Martinw > Recent Status Updates

Ok, so they're not oblivious to the fact that there's probably something fishy going on. Good for them. Take care!

At this point, we, the Experienced Readers, know there's something wrong, but the team the MurderBot is currently supporting doesn't have a clue yet, and neither has he. Accidents, oversights, innocent malfunctions.
Ha! There's no such thing, don't you read SF novels, you suckers? Well, you'll see. I just hope it's not too late then.

I will like this a lot. I'm actually feeling giddy about this, like back then when I read Scalzi for the first time, looking forward to the things to come.
Bought 1 to 7 of the series for hardly any money on Humble Bundle, great!
I like the awkward robot who apparently has more freedom of choice than he's supposed to, due to a hack.

"Lidgard was considered crazy but not dangerous, despite the fact that he was rarely seen in the mountains without his ancient .30-.30 lever action rifle."
How strange it must be to live in the USA, where this sentence apparently makes sense. :-)

Good read so far, interesting to have alternating POV between protagonist and his daughter.

Ok, this is to easy. The killer is probably aware that they are searching for his login data, so they are barking up the wrong tree with Leona, I guess.

Ok, Smoky had the same thought. Only a little later than I did. *g*

Hm. The killer uses the same login-data for his various accounts on sex-sites. There should be a possibility to use that. For example, try it on every know sex site and see where it provides access, in order to find out his next potential victims.

Ok, it's not the psychiatrist.
Apparently the killer had his eyes on Smoky even when her family has been still alive because his video message was filmed on the exact same evening her personal disaster occured.
This is strange. One the one hand, it can hardly be coincidence. On the other hand the killer had no way of knowing she herself would even survive that evening. The odds were hard against her.

Oh, and I don't understand the thing with the perfume-soaked towel under the door.
How can the killer place it (so it prevents the stench from getting out) ON THE INSIDE of the room? Apparently the door opens to the inside. Did they climb out the window afterwards?

Possible spoiler: The crime took place only few days before Smokys psychiatrist forced her to make progress that put her back on track.
The killer of her friend left her a letter at the crime scene which her colleagues would not have forwarded to her, had she not been better.
But that can't mean her psychiatrist was involved, can it? Would be too easy.

I was 10 minutes into the audio book when I thought for the first time that this could be great.
Curious where this is going.

About that 'scorched earth' operation: Wouldn't it make much more sense for the followed party to invest the time and effort into destroying the road itself,

A little more of these colourful descriptions of other planets landscapes would have earned this story a lot of points in my book.

Ever so often, the Ozzie Isaac character reminded me of DNA's Zaphod Beeblebrox.
Current events suggest Mr Hamilton quite agrees.

Bleurgh! Politics! I sincerely hope there is a point to discribing the talks and negotiations over who backs Elaine Doi in this detail. Otherwise two short sentences instead of many pages would have sufficed. (The many names alone!)

... em-pulse this Justine lady found on Far Away (page 111 in my edition). I'm also curious about the relevance of the murder case Paula Mayo worked on, and about her role in the larger scale of this story, as well as that of many other characters I met. (I just read about Mark Vernon, I had already completely forgotten about him.)
But the most important current issue is the enigma of the hyperaggresive aliens.

My first Space Opera in a while. I have loved the genre since I started reading in earnest as a teenager, only by now I don't have enough spare time to plow through a book like this one in two days. But it's a treat nevertheless.
My main challenges are keeping track of the many characters and remembering potentially important events that are only mentioned briefly. What comes to mind is the source of the em-pulse...

Reminders for the novellas themselves: Man alive is a case about the murder of a man who presumably had killed himself already a year before. One funny details was the genuine shock and compassion Wolfe displayed when he learned that the victims niece, who came to him for help, had not had lunch. A minute before he was panicking because she cried and he did not know what to do. He knew then, and fed her.

The book contains three novellas, Man alive, Omit Flowers and Door to Death. I just finished the second one.
These are my first Nero Wolfe novellas, and I enjoy the experience. I have read complete novels in one go, but it's the exception. Novellas are easy to read at once, and it is nice to enter and stay in a fictional world until the solution is presented.

Because 'happiness for all' is nothing our western civilisation can provide, insofar I completely agree with the authors. It rather seems like a carefully created system to provide 'happiness for a few', paid for by the working masses.

... medical science, natural science, landed on the moon and thus made the first twitches that precede the first attempt of making the first steps to become a spacefaring race. (Of course I don't know if this is even possible.)
Modern music would also not be possible, which would be a pity. There is probably more, but the question remains: Is it worth it? Is it worth relinquishing the chance of happiness for all? tbc

It is probably also safe to assume that, if all people lived in - I don't know what to call them, let's say 'indigenous' societies, these could not provide for as many humans as there are today. But that would not have been a bad thing, I'd say.
What do we have that can probably not be achieved by these societies? And is it worth the struggles of us billions in 'modern' societies?
We have top rate medical science,...

Thought-provoking indeed. After only a few pages I already put it down and started to think about what I had just read.
The examples for people who had collected life experience in our 'western civilisation' as well as in 'savage' societies and chose to live in the latter are sound. I myself have often longed for a life away from the rat race our society provides, so I can imagine the authors are right here.
tbc

The police has Wilt, but by now he seems to get the upper hand, which is interesting. His past dealings with his evils pupils prove to be good training.
His wife is still alive, but currently on her own somewhere the water. She realised that the couple she was with are idiots, and she left them. I hope she survives, but I also just saw that there are more books about Wilt, so he probably won't go to prison anyway.

On the other hand, Eva seems to be learning, and that wouldn't be necessary for the story if she vanished. At least not if she were gone for good.

Ok I'd like to guess now where this is going: The saw the doll when they poured the concrete in the hole and thought it was a woman. The janitor will remember Wilt and the police will suspect they killed and dropped his wife.
Meanwhile something will happen to her on her boat trip with this strange couple and she will vanish for real.
Could be wrong, of course. Just what I think.
Nachtigall, ick hör dir trapsen.

With Folded Hands - Jack Williamson (1947): ***1/2
Vastly efficient androids take over every planet colonised by humans. According to their "Prime Directive" that has been instilled by their human creator they prevent any human from doing anything that is remotely dangerous.
Williamsons take on well meaning scientists and the evils they create.

The Time Machine - H.G.Wells (1895): ****
A classic, and deservedly so. Apart from being the story that popularised the concept of time travel, it offers interesting, if far-fetched thoughts about the development of humanity.
Wells fortunately ignored the physics (would have probably been implausible anyway) and focused on the world and humans of the future. A cool adventure sprinkled with bits of food for thought.

Baby is three - Theodore Sturgeon (1952): ****
I have read and loved several short stories of T.S. before, so much that some years ago I tried one of his novels, 'More than Human'.
After a few pages of this story here I found it familiar, and I soon realised that it is the same story. The novel was based on it.
Good read about a group of psychic kids who together are some new kind of being.

The Ballad of Lost C'Mell - Cordwainer Smith (1962): ***1/2
Rather a short story than a novella. The prose is very good, the story about 'uplifted' (if I may borrow this term) animals and their struggle to gain human rights with the help of one human is decent, smart and satisfying.
I just fear that it will not stay with me for long because not much sticks out.
Kind of New Wave SF.