal point (often in high school, usually not more than a decade later), and you get another chance at life. And another, and another, until you learn whatever personal lesson the Universal Life Center thought you had to.

Show thread

bok Sep 1

Descriptions of the novels, repeated from the weekly posts. Footnotes have been removed, so some parts lack further explanation. For descriptions of the shorter works, see the weekly posts. Tag to mute: #BokBooks

●●●○○ The Secret of ZI - Kenneth Bulmer (nov) 1958
The Alishang took control of Earth almost three centuries ago, first coming as friends, then influencing government, then taking over. Humans had revolted several times, but never successfully. So plans for a more complete revolution were set in motion. They would take a while.

Two years before the plans were due to come to fruition, we follow Rupert, an agent on the run. He knows too much, even though he doesn't know what he knows. We follow him as he escapes Alishang forces and Resistance forces alike. Adventures are had, then two revelations are made. One is so obvious it's on the cover, the other seems super unlikely.

●●●◐○ Times of Trouble {New John Connor Chronicles 3} - Russell Blackford (nov) 2003
The end of the trilogy sees 15-year-old John and his mother return from taking out the backup Skynet in Europe with 45yo General Connor and his team. They participate in some cleanup, taking out Skynet machines that were still attacking humans even after Skynet's destruction, then they have to deal with warlords in South America.

Finally it was time for Jade, the sole surviving bio-enhanced Specialist from the third timeline, to return home. She went with the Connors and some other volunteers, plus a dozen reprogrammed Terminators and T-1000s, and hooked up with a local Resistance group. They conquered the local control node in Venezuela with the help of the T-1000s they had, who had been given the ability to reprogram Skynet machines.

Then the capstone of the fight in Colorado for the Skynet base, and the Connors returning to their timeline to monitor for any reprogrammed humans the government had missed, and to see that the Skynet program wasn't restarted. Not a bad trilogy, though a bit repetitive.

●●●○○ Beyond the Vanishing Point - Ray Cummings (nva) 1931
Stories where people shrank and visited worlds within specks of matter were common in the 1930s, and this is one. A scientist invents two drugs, one which will shrink a person (seemingly indefinitely, depending upon dose), and one which will enlarge a person. Oh, and the story avoids always dealing with naked people:

❝The myriad pores of my skin seemed thrilling with activity. I know now it was the exuding volatile gas of this disintegrating drug. Like an aura it enveloped me, acted upon my garments.”

Right, so logic is out the window. Polter (scientist Kent's assistant), fired when he attempted to force himself upon Babs (Kent's daughter), years later kidnaps her. Her brother Alan and his besotted-with-her friend George go to his castle, get drugs from the guards, and shrink down into the tiny realm. Alan ends up falling for a woman who lives in the infinitesimal, and George rescues Babs.

Apparently I read this years ago, but the only part I recalled were the lengthy sequences of shrinking, where one shrinks to a millimeter and climbs on the stone, then takes more drug and waits for the hand-size hole you're standing beside to relatively grow to basement- and then valley-size, climbs in, and repeats many more cycles.

●●●◐○ Case of the Murdered Mayor {Miles Grant 2} - Jack Dearborn
The minor case is the theft of a prize collie from his breeder. Miles easily tracks down the people who stole the dog. It was fairly obvious, given that the woman had just had a difficult separation from her husband. The major case is murder.

The mayor of Seattle is shot dead, but two months later no killer has been arrested, so the mayor's widow hires Miles through a proxy. He can't interfere with the police investigation, which makes his job more difficult. Miles eventually comes to the conclusion that a member of the police force is the killer. Proving that means confronting the man. Where Miles got shot in his first case, he was merely shot at in this one. 1950s-set #mystery.

●●●○○ The Stock Car Race {Behold: Humanity! 15} - Ralts Bloodthorne (nov) 2024
Atrekna continue to take over worlds, and the Terran Confederacy continues to take them back. Terran Descent Humans currently remain over 99% extinct from an Atrekna psychic attack that unedited their DNA, but steps are being taken to bring them back from the Sentience Upload Disaster Storage System, if that could be repaired.

We also learn that Earthlings exist, a faction of humankind that set out in slowships after Earth was Glassed. They can sense when Atrekna sink a solar system to change its sun and time flow. They object, and stop by to nova the star.

Many more facets of this hundred-stranded story continue, sometimes with several books between appearances, so I'm stuck thinking "I know that name, but what species are they and what's their plot thread?". Still, it's an absorbing series, and I hope it gets completed. Supposedly the author has late-stage cancer.

●●●◐○ Army of the Undead {Invaders 3} - Rafe Bernard (nov) 1967
This novel is not split into multiple episodes, as the previous two books, but is a single story. It also is odd, in that it seems set late in the course of the TV series, when David Vincent had people in government and industry who believed that the Invaders existed, yet also seems set before the series, in that the Invaders portrayed are quite different from how they were shown on screen.

These Invaders are primarily incorporeal, and can influence human minds. In this tale, they're pulling a trick like the #Mysterons did in Captain Scarlet, arranging accidents to kill people, and then reanimating the bodies to possess them. (The Mysterons create new bodies via "retrometabolism" and just leave the old bodies lying around.)

The Invaders have done this thousands of times, and control most of Auto City. Their plan is to destabilize the country by sabotaging all the new cars. David Vincent figures things out, and finds out that the Invaders have adapted Earth tech to broadcast lifeforce via a radio tower in Serenda Valley to control their reanimated slaves. Naturally he wins out in the end, though at this stage of the series, he needed dozens of helpers to do so. Yet somehow, a week afterward, only a few recalled what happened, it was so unreal to them.

●●◐○○ Case of the Sullied Songstress {Miles Grant 3} - Jack Dearborn (nov) 2016
The minor case in this book is PI Miles Grant surveilling a construction site for a company suffering thievery of building materials. As he watches from his seedy hotel, he listens to the radio and hears a report of a nude woman's body being found in a nearby county. After he wraps up the pilfering case, he reads in the newspaper a similar report from a different county.

Then he's hired by a man whose niece was dumped in a vacant lot, nude and strangled (but not to death!), and Miles is soon chasing a serial murderer, since the girl fears the killer may return to finish the job if it's found out that she survives.

When Miles finds out the connection between the slain women, he learns that his wife Shirley is surely on the killer's list. Regrettably, the motivation of the killer (and his associates) is stupid beyond belief, and the story shudders to a mindless end.

●●●●◐ Head On {Lock In 2} - John Scalzi (nov) 2018
"Hadens" are people suffering "lock in" as a result of a rare side-effect of a flu-like disease that swept the world. Four and a half million Americans became Hadens in the initial pandemic, and thirty thousand more become Hadens each year. They participate in society by tele-operating robotic "threeps" using surgically-embedded neural networks.

There's also a Haden-only sport, an ultra-violent game where one team of eleven tries to tear the head off a randomly chosen member of the opposing team, and make a goal with it. The game involves swords, crossbows, and specially built threeps. And for the first time ever, a player – whose physical body was in a different city – dies in the course of a game, when his head is torn off for the third time.

This book has a detective duo, one of them a Haden himself, investigate the event. It leads to murders, a suicide, revelations of money laundering and betrayal, sketchy drugs, international criminals organizations, more.

Also an oversized sport robot crashing into the building junior Agent Shane shares with five other Hadens, doing much damage while searching for a cat he picked up at the scene of a building fire set to cover up an earlier crime.

●●●○ The Empathetic Life of Rebecca Wright {Middle Falls 10} - Shawn Inmon (nov) 2019
Rebecca Wright was brought up by an unfeeling mother and a mostly-absent father (he was in the Navy), end never managed to make a real emotional connection with anyone but her little brother. She married a dentist, who ended up divorcing her for his hygienist, and raised her son alone, badly. She died poor and alone.

