Howard Brazee > Recent Status Updates

I forgot to say in my review of the first part of this two-book novel:

I very much like watching the protagonist grow. She started off as a way-down-the-list of cousins, but officially a princess, learning all of the social "princess" stuff. But after a palace coup is experiencing life outside (with a big help from the Sagacious sword).

I read The Enchanted Flower Pot when it was new, but can't find it. I read The Mislaid Magician more recently, which takes place later than this. I can't loose ebooks.

Cecelia & Kate are upper class English Regency-era women in a world with magic (for some). They are on their wedding Grand Tour and solving mysteries as they write in their diaries (which is what I'm reading)

I read through this the first time because I really liked the first book. But I forgot how it kept killing the Earth, and how it seemed like fake Heinlein. I'm not going to finish it this time.

I like the side observation in this fantasy that kings can have same-sex marriages, even as we observe that political marriages are important for alliances. Except, those alliances in our earth are about the children more than the spouses. I would have liked to see how that worked.

Interesting that this is #6. I didn't notice that.

There is a family that believes strongly that it is saving the world against magical monsters that have infiltrated our world. A subset of that family (mostly in the U.S. believes that "monsters" who aren't dangerous shouldn't be killed/murdered). We see carnivals and creatures and magic. (out of space here)

First book of Poul Anderson's that I found dull. I find its future fits more to what I think is likely now than his earlier books. But I'm giving up with this series.

I haven't yet got a clue what the title means. But it took me a while to figure out what "re-u" meant.

This looks like a very nerdy novel, but I'm a nerd.

Light (Regency?) romance combined with light murder mystery. Quick read.

The thief writes this in first person, showing himself to be a vain fool who bragged he could steal anything. After spending time in a dungeon, the king's magus (wise man, not magic) uses him in a team to acquire a magical item for his king.

I will get and read the sequel.

I'm really enjoying reading this book one story at a time. Well written stories I want to think about before going to the next story,

This acclaimed book by a Nobel Laureate is set in a semi-dystopian future. The story is told by an artificial intelligent companion for a girl with a high-status mother. The protagonist (Klara) is in some ways very smart and observant, but in other ways not so much. I've seen the movie "The Remains of the Day" but haven't read any other books by the author.

Small stand-alone novelette or novella. The narrator's grandma always goes on with extreme details about her life at an old Woolworths around Christmas. (I remember that Woolworths store in Denver). Family is so irritated by her. A guy wants to study her and find the source of the trauma that must have created such detailed memories. The narrator and that guy are falling in love.

The first novelette? in this book is a typical Laumer SF adventure (not comedy). The protagonist from near-present Earth ends up on a planet where people have been immortal but with a very small population (and a problem that needs be solved). This story has zero children, and a tiny scene where a woman mails something for him. It's all men on Earth or elsewhere. I bet lots of readers didn't notice back when.

I'm loving what I'm reading so far. The characters have been part of the UK's spy network and two plot threads have come up that they need to solve.

The characters have delightful streams of conversation with themselves, and are delightful with each other as well.

After reading the first few chapters, I had to look up the book to make sure it wasn't a short story collection.

I like the setting, with lots of human variants on different planets, but don't believe its backstory for a moment. Early space ships caused big mutations that kind of turned each planet into new alien species with their own useful characteristics. Then Earth abandoned them to survive on their own and they survived and flourished.

This book takes place in a world like ours, except alchemy exists, and all of the alchemists we see are very evil. One had killed his teacher he admired and is creating people who he wants to use to control the universe. Most of this story is about those people (the woman is a mathematician, her duplicate is a man who knows language. I liked reading about them, and how they grew and changed—and changed the past

I'm finding that I don't like the characters. They still are in Bath, but some characters are vain liars, others are wimpy fools.

What is interesting is how filthy it is to go anywhere in 1798.

At the start of this book there are some names, maps, and descriptions. Seeing that the setting was ancient Rome, and I'm reading an e-book, I figured I had better print some out (It's not easy flipping back and forth in e-books, and I'm not good with names).

But as I started reading, I found its style is so much like a modern private-eye novel that this might not be needed. Looking forward!

Finished "Sargasso of Lost Starships". This is another story from 1952 that doesn't fit the theme of the book. Good story though.

Finished "The Star Plunderer". A couple of the stories so far didn't appear to be written to be part of The Technic Civilization Saga. But this one really didn't fit. This one and the next one were from 1952, where most of the stories were over 20 years later.

Finished Rescue on Avalon

Finished 2nd story in this book, "Wingless"

Finished the first novel in this book, Mirkheim.

While Michener talks about various regions of Iberia and his experiences there, he often talks about history.

Being reminded on how many wars were fought so that some royal relative should be king, and how many people got tortured for using the wrong words to praise God, makes me glad that I live in modern times.

I have a version of this book from the Internet Archive, which was scanned and has some problems. I've gone to various e-book sellers and seen books by this title which appear to be study guides. I don't want study guides, I want this book—in digital form. But I'm not finding it, and expect I'll have to use this "free" version.

I'm puzzled by a couple of men being described as being tall, over 6 hands tall, and another man being over 6 feet tall.

Huh?