03 July 2020

Book List - Apr-Jun 2020

In Search of the Neanderthals: Solving the Puzzle of Human Origins -- palaeoanthropology, by Christopher Stringer and Clive Gamble
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance -- SF, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Hitler's Teutonic Knights: SS Panzers in Action -- WW II, by Bruce Quarrie
The Big Black Mark -- SF, by A Bertram Chandler *
The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall -- history, by Christopher Hibbert
The Long Skeleton -- mystery, by Frances and Richard Lockridge
Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History -- palaeontology, by Xiaoming Wang and Richard H Tedford
The Velvet Claw: A Natural History of the Carnivores -- zoology, by David Macdonald
Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 2 (1940) -- SF (short stories), edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H Greenberg
Out of Order -- mystery, by Phoebe Atwood Taylor
Knight Fall (aka Murder at the War) -- mystery, by Mary Monica Pulver *
Janissaries -- SF, by Jerry Pournelle *
Birds of Prey -- SF, by David Drake *
The Time Trap Gambit -- time travel, by Larry Maddock *
Voyage Into Violence -- mystery, by Richard and Frances Lockridge
The Fantastic World War II: The War That Wasn't -- WWII fantasy, edited by Frank McSherry Jr
Thunderball -- thriller, by Ian Fleming
Masters of the Fist -- apocalyptic fiction (short stories), by Edward P Hughes
High Justice -- SF (short stories), by Jerry Pournelle
Zarsthor's Bane -- fantasy, by Andre Norton
Rocheworld -- SF, by Robert L Forward
The Colour of Magic -- fantasy, by Terry Pratchett
A Malady of Magicks -- fantasy, by Craig Shaw Gardner
Prince of Sparta -- SF, by Jerry Pournelle and S M Stirling *
The Scottish Highlanders: A Personal View -- history, by Charles MacKinnon of Dunakin
No Enemy But Time -- time travel, by Michael Bishop
The Devil's Birthday: The Bridges to Arnhem, 1944 -- WW II, by Geoffrey Powell
The Maker of Universes -- SF, by Philip Jose Farmer *
The Outlaw of Torn -- historical fiction, by Edgar Rice Burroughs *
Taylor's Ark -- SF, by Jody Lynn Nye
Random Death -- mystery, by Lesley Egan *
Crime for Christmas -- mystery, by Lesley Egan *
Tin Cans and Greyhounds: The Destroyers That Won Two World Wars -- naval history, by Clint Johnson
The Planet of Peril -- planetary adventure, by Otis Adelbert Kline
The Penderwicks at Last -- children's, by Jeanne Birdsall
Smugglers' Reef -- YA thriller (RB #7), by John Blaine
The Caves of Fear -- YA thriller (RB #8), by John Blaine
The Mystery of the Iron Box -- YA thriller, by Bruce Campbell
Mysterium -- SF, by Robert Charles Wilson
The Secret Rescue: An Untold Story of American Nurses and Medics Behind Nazi Lines -- WW II, by Cate Lineberry
Marie -- historical fiction, by H Rider Haggard
The Man Called Brown Condor: The Forgotten History of an African American Fighter Pilot -- biography, by Thomas E Simmons
A Study in Sable -- historical urban fantasy, by Mercedes Lackey
The Golden Skull -- YA thriller (RB #10), by John Blaine
The Wailing Octopus -- YA thriller (RB #11), by John Blaine
The Electronic Mind Reader -- YA thriller (RB #12), by John Blaine
The Scarlet Lake Mystery -- YA thriller (RB #13), by John Blaine
A Scandal in Battersea -- historical urban fantasy, by Mercedes Lackey



48 books this time round, ten of them rereads (marked by asterisks).  Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, part of the Vorkosigan series, was the best book, with the two Lackeys, which mix Sherlock Holmes into her Elemental Masters series, close behind.  Books included 15 SF and time travel, seven YA, six WW II and other history, six mysteries, six fantasy.  Top author this quarter was John Blaine (a pseudonym for science writer Hal Goodwin), with six books.

"RB" is Rick Brant -- a series of boys' books from the '50s and '60s.  They're quite similar to the Hardy Boys books (a series that began in 1927), though Rick and Scotty aren't brothers, and while Fenton Hardy was a detective, Hartson Brant was a scientist.  Goodwin called them "science adventures".

Tin Cans and Greyhounds was an interesting book, mostly enjoyable.  More space could have been devoted to British, German and other non-US ships, and I caught a few mistakes here and there, but the biggest problem was the index -- by far the worst I've ever seen.  People are indexed not by the standard lastname-firstname-rank, but by rank-firstname-lastname, which in addition to making it difficult to find a person leads to one man's being listed twice, as he was promoted between his two mentions in the book.

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