en-US Sun, 13 Apr 2025 08:50:15 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Review7485188532 Sun, 13 Apr 2025 08:50:15 -0700 /review/show/7485188532 Jim gave 4 stars to The Father Hunt (Nero Wolfe, #43) by Rex Stout
Wolfe and Archie agree to find a young woman’s father. When her mother she was killed yea hit-and-run driver, she found she’d been getting $1000 a month from a mysterious source, who she assumes must be the father she doesn’t know. Wolfe and Archie both find her answers and track down the hit-and-run driver. ]]> Review2267359442 Sun, 06 Apr 2025 07:23:46 -0700 /review/show/2267359442 Jim gave 5 stars to Children of Time (Children of Time, #1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Reread April 2025. I liked it even more the second time through.


In the future, humanity has colonized the solar system and is terraforming planets of several nearer stars. However, these planets aren't for humans, at least initially. The first planet is intended for what will be uplifted monkeys. At the start of the novel, the planet has been terraformed, a virus that will speed up evolution sent to the surface, and the Brin 2, the space station overseeing the effort, is ready to send the monkeys to the planet. Then, to the dismay of the project lead Kern, terrorists who are against the uplift project sabotage the ship. The monkeys never make it to the planet and Kern herself, the ship's lone survivor, goes into hibernation after uploading part of herself into the computer to watch over the planet.

Meanwhile, on the planet, the virus, tailored to affect no mammals other than primates, does affect spiders, and over hundreds and then thousands of years, the spiders evolve into an intelligent race. The world and culture building here is very well done. The spiders are alien. They look at things differently than humans would, their technology is based on their senses and how they perceive the world (for example, given their use of odors, chemistry and biochemistry develop very quickly and in novel ways), and their society and social structures are alien.

Meanwhile, at the same time as the sabotage of the terraforming effort, war broke out on earth, war that eventually drives the earth back to pre-technology levels. Only after a thousand years does earth civilization recover enough to send colony ships, to give humanity a chance away from the rapidly dying earth. And the survival ship Gilgamesh arrives at Brin 2.

Tchaikovsky does a fine job weaving the two stories. On one side, we have a series of chapters following the spiders over a long time scale, watching their evolution and their evolving technology. But we also see the humans over the another long period, as several key characters go into and out of hibernation to aid in critical moments.

This is a very good novel. I wish I'd read it a year earlier. It would have been on my Hugo ballot. ]]> Review7437955309 Wed, 26 Mar 2025 15:58:49 -0700 /review/show/7437955309 Jim gave 5 stars to The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Modern Library Classics) by Victor Hugo
In about a week, we'll be touring Notre-Dame, so I wanted to reread the novel, which I hadn't read in decades (and in rereading it, I think I may have read a slightly abridged version).

First, let me note that Victor Hugo disliked the English title The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. The preferred title is Notre-Dame de Paris. While Quasimodo is an important character in the book, he is only one of many. The real center of the book is the great cathedral of Notre-Dame and in fact the city of Paris as a whole, as it was in 1482. The book includes section on the cathedral itself, on the city of Paris as seen from the cathedral, and on the changes in Paris (not always for the better, in Hugo's opinion) from 1492 to the mid-Nineteenth Century. There is also a wonderful chapter on how, prior to the invention of printing, humanity wrote its history in architecture.

This is a rich, diverse novel. There are section, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, of pure description or of philosophy or art. There are other chapters that explore the characters, and the social structures in which they live. There is social commentary (including a chapter on Louis XI and his advisors that really skewers the monarch). There are some great action sequences. The army of the Tramps storming Notre-Dame to take away La Esmerelda and to pillage the church, and the church's defense by Quasimodo is very exciting. And of course there is tragedy, both in who doesn't survive the novel and in who does.

