●●●◐○ Auk House - Clifford D. Simak (nvt) 1977
David Latimer was a painter who had been looking for a place to rent for a summer of painting, and who'd come upon a grand mansion for cheap. He looked over the abandoned building, and walked the grounds, and when he came out front again, his car was gone. When he turned around, the lights were on in the mansion, and when he entered he was told he was just in time for dinner.

Talking with the other involuntary guests, he learned their theory. Big Business ruled the world, letting governments take the blame when things went badly, and collecting profits when things went well — and sometimes even more when they didn't. But the System could be upset, so they kept a weather eye on people. Especially creative types, like writers and essayists.

Turns out (he later learned) he was now in another timeline, where humans never evolved (and great auks were not extinct, as the nearby beach showed). He met other residents — an essayist, a poet, a pianist, a novelist, a philosopher —who explained what they knew. Big Business was Civilized. They needn't kill disruptive elements. They just put them away, and stole away any work they made, for later release, when their position was too stable to be worried by the products.

Latimer examined the grounds, and managed to find a way out, but it wasn't to his original timeline, though things were interesting, and he ended up getting surprising help from a third party.

●●◐○○ Hold Back Tomorrow - Kris Neville (ss) 1951
⎡   “Teach is wearing out,” Margy said, trying to keep the horror out of her voice.
   “I – uh – thought you’d notice; I don’t think the rest of the kids did,” [said Clyde.]
   “She must be over four hundred,” Margy said […] “She’ll be dead in another fifty years.”⎦

Two students in class discuss growing up in a world where aging has been partially defeated, and someone centuries old looks the same as someone who's sixteen. Clyde wants to grow up faster, Margy finds the whole notion horrible. Poor Margy.

●●●○○ Chimera {Parasitology 03} - Mira Grant (nov) 2015
The trilogy concludes when Dr. Cale and her team get found out by Sherman, the rogue tapeworm-human chimera, who kidnaps them, leaving Sal and some others to figure out how to rescue Nathan and Juniper and the rest. They turn to the USAMRIID, where Sal's host's father Colonel Mitchell is desperate enough to work with people whom the government thinks of as literally inhuman monsters, as well as their traitors-to-humanity colleagues, because the situation is so desperate.

Sal once again has a tendency to sacrifice herself to save her friends, but in the end one disaster is averted, and one villain is killed. And, because the situation is most odd, two more-or-less-dead people combine to form a new living person. Like Grant's other "zombie" trilogy, the ending is "as happily ever after as we could manage under the circumstances."

●●●●◐ The Unintentional Exhibition of Agnes Prattle - Mel Cowan (ss) 2025
Agnes was a home nudist. Her neighbors were used to her. But today she was trying to bake a dandelion soufflé — inspired by a vivid dream — and was beset by her doorbell. First it was a new young milkman who was stunned when a woman in her late middle years opened the door naked, then it was a young woman collecting for some animal rescue, who was similarly shocked.

Then there was a new young man — a writer, no less — moving in next door, whom Agnes went out to greet, au naturel of course. He at least managed some aplomb. And when she got home, a food delivery — that Agnes hadn't ordered — arrived, with the pink-haired, multiple-piercings young woman taking Agnes in stride.

And the doorbell kept ringing. But Agnes soldiered on regardless, cheerful and clothes-free. If the world came knocking, Agnes would answer, in all her glory.

●●●●○ Graveyard Shift - Margaret St. Clair (ss) 1959
Blooms Sportsman’s Emporium is open 24/7/365, and Leon was the sole night shift employee. He has three customers this shift. The first may have been a vampire, or just an older single woman looking for a quick fling. In either case, he solves the problem of her cold feet with some battery-powered heated boots.

The second is a man seeking some silver bullets for the wyvern harrying his chicken coop. Leon tells him silver bullets are a special order, and provides rock salt shotgun shells instead, only realizing belatedly that the customer had meant to say 'werewolf' and that the shells would only annoy the werewolf.

The third just wanted some first aid for his ferrets. That one witnessed the real reason the store had to be open all night, with someone on guard all the time.

