Jeff Morford > Recent Status Updates

It looked the right length to read on my porch with a glass of wine on a nice fall-like day. It's the 26th book in a series (and I haven't read the first 25). It seems Dorothy Martin has the same problem as Jessica Fletcher. People get murdered wherever she goes.

Spoiler prediction hinted at
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Pronouns in place of nouns, a pseudonym for Charles/Eric to use when talking to Lizzy. I hope I haven't guessed the main twist 20% of the way in. Especially since the twist would be just a trick on the reader, not a twist for the characters.

I mean, if it's your book you can introduce a bunch of characters, supplying no details about them, through narrative instead of introducing them during plot development...

I'm sure it will improve as this author seems popular.

I see now this is book 4 of some series. Eh, I guess it is what the library has and I've gotten used to not buying books . . .

I almost quit this after a couple chapters. The idioms from 70+ years ago did not all translate easily. After 3 or 4 chapters it got easier to read and I'll give it a few more pages to draw me in.

French's writing hooked me. The similes and metaphors save on description rather than knocking me out of the story- starting with a description of the humid air that carries scents on page 3 (that's my ugly literal translation of a really beautiful smile).

Hopefully the main mystery turns out to be mostly mundane- Cal's expanding theories wouldn't fit the town of regular folk doing regular stuff.

Making a list, as I suppose most readers do.

Um, I got this because book 3 was on the new shelf at Sandburg. It seems to have a clever premise, but the dialog belongs with mean 12-year olds and not competitive 22-year olds. I may bail or pretend the characters are 10 years younger.

Kellerman books (Faye or Jonathon) are my popcorn.

Where did this pistol come from? How does it fit in the world building so far?

Ugh. I know about the sunk cost fallacy but it will be sad to bail on this trilogy 40% of the way through book 2 . . .FIX THIS SA CHARABORTY

I guess a nice set up for an unreliable narrator story - letting readers know up front.

It's interesting to read the 1980's setting- so much easier to communicate and find information than the past- so much harder than now. The lead character, Millhone, was probably novel in the early 80s. And smoking was that ubiquitous until the 90's, but ugh. I'm sure I'll get bored mid-alphabet but for now a beer or a glass of wine and a couple of chapters of Grafton is a nice guilty pleasure.

Eh, page to page it's OK but not much has happened yet. I'm reminded of the Airport made for TV movies of the 70's where they give character background for 90 minutes then 30 minutes of action.

Applying fantasy rules to mystery I can start this now that I'm sure the series is done.

I don't normally like books that do too much jumping around in a character's life. But, I liked Molokai and I like this one. Brennert's research combined with fearlessly filling the gaps and fleshing out the story in a plausible way works for me.

I'm hoping for more character interaction and less news of the world in the last 80%.

Unreliable narrators? Magical evidence labs? Ridiculous plot twists? Yet I go back to read Deaver every time. This is what you expect from him. If you like his other stuff you'll like this.

The contrived meeting where BIG THINGS will be decided among all the Spires now has chapters where Butcher tries to show how clever he is by having courtly figures insult each other with somewhat veiled language. THE SKIMMING HAS COMMENCED.

I'm mostly seeing how limited my vocabulary has become and maybe trying to regrow it. But, I also forgot how the boom opens with el padre con la hacha- dark stuff for someone in the right age group for the book.

It took me a while to remember enough of the original trilogy to get into this book but now I remember the world and am enjoying this new book. The newer characters (Red London's Tes and White London's "Little Queen") are more interesting than the characters from the original trilogy. I wish there were more of the book devoted to them.

"Why are you reading three books at once?"

"I just finished one."

This book in particular I'm reading because the first book in this series was a quick read with heroes coming of age and learning their powers that did some world building without letting it bog down the story.

If this book is as good as the first I will probably read some of Okorafor's other novels.

It's a decent enough adventure. Butcher's cat conceit is interesting. Butcher likes Rowl too much though so I fear he may be headed towards Mercurio's fate. (Not a spoiler- he's alive halfway through).

I'm open to being won over. The author puts so many metaphors and cutesy descriptions in the narrator's internal monologue that it keeps knocking me out of the flow of the story. And then the sister produced paper airplane tickets. I thought I had the time frame wrong. But, then the narrator was working on a phone on the plane. This book just needed a tougher editor.

There are possibly 350 pages to win me back.

I'm listening to the audio version while I walk. Egads.

Hmm. This was free for buying the free book.

"Jana Waters always left a wake coming and going."

An Alabama sports reference.

The editor needed to commit mass murder of Bailey's darlings.

Free December book at Amazon and so far it seems the price is right.

I wanted to track the parallels and differences with The Weight of Blood

1. All the characters are introduced with their ages. I will pay attention to see if Chan does anything with that. It's certainly noticeable.

2. I'm taking notes so I'll totes remember this in 2-5 months. :-)

Series . . . Do I hope it is good or not? Is the whole series already written or is there a Martin risk?

The jump cuts through Clementine's adult life make it seem like a TV miniseries. I'm reserving judgment on whether that turns out good or bad.