I'm happy to have reread it, and look forward to seeing the great cathedral for myself. I hope to hear the bells. ]]> Review7418499702 Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:40:42 -0700 /review/show/7418499702 Jim gave 4 stars to The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #8) by Louise Penny
The abbey of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups has remained hidden for centuries, with 24 monks living in solitude. The church, and the world, had thought the order had been dissolved when pursued by the Inquisition, but instead they'd fled to rural Quebec, away from the world: until they released a CD of their Gregorian chants to raise money needed to repair the abbey. And the world found out, though they still turned away all comers. That is, until a monk is murdered, and Chief Inspector Gamache and Inspector Beauvoir who up to search for the killer, a killer who must be one of he monks.

This is a very different book from the previous ones in the series, and is also one of the strongest yet. The author does a great job in portraying the monastic life, bringing to life a number of the characters. She explores not only their dedication to their music, but also delves into detail about the chants, their history, and how they were written down.

This take an even darker turn when Gamache's boss, Superintendent Francoeur, arrives. He and Gamache dislike one another over Gamache's earlier exposé of police corruption, and Gamache knows that Francoeur has an agenda in being here. He comes to understand that the agenda involves Beauvoir, and is an attempt to separate him from Gamache.

Overall, the mystery is an engaging one, but it's really the the characters and the details that make this novel as good as it it. ]]> Review7411139879 Mon, 17 Mar 2025 09:49:13 -0700 /review/show/7411139879 Jim gave 5 stars to Dr. No (Paperback) by Percival Everett
Wala Kitu, the narrator of Dr. No, is a mathematician obsessed with the concept of nothing. He is approached by billionaire John Sill, who pays him several million dollars to be his expert on nothing. Sill wants to be a Bond-style supervillain, and he plans to break into Fort Knox, which he is convinced contains nothing, and nothing can be used as a super weapon. Sound confusing? It does a bit when described this way, but it really isn't in the novel itself, where it works as the weapon and also as the basis for a lot of wordplay.

This is a marvelous send-up of spy novels of the James Bond type, complete with an insane villain, a variety of henchmen, various locales and secret bases, bizarre plots, and so on. But it's also more. In addition to the wordplay mentioned above, there are philosophical references and a lot of mathematical references, such as mentions of various real laws, theorems, and proofs. And one of the main characters is named Eigen Vector.

This is the second Everett novel I've read, having read his marvelous James a few months ago. I'll certainly read more. ]]> Review7403715360 Fri, 14 Mar 2025 17:33:21 -0700 /review/show/7403715360 Jim gave 4 stars to The Expert System’s Champion (Expert System, #2) by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Expert System's Champion is set on a planet with a biosphere that is completely toxic to the human colonists. A prologue and several interludes tell the story of human scientists trying to find a way to adapt, but most of the short novel focuses on humans many years later. At that point, most humans have been biologically altered to be able to live on the planet, though a few have been severed, returned to the original biological state. The latter form a traveling group, called the Bandage-Men, hated by others, but who provide protection against fauna (which can't eat them) and a place for newly severed.

The novel focuses on what appears to be an uprising by one group of alien fauna and the way the Bandage-Men try to deal with this. In the process, the book not only explores the strange alien biology, but in the end ties the two threads together nicely. ]]> Review7399745255 Thu, 13 Mar 2025 06:17:33 -0700 /review/show/7399745255 Jim gave 5 stars to Into the Unknown: The Quest to Understand the Mysteries of the Cosmos (Hardcover) by Kelsey Johnson
Into the Unknown is a book about astrophysics and physics, but it's also much more than that. It's a book about what we know and how we know it, as well as what we don't know. It looks at the big questions, exploring them, and poking at the limits. Johnson emphasizes that we have to keep asking questions and putting forward ideas, even if right now have no way to fully test them, else we'll never stray off the path of what we already know. In the end, the book does a great job of combining science with some philosophy, particularly the philosophy of how we know things.

The books is structured to ask big questions. After an introductory chapter on "What Is Knowledge?" it continues with chapters including "What Caused the Big Bang?", "What Are Dark Matter and Dark Energy?", "What Happens Inside Black Holes?", "What Is the Nature of Time?", and "Is the Universe Fine Tuned?" As you can see, these are big questions, and we only have partial answers (if even that) to some of them.

