Books Received, September 21 to September 27

[james_davis_nicoll]

An assortment of new-to-me fantasy and science fiction, plus a roleplaying game.

Books Received, September 21 to September 27

Poll #31948 Books Received, September 21 to September 27

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 44

View Respondents

Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Cold Eternity by S.A. Barnes (April 2025)
15 (34.1%)

Firebird by Juliette Cross (April 2024)
4 (9.1%)

Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow (February 2025)
12 (27.3%)

Chaos by Constance Fay (March 2025)
6 (13.6%)

The Electric State by Nils Hintze & Tomas Härenstam (September 2024)
15 (34.1%)

The Night Is Defying by Chloe C. Peñaranda (January 2025)
5 (11.4%)

Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite (March 2025)
23 (52.3%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
30 (68.2%)

Comments

[jreynolds197]

Cold sleep starships aren't as bad of a deathtrap as generation ship starships. But still bad enough, as the cover to Cold Eternity suggests.

[mecurtin]

I think Tchaikovsky's Alien Clay is the only story with cold sleep starships I've read recently that *doesn't* begin with "POV character wakes from cold sleep to find some/many/most fellow travelers dead"

[james_davis_nicoll]

In cold ship crew's defence, the cold sleep facility and the frozen dinner freezer need to be a lot more clearly labelled than they usually are.

[patrick_morris_miller]

I'm not sure which I hate more: "X meets Y" blurbs or Cory Doctorow.

[kedamono]

I think it comes first before "If you like X and Y, then you'll let Z" Sometimes X and Y are from totally different genres and settings that it doesn't make sense. Like "If you like Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, and Stephen Kings Horror Novels, then you'l love..."

[(Anonymous)]

Apparently Cory Doctorow thinks that forensic accounting was invented in 1986?

...Does he not know that people have used spreadsheets since the 13th century, as they are part of the process of double-entry bookkeeping?

--
Nathan H.

[(Anonymous)]

Wikipedia says "Frank Wilson is credited with the birth of forensic accounting in the 1930s" - to put Al Capone in jail for federal income tax evasion - but it "was not formally defined until the 1940s". Cory Doctorow perhaps is considering the computerization of the discipline.

Robert Carnegie

[(Anonymous)]

Incidentally, film "The Undercover Man" (1949) just showed up on "Talking Pictures TV". I'll watch it later. Maybe. In it, per Wikipedia (which leads with spoilers), "Frank Warren is a treasury agent assigned to put an end to the activities of a powerful mob crime boss". Apparently it's quite accurate about Frank Wilson, in which case forensic accounting is more hard work than I thought.

Robert Carnegie

[(Anonymous)]

Are you being sent more `romantasy' novels than previously (new publisher?), or am I only now noticing them?

[james_davis_nicoll]

I think it is a growing subgenre.

[agharta75]

Do any of these new romantasy novels have cats?