But in Middle Falls, you get a second chance. If necessary, third, tenth, and fiftieth chances, until you fix your life. On her next twenty or so lives, Rebecca dropped back into her life when her husband was telling her he was leaving her. She knew what was going to happen, so she let him have custody of her son, took the money from the house and practice, and toured the world with her brother. When she got bored, she left her money it to her brother and killed herself to start the next loop.

Over time, she slowly changed, until she managed a life where she helped her gay brother fight AIDS (she knew what companies to invest in, so she was rich), she raised her son decently, and befriended her son's nanny and her out-of-wedlock daughter. Eventually she achieved true empathy, and finally moved on.

●●○○○ The Timothy File {Miles Grant 4} - Jack Dearborn (nov) 2017
Private Investigator Miles Grant arrives at his Seattle office from his suburban Bremerton home to find a request to call a local doctor. The pediatrician is being blackmailed with a nude photo of his four-year-old son sitting on a sofa. No parents of young children will want their kids associated with a seedy doctor, so he needs to find out who the blackmailer is.

In the course of his investigation, Grant discovers the Doctor has lied to him multiple times and is involved in a nefarious business. Despite the obstacles the Doctor has put in his way, Grant solves the case and turns the tables on the Doctor.

This book has similar structural flaws to the last one, primarily "why would a criminal hire a detective?" Add in the nature of the criminality, and it rates even lower.

●●◐○○ The City {Aestus 01} - S. Z. Attwell (nov) 2020 #CliFi
This is an overlong, over-padded novel. The first thirty percent should have been cut. Half the remainder should also have been cut. It's been forever (well, November) since it took me a full week to read a novel, and I also couldn't get into that Star Trek: Enterprise novel.

The story should have begun when Jossey and her Patrol group are searching the Outer Sector caverns for Onlar intruders. The tenth of the novel's first third that mattered (her brother Tark and his friend Gavin taking the ten-year-old Jossey to the surface to see the moon, with an Onlar attack resulting in Jossey getting a scarred face and a bum leg, and Tark going missing, and their father dying searching for him) should have been inserted as flashbacks.

Now grown, solar engineer Josey and her team face an Onlar attack on the way down the shaft to the post-climate-change underground City, in which she kills the attacker. That gets her moved to Patrol for a special project. Which leads to her being kidnapped by Onlar. Whom she finds are not the beasts that City propaganda claims.³

She learns that her City lies beneath India, that it displaced the natives from their ancient caverns to dig itself, and that the Onlar are those natives, still surviving, whereas the City maintains they're the only humans left. And despite the great heat of most of the year in the 2400s, the Onlar partially live on the surface, in sheltered valleys. Jossey becomes involved in the effort to stop the City's expansion, since that will entail the genocide of the remaining natives – who are led by her missing brother.

Add in the middle-school romance with three twenty-somethings – Gavin (now Patrol leader who didn't initially know the secrets revealed by Jossey's kidnapping) and Caspar (Delta Force / Gestapo agent, who knew the secrets and killed to keep them) both love Jossey, but won't admit it to themselves, while Jossey is oblivious to both men's feelings – and this book was a trial. But it's the first part of a duology, so I'll read the (blessedly shorter) sequel. Eventually.

●●●◐○ The Case of the Phantom Phaeton {Miles Grant 5} - Jack Dearborn (nov) 2018
Christmas Eve 1937: A car with its headlights off runs another car off the road. The 19-year-old driver survives, but his wife and infant son die. The other car doesn't stop. The police never even have a suspect.

1959: The driver hires Miles Grant to find out who the hit-and-run driver was. He's hired three other private investigators over the years, and none have ever turned up anything.

Doggedly checking old newspaper files and interviewing everyone mentioned, Miles turns up some leads. Interviewing the woman who lives in the house closest to the accident turns up more. It becomes clear that the Powers That Be are covering up the crime⁴, which is why other detectives gave up. Miles manages to work around the obstacles and get an answer.

bok Sep 1

#Books and #stories for #AugustReads. | Tag to mute: #BokBooks

Eleven novels:
●●●○○ The Secret of ZI - Kenneth Bulmer
●●●◐○ Times of Trouble {New John Connor Chronicles 3} - Russell Blackford
●●●◐○ Case of the Murdered Mayor {Miles Grant 02} - Jack Dearborn
●●●○○ Stock Car Race {Behold: Humanity! 15} - Ralts Bloodthorne #HFY
●●●◐○ Army of the Undead {Invaders 3} - Rafe Bernard
●●◐○○ Case of the Sullied Songstress {Miles Grant 03} - Jack Dearborn
●●●●◐ Head On {Lock In 2} - John Scalzi
●●●○○ The Empathetic Life of Rebecca Wright {Middle Falls 10} - Shawn Inmon
●●○○○ The Timothy File {Miles Grant 04} - Jack Dearborn
●●◐○○ The City {Aestus 1} - S. Z. Attwell #CliFi
●●●◐○ Case of the Phantom Phaeton {Miles Grant 05} - Jack Dearborn

Two novellas:
●●●○○ Beyond the Vanishing Point - Ray Cummings
●●●◐○ Born in the Wrong Body - Martin Brant #trans

Two novelettes:
●●●●○ Betty Knox and Dictionary Jones in The Mystery of the Missing Teenage Anachronisms - Jack Campbell
●●●●◐ Murder by Memory - Olivia Waite #queer

Twenty-six short stories:
●●○○○ A Day Among the Liars - Edward Page Mitchell
●●●◐○ Where Does a Circle Begin? - Jack Campbell
●●○○○ Natural - Peter Cawdron
●●●○○ Master - Ursula K. Le Guin
●●◐○○ An Extraordinary Wedding - Edward Page Mitchell
●●●○○ The Great Naked Adventure - P.A. Choi
●●●○○ Living Eggs Project {Agent Adams 02} - Tim Tolbert
●●◐○○ King of the Hill - James Blish
●●◐○○ Nothing Happens to Lefty Feep {Lefty Feep 11} - Robert Bloch
●◐○○○ End as a World - F. L. Wallace
●●○○○ Yellow Streak Hero - Harlan Ellison
●●●○○ Son of a Witch {Lefty Feep 6} - Robert Bloch
●●○○○ Entangled Vision {Agent Adams 03} - Tim Tolbert
●●●◐○ Concerns of the Second Sex - Pavarti K. Tyler
●●●●○ The Soul Buyer - Keith Laumer
●●○○○ Jerk the Giant Killer {Lefty Feep 7} - Robert Bloch
●●◐○○ Last Cruise of the Judas Iscariot - Edward Page Mitchell
●●●○○ Unnatural - Ann Christy
●●●●○ These Are the Times - Jack Campbell
●●●◐○ The Sun Never Sets - Anthea Sharp
●●○○○ Sunspot - Hal Clement
●●◐○○ Rocket to Limbo - Margaret St. Clair
●◐○○○ Echoed Life Foundation {Agent Adams 04} - Tim Tolbert
●●○○○ The Witness - Leona Celestia
●●●○○ Lefty Feep and the Racing Robot {Lefty Feep 13} - Robert Bloch
●●●○○ The Devilish Rat - Edward Page Mitchell

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2025-08: 26 ss | 02 nvt | 02 nva | 11 nov
2025-07: 24 ss | 01 nvt | 01 nva | 13 nov
2025-06: 26 ss | 03 nvt | 00 nva | 12 nov
2025-05: 24 ss | 06 nvt | 01 nva | 13 nov
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One very long, very slow novel knocked my reading down, but since I was reading three shorter novels each full week, not by much.

bok Aug 24

●●○○○ Jerk the Giant Killer {Lefty Feep 7} - Robert Bloch (ss) 1942
Lefty tells a tale of his friend – naturally called Jack – who, while hiding out in Pennsylvania from the Mob, played at farming, and planted some seeds that grew into a beanstalk. Jack retrieved the chicken (not goose in this case), and hid it in his hen house when he got back.

