November Books

Cursor's Fury by Jim Butcher
Captain's Fury by Jim Butcher
First Lord's Fury by Jim Butcher
Books 4, 5 and 6 in a series. I've already mentioned books 1, 2 and 3 in previous posts, so really there isn't anything left to say. The series ended reasonably well.

Wyrms by Orson Scott Card
I first read this book decades ago, and it was pretty weird. But, I had fond memories of a great character named Will, so it was mostly for him that I decided to re-read the book. Now that I've read the book as an adult, I can report that it is definitely weird. Now, weird is not the same thing as bad. Published in 1987, Card was still in his telepathic alien genetic mixing phase that through much of the 80s. (See: Treason, the Speaker for the Dead trilogy) In a departure from his typical themes, this time its a young girl who is destined to either save or destroy the world. But really, you should read this book, because I like Will, who is, admittedly at most the fifth most important character in the story.

John Adams by David MCullough
This book was much talked about when it came out 15 years ago, and despite reading a few of McCullough's other books, I hadn't read this one. But, when you've run out of books from the library and you're looking through your inlaws bookshelves for something to read . . . well, it was time. McCullough writes a thorough and detailed book, and this one took me a long time to read. I'd read a few pages, but rarely more than that because it wasn't very compelling to find out what Thomas Jefferson's response to Adams' latest letter would be. Also, when Adams becomes very sick in 1780-something, it's hard to feel much suspense when you know the book goes on for 300 more pages and he still has to become president and all.

I liked reading about Adams being the first VP and then the President. It was a time when everyone was still literally trying to figure out what the VP was supposed to do (spoiler: nothing) and how things were supposed to function. It was also good (bad?) to see that from the beginning we had presidential candidates publishing lies about their opponents and then denying they had anything to do with it, and, you know the time the Vice President shot and killed the guy who had been both the Secretary of the Treasury and the Senior Officer of the United States Army.

Influx by Daniel Suarez
Where's my flying car, right? We put a man on the moon nearly 50 years ago using only slide rules, and yet here we are in 2017 and my pillow still does flat like 4 days after a buy it? This must be some sort of government conspiracy, right? Well, yes, that's the premise of this book. Basically, a group goes in and scoops up revolutionary technology before it upsets our social order. Oh, and they keep it for themselves. But, then, of course, one of the scientists that gets scooped up with it doesn't want to cooperate, and the only way he can do that is to get away and bring the whole system down. This book was pretty entertaining. The beginning tries really hard to put all sorts of technical terms into big long sentences to try and make the science sound real or something. To me, if you're going to read science fiction, you've got to just accept the premise of the story that their science gizmos work, so all that effort of trying to convince me is wasted pages. But the book was exciting.