Highlights and Lowlights - November-December 2024

Highlights and Lowlights - November-December 2024
Happy New Year!
Books are rated 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 here.
Highlights - nothing … bunch of competent, fine stuff, but no real highlight
Lowlights - Space Opera - Vance
December
( ++ ) Nice Dragons Finish Last - Rachel Aaron [Heartstrikers #1]
( ++ 1/2 ) An Instruction in Shadow - Jacka [An Inheritance of Magic #2]
( ++ ) An Inheritance of Magic - Jacka [Re-read] [An Inheritance of Magic #1]
( ++ ) Bill the Galactic Hero - Harrison
( ++ 1/2 ) Outpost of Jupiter - Lester del Rey
November
( + - ) Space Opera - Vance
( ++ 1/2 ) The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World - Harrison [Stainless Steel Rat #3]
Now Reading:
Long work - Cast in Conflict - Sagara [Elantra #16]
Collection - The Best Time Travel Stories Of All Time ed. by Malzberg
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November-December 2024
December
( ++ ) Nice Dragons Finish Last - Rachel Aaron [Heartstrikers #1]
This is a series-starter set in Aaron’s Detroit Free Zone (DFZ) universe. Magic (and many magical species) came back to prominence on Earth about 60 years ago, and Detroit is currently a nearly rules-free zone under the watchful (and vengeful) eye of the goddess Algonquin. Dragons have woken/returned, and Julius is a very young dragon on the verge of being eaten by his clan-leading mother because he’s a failure - primarily because he’s too nice. She seals him in his human form and sends him to Detroit for one last chance to prove himself, being given a mission by his brother Ian. In parallel, Marci is a human mage who escapes a vengeful mobster Las Vegas and goes to Detroit to lay low. Julius enlists Marci to help him with his mission, and schemes-within-schemes-within-schemes keep this one mostly unpredictable up to the end. I’ll read the next one.
( ++ 1/2 ) An Instruction in Shadow - Jacka [An Inheritance of Magic #2]
Steven Oakwood learns a lot more about drucrafting, his House, his parents, and his friends. By the end of this volume, he has a line on finding his father, and he has started down a path to independent employment that would allow him to pursue drucrafting and finding his father. I will read the next one.
( ++ ) An Inheritance of Magic - Jacka [Re-read] [An Inheritance of Magic #1]
I re-read this one before entry #2 above because I remembered very few details of #1.
Here’s what I said about #1 last year:
This was also a good series starter, laying a lot of groundwork for how this new setting works. Fyi: In the intro/forward, Jacka specifically mentions that this has nothing to do with his Alex Verus series. Stephen Oakwood is 20 years old and a novice drucrafter (drucraft is a novel magic system invented by Jacka for this work). His mother abandoned him at age 1, and his father disappeared - was possibly kidnapped - under mysterious circumstances 3 years ago. Stephen becomes entangled with a rather stereotypical ruthless power-hungry rich family of drucrafters, and it’s pretty clear this entanglement will be very important in the next book(s). I will read the second one (not yet released) and decide if I go on from there.
( ++ ) Bill the Galactic Hero - Harrison
Short and slight, and it’s good/wise that it is not longer, because there’s only so much you can do with “farm boy joins interstellar military as a grunt and has (mis)adventures”. Apparently Harrison initially agreed, but then many years later started writing episodic sequels. This is kinda cliche, kinda tongue-in-cheek, and kinda over-the-top, but Harrison writes it well. I doubt I’ll read the follow-ons.
( ++ 1/2 ) Outpost of Jupiter - Lester del Rey
This was also short and slight, and very well done. 18-year-old Bob Wilson accompanies his biochemist father on a two-week trip to the young small colony on Ganymede when they both get sick and have to stay there. The disease spreads and Bob, his father, and others try to solve the puzzle. Well thought-out, well written.
November
( + - ) Space Opera - Vance
Well crud … much as I enjoy Vance, this one just didn’t work for me. The back cover mentions this is an homage to PG Wodehouse, and for whatever reasons, bleah. Wealthy upper-crust opera fanatic Dame Isabel and her treated-as-almost-worthless nephew Roger (who lives off an “allowance” from his aunt) end up on a travelogue to several planets, trying to bring music & culture to the inhabitants via opera. Very episodic, with a sort-of-flimsy linking story, very class-ist (surely intentionally), and mostly told from the point of view of long-suffering Roger. Meh.
( ++ 1/2 ) The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World - Harrison [Stainless Steel Rat #3]
Nifty little time travel mission for Slippery Jim DiGriz to foil a master time traveler trying to wipe out the Special Force and then take over the universe. I like how Harrison writes — wry humor, nice voice & tone — but 3 of these might be enough for me.
Now Reading:
Long work - Cast in Conflict - Sagara [Elantra #16]
Collection - The Best Time Travel Stories Of All Time ed. by Malzberg
Tony