●●●●○ Vindictive Vixen {Miles Grant 20} - Jack Dearborn** (nov) 2022
The insurance company who hired Miles to retrieve a five-million-dollar rare coin — earning him a ten percent finder's fee — hires Miles again, this time to find a missing two-million-dollar manuscript. But the company says they don't trust the man who reported the manuscript missing, so they'd like Miles to solve the case without talking to him. That made things harder, but the payout is worth it.

This novel has more mystery than most. Usually Miles asks questions, and stakes out places, and quickly figures out who done it, and then it's just a matter of getting proof. This is the first book where there are different suspects and Miles initially guesses wrong. Shirley also has a bigger part in the investigation, asking a couple of questions that made her husband question his assumptions.

Shirley also did stakeout work from the residential hotel room they rented in the town a few hours from their home, watching the apartment building across the street. And because she's Shirley, she did it nude, and was noticed by another couple in the target building. She also helps out by talking to the wife of the man who owned the manuscript. Again, since these books feature a lot of mildly erotic naturism (since the element was introduced in Book 13), this took place at a women-only health club, while Shirley and Barbara were nude in the sauna and pool.

Other nudity includes Shirley going to a porno theater with her friend Tina, and Tina introducing her mother who's moved in with the family to MJ, Shirley's mother who lives on the second floor. The two older women find themselves sexually compatible. And there's the usually MJ opening the door to the pizza-delivery boy nude. Again, none of this is dwelt on. We just learn that it has happened, and the tale moves on.

●●○○○ When the Levees Break - Edwin Okolo (ss) 2021
Another obscure and depressing tale from the Disruption anthology. This one's set in New Biafra, where climate-change flooding has required huge transparent levees to be raised. Ameli was a creche-born, part-nanotech companion assigned to a Science Man. She lived a constrained existence near the wall, and became fascinated with an intelligent sea-being who sometimes stopped by. Everyone gets treated badly and dies in the end, par for the course for this anthology.

●●●○○ Perfect Match - Jacob M. Drake (ss) 2021
Charlie finally accepted Iris's invitation to visit Aurora Valley. Iris's fiancé Reuben was also there. Friday night at the nudist resort, Charlie got drunk and made a spectacle of herself, but Saturday was better, and she swam, and played tennis, and sat in a hot tub with her friends.

Then things went weird, with a fridge-size meteor hitting the lake surprisingly gently. And Charlie later met Chris, a man she found most interesting, and who was more than he looked, as the tale takes a stfnal turn.

●●●○○ Freebody CO - Rowland Jr (nov) 2016
When Jerry lost his job, the Gordon family was in trouble. Then their son found a position for his father online, running an automotive shop in Colorado. After checking it out, the family moved there in November, with teacher Regina getting a job at the high school her kids Grant and Yvette would go to. All seemed normal until some hot days in late March, when current narrator Yvette sees her classmate ask a question:

⎡“Miss King, don't you think it is really hot?”

And Miss King looks around, thinks a minute, then nods her head. “Yes, Megan. Class, please make yourselves comfortable.” And everybody but me stands up. I didn't stand, and I didn't notice what they were doing, because upfront Miss King was taking her clothes off. ⎦

The whole class stripped. The whole school did. The town did. It seems Freebody was founded after the Civil War by people who thought clothing was sometimes necessary when it was cold, or for protection, but when neither of those conditions applied, there was no reason to be clothed.

Yvette freaked out, but later that day Miss King explained things to the Gordon family. The first third of the novel shows how the Gordons adapted, with each member getting PoV chapters. After that, we switch to a slew of other people getting chapters. Town members, people passing through, Regina's sister's family when they visit, about thirty more. Some can't cope, but most find they enjoy the freedom. Not a thrilling work, but interesting.

●●●◐○ The First - Kris Neville (ss) 1950
Sam broke out of his room, smashing the transparent wall and escaping the Dome. In the Dome, soft, pale creatures with only two arms and legs lived, and when they entered Sam's room, they wore hard, black armor. But now Sam was free, running across the field — how good it was to run after being cooped up for years — and up hill until he could hide in the forest, where he ate the creatures there until the black-armored people stopped looking for him.

Then Sam figured out a way to get back at the Dome people. It was only after that happened that the reader sees something that explains what's going on.

━━━━━━━━━━
Week Twelve's numbers added to year-to-date totals:
97+06 ss | 07+1 nvt | 04+0 nva | 24+3 nov |
#books #Bookstodon