Johnson writes in an entertaining and easy to understand style, even when she's describing complicated subjects. She uses some very good examples and analogies to make what she's describing clear, making topics like multiple dimensions easier to visualize than most other sources I've read. She also at times talks about questions she asks her students and homework she gives them, making me wish I really had a teacher like her.

This is a book whose aim is to make you think more deeply about the universe, and I recommend it highly. ]]> Review7397473044 Wed, 12 Mar 2025 09:36:34 -0700 /review/show/7397473044 Jim gave 4 stars to Field of Dishonor (Honor Harrington, #4) by David Weber
Honor Harrington returns to Manticore after the major naval victory at the end of the previous book to find herself embroiled in something she hates -- politics. Pavel Young, who had previously tried to rape her (at which point she thoroughly thrashed him) and who had tried to sabatoge one of her previous commands (which backfired on him) is courtmartialed for cowardice, as he fled the battle. This court-martial becomes the center of a huge political debate, as both Conservative and Liberal parties try claim it's all political and use it against the ruling government party. The split verdict, that drums Young out of the navy but doesn't call for his execution, calms things a bit, but makes things worse for Honor, as Young is out for revenge.

Honor tries to get out of the spotlight for a bit by returning to the planet Grayson, where she has been made a stadholder in recognition of her remarkable efforts to keep this allied planet safe. But she must return to the political firestorm at home when Young begins his revenge campaign.

This is a different book from the first three in the series, as it features no major space battles, but rather focuses on political intrigue and assassination attempts. But it's still a very good read in it own right (though I'd recommend that anyone who wants to read it read the preceding books first). ]]> Review7386491376 Sat, 08 Mar 2025 11:57:42 -0800 /review/show/7386491376 Jim gave 4 stars to Death of a Doxy (Nero Wolfe, #42) by Rex Stout
Orrie Cather asks Archie Goodwin to visit the apartment of his mistress, Isabel Kerr when she is supposedly out. Isabel is also the mistress of a rich man, who is the one paying for her lavish apartment. Orrie has found someone he wants to marry, and he told Isabel that he needs to break up with her. She objects, and she still has some of Orrie's possessions, so Orrie wants Archie to break in and retrieve them. But when Archie enters he instead finds Isabel's body. He quickly leaves, but the police soon arrest Orrie, whose fingerprints are all over Isabel's apartment.

Since Orrie has often worked for Nero Wolfe, and since Archie as well as several others who work for Wolfe, agree that it was unlikely that Orrie was the killer, they decide they have to clear him in the only way they know how: they need to find out who did kill her.

Thus starts another clever mystery by Rex Stout. As always, the great strength of these aren't simply the plot. The characters are interesting, and Archie's first-person narration is captivating. I also enjoy the frequent references to foods I haven't tried (and since I own the Nero Wolfe Cookbook, i can often then look them up and try them -- after reading this book I plan to make a French dish of eggs poached in red wine).

Rex Stout is both one of my favorite mystery writers and one of my go-to comfort reads. I recommend pretty much any of the Nero Wolfe novels. ]]> Review7382391791 Thu, 06 Mar 2025 20:12:31 -0800 /review/show/7382391791 Jim gave 4 stars to A Trick of the Light (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #7) by Louise Penny
Clara Morrow has a very successful art exposition in Montreal and returns home to Three Pines for a party with friends as well as invited artists, agents, and gallery owners. But things change when Clara find a body in her garden, and change even more when it turns out that the body is that of a childhood friend, one who had betrayed Clara, and who Clara hated for years.

So Chief Inspector Gamache and team travel back to Three Pines and try to work out who the killer is. Along the way, they find that the victim, who was a hateful critic in the past, was now in AA and trying to change, but had damaged many prior to this. But as Gamache and crew try to uncover what is really happening, they also have to deal with their memories of the near fatal shootings of Gamache and his second command Jean Guy Beauvoir in the previous novel.

This is another good entry in the series. Penny does a very good job of managing and tying together multiple threads, and in creating characters who are nuanced and compelling. ]]>