His wife, assuming he stole it from the neighbors, cooked it so it wouldn't be recognized. The self-playing harp suffered a similar fate when he had to smash it to make an impromptu wire-saw to cut down the beanstalk when the giant was after him on his second trip down.

All in all, a lightly-changed version of the fairy tale, existing for Lefty's colorful use of language and odd puns.

There's also a Haden-only sport, an ultra-violent game where one team of eleven tries to tear the head off a randomly chosen member of the opposing team, and make a goal with it. The game involves swords, crossbows, and specially-built threeps. And for the first time ever, a player – whose physical body was in a different city – dies in the course of a game, when his head is torn off for the third time.

●●◐○○ Last Cruise of the Judas Iscariot - Edward Page Mitchell (ss) 1882
Ships can have personalities, the same as people and animals, though some don't believe that. Captain Cram didn't, when he bought the Flying Sprite from its previous owner. After a few trips, when the ship went aground, or had vital parts break, or even rammed another vessel, Cram renamed the ship Judas Iscariot. This is a tale of the ship, the ills she visited on her owners, and how she wouldn't even sink where they wanted when they tried to scuttle her.

●●●○○ Unnatural - Ann Christy (ss) 2015
In our timeline, Pope John Paul I was pontiff for 33 days in 1978, at the same time the world's fist test-tube baby was born. In this timeline, he lived for decades more, and his first proclamation was that in-vitro fertilization was fine, that encouraging births through technical means was in line with Catholic doctrine.

The first part of this story is about the Pope thinking about his proclamation. The second part takes place 200 years later, when all births are via birthing pods, and a woman who illegally arranged to become pregnant the old-fashioned way was forced to flee her homeland with her husband when her own mother tried to turn her in.

●●●●○ These Are the Times - Jack Campbell (ss) 2007
On a mission to further document the much-studied events of the Shot Hear 'Round the World of April 1775 near Boston, Time Interventionist Mike once more meets Pam, a TI from a century in his future, whom he last encountered in WWII London, and with whom he fell in love. Pam's here to find out exactly who fired that first shot.

This is a very well observed bit of spacetime, with agents from a hundred different futures trying to document things, or change them, or change them back. When William Dawes is making his historic ride, Mike witnesses scores of stealth-suited TIs along the roadway try to stop him, or prevent others from doing so.

Mike also finds a private agent intent on stopping the Colonies from breaking free by any means, and that agent ends up threatening Pam, whom Mike awkwardly saves, coincidentally answering Pam's mission's question for her.

●●●●◐ Murder by Memory - Olivia Waite (nvt) 2025 #LGBT
A NAFAL ship making a thousand-year journey to found a new colony wants its original colonists to be alive at the end. They do this by recording their minds in glass 'books' and playing them into new young bodies that they print off whenever they die.

This story is about a bank teller who figured out how to illegally make lots of money in the two-day gap that occurs when a new body is being prepared, and the detective whom the Shipmind copied to someone else's body to solve the murder. Plus: every significant speaking character in this story was queer. Minus: the story depended on a sequence of "why would they do it this way" matters on the ship.

For example, the 10,000 passengers each are backed up in a single book apiece, in a single place, despite every computer expert saying you should have at least two backups in widely separated locations. More, the story only worked because a tech character arranged to ignore regulations and make sure that his aunt (and other detectives, to make it look less selfish) was backed up twice.

Still, I liked the tone of the piece, even if some of the plot details don't much bear logical contemplation.

●●●◐○ Born in the Wrong Body - Martin Brant (nva) 2020 #trans
Michelle has been on hormone therapy for a year, and gets a transfer from the Midwest to California, to begin living openly as a woman in a new setting. She also plans to undergo gender affirmation surgery, seeing that as her only path forward, since she expects that's what any man she falls for will want.

Before that comes to pass, Michelle makes a new friend, who happens to be a nudist along with her boyfriend. They help her become more comfortable with her current body.

She also meets a man who likes her and enjoys spending time with her. When they go farther, it turns out that Brad will support whatever decision she makes, but he's fine with his girlfriend – and hopefully future wife – having a penis. They go to a nudist beach with their friends, enjoy themselves, and get their Happily Ever After.

●●●◐○ The Sun Never Sets - Anthea Sharp (ss) 2015
An upper class Victorian young woman with an interest in astronomy discovers a comet. She conveys the info to a Viscount who belongs to the Astronomical Society at the ball her mother is hosting to find her a suitor, and later finds he stole credit.

But that becomes a minor concern when observations show that the brightly-shining not-a-comet is headed toward Earth. It ends up being a spaceship, a shuttle of which lands at Buckingham Palace while Kate is being presented to the Queen…

●●○○○ The Case of the Timothy File {Miles Grant 4} - Jack Dearborn (nov) 2017
Private Investigator Miles Grant arrives at his Seattle office from his suburban Bremerton home to find a request to call a local doctor. The pediatrician is being blackmailed with a nude photo of his four-year-old son sitting on a sofa. No parents of young children will want their kids associated with a seedy doctor, so he needs to find out who the blackmailer is.

This book has similar structural flaws to the last one, primarily "why would a criminal hire a detective?" Add in the nature of the criminality, and it rates even lower.

●●○○○ Sunspot - Hal Clement (ss) 1960
A number of scientists and technicians have embedded their spaceship into a comet, which they have maneuvered into a parabolic orbit that will get very close to the sun. The surface of the comet is studded with instruments. But of course things go wrong, and there are feats of engineering derring-do when people have to go out and fix those instruments under the unimaginable glare of the sun near perihelion.

Clements stories are always demonstrations of physics or chemistry, with a light covering of plot and character. One must read them as of-their-time, and not wonder why robot craft weren't sent. But given that, they're okay.

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Cumulative 2025 totals as of Week Thirty-Four:
204 ss | 25 nvt | 05 nva | 83 nov | #books

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bok Aug 17

●●○○○ Yellow Streak Hero - Harlan Ellison (ss) 1957
Charles was the sole inhabitant of the Scanner base, and had been for 24 years. He would be for life, the Computer having picked the people least likely to go insane. (After the madness and murder that resulted when two or more were selected to crew a base, one became the norm.) The was likely an Enemy out there, and humankind had to know about it.

●●●○○ Son of a Witch {Lefty Feep 6} - Robert Bloch (ss) 1942
Lefty buys a carpet at an auction. The owner had asked him to bid up the price so the other bidders would spend more, but they'd dropped out. Later, a a man demanded to buy the carpet from Feep, but he refused. Thence ensued the usual chaos when Lefty found out the man was a warlock, and he would go to some lengths to obtain the flying carpet.

●●○○○ Entangled Vision {Agent Adams 03} - Tim Tolbert (ss) 2025
Mika invents the Quentum Photon Reader, which allows her to tease out unheard-of amounts of information from starlight. Attached to a backyard telescope, and using a complex computer program to handle the data, she sees unbelievable¹ things: life on many worlds, and a technological civilization only eight light-years away.

As is the norm in these stories, Agent Adams of the CIA shows up and there's a meeting between him, the young scientist, and her mentor. He says all this is amazing, and he'll pass the information on to the top levels of government, but for now everything should be kept under wraps.

●●●◐○ Concerns of the Second Sex - Pavarti K. Tyler (ss) 2015
In an alternate US where women have nearly zero rights, a fourteen-year-old girl has had no suitors in the month since her first period. Her father considers whether to sell her to a factory or sell her as a surrogate. Her mother, at the cost of her own life, helps Helen escape.

The guide her mother had arranged brings Helen to an estate where men and women, and Black and Chinese and White people, interact with more equality. It turns out the estate is run by Helen's father's thought-to-be-dead pants-wearing sister. Mister Calvin had been willing to let his eccentric sister run her secret shelter, but when it usurped his prerogatives over his own daughter, well…

●●●◐○ Army of the Undead {Invaders 3} - Rafe Bernard (nov) 1967
This novel is not split into multiple episodes, as the previous two books, but is a single story. It also is odd, in that it seems set late in the course of the TV series, when David Vincent had people who in government and industry who believed that the Invaders existed, yet also seems set before the series, in that the Invaders portrayed are quite different from how they were shown on screen.

