Tag: books

October 6, 2017
June 24, 2013
Although many of you know me as a science fiction fan, I probably read as much, if not more, crime fiction than sf. Quite a bit of it is American crime fiction, so it is nice to discover a local author.

Jim Kelly has been around for a while, his first novel being published in 2003, but he is a recent find for me. I have my Amazon account set to send me their Kindle Daily Deal offers by email. Most of the time, it is not of any interest to me, but I get enough hits that it is worth receiving the email. I’m not of a mind to buy something just because it is cheap; but I like to look at it, and see if it is something I might have bought anyway. This often has me discover new (for me) authors.

January 5, 2013
Last year, I caught an episode of a TV Miniseries, and it looked interesting. I never did see the whole thing, but it did cause me to check out the book it was based on. It has since sat on my Kindle, until just before Christmas, when I started to read it. After that, I couldn’t put it down.

First published in 2002, “The Company: A Novel of the CIA” is a work of fiction, but set against a lot of historical truth. It tells the story of the CIA from 1950, through to the mid-90’s. Some of the characters (including major ones) were real, and their activities well documented. Others are fictional or heavily disguised, and are perhaps fictional amalgamations of real people.

October 16, 2012
October 15, 2012
Being a fan of Dave Cash in the old Capital Radio days, I grabbed a copy of this book at the same time as downloading a sample chapter of David Mitchell’s autobiography. When they both hit my Kindle I was surprised to see Cash’s book was about the same length as the David Mitchell sample. It is very, very short.

The book is obviously self published – the layout is poor, and the editing non-existant, typos galore. With all of this, it was very difficult to immerse myself in Cash’s tale, even though I wanted to enjoy it.

October 10, 2012
Suffering currently from conjunctivitis, I’ve found that watching TV irritates me, but I have been able to read my Kindle comfortably. Which is why I have managed to speed through Peter Hamilton’s latest mega-novel in faster than usual (for me) time.

Which is probably good, as it helped me keep the multiple narratives (and frequent flashbacks) straight in my mind – a number of the characters have similar names (for good reason, as will become evident if you read it), and even reading it continuously, I had moments of confusion.

September 26, 2012
Earlier I mentioned I’d ordered this book, which the film Countdown was based on. It arrived a couple of days ago, and I’ve just finished it.

The book tells the (fictional) story of a more perilous alternative to the Apollo mission, evolved from the fear that the Russians would beat the US to the moon.

September 22, 2012
September 17, 2012
September 12, 2012
August 25, 2012
July 28, 2012