Lots of book reviews to catch up on, so I’m going to do capsule reviews until I’m caught up.<\/p>\n
Balance of Trade<\/a>, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller<\/p>\n I really like the Liaden universe books<\/a>, but hadn’t gotten around to reading the new books in the universe. When I saw this one in the library, I picked it up and read it last weekend. It was decent. I didn’t think the characters sparkled as much as in the other Liaden books, and some of the plot twists were far-fetched. But it was solidly entertaining, which is about all I can ask from a library book.<\/p>\n A Dirty Job<\/a>, by Christopher Moore<\/p>\n Christopher Moore<\/a> is an author that I’d like to read more of. I read his book Coyote Blue<\/i>, and was tolerably amused by it, and would like to read Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal<\/i> just for the sheer blasphemy. This one describes what happens when a normal schmo (described as a Beta Male, the subservient to the prototypical Alpha Male) gets imbued with the powers of Death. It’s a little bit odd. But quite funny. <\/p>\n The Jazz<\/a>, by Melissa Scott<\/p>\n Melissa Scott is another author whose work I like, even though it’s not part of my regular rotation of comfort reading. I’ve read a lot of her stuff, and particularly like Burning Bright<\/i> for its projection of gaming in the future, and Trouble and her Friends<\/i> which is cyperpunk-y with a dash of women’s studies. So when I saw a Scott book at the library, I picked it up. This one is a near future projection where “the jazz” is a major component of the net. “The jazz” is basically a combination of gossip-mongering, tabloid journalism, and rumors with just enough truth to make people believe it. It’s another book describing a future where image is more important than reality. Anyway, a teenage kid puts out a new piece of jazz, but is discovered to have stolen a program to help him make it. Pursuit ensues. The kid picks up unlikely allies along the way, while the record studio chases them with a ruthlessness that reminds one of the RIAA. The book itself is kind of by the numbers, but I liked the idea of the jazz; it reminds me of Bug Jack Barron<\/a> in a way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lots of book reviews to catch up on, so I’m going to do capsule reviews until I’m caught up. Balance of Trade, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller I really like the Liaden universe books, but hadn’t gotten around to reading the new books in the universe. When I saw this one in the library, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scifi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}