●●●●○ The Soul Buyer - Keith Laumer (ss) 1963
The Norn falls to Earth as a cosmic spore, which grows and grows, consuming bacteria, then insects, then small animals, then eventually everything, before starving and converting its body to spores, which it blasts into space to start the cycle anew.

The Norn is an atemporal, mindless being, using its psi powers to react to events past, present and future, and influencing people. Tony Adair is a gambler who, for the last two months, hasn't lost a single game of cards or dice he's played. The Norn reacted to his future by changing his present to distract him into not being a threat.

When an alien from another world interferes, he accidentally counters the Norn's manipulation, and sets in motion steps that lead to Tony saving Earth.

●●●●○ Betty Knox and Dictionary Jones in The Mystery of the Missing Teenage Anachronisms - Jack Campbell (nvt) 2011
One again, Jack Campbell [John Hemry] writes a story of a messed-up future that has to send people back in time to alter its past. (Again, it's a story with a single, mutable timeline.)

In this case, the time travel works by sending people's minds back to rewrite their younger selves (in the manner of the Middle Falls stories by Shawn Inmon). The problem is that all the forever chemicals and other substances released by uncareful use of technology is messing up human reproduction and destroying the environment.

Two travelers were sent back, and as far as the future can tell, vanished. (This is a very Time Trax thing, I suddenly think.) Two more ninety-somethings, Betty the chemist and James the game designer (who was selected solely because he went to the same high school, and could protect Betty), were sent back to 1964 to find out what happened, and hopefully complete the original mission of nudging the world onto a less toxic path.

━━━━━━━━━━
Cumulative 2025 totals as of Week Thirty-Three:
198 ss | 24 nvt | 04 nva | 80 nov | #books
━━━━━━━━━━

Noticed something recently. KOReader says this is Week 32 of the Monday through Sunday ISO week it uses. My computer, also running on a Mon–Sun ISO week, says it's Week 33. Calendar-365·com agrees that the week just past was Week 33, since it uses a Sun–Sat week.

I'm using my computer's system, since I type this there.

━━━━━━━━━━
[1] I literally don't believe a bit of it. And it's not like the story's resolution made it worthwhile.

bok Aug 1

Descriptions of the novels, repeated from the weekly posts. Footnotes have been removed, so some parts lack further explanation. For descriptions of the shorter works, see the weekly posts. #BokBooks

●●●●○ A Half-Built Garden - Ruthanna Emrys (nov) 2022 #hopepunk
Climate change has wounded Earth, but in 2083 humans survive in three cultures. The watershed groups of the Dandelion Revolution care for the planet and each other, slowly restoring the planet. The nation states that many have turned their back on continue in greatly reduced capacity. And the corporations that devastated Mother Earth survive on artificial islands.

Then aliens show up, claiming technological civilizations inevitably kill their birth planets. It happened to them, but now the two races of their original solar system have millions of space colonies. It happened to three other races, but they got to those planets too late to save the inhabitants. Now it's happening to Earth, and they'll save humankind no matter what humans want.

●●●◐○ Murderer Invisible - Philip Wylie (nov) 1931 #vintage
A very tall and ugly – but genius – man went into finance, and was nearly bankrupted by some rivals. Then he went into biochemistry, and invented a potion that made him permanently invisible. No one would ever make fun of his appearance again, and he would have his revenge.

He murdered the three businessmen who ruined him. Then he set his mind on ruling over the country in a scientific manner, going on a campaign of blowing up buildings until the government capitulated.

On another front, Carpenter faced the problem of Daryl (the foster-niece whom he'd set his mind on having) and Baxter (the one-time assistant who loved her), both of whom would oppose him with all their resources.

For a 1931 novel, Daryl was an active participant in the struggle. When captured by Carpenter, she strung him along for days, making him think she might come to love him, and it was she who figured out how to capture him. (Granted, the method was obvious, and I was wondering why no one had already used it, but still…)

●●●◐○ Vengeance - Jennifer Foehner Wells {Confluence 5} (nov) 2018
Darcy, escaped human slave and genetically-modified drudii, has been freeing other slaves for years, along with her other ex-slave comrades, using her ex-captor Raub's ship. She's looking for Adam, who was kidnapped with her, but sold separately.

Darcy's gathered a small fleet, since she keeps the ships of slavers she dispossesses of their cargo. After more than a decade, she manages to find out that Adam is still alive. She also finds out that she didn't kill Raub, and that the madman – all he wants to do is kill a drudii in hand-to-hand combat, earning himself the title of Kappyr – has had himself rebuilt, and he's also re-obtained Adam, whom he's genetically remade in his own image. Darcy will win or die trying.

●●●◐○ The Crossing {Assiti Shards} - Kevin Ikenberry (nov) 2022
A squad of ROTC cadets from 2008 end up in December 1776 just before the Battle of Trenton. Having lost an M-16 rifle to a Hessian mercenary, they're obligated to help Washington's troops in order to save the fledgling country.

With the help of a gunsmith and his daughter, they make contact with Washington's army and help him make Trenton a resounding victory. The story looked set up for a sequel, but one hasn't appeared yet.

●●●○○ Survivors - Terry Nation (nov) 1976
When Terry Nation created the British TV series, the producers had different ideas on how the show should progress. Nation stopped writing for the show mid second season. This is the story as he would have written it. Parts are the same, parts much different. We keep Tom Pryce (could've done without), but omit the second appearance of Vic in the quarry. We keep Jimmy Garland, but children John and Lizzie aren't here.

Abby doesn't leave the story after the first season of this three-section novel. There's far less turnover of characters, and the group stays smaller. And instead of partially restoring the old civilization by bring back electricity in Scotland, Abby's group heads for warmer climes in Europe, figuring they have a better chance of rebuilding a new civilization where they needn't focus on surviving six months of winter.

A rather stiff tale, IMO, but interesting to read nonetheless. And the ending is dark indeed.

●●●◐○ Dark Futures {New John Connor Chronicles 1} - Russell Blackford (nov) 2002
We follow two timelines: One where Sarah and John Connor, and Miles Dyson, succeeded in destroying the latter's research in 1994, and one where John talked Sarah out of attacking the building where the T-1000 would expect them to be.

In the latter ("Skynet's World"), Miles Dyson survives, and Judgment Day happens in August 1997. Sarah and John are living in an armed camp in Argentina, and the T-1000 they avoided doesn't find them until 2003.

In the former ("John's World"), Dyson dies, Sarah and John hide out in Mexico City, and there's been no Judgment Day as of 2001, when they face an advanced TX-A, which can split into multiple killing units. They get help from bio-enhanced Resistance fighters who traveled back from after their Judgment Day in 2021.

Timelines are a mess in Terminator – story segments are set in six different times, mentioning three different Judgment Days – but surprisingly the two separate plot lines don't cross in this book, though I fully expect them to later in the trilogy.

Don't try to understand what's happening, just accept the story as a fast-moving adventure tale with lots of fights and shootouts. I don't find this T2 trilogy as good as the one I read by SM Stirling, but it's okay.

●●●●○ Up-Time Pride and Down-Time Prejudice {Ring of Fire} - Mark H. Huston (nov) 2019
A Grantville young woman, skilled at mathematics and chemistry, is hired by a Tyrolian count (the richest man in the world) to educate children and young people in uptime math and science. Mary's life in the castle was suitably exciting, with one junior noble who resented all uptimers for upsetting the world scheming against her, and a hunky one who was interested in her. Add in several kidnapping attempts and some court intrigue and you get a decent tale.

●●●○○ The Invaders {Invaders 1} - Keith Laumer (nov) 1967
In this book based on the 1960s TV show, David Vincent didn't learn of the aliens by turning off the highway to rest when he was too tired to go on. No, the industrial architect who advised managers how to expand their production lines and factories, noticed various odd items being assembled in some small factories he went to. Picking up the items, he found he had the basis for a disintegrator gun.

