Re: Highlights and Lowlights - April 2024

On 5/1/24 11:02 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

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.

Oh cool - I did not realize those stories used Landing Grids as well. I have "The Pirates of Ersatz" under its other title "The Pirates of Zan", but I haven't read it yet.

 

( + - - ) 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. 

Me too, but no problems here. It was a short read, and harmless.

Buroker does write Romance as Ruby Lionsdrake (pause to admire that!),

Yes - that's awesome. (And much better than Subordinary Elk.)
  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.

Good to know, because that is indeed the other one I picked up!
- Tony