Well. That took a while.

Here is a number of months worth of reviews. It seems that real-life
(tm) was conspiring to get me to do a lot of things I had in no
ways planned or wanted to do instead of writing book reviews.
(Though not enough things to keep me from actually reading the
books).

I don't recommend real-life.

=======

The Bright and Breaking Sea (A Captain Kit Brightling Novel Book 1)
by Chloe Neill
https://amzn.to/3qXuVjJ

A Swift and Savage Tide (A Captain Kit Brightling Novel Book 2)
by Chloe Neill
https://amzn.to/3xJo7Jo

The only Chloe Neill I had read before was one of her "Chicagoland
Vampires" books, which I did not like at all. Fortunately I had
forgotten she wrote that, or I probably would not have picked up
the first Kit Brightling book.

It's the Napoleonic era, sorta, in Kit Brightling's world. Years
ago, in the old king's reign, The Isles decided Empire was a mug's
game and decided to concentrate on trade instead. It's worked out
pretty well for them, and the increase in intercourse with the rest
of the world without being either conquerors or conquered has made
The Isles more amenable to importing citizens who can hold their
own, regardless of what they look like, or at least that's my take
on the back-story. For other reasons women are accepted (rather
more grudgingly to be sure) in non-traditional roles, including the
Navy.

Kit Brightling is a foundling (hmm, wonder if that will be important :-),
adopted into the Brightling house, a family whose formidable
matron preaches self-reliance, education & duty to all her daughters.
Since Kit years ago proved that she is "Aligned" to the sea
(specifically the English Channel [The Narrow Sea]), her mother
agrees she could serve best in the Isles Navy, where her magic,
savvy & grit have finally lifted her into command of The Diana, a
small ship, but a fast one, and well led & crewed.

Several years ago the setting's Napoleon analogue was sent into
exile after having caused a nuclear level event during his last
campaign by trying to harness magic in a way that was never meant
to be. Now suddenly, Kit's ship has intercepted a smuggler who
seems to be carrying a message from him to agents in The Isles. Is
he plotting to return to power?

As events unfold, the event precipitates Kit being dispatched
directly by the Queen on a rescue mission to liberate one of the
Isles most important spies who may have learned more of the plot.
Kit and The Diana are only too eager for action with the only
difficulty, from her point of view, being that the Queen has also
dispatched Rian Grant, an ass of a Viscount to co-lead the mission
once it goes ashore as the Army lead. Brightling wants nothing to
do with the Beau Monde (apparently the setting's equivalent to The
Ton) who are uniformly arrogant, dim-witted, hidebound, and any
other adjective you can imagine that a foundling might direct against
those who hold her & her sisters in uniformly low regard. Did I
mention that he's very handsome. Hmm, I did not. Well, that
couldn't matter anyway, right?

I really enjoyed these books, and look forward to the next. You
can see what Neill is doing to make England of the Napoleonic Era
more sympathetic for modern readers, but it works pretty well, and
our knowledge of the era let's her get on with things since we know
the broad strokes of Napoleon's career. The romance is well handled,
sort of a Kate/Curran meeting of equals that never overpowers the
A plot but is important nonetheless. There is also a C plot about
the industrialization of magic that figures importantly in the
Napoleon figure's back-story & plans, and that must be dealt with
somehow, grayly or not by the good guys.

Calamity's Child
by Sharon Lee, Steve Miller
https://amzn.to/3J4xaIe

This is a non-Liaden short story by this well-honed writing team, and
establishes a setting I would like to see more of. It's essentially
a Nick & Nora story set in a world where magic works. Unfortunately
the murder mystery itself is slight and not altogether satisfying,
but the characters are fun to spend time with.

Legacy of the Demon (Kara Gillian Book 8)
by Diana Rowland
https://amzn.to/3IZsGmo

It had been a long time since I read Book 7 of this series so
I was a big confused at first, but got back into things fairly
quickly. Kara Gillian has risen a long way from Book one's ex-junkie
small town cop. She is now the lead in the US's war on the ongoing
dimensional rift & demon invasion problem. Her house is an armed
compound, and she can call the President whenever she needs to.
Unfortunately all that power is not helping her actually solve the
problem and they are just barely keeping one step ahead of total
disaster. Her demon lover is still incommunicado while he works
his own desperate plans and keeping her old enemy prisoner in her
back yard is getting harder and harder for her to justify. To make
things worse, a new plague coming through the rifts is cocooning
infected people while they metamorphize into strange and possibly
dangerous new forms.