The novel is presented in three episodes, with the first covering David's discovery of the aliens, their discovery and capture of him, his learning more about them, and his subsequent escape.

Next up, David wonders if a UFO group that's about to make a big announcement actually knows something. This leads to a madman thinking David is an alien, and taking him to the madman's insanely booby-trapped mansion. The real aliens track David down there, and the madman and David work together to kill the aliens.

The third segment concerns a meteorite swarm, which David suspects may be concealing an arriving Invader ship, based on conversation he heard in the previous episode. With the help of a soldier who'd previously encountered aliens, Vincent was able to obtain a military vehicle and blast the Invader ship when it landed.

●●●●○ The Surrogate Affair {Stewart Grant 01} - Jack Dearborn (nov) 2023
Stewart's teaching job went away, and there were no openings, so Stewart got a license to be a detective, like his recently retired father Miles used to be. Stewart's first case is a parental kidnapping: the father didn't bring his son back after his weekend of custody.

The issue is that the mother seems uninterested, and her father who's paying Stewart would be just as happy if the case proceeds slowly, since he has a bank merger in process, and doesn't want any publicity.

Also, twenty-something Stewart has met a woman. A waitress, like his mother was when his father met her. He introduces her and her mother to his family, all of who are nudists. His sister even manages a nudist camp. Things initially go well, but then… Set in the 1970s. #mystery

●●●◐○ An Evil Hour {New John Connor Chronicles 2} - Russell Blackford (nov) 2003
John and Sarah stormed Cyberdyne in 1994 and Judgment Day was delayed, but the company recovered, and by 2001 Skynet was being built. Bio-enhanced Resistance fighters helped them stop that, but not until after the T-XA (Terminator model that followed the T-1000) programmed some humans to be loyal to Skynet and to rebuild it. And one of those humans, CEO of Cyberdyne, was given the ability to inject nanites into others to reshape their minds and motivations.

This volume is mostly the Connors and the surviving Resistance fighters dealing with the aftermath of the 2001 assault on Cyberdyne, and tracking down the programmed humans. On their side is a genius scientist who worked for Cyberdyne, who's smart enough to think around the anti-human/pro-Skynet nanite programming the TX-A imposed on her.

On the timeline where the Connors avoided the 1994 fight, the 1997 Judgement Day happened, and John grows up to be a Resistance leader. Decades later, humans destroy the Skynet base in Colorado – and send Kyle Reese back to 1987, and the reprogrammed T-800 to 1994 – only to find that a backup Skynet base awakens in Europe and restarts the fight. Weakened by the fight, they need help, so they send back a T-799 (a blonde female T-800) to get help, and it hooks up with the other timeline's John and Sarah, who travel forward.

After the Connors help older John, they decide to go to the future where the bio-fighters came from, a timeline where Judgment Day came in 2036, where Skynet woke up late, after having been deeply tied to all global transport and defense systems. That will be the end of the trilogy.

●●●●○ Lock In {Lock In 1} - John Scalzi (nov) 2014
The Great Flu killed 400 million worldwide, and a late-stage complication, Haden's Syndrome, left many people "locked in", conscious but unable to move their bodies in any way. Some 4.35 million people in the US are that way. They use neural nets implanted in their brains to embody themselves in android form. A few thousand Americans also became Integrators, their brains altered in such a way that a neural net could let them permit Hadens to pilot their bodies for when they want full-human experience.

This story is about a new Haden FBI agent who becomes involved in a weird murder case. An Integrator who may have killed someone, a group creating rogue Integrators, political and economic maneuvering after Congress had cut Haden funding, more.

●●●●○ Miles Grant, Private Investigator {Miles Grant 01}- Jack Dearborn (nov) 2014
#Mystery set in 1952. Ex-Navy radioman Miles Grant, 28, gets drunk after his wife divorces him and takes his two kids, his house, and his bank account. He awakens to a cop pounding on his door: his newly-ex wife has been shot dead.

Miles soon solves that case, following it up with one where a wife wants him to follow her likely-cheating husband. He was, but with whom is surprising. Miles begins to get close to Shirley, a waitress at the diner near his office. His next case is finding a sailor who went missing a decade ago. Miles manages that, too, but the case wasn't what he thought, and Miles is shot.

Shirley's mother is a nurse, and when Miles gets out of the hospital, he recovers at the house where Shirley lives with her parents. Miles eventually proposes, and Shirley accepts. Then Miles sets out to catch the person who shot him. #mystery

●●●◐○ Enemies from Beyond {Invaders 2} - Keith Laumer (nov) 1967
Laumer once again presents a volume that's structured as episodes of the TV show. In "Survivor", David Vincent learns of a Mexican fishing ship destroyed in the Gulf. The survivor blames a disintegrator beam from below. David manages to get a friend in the Navy to use his sub to confirm structures on the sea floor, then destroys the undersea dome with the help of a lost torpedo.

"The Allies" has the Gulf coast attacked by waves of creatures. First are a cross between seals and eight-legged horses, with crocodile jaws. David rescues a young woman, and the pair flee in the wrong direction, ending up in an abandoned hotel. There they face the first creatures, followed by pterandon-like creatures, and then leaping spike-balls. Through various traps and the unlikely help of swarms of rats, they survive.

"The Clairoyant" has an old man contact David. Lal can sense Invaders, and he learned of David by reading their minds. He both warns David, and begs him to seek peace with them. The Invaders turn the meeting into a trap, and naturally Lal dies, since no evidence can ever survive an episode.

In "The Telescope", the United States is sending Explorer spacecraft to the Moon. All that go near Copernicus Crater malfunction. David suspects Invaders, and enlists Philip (his scientist friend from the first episode in the previous book, who ended up being injured and getting amnesia) to help him. They hijack an Explorer, and use its rover to approach the crater. They see an Invader installation, but of course Invaders on Earth destroy their transmitter and all the records they made.

bok Aug 1

#Books and #stories for #JulyReads. | Tag to mute: #BokBooks

Thirteen novels:
●●●●○ A Half-Built Garden - Ruthanna Emrys #hopepunk
●●●◐○ Murderer Invisible - Philip Wylie #vintage
●●●◐○ Vengeance - Jennifer Foehner Wells {Confluence 5}
●●●◐○ The Crossing {Assiti Shards} - Kevin Ikenberry
●●●○○ Survivors - Terry Nation
●●●◐○ Dark Futures {New John Connor Chronicles 1} - Russell Blackford
●●●●○ Up-Time Pride and Down-Time Prejudice {Ring of Fire} - Mark H. Huston
●●●○○ The Invaders {Invaders 1} - Keith Laumer #TieIn
●●●●○ The Surrogate Affair {Stewart Grant 01} - Jack Dearborn #detective
●●●◐○ An Evil Hour {New John Connor Chronicles 2} - Russell Blackford
●●●●○ Lock In {Lock In 1} - John Scalzi
●●●●○ Miles Grant, Private Investigator {Miles Grant 01}- Jack Dearborn #mystery
●●●◐○ Enemies from Beyond {Invaders 2} - Keith Laumer #TieIn

