kengr

A few books caught my interest in the Kindle recommendations.

First off, there's three books by Dorothy Grant. All are stand-alones, and I'd love to see sequels to any of them. In the order I read them: Going Ballistic, Shattered Under Midnight and Scaling the Rim

All are set in the future on human colonized worlds. Each has a female protagonist. And they are *good* characters, They've got their flaws, and they aren't omni-competent. They are even at a disadvantage sometimes. But they work with what they've got aqnd managed to get through their troubles.

I'm definitely keeping an eye out for more.

Next we have Ivan Kal. He's got a lot of books. Many of his books share a multiverse background that he refers to as the "Kalverse".

In order, the Kalverse series are:

Rise of Empire (12 books)
Universe on Fire (4 books with a 5th one coming)
Eternal Path (2 books)
Tower of Power (5 books)

I started with the Universe on Fire series. Then I read the Rise of empire series (and because I'd read them out of order I got a few surprises in Rise of Empire). I've just started Eternal.

He;'s got some problems with science and with scale of space battles and the like, but his stories are interesting enough that I'm willing to ignore that.

I've read E E. "Doc" Smith's The Skylark of Space more times than I can remember. I've kicked myself for years at passing up an opportunity to get a first edition.

A while back I bought a cheap collection of Doc Smith stories on Kindle. I've slowly been working my way thru them reading a chapter here and there between reading other things. So far they'll all been things I've read before.

Recently, I hit The Skylark of Space and it turns out to be the *magazine* version (which I believe that first edition I passed up was as well). Turns out to have significant differences from the version I'd read before.

Smith had a co-author (to add in some love interest). Many of the changes are in scenes between Seaton and his fiancee.

But others are not. There are some minor differences in how World Steel is portrayed and the things they get up to. but some significant differences are in the workings of Perkin's Cafe. Such as a telephone setup to make it hard to track goings on (which I don't think would actually work, but still).

A really big one is that World Steel and their operatives have "wireless telephones". Not a major plot point, but they are used well.

I'm only up to the point where DuQuesne and company are planning to kidnap Seaton's fiancee, so there are likely to be other differences to be found.

I'm rather enjoying this look at an old favorite.

Some time back I read something where Our Hero was on the run from some not nice people. It may have been winter. At the very least the water was cold enough to cause hypothermia fairly quickly.

He went into the water either upstream of a beaver pond or in the pond itself and managed to find the underwater entrance to the beaver lodge.

He climbed out and curled up with the beavers to warm up while the bad guys eventually gave up figuring he'd died in the water.

Ring any bells?

Check this out:

https://www.amazon.com/Windup-Girl-Paolo-Bacigalupi-ebook/dp/B07BWQJBJC/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

It's the listing for the kindle version of "The Windup Girl". It talks about how great the author is (and used to go on that way for several more paragraphs) but say not one word about the *book*.

It popped up on the recommendations on my Kindle. And I was highly annoyed at the lack of info.

When I went searching for it on my PC so as to post this, I got the page for the paperback version, which *does* have info about the book. But the page for the kindle version (the link above) is still stupid.

Mind you, I've seen the same thing in the blurbs in actual printed books before. And it's usually a sign that you shouldn't buy the book.

First off we have Places in the Darkness by Chris Brookmyre.

someone on the Traveller RPG mailing list recommended it and on a whim, I checked and found that not only did the library have the ebook, but it was available. I checked it out and thoroughly enjoyed it.

It's a murder mystery on a space station, but there's a *lot* more going on. The station is well described and definitely "lived in:. I can't say a lot more without spoilers (well, it's possible, but I'm bad at that sort of thing).

The second is On a Sunbeam. It's a webcomic and also a book. I'm reading the webcomic and it's great.

It's fairly far future SWF, and doesn't explain much of anything. You just pick up details as it goes along. It's done well, and while I have a *huge* list of questions about the universe, they don't interfere with enjoyimng the story.

It's the tale of a girl, Mia, and much of it is flashbacks to her time in a boarding school. The rest starts after she graduates and starts working with a crew that restores/repurposes buildings. Only these buildings are floating in space. One of the many things that aren't explained, but just *are*.

There's a strong romance element, but I like it.

I was looking for an old Mack Reynolds book on amazon, and I discovered *Free* Kindle editions of two of his classics:

Black Man's Burden
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Mans-Burden-Mack-Reynolds-ebook/dp/B004TZLZAQ/ref=sr_1_7?crid=O4KE0L8FMV5P&keywords=mack+reynolds&qid=1559942719&s=digital-text&sprefix=mack+re%2Caps%2C222&sr=1-7

Border, Breed Nor Birth
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004UJ0H64/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title

These two books cover a revolution that might have been in Africa.

I'd like to thank whoever it was that posted about "The Raven Tower" and "The Invisible Library" being on sale a month or two back.

And for that second book, I feel I should also repeat what a friend said to me after introducing him to Tetris many yours ago "There's a word for people like you. Pusher!"

I've also stumbled across several Tamora Pierce e-bboks on sale. I bought the first book of several series (Song of the Lioness, Beka Cooper & Protector of the Small) and was able to read the rest of the second two series via the local library's ebook loan program.

Gonna be a while before the second book in the Song of the Lioness is available though. Probably wind up buying it next month and getting on the waiting list for the third book.

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