A sudden lead on where an important player is barricaded could change
everything if Kara can break him out, which is good because as bad
as things are on Earth, its worse in the Demon Realm, and if something
isn't done soon, both planes may implode..

It was good to spend some time with Kara again, and I was glad to
see that a final book is coming out this summer. That said, there
were some things in this installment that felt a bit off. In
particular, a few revelations that cast a new light on prior events
felt like retcons, the big reveal on the origins of the crisis was
not very convincing (and very Marvelesque), and Kara's burning need
to take one particularly dangerous action did not seem well motivated.

The Amazon's Vengeance: The Complete Series
by Sarah Hawke
https://amzn.to/3JVVM7n

This omnibus is the follow-up to _Highwind: The Catch-Up Collection_
which I reviewed recently. In fact the name of *that* book is a
bit of misnomer as you also need to read this book to "catch up".
(Although I suppose that depends on when you came on board).

Anyway, while the previous book focused on a number of different
characters in the Hawke-verse before dialing in on Jorem and his
battle-harem, this one stays more with that group, though Ranger
General Serrane and paladin Julian Cassel continue to be very
important. It also sees a shift from Jorem's first person narration
to the third person needed to keep up with the various points of
view.

As if Jorem didn't have enough woman problems with the Amazon who
has made herself his love-slave and the magical assassin who seems
to consider that the Amazon and Jorem are *her* harem he can now
add the wood-elf werewolf who is trying to convince him (possibly
with very ulterior motives) that he is destined to bring dragons
back to the land, something that Jorem has pretty much no interest
at all in doing. He feels quite strongly that getting involved
with the Inquisitrix's war on Highwind puts enough on his plate,
and that he was probably crazy to think doing that was a good idea
in the first place. The thing is that as things get more and more
desperate, and as plots and counterplots come and go, and friends
turn and enemies offer help.. he may have no choice but to see what
this whole dragon thing is all about.

As always with Hawke, you can count on a lot of sex, some of it
over-the-top, in her stories, but the shift from erotica to hot
adventure which happened when Jorem was introduced in the previous
book continues. I also appreciate that none of Hawke's characters
are dumb. When something odd happens nobody says "Oh, it was
probably nothing", and when they have reason not to trust another
character, they don't.

They ending here clarifies some events in the "War Of The White Throne"
books and sets up a new mystery which is still unresolved in the
follow-up "Blade Of Highwind" books. These books remain very
entertaining fantasy adventures, if perhaps not for your Aunt Petunia.

Art of the Hunt: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (Dragon Gate Book 2)
by Lindsay Buroker
https://amzn.to/39AwqPr

Broken by Magic: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (Dragon Gate Book 3)
by Lindsay Buroker
https://amzn.to/39HbE0x

Chosen for Power: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (Dragon Gate Book 4)
by Lindsay Buroker
https://amzn.to/3QvsUGC

Finally the dimensional portal unearthed in book one is put into play,
and our three main (?) viewpoint characters are on the away team
questing for King Uthari's possibly mythical medicinal plant which
can yield the immortality elixir Uthari needs to stave off the death
even magic can't keep at bay much longer. The warrior monk Malek
leads the mission as a dedicated servant of his king, though he is
conflicted with growing, very un-monklike feelings, archeologist/herbalist
Jadora goes because Uthari is holding her father prisoner, and
because she still hopes to find allies for the oppressed non-magical
humans on possible other worlds. Her son Jak goes because he has
a bond with the portal, is being mentored by Malek to use his unexpectedly
awakened magical abilities and to look out for his mother.

In article <jifcjoFr8h2U1@mid.individual.net>,
ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) wrote:

> Well. That took a while.
>
> Here is a number of months worth of reviews. It seems that real-life
> (tm) was conspiring to get me to do a lot of things I had in no
> ways planned or wanted to do instead of writing book reviews.
> (Though not enough things to keep me from actually reading the
> books).
>
> I don't recommend real-life.
>
> =======

(SNIP!)
>
> Calamity's Child
> by Sharon Lee, Steve Miller
> https://amzn.to/3J4xaIe
>
> This is a non-Liaden short story by this well-honed writing team, and
> establishes a setting I would like to see more of. It's essentially
> a Nick & Nora story set in a world where magic works. Unfortunately
> the murder mystery itself is slight and not altogether satisfying,
> but the characters are fun to spend time with.
>

You must be referring to the short story "A Night at the Opera"
(initially published in the anthology _Murder by Magic: Twenty Tales of
Crime and the Supernational_), because the other story in the chapbook
_Calamity's Child_ is a Liaden Universe short story (very much a side
story).