One novella:
●●●○○ Unlocked {Lock In 0.5} - John Scalzi

One novelette:
●●◐○○ Project Time Machine {Agent Adams 1} - Tim Tolbert

Twenty-four stories:
●●◐○○ Death and the Senator - Arthur C. Clarke
●●●○○ Martian Quest - Leigh Brackett
●●●○○ At the Bottom of New Lake {Warmer 6} - Sonya Larson
●●●◐○ Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-TAH-Tee - Fritz Leiber #classic
●●●◐○ Seventh Victim - Robert Sheckley
●●●○○ The Little Man Who Wasn't All There - Robert Bloch {Lefty Feep}
●●●○○ The Hillside - Jane Smiley {Warmer 7}
●●●○○ Naked Ghost Story - P.A. Choi
●●●○○ Old Ventures, New Partners - Nicolas Wilson
●●●◐○ Never Stop to Pat a Kitten - Miriam Allen deFord
●●●◐○ One Long Ribbon - Florence Engel Randall
●●●○○ The Golden Opportunity of Lefty Feep - Robert Bloch
●●●○○ A Big Man with the Girls - Judith Merril and Frederik Pohl
●●●◐○ Ugly Earthling - Elizabeth Chater
●●●◐○ The Maze - A. Bertram Chandler
●●●●◐ Small Moments in Time - Jack Campbell [John Hemry]
●●●○○ Second Variety - Philip K. Dick
●●●○○ A Naked Wish - P.A. Choi
●●●◐○ The Case of the Dow Twins - Edward Page Mitchell #proto
●●●○○ Poor Little Saturday - Madeleine L’Engle
●●●◐○ Youth - Isaac Asimov
●●○○○ 108 Stitches - Tony Bertauski
●●●○○ Lefty Feep and the Sleepy-Time Gal - Robert Bloch
●●●◐○ Helen O'Loy - Lester del Rey

━━━━━━━━━━━
2025-07: 24 ss | 01 nvt | 01 nva | 13 nov
2025-06: 26 ss | 03 nvt | 00 nva | 12 nov
2025-05: 24 ss | 06 nvt | 01 nva | 13 nov
2025-04: 29 ss | 06 nvt | 00 nva | 11 nov
━━━━━━━━━━━

The Miles Grant and Stewart Grant detective novels are interesting, in that they seem to be doing a "case worthy of a book" per year, and after 24 years, Miles retires and Stewart takes over as detective.

The number of novels per month is going up. It used to hover around nine: two per week, with one in the partial week. But I've been reading some shorter books lately, which has boosted the number. Novellas remain rare.

Finally finished all the stories in Pioneering Women of Science Fiction, Christopher Broschell's collection of stories from the 1940s and 1950s.

bok Jul 7

●●●○○ Valence - Jennifer Foehner Wells {Confluence 4} (nov) 2017
The natives of the one-face world on which they crashed fix Jane's two starships, albeit slowly. When done, they find that the villain who crashed on the dark side managed to get away.

Jane and crew head for the capital of the United Sentient Races at Terac to try to get help for Earth and the sectilians. They find the quarantine is still in place, so they're stuck their for two years chatting with government and media.

On Earth, Jane's message that the governments tried to downplay is released by a teenage girl. Teens around the planet start learning Mensententia, the language genetically programmed into all sapient races by the Elder race. World unity grows, though nations fight and kick all the way. A pod of the Swarm attacks the solar system, and after nearly two decades, Earth is barely prepared to take it on, at great cost.

●●○○○ Shango - John Jakes (ss) 1956
A government agent is called in to figure out how rebels from the agricultural northern continent of Valaya are organizing to attack the southern continent, when all means of communication are controlled. Agent Koven succeeds in counteracting the Betelgeuse Bloc provocateur, in a cheap coincidence sort of way.

●●◐○○ The Statue - Mari Wolf (ss) 1953
Lewis and Martha are 87, last surviving members of the first wave of colonists who settled Mars. Their farm was never that successful, they never had kids, and they're tired. Martha wants to go back to Earth, but they haven't the funds. Lewis manages to swing the journey, but not until after their neighbors hold a big anniversary party for them. Earth turns out to have changed even more than the couple…

━━━━━━━━━━ July begins.

●●◐○○ Death and the Senator - Arthur C. Clarke (ss) 1961
A senator who was instrumental in shutting down the US space program ends up with a heart condition that can only be treated in microgravity. The Soviets have an orbital station that can treat him.

●●●○○ Martian Quest - Leigh Brackett (ss) 1940
Earth has been subsidizing colonization of desert Mars, but the giant Khom lizards are decimating the farms, so they will soon stop. A failed chemist may come up with a way to fight the lizards.

●●●○○ At the Bottom of New Lake {Warmer 6} - Sonya Larson (ss) 2018
Sea-level rise has drowned half of Cape Cod, and a high school girl has been diving to recover treasures from flooded mansions. Her salvaged treasures impress the girl she's interested in, and cause tension with the teacher who remembers the old days and thinks she's ransacking.

●●●◐○ Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-TAH-Tee - Fritz Leiber (ss) 1958
A temporary glitch in reality allowed an idea from outside to find realization. Five friends were gathered at an abstract painter's studio to watch him paint his latest splatter work. At the odd moment, the drummer member tapped out a new rhythm, and simultaneously, the painter snapped his paintbrush, producing splatters that visually mirrored the new audio phrase.

The Splat came to take over society in the form of printed fabric and floor covering, cards, poster, music genres, more. The anthropologist member of the group finally figured out a means of producing an anti-Splat to restore society to normal.

●●●◐○ Seventh Victim - Robert Sheckley (ss) 1953 #classic
After the Fourth World War, weapons had advances to the state that another war would surely wipe out civilization. Despite that, humans were far from peaceful, and the Hunt was established, where those who wished to kill could do so, under strict conditions, as long as after every turn as a Hunter, they took a turn as a Victim.

A fifth of society ended up participating. This is the story of one Hunt.

He murdered the three businessmen who ruined him. Then he set his mind on ruling over the country in a scientific manner, going on a campaign of blowing up buildings until the government capitulated.

━━━━━━━━━━
Cumulative 2025 totals as of Week Twenty-Seven:
163 ss | 23 nvt | 03 nva | 61 nov | #books
━━━━━━━━━━

I don't think anyone reads these. Used to be every three or four weeks someone would make a comment, but I haven't had any in ages. KOReader will keep collecting stats, but if I'm not getting the slightest response, I might well stop posting these weekly summaries.

Based on the Week 26 figure of 59 novels, it looks like I'll read about 110‒120 novels this year. The shorter works were 156 ss, 23 nvt, 03 nva.

Assume 25 short stories make a novel-equivalent: that's six in the half year, a dozen in the whole. If four novelettes make a novel, that's again six in the half year, twelve in the whole. If three novellas make a novel, that's one in each half year.

The synthetic total for the year would be maybe 115 novels, plus 12+12+2 equivalents; call it a round 140 books. Plus around 20 other stories, a couple of novels, and a half-dozen collections that haven't made the calendar, some of which will, going forward.

bok Jul 1

#Books and #stories for #JuneReads. | Tag to mute: #BokBooks

Twelve novels:
●●●◐○ Fluency - Jennifer Foehner Wells {Confluence 1}
●●●○○ StarShip Down - Darrell Bain
●●●◐○ Remanence - Jennifer Foehner Wells {Confluence 2}
●●●○○ Seventh Artifact - David Collins {Artifact 07}
●●●◐○ Cause and Effect - Christopher Broschell
●●●◐○ Quanty - Darrell Bain
●●●◐○ Inheritance (= The Druid Gene) - Jennifer Foehner Wells {Confluence 3}
●●●○○ Antidote to Venom - Freeman Wills Crofts
●●●◐○ 4th and 10 Line - Ralts Bloodthorne {Behold: Humanity! 14}
●●●○○ The Salvagers {Salvagers 1} - John Michael Godier
●●●○○ Vikings Versus Nazis - Gavin Chappell
●●●○○ Valence - Jennifer Foehner Wells {Confluence 4}

Zero novellas (again).

