Reviews and Comments

Brian

brianary@bookwyrm.social

Joined 2 years, 3 months ago

I'm a fairly slow reader, and have been reading more lately. Douglas Adams, Roger Zelazny, Fred Saberhagen were my favorites when I was younger (I still remember them fondly). My favorite series lately is Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club.

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finished reading The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman (The Thursday Murder Club, #4)

Richard Osman: The Last Devil to Die (Hardcover, 2023, Penguin Random House)

You'd think you would be allowed to relax over Christmas, but not in the world …

This one was much more emotional than the previous books in the series, and a great deal of character development. The crime and resolution tend to take a back seat to this focus. It also seems to prepare for stories to come.

Neal Stephenson: Fall; or, Dodge in Hell (2020, William Morrow Paperbacks)

Estimated start date. Had to take a break after the part where they visited the Midwest that had been fully ceded to extremists. Just felt too real at the time. Just finished part five, which I enjoyed (it's good to see Enoch Root again, though I never finished The Baroque Cycle, so I don't know much more about him than what was in Cryptonomicon), though I've lost some of the thread in the interim. It's harder to find time for a book this big, so I'm taking another break from it.

reviewed Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty (The Midsolar Murders, #1)

Mur Lafferty: Station Eternity (Paperback, 2022, Penguin Publishing Group)

Amateur detective Mallory Viridian’s talent for solving murders ruined her life on Earth and drove …

An interesting world, and a fun ride

Several characters with really interesting quirks and stories, in a universe that has recently gotten bigger than Earth.

Ashley Peacock: Creating Software with Modern Diagramming Techniques (The Pragmatic Programmers, LLC)

Diagrams communicate relationships more directly and clearly than words ever can. Using only text-based markup, …

Great for people with some Mermaid experience, or none

Great detail on conceptual graphing and practical use of Mermaid to efficiently and effectively examine, reason about, and communicate about complex systems in a variety of compelling and maintainable ways.