Re: Highlights and Lowlights - April 2024

In article <v0u9al$39orh$1@dont-email.me>,
Tony Nance  <tnusenet17@gmail.com> wrote:

>
Highlights and Lowlights - April 2024
>
>
( +++ ) Med Ship - Leinster [collection]
This is the first of three Leinster collections put out by Baen, the
other two being Planets of Adventure, and A Logic Named Joe. I will be
reading the others, as this one was excellent, and I enjoy Leinster in
general. Calhoun and his animal(?) companion Murgatroyd take Med Service
missions in 8 different long-ish stories here (600+ pages). Very well
done. A few of the earliest stories are slightly weaker, but it's a very
enjoyable collection. As these are episodic and independent stories, I
am not at all sure how the editors (Flint and Gordon) chose the order of
the stories. (It's not chronological by publication.)
>

I have very fond memories of the Med stories.  As far as I know, Leinster
did not have an explicit Future History, but the Med stories are definitely
in a loose setting I call the "Landing Grid Universe".  This includes
at least "The Duplicators", "Sand Doom", & "The Pirates of Ersatz".
I'm sure there are others I can't grep for.

( + - - ) Balanced on the Blade's Edge - Buroker [Dragon Blood #1]
Oh dear. This was so So SO not my thing. I strongly suspect it was
competently done, played fair with the conventions of the genre, etc,
but -- oh my, not my thing. To me, this basically read like a bodice-ripper
romance with steampunk and fantasy trappings. I don't think I could be
more ignorant of the modern state of the romance genre, because I avoid
it like it has pernicious cooties. (Yes, cooties I tell you - and
pernicious ones, at that.) This one features The Last Sorceress Alive
and a rogue-ish pilot, who of course experience insta-love/insta-lust
for each other while fighting a war at a mining prison. Sure. The
sorceress is the only character not made of flimsy cardboard, but again,
I suspect this is fair within a genre I'm supremely ignorant of. For a
long time, I had been pondering what to try by Buroker, and I picked up
two series starters. I will read the other one soon, but -- now I'm nervous.
>

Sorry that didn't work out for you.  Buroker does write Romance as
Ruby Lionsdrake (pause to admire that!), and generally there will
be a girl-meets-boy (often an aloof boy) element.  I would say the
pilot's characterization does get better as the series progresses.
That said, it's less of an element in The Emperor's Edge.
--
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