Three novelettes:
●○○○○ Controller - Jesse Kellerman {Warmer 3}
●●●○○ There's No Place Like Home - Edan Lepucki {Warmer 4}
●●●○○ The Hardest Bargain - Evelyn E. Smith

Twenty-Six stories:
●○○○○ Survival - William McGivern
●●◐○○ Trespass - Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson
●●○○○ Spawning Ground - Lester del Rey
●●○○○ The Fishdollar Affair - R. M. McKenna
◐○○○○ Green Sunrise - Doris Pitkin Buck
●●◐○○ Pipe Dream - Fritz Leiber
●●●○○ Bargain Basement - Charles Fontenay
●●○○○ Time Wounds All Heels - Robert Bloch
●●●◐○ Pandora's Millions - George O. Smith
●●●○○ Egg and Ashes - Frank Herbert
●●●○○ Gingerbread Boy - Phyllis Gotlieb
●●◐○○ Gather 'Round the Flowing Bowler - Robert Bloch
●●◐○○ Counterweight - Jerry Sohl
●●●◐○ A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel
●●●○○ Not Snow Nor Rain - Miriam Allen deFord
●●●○○ The Pied Piper Fights the Gestapo - Robert Bloch
●●●◐○ Rescue at Io {Salvagers 0.5} - John Michael Godier
●○○○○ Coming Attraction - Fritz Leiber
●●◐○○ Sit by the Fire - Myrle Benedict
●●○○○ Falls the Shadow - Skip Horack {Warmer 5}
●●◐○○ The Weird Doom of Floyd Scrilch - Robert Bloch {Lefty Feep}
●●◐○○ Les Meduses - Stacy Ericson
●●●●○ Working on Borrowed Time - Jack Campbell [=John Hemry]
●●●◐○ The Black Kiss - Robert Bloch and Henry Kuttner
●●○○○ Shango - John Jakes (ss) 1956
●●◐○○ The Statue - Mari Wolf (ss) 1953

━━━━━━━━━━━
2025-06: 26 ss | 03 nvt | 00 nva | 12 nov
2025-05: 24 ss | 06 nvt | 01 nva | 13 nov
2025-04: 29 ss | 06 nvt | 00 nva | 11 nov
2025-03: 30 ss | 05 nvt | 01 nva | 12 nov

bok Jun 1

#Books and #stories for #MayReads.
~350 words | Tag to mute: #BokBooks

Thirteen novels:
●●●○○ The Third Artifact - David Collins {Artifact 3}
●●●◐○ The Fourth Artifact - David Collins {Artifact 4}
●●●◐○ Ballroom of the Skies - John D. MacDonald
●●●◐○ Challenges of the Deep - Ryk E. Spoor {Arena 3}
●●●●○ In Our Hands the Stars - Harry Harrison
●●●◐○ Relics and Legends - Ralts Bloodthorne {Behold: Humanity! 13}
●●●◐○ Fifth Artifact - David Collins {Artifact 5}
●●●○○ Sixth Artifact - David Collins {Artifact 6}
●●●◐○ Shadows of Hyperion- Ryk E. Spoor {Arena 4}
●●●◐○ The Apocalypse Seven - Gene Doucette
●●●●○ Secondary - Ray Ingles
●●●○○ Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds - Manly & Wade Wellman
●●●◐○ Empty World - John Christopher

One novella:
●●●◐○ The Ghost of Clifton Webb - Greg Kauffman-Starkey

Six novelettes:
●●●○○ Beyond Death's Gateway - Paul Ernst {Doctor Satan 6}
●●●○○ The Lost Kafoozalum - Pauline Ashwell {Lizzie Lee 2}
●●◐○○ The Devil's Double - Paul Ernst {Doctor Satan 7}
●●●●○ The Earth Quarter - Damon Knight (nvt) 1955
●●●○○ The Way the World Ends - Jess Walter {Warmer 1}
●○○○○ Boca Raton - Lauren Groff {Warmer 2}

Twenty-Four stories:
●●●●○ The Thing in the Attic - James Blish
●●●○○ Meeting of the Board - Alan E. Nourse
●●●◐○ The Margenes - Miriam Allen deFord
●●○○○ But the Patient Lived - Harry Warner, Jr
●●●○○ Where There's Hope - Jerome Bixby
●●●○○ Assassin - J. F. Bone
●●●○○ The Ogre - Avram Davidson
●●●◐○ Discipline - Margaret St. Clair
●●●●○ Time Enough at Last - Lynn Venable
●●◐○○ The Six Fingers of Time - R. A. Lafferty
●●●○○ Exhibit Piece - Philip K. Dick
●●◐○○ Timequake - Miriam Allen deFord
●●●○○ An Incident on Route 12 - James H. Schmitz
●●○○○ And Then There Was Peace - Gordon Dickson
●●●◐○ The Little Red Bag - Jerry Sohl
●●○○○ To Each His Own - Jack Sharkey
●◐○○○ Of the Fittest - Betsy Curtis
●●●○○ Esidarap ot Pirt Dnuor - Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
●●●●○ The Grove - Jennifer Foehner Wells
●●○○○ Marley's Chain - Alan E. Nourse
●●●○○ Captive Audience - Ann Warren Griffith
●●●●○ David’s Daddy - Rosel George Brown
●●●◐○ The Shipshape Miracle - Clifford D. Simak
●●●○○ To Pay the Piper - James Blish

━━━━━━━━━━━
2025-05: 24 ss | 06 nvt | 01 nva | 13 nov
2025-04: 29 ss | 06 nvt | 00 nva | 11 nov
2025-03: 30 ss | 05 nvt | 01 nva | 12 nov
2025-02: 34 ss | 00 nvt | 01 nva | 09 nov

bok Jun 1

#Books and #stories for #MayReads.
~350 words | Tag to mute: #BokBooks

One novella:
●●●◐○ The Ghost of Clifton Webb - Greg Kauffman-Starkey

Show thread

bok Jun 1

Descriptions of the novels, repeated from the weekly posts. Footnotes have been removed, so some parts lack further explanation. For descriptions of the shorter works, see the weekly posts.

●●●◐○ The Second Artifact - David Collins {Artifact 2} (nov) 2024
In the first book, the ancient alien spaceship that a human had linked up with voyaged outside the regular travel routes, encountered a damaged ship, and rescued a powerful figure. This book, they stumble upon an experimental ship from an unknown race with a hyperdrive vastly better than the galactic standard. This finding a new artifact each time is going to seem increasingly silly, but the series is light, fast-paced adventure, and I need that right now.

●●●○○ The Third Artifact - David Collins {Artifact 3} (nov) 2024
Yet another found object, this one a half-million-year-old transport ship in which a human-like species (nearly as genetically close to Earth folk as chimps) had been marooned in without gravity. Our crew naturally rescues the Munchkins and made some crew.

They also rescue some stranded semi-merfolk aliens, and take them home. And rescue a Kipitz ship which blew its warpdrive, incorporating them into their crew. And, where last book our humans found a jumpdrive twenty times faster then the warpdrive other races use, this time they find a gravity generator. This seems to be the pattern. Find artifacts, rescue people, contact new species, more. An upbeat, kind-hearted adventure series.

●●●◐○ The Fourth Artifact - David Collins {Artifact 4} (nov) 2024
A reflected radio signal detected by our young heroes' ship has the Stardust II heading significantly beyond known space, where they contacted a race of dinosaur-like aliens without FTL, who had two colony worlds settled via generation ship. Ben, Chloe, and company also arrive in time to see the dino homeworld under attack by aliens with compound eyes who speak via light pulses from their antennas.

Since they're travelling with Meera (the human body the current War-Ender telepuppets), several variant avatars, and her huge weapon ships, ending that war is no huge effort. So our do-gooders continue.

At this point Benjamin nominally owns all the Kipitz worlds (they felt they'd be safer that way, since it was their leaders who had almost started the most recent war) as well as many spaceships and space stations. He's the richest human to ever exist, by far. And he's a nice guy.

Yeah, we're not going for deep or realistic fiction here, but I like the series, and unlike the other fast series I read, there's no misogyny or racism. Two more books, and then I've read all released to date.

●●●◐○ Ballroom of the Skies - John D. MacDonald (nov) 1952
Reporter Dake Lorin was working with a distinguished American to try to come up with a political solution that would prevent the Great Powers – Irania, Pak-India, and Greater Brazil – from starting World War Four. At the last minute, his boss did something completely out of character, and tanked the agreement.

