Book Log, 2009-03-09 through 2009-03-16

8. The Jennifer Morgue, Charles Stross (ebook)

Most of my new-to-me reading has been on the iPod lately. I have loaded the Kindle app on it, but the interface is terrible and the typography isn't wowing me either; I'm sticking with eReader. Unfortunately, while Ace and Del Rey and HarperCollins are all fairly good about getting their books onto Fictionwise in eReader format (and Baen, of course, has no DRM on their ebooks), my options for current[1] Tor books are either to buy Kindle editions and read them in the (IMO unusable) iPhone app, or to do without except for the freebies and just read other publishers' books. (There's also the not-really-an-option option of buying either the Kindle or Secure Mobipocket editions and stripping the DRM.) I'm just going to do without, and spend the money elsewhere.

This is the second "Laundry" book, with Bob Howard once again facing supernatural threats; this time, it's a James Bond mode complete with goofy gadgets. Like The Atrocity Archives, the book also contains a shorter story following the main title; this time, Bob gets a new intern. Hijinks ensue.

The combination of geekery, bureaucratic nonsense, spy spoof, and general humor is more than worthwhile. Recommended, though if you haven't read The Atrocity Archives you should probably read that first.

9. Far Frontiers, Vol. III: Fall, 1985, Jim Baen & Jerry Pournelle, eds. (mmpb)

One of the various iterations of the Permanent Floating Jim Baen Bookazine, Far Frontiers fell between Destinies and New Destinies (and pretty much morphed into the latter, as far as I can tell). This volume/"issue" starts strong with Vernor Vinge's "The Ungoverned", which I skipped since I just re-read it recently. The rest is hit or miss, with Alexander Jablokov's "A Wink in the Eye of the Wolf" the best of the batch and Rivka Jacobs's "Morning on Venus" totally lost on me; Thomas Wylde's "Space Shuttle Crashes!" reminded me of Allen Steele's short "Mudzilla's Last Stand" in tone, and was similarly enjoyable.

RR24. Marque and Reprisal, Elizabeth Moon (mmpb)

Second in the "Vatta's War" series. After surviving a more than usually eventful first cruise as a merchant captain, Ky Vatta gets some really bad news. Soon she and her cousin Stella are dealing with some particularly nasty characters as the implications start to build up.

I highly recommend this and the rest of the series; start with Trading in Danger.

RR25. The Atrocity Archives, Charles Stross (ebook)

Re-read in preparation for The Jennifer Morgue. Bob Howard, IT support drone for Britain's secret anti-occult agency, winds up on active service...but still has to deal with his bureaucratic boss as well as an ancient evil entity from another universe; it's not always clear which is harder to deal with. Enjoyable and recommended.

RR26. Flare, Roger Zelazny and Thomas T. Thomas (mmpb)

It's a disaster novel... IIIIN SPAAAAACE!! The Sun's been really quiet for decades, so nobody's bothered rad-hardening their space gear; as you can easily guess, this turns out to have been a really bad idea. I don't know how much of this was Zelazny; it reads similarly to the other Thomas I've read.

Not bad, but nothing you should spend a whole lot of time or money seeking out either.

[1] There are some eReader format Tor ebooks which date from around 2002 and are still priced at the "hardcover" level, including papersky's The King's Name and Michael Flynn's Falling Stars, but none of the previous books in either series are available....