Finished A Talent for Murder by Peter Swanson. Decent murder-mystery about a pair of women trying to track down a serial killer. Surprising plot twist at the end.
Next up: The Waiting by Michael Connelly. A Renee Ballard and Maddie Bosch mystery.
Finished rereading the LOTR trilogy. Still holds up. Still much better than the moviee (for the most part).
Currently reading The Legacy of Arniston House, by T.L. Huchu, fourth in a series about a Scottish ghosttalker. A bit of a slog, but it’s not the book’s fault. I’m not in the right mood. However, the setting is in Edinburgh, where I recently visited, so it’s interesting to envision the fictional events in these real-world places.
Finished Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality, by Jacob Tomsky, which I enjoyed; and A Concise History of Scotland, by Sir Fitzroy Maclean, which was interesting.
Next up: The Shining Cog and Other Steampunk Tales, by Doc Coleman, and Grailblazers, by Tom Holt.
Finished The Shining Cog and Other Steampunk Tales, by Doc Coleman, of which the best story was the title one, and Grailblazers, by Tom Holt, which I enjoyed very much. Funniest book I’ve read this year. Felt very Discworld-ish. I kept expecting the knights to meet the Watch or Granny Weatherwax.
Next up: The Greatest Business Decisions of All Time: How Apple, Ford, Zappos, and Others Made Radical Choices That Changed the Course of Business, edited by Verne Harnish, et al.; The Spectre General, by Theodore Cogswell; and E for Effort, by T. L. Sherred.
New thread: It’s a New Year!
Finished The Greatest Business Decisions of All Time: How Apple, Ford, Zappos, and Others Made Radical Choices That Changed the Course of Business, edited by Verne Harnish, et al.; which I enjoyed for the great historical anecdotes it contained. I also liked The Spectre General, by Theodore Cogswell and E for Effort, by T. L. Sherred, both science fiction, the former more than the latter.
Theodore Cogswell is a little-known and underappreciated author. He’s one of that tribe that wrote lots of short stories in the 1950s with twist endings – Robert Sheckley, Fredric Brown, Ricard Matheson, Charles Beaumont. Even the early Harlan Ellison. The magazines snapped up that kind of thing.
Several of his stories were collected as Wall Around the World. There’s a Theodore Cogswell Megapack e-book out now. He also wrote an early Star Trek novel – Spock, Messiah.
He also wrote a science fiction play with his wife George Rae , Contact Point. It’s in the collection Six Science Fiction Plays, edited by Roger Elwood. Unlike the movie script and the Teleplay in the collection, it’s a real stage play that requires minimal and easy special effects. I think it’s the best of the actual plays in the collection. I don’t know if anyone has ever performed it onstage. Apparently, in a different form, it had been an episode (“Red Dust”, May 2 1952) of the 1950s TV series Tales of Tomorrow.