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ssweeny

ssweeny@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 9 months ago

Software engineer from #Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Opinions are my own, not those of my spouse, employer, child, or pets. In fact there are few areas in which we agree.

Interested in #FOSS and #Linux, as well as federated social nonsense like the #Fediverse and #XMPP and #Matrix

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ssweeny's books

To Read (View all 884)

Max Brooks: Devolution (Hardcover, 2020, Del Rey)
Dan Simmons: Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos) (2017, Del Rey)
Edith Hamilton: Mythology (2013, Back Bay Books)

Currently Reading (View all 5)

Paul S. Kemp: Midnight's Mask (Forgotten Realms: The Erevis Cale Trilogy, Book 3) (Paperback, 2005, Wizards of the Coast)
Edward M. Hallowell, John J. Md Ratey: Delivered from Distraction (Paperback, 2005, Ballantine Books)
Laura Ingalls Wilder, Garth Williams: Long Winter (2016, HarperCollins Publishers Limited)

Read (View all 42)

Zach Weinersmith, Boulet: Bea Wolf (2023, Roaring Brook Press)
Terry Pratchett: Miss Felicity Beedle's The world of poo (2015)
Frank Herbert: Dune (Paperback, 1990, Ace Books)

2025 Reading Goal

20% complete! ssweeny has read 5 of 25 books.

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reviewed By the Shores of Silver Lake (Little House) by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Laura Ingalls Wilder: By the Shores of Silver Lake (Little House) (Paperback, 2004, HarperTrophy) 4 stars

The Ingalls family had fared badly in Plum Creek, Minnesota. They were in debt. Mary …

By the Shores of Silver Lake

4 stars

Man this family moved around a lot.

This was another enjoyable mostly-lighthearted tale about the Ingalls family moving yet again. This time Pa got a job doing payroll for some railroad workers with the intention of claiming a homestead once the work was done.

I still enjoy Pa's optimism in these stories, and the fact that he can build a shanty in less than a day.

reviewed Dawn of night by Paul S. Kemp (The Erevis Cale trilogy ;)

Paul S. Kemp: Dawn of night (2004, Wizards of the Coast) 4 stars

Enjoyable Forgotten Realms Nonsense

4 stars

Came back to try to finish this series.

The characters are brilliant. Lots of meditation on religion and philosophy. The interplay between the villains is almost as good as between the heroes.

The plotting is good too. Keeps you guessing.

Some of the action is a bit rote. Feels like "studio notes" in some places where the author had to refer to some element in the D&D rules.

Still, definitely an enjoyable read.

reviewed Asunder by Kerstin Hall

Kerstin Hall: Asunder (2024, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom) 4 stars

Asunder by Kerstin Hall

4 stars

Someone on these here internets (I wish I could remember who it was) recommended this one and oh boy was it right up my alley.

The setting is a dark fantasy world after a war in which one culture's gods or "heralds" wiped out the other's. The main character could be right out of a classic cyberpunk story. Down on her luck in her youth she traded her life to one of these heralds for the power to speak to the recently dead, and as the story begins she's waiting for the contract to come due.

In trying to save a man's life she binds him to her shadow and that starts a second ticking clock. Can she find the magic to separate them before one of them consumes the other?

I admit some of the world-building lost me at times. But the characters more than made up for it. …