Looking into this puzzle, Dake discovered that there were aliens using psychic powers to keep Earth in a state of constant chaos and destruction. His investigation resulted in various people dying, and put his girlfriend in a mental asylum. But at the end Dake found his answer, and it wasn't at all what he expected.

●●●●○ In Our Hands the Stars - Harry Harrison (nov) 1970
A Danish-Israeli professor at the University of Tel-Aviv makes an explosive discovery. Pausing in the wreckage, he thinks for a minute, then goes to his room, grabs money and travel papers, and heads for the airport, destination Denmark.

Arnie Klein had discovered the Daleth Effect (antigravity), and decided he'd give his discovery to the country that had saved him and many other Jews from the Nazis. Denmark would use the discovery for peace, while Israel, surrounded by enemies, would surely weaponize it.

Soon after the first test vessel – an adapted submarine – was built, Denmark ended up using it to rescue a Soviet lander that had become stranded on the Moon. The secret was out. American spies preyed on the American wife of the Danish spaceship pilot. Russian spies broke into the ministry, killing a guard. Nationalism caused no ends of troubles, and in the end it was all for nought.

●●●◐○ Relics and Legends - Ralts Bloodthorne {Behold: Humanity! 13} (nov) 2024
Herod and Sam-UL have spent two hundred years subjective working on fixing the SUDS system. The war against the Atrekna continues, despite 99.8% of Terran Descent Humanity being currently stuck dead. We get continuing slices of life from the dozens of characters we've been following. Another Immortal is recovered. Unless you've been following the hundred-threads story, a description is meaningless.

●●●◐○ Fifth Artifact - David Collins {Artifact 5} (nov) 2025
Imagine a video game, where you find treasure and fight foes. And it's pretty easy. Ben and friends rescue two aliens from a failed experimental-FTL ship, and their germ-phobic government doesn't want them back. They find more derelicts, and discover an ongoing war between three or four sides. Meera (the human clone containing the mind of the ancient alien ruler discovered in book one) and Dylan get married.

●●●○○ Sixth Artifact - David Collins {Artifact 6} (nov) 2025
The war from the previous book turns out to be less straightforward than expected, with various members of multiple alien species being controlled by an intelligent plant parasite. The crew eventually befriends a shape-shifting synthetic lifeform.

You don't read a series like this for the actual plot. You do it to spend time with characters you like, and to see what new stuff and new people will turn up. Collins doesn't have the best imagination – so far we have four aliens who look like humans (though you don't want to know about one's reproduction method), and most of the rest are humanoid – but I've been enjoying them, though now I've caught up and will have to wait months between new books.

●●●◐○ Challenges of the Deeps - Ryk E. Spoor {Arena 3} (nov) 2017
The Arena, the vast assemblage of Spheres that all FTL travel must go through, forbids AIs and nuclear weapons, among other things. But it allows species to use whatever “natural” abilities they have.

In Hyperion, some humans were raised to believe they have extraordinary abilities, far beyond that of other sophonts. It turns out that the Arena accepts these abilities as natural to them.

So Sun Wu Kung can command any animal he meets, for example, and is essentially unkillable. And since Marc DuQuesne grew up achieving wonders of superscience in his Skylark/Lensman world, he can do the same on Arena.

This volume sees a war with a huge Molothos fleet, as well as repaying a debt to Orphan by visiting his demigod patron. Also, it looks like an embodied AI from Hyperion has made it to the Arena. Interesting.

●●●◐○ Shadows of Hyperion- Ryk E. Spoor {Arena 4} (nov) 2021
The secrets of the unethical human project that produced physical supermen – and which, crossed with the oddity of Arena, turned some into superscience geniuses, or wizards, or psi masters – continues to come out. Enough so that a Faction tries to cheat the rules of Arena by producing their own grew-up-super folk. Which doesn't go well with Maria-Susanna – who had great powers, and who's attained vast powers – who will do anything to stop the new project. Likely the last book in the series.

●●●◐○ The Apocalypse Seven - Gene Doucette (nov) 2021
Robbie, four days a freshman at Harvard, wakes up to find that everyone had vanished. Except he soon runs into Carol, another new student who's in worse shape, because her guide dog is missing. The pair soon contact Touré, a 25-year-old programmer, and Bethany, a 14-year-old burglar.

Other threads follow middle-aged Mainer Paul, astronomer Ananda, and Win, a young marketing director who befriended a wild horse, Elton. The various characters come to understand that their last pre-whateverpocalypse memories occurred in different years, and they're now a century in the future. A story of survival, weird lights, and an untrustworthy alien.

●●●●○ Secondary - Ray Ingles {Secondary 1} (nov) 2024
Three genius women, all repeatedly sexually abused by men when younger, decide to reset history. Shaheen developed the XX-linked retrovirus that gives women electric-eel powers, Marilyn invented the Time Viewer which could become a tiny time portal when overloaded, and Ellen overrode safety protocols to get the nuclear reactor to do that.

The spores they sent 5700 years into the past changed women, and made them the dominant sex. Ellen talked the other two into making sure that Jim, a man who treated her with understanding, was in the temporally protected viewing chamber, so he survived the rewrite of history and ended up in the new timeline, where he didn't fit at all, in terms of racial background, appearance, clothing, everything.

After a few weeks in an insane asylum (and getting repeatedly raped by a female guard, whose electric power can force an instant erection), Jim manages to kill the rapist, thinking it better to be executed than spend life in an asylum.

This gets him noticed by a police detective. She gets him assigned to the custody of an anthropologist – sorry, a gynologist – where he ends up convincing a crew of scientists that his crazy story is true.

But will the court believe him, or will he end up in prison for life for killing the rapist guard? And how will society react to the blasphemous idea that men can rule women someplace?

The first third of the novel is uncomfortable, but then it gets more interesting in its comparison of societies and histories. Note that the last eighth of the book is a glossary and almost 400 footnotes.

Note even more strongly that the book has no ending. It stops just before the legal proceeding that will determine if Jim will remain free under probation, or will be locked up for killing the rapist guard.

●●●◐○ Empty World - John Christopher (nov) 1977
Cozy catastrophe. Sixteen-year-old Neil's parents and brother died in a car accident about the time the virus started killing people, mostly over 65, in India. By the time he got out of hospital and was living with his grandparents, the Plague had spread to the Middle East, and was killing people over 50. It was killing people over 35 by the time it crossed the Mediterranean. And by the time it reached Britain, it was killing everyone. Almost.

Neil got sick, but recovered. Few did. Months after the Death, and the waves of rats and packs of dogs, Neil had only met one person, a young man )only the young hve even a slim chance at surviving) who had become unbalanced. Clive showed Neil his treasures, then stole his mother's ring in the night, slashed the tires of Neil's car, and drove off.

Another month later, Neil found a balloon with a message from another survivor. But by the time he'd made it to the location in the message, he found the man had given up after no responses in three months, and had hanged itself.

Months later still, Neil found two more survivors, Lucy and Billie, girls about his age. So now the game was to see what sort of life could be made in the ruins of civilization. You know how cozy catastrophes play out.

●●●○○ Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds - Manly Wade Wellman and Wade Wellman (fix-up) 1975
Detective Sherlock Holmes and Professor George Challenger, two of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's characters, participate in The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, in this set of five stories by the Wellman duo.

The story parallels Wells's original: the pair get separated, and Holmes witnesses the initial use of the heat ray at the first landing site, Challenger witnesses the torpedo ram Thunder Child destroy two Martian walking machines at the coast, Challenger is trapped in a cellar with a mad curate, etc.

It may also intersect with the original, At one point Challenger is watching the Martians from a hillside to avoid the deadly Black Smoke, and he notices a man in a church steeple also observing. I don't recall the details of War of the Worlds in enough detail to know if that's Wells's Narrator.

If you've read or seen the HGW original, you know what happens here. Nothing is particularly different, but it's still an okay low-key adventure tale.