Highlights and Lowlights - June 2024

Highlights and Lowlights - June 2024
Books are listed in reverse chronological order from how I read them,
using a very primitive rating system:
“+” are good, and more “+” are better
“-“ are not good, and more “-“ are worse
I’m happy to answer questions about anything on the list.
Highlights - Trader’s Leap - Lee & Miller [Liaden #23]
Lowlights - Hm … nothing was a “lowlight” this month
Here’s a quick summary of what’s more in-depth below:
Northworld Trilogy - Drake, comprised of:
    ( ++ 1/2 ) Northworld: Justice - Drake [Northworld #3]
    ( ++ )       Northworld: Vengeance - Drake [Northworld #2]
    ( ++ 1/2 ) Northworld - Drake [Northworld #1]
( +++ 1/2 ) Trader’s Leap - Lee & Miller [Liaden #23]
( nr ) The Vorkosigan Companion - ed. by Lillian Stewart Carl & John Helfers
( +++ ) Shadow’s Blade - Coe [Justis Fearsson #3]
( ++ ) The Death of the Necromancer - Wells [Ile-Rien #2]
( +++ - ) Fleet Elements - Williams [Praxis #5]
Now Reading:
Long work - Guards! Guards! - Pratchett [Discworld #7]
Collection - The Wisdom of Father Brown - G.K. Chesterton
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June 2024
Northworld Trilogy - Drake, comprised of:
    ( ++ 1/2 ) Northworld: Justice - Drake [Northworld #3]
    ( ++ )       Northworld: Vengeance - Drake [Northworld #2]
    ( ++ 1/2 ) Northworld - Drake [Northworld #1]
I didn’t read these consecutively, but it makes no sense to cover them separately. Very early in book #1, Nils Hansen is taken from his job as the leader of a law enforcement Special Unit on his world and forced to undertake a one-man mission to Northworld - named such because space explorer Captain North and his team disappeared shortly after finding the world, as did the next two teams sent to investigate.
Northworld itself is pretty much a Middle Ages setting in most ways, but with high-tech battlesuits. We learn partway through the first book that Northworld is connected — in a very special, restricted way called The Matrix[1] — to 8 other worlds, including one inhabited by North himself and seven of his companions. North and Hansen have different views on how war and peace should be handled on Northworld, resulting in open-but-indirect conflict between them, using Northworld inhabitants as proxies. The way Hansen handles this conflict in book #2 leads to issues that need to be addressed in #3. The trilogy concludes satisfactorily with almost everything resolved. To my knowledge, Drake didn’t write any other books in this universe.
( +++ 1/2 ) Trader’s Leap - Lee & Miller [Liaden #23]
Great! This one happens partly in parallel with and partly just after the awesome, supremely consequential Accepting the Lance [Liaden #22]. It’s slightly smaller in scope, but no less consequential by the end. Shan, Priscilla, Padi, and the rest of Liaden Trade Ship Dutiful Passage deal with Shan’s injuries and Padi’s emerging powerful talent while trying to find somewhere — anywhere — where they can build reliable trade routes for Clan Korval. Some new and interesting opportunities are pursued, and the next book should be very interesting.
( nr ) The Vorkosigan Companion - ed. by Lillian Stewart Carl & John Helfers
This had many interesting essays and pieces of info. I have a 2008 edition that came out after Diplomatic Immunity and Winterfair Gifts, and before Cryoburn - it even includes an excerpt from Cryoburn at the end. It's almost 700 pages long, and is broken into 5 sections ("Parts") plus 3 appendices. The sections are made of various essays, interviews, and articles, plus a concordance that takes up just under 300 pages of Part 5 "The Vorkosiverse Itself". Well worth leafing through haphazardly if you are a fan of Bujold or the series.
( +++ ) Shadow’s Blade - Coe [Justis Fearsson #3]
The best (and last) of the series - it’s too bad he hasn’t written more of them. The McGuffin driving the plot is a powerful artefact that used to be in the possession of a neutral powerful weremyste who kept it well off everybody’s radar (including never using it). It is now in the hands of a maybe-neutral weremyste who only wants to protect herself and her kids. Our favorite ex-cop-now-PI weremyste Justis Fearsson gets called in to find/help her. Justis is still sharp and clever, and along the way, he starts to become more knowledgeable about his weremyste abilities.
( ++ ) The Death of the Necromancer - Wells [Ile-Rien #2]
Good/fine; Slow starter, but gets pretty good roughly 1/3 of the way in. Takes place over 100 years after #1, and the people & events of #1 are pretty far in the background. The setting is similar - no big changes or innovations. In response to his foster father being framed and executed (years before the events of this book) Nicholas Valiarde turns to a secret life of thievery, aimed at specific well-chosen targets, assisted by a team of people who (mostly) were also wronged by the legal system. In the midst of a grand scheme, some of his foster father’s magical research appears, being used for nefarious purposes; so Nicholas & company investigate. There’s a trilogy set about 20+ years after this volume which I probably will not read.
( +++ - )  Fleet Elements - Williams [Praxis #5]
Good! Lots of intrigue, lots of space action, some unexpected events. An incident near the end is handled in a very puzzling way (imho), and the way it’s handled will influence book #6 greatly, where the Terran forces vs the Zanshaa forces will surely come to a head.
Now Reading:
Long work - Guards! Guards! - Pratchett [Discworld #7]
Collection - The Wisdom of Father Brown - G.K. Chesterton
Tony
[1] The third of these books was published about 7 years before the first Matrix movie came out, and I’d be very surprised to learn about any loose inspirational connections between Drake’s Matrix and the movies.