(SNIP!)

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
�-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com

In article <robertaw-ADF83E.09490504072022@news.individual.net>,
Robert Woodward <robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:
>In article <jifcjoFr8h2U1@mid.individual.net>,
> ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) wrote:
>
>> Well. That took a while.
>>
>> Here is a number of months worth of reviews. It seems that real-life
>> (tm) was conspiring to get me to do a lot of things I had in no
>> ways planned or wanted to do instead of writing book reviews.
>> (Though not enough things to keep me from actually reading the
>> books).
>>
>> I don't recommend real-life.
>>
>> =======
>
>(SNIP!)
>>
>> Calamity's Child
>> by Sharon Lee, Steve Miller
>> https://amzn.to/3J4xaIe
>>
>> This is a non-Liaden short story by this well-honed writing team, and
>> establishes a setting I would like to see more of. It's essentially
>> a Nick & Nora story set in a world where magic works. Unfortunately
>> the murder mystery itself is slight and not altogether satisfying,
>> but the characters are fun to spend time with.
>>
>
>You must be referring to the short story "A Night at the Opera"
>(initially published in the anthology _Murder by Magic: Twenty Tales of
>Crime and the Supernational_), because the other story in the chapbook
>_Calamity's Child_ is a Liaden Universe short story (very much a side
>story).
>
>(SNIP!)

You are, of course, correct. The chapbook my link goes to has two
stories "Sweet Waters", the melancholy tale of a Liaden Scout
marooned and making the best of things, and "A Night At The Opera"
which is the Nick & Nora story. These reviews sat fallow so long
that when I looked at my notes and saw the chapbook title "Calamity's
Child" I figured that must have been the unfortunate (and unpleasant)
child from Opera, and totally forgot "Sweet Waters" (which I do
recommend, though as you say, a side story).
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

In article <jifcjoFr8h2U1@mid.individual.net>,
Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:
>I have to say that the Wukan Navy is one of the crazier outfits I have
>seen in SF. Where in more typical MilSF, a crew would train on their
>ship and equipment until they could take it apart blindfolded and know
>more about its quirks than the people who designed it. In Wukan, they
>put you on a ship you've never seen before with a crew who largely hasn't
>either and a pilot who's never flown one and say, "Off with you now!"
>and hope for the best.

(Hal Heydt)
An ancestor of mine was--at about the age of 20--put in command
of a 16-gun Brig'o'War during the US Revolutionary War.

He wasn't a novice, having spent a short time on a privateer and
been an officer on the ship before the captain retired and
suggested him for command. But no formal training that I know of
as three days after he arrived in his home town of Charleston, SC
he was appointed as a lieutenant in the SC Navy.

During the three years he commanded the brig, he was involved in
the capture, recapture or sinking of some 63 vessels.

For anyone wanting to search for data, his name was William Hall
and the ship was the _Notre Dame_.

On 04/07/2022 12.12, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> In article <robertaw-ADF83E.09490504072022@news.individual.net>,
> Robert Woodward <robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:
>> In article <jifcjoFr8h2U1@mid.individual.net>,
>> ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) wrote:

>>> This is a non-Liaden short story by this well-honed writing team, and
>>> establishes a setting I would like to see more of. It's essentially
>>> a Nick & Nora story set in a world where magic works. Unfortunately

>> You must be referring to the short story "A Night at the Opera"

> You are, of course, correct. The chapbook my link goes to has two
> stories "Sweet Waters", the melancholy tale of a Liaden Scout
> marooned and making the best of things, and "A Night At The Opera"
> which is the Nick & Nora story.
Okay, Nick and Nora pastiches in SF. I'm familiar with Bogie pastiches,
as in the Man-Kzin Wars books. But the title of this particular one
raises the obvious (to me, at least) question:

Are there any Marx Brothers pastiches in SF?

--
Michael F. Stemper
What happens if you play John Cage's "4'33" at a slower tempo?