Tries to cross mystery with SF
351831
Bit of a plow~through and headache maker. I did get interested enough in the main characters to keep  plowing through despite the book's headache making flaws, but not enough to continue reading the series.  I didn't like the big monologue explanation of part of the mystery, just before the cliff hanger endiing. T his might appeal to someone who likes multi plot thread mystery/iinvestigation stories, but tthat type reader won't appreciate the SF setting.  And there are too many science bloopers to be acceptable as SF.
3270301
I'm just about finished with this book and ready for the next one. I'm hopeful that the author is busy on the next one and the one after that and so on and so on. I read all sorts of books but science fiction is my favor genre. I particularly love hard SF and the "space opera" kind set in a big universe populated with a diverse variety of species. This book is the promising start, with enough science and technology to satisfy my inner engineer and a universe filled with all types of races. However, I'm still trying to figure out how I got sucked into this particular cast of characters on the Wayfarer. The author managed to create a group of beings that I care for deeply, to the detriment of my sleep and family interaction. I usually watch TV before going to bed but have not done so for the past week since I got this book on my Kindle. Becky Chambers could well be one of the small cadre of authors whose books I automatically buy. Keep up the great work. No pressure!
3978296
Much ado about nothing concerning the historical inaccuracies in this book.  Being a bit of an art sleuth myself I examined the cover and noticed the words "a novel" cleverly hidden several centimeters above Mona Lisa's left eye.  All caps, white on black.
Having uncovered Dan Brown's `secret' before I opened the book, I was able to enjoy this read for what it is:  A nice whodunit with an intriguing premise that runs clumsily out of gas about half way through.  I suspect Mr. Brown had a deadline to meet or perhaps got impatient with his work.  Too bad, because for about 200 pages this is about as good a read as you're going to find anywhere.  But when I got to the end of the quest I really didn't care at all how things were resolved.  The second half of the book becomes sort of character pinball, with many sudden changes of direction for all involved.
The questions about the life of Jesus, secrets in the works of the Masters, and the mystery of the Holy Grail have all been out there and discussed for all of my lifetime and for centuries before, I'm sure.  Brown deserves a lot of credit for putting them together so cleverly in modern mystery form.  If he'd taken the same care with the second half of his novel as he did with the beginning we might be looking at a work of the stature of Follett's "Pillars of the Earth", instead we're left with a good detective story that gets just a little zany towards the end.
All of the above said, it is a page-turner and deserves three stars.
533006
I will confess at the outset that I am of two minds about contemporary science fiction. On the one hand, nearly all the SF being published today is smoothly written, with none of the clunky prose and cardboard characterization that plagued the pulp magazines of the 1940s and 50s. On the other, most of the good SF ideas have already been used, and its harder for today's writers to create the sense of wonder that characterized the field in decades past. Many contemporary authors write in a self-consciously "literary" style that I find off-putting (and sometimes borderline incomprehensible).

This is a *big* anthology, with more than two dozen pieces, including a number of novellas and novelettes, about evenly divided between science fiction and fantasy. I didn't like all the stories-- in fact, I probably liked less than half-- but I still give this book four stars, because it does contain some excellent stories. On the science fiction side, I liked Geoffrey Landis's "The Sultan of the Clouds," an old-fashioned SF tale at heart, for all its modern stylings; "Stereogram of the Gray Fort, in the Days of Its Glory," by Paul M. Berger, a seemingly-conventional story with a real sting in its tail; and the genuinely odd "The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerophon," by Elizabeth Hand. Peter Watts' "The Things" is a re-telling of John Campbell's "Who Goes There?" (the basis for the movie "The Thing" and its re-makes), this time told from the alien's perspective; the idea sounds cutesy, but the execution is flawless. I bet Campbell would have liked it. Robert Reed's "Dead Man's Run" is a bit overlong, but is a fascinating murder mystery which makes clever use of believable AI technology.

On the fantasy side, I enjoyed "Amor Vincit Omnia," by K.J. Parker, an old-fashioned story about a student wizard, but beautifully told; Rachel Swirsky's "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window," which successfully straddles the line between old-school fantasy and modern literary affectations; and Willow Fagan's "The Interior of Bumblethorn's Coat," which is not old-fashioned in the slightest, but nonetheless worked for me because of its hallucinatory imagery. Gene Wolfe's "Bloodsport" was a well-told sword and sorcery fantasy, although I felt it go downhill at the end.

There were quite a few stories in this anthology I didn't enjoy, and a few I didn't understand at all, but there were enough excellent stories in the mix for me to give this a (qualified) recommendation.
2139185
This was a fun mystery to read. It takes place in San Francisco. The characters are interesting and you could picture yourself there. The book held my interest and it didn't take me long to finish it. I recommend this book.

Thank you to Victoria Abbott and Goodreads for this book.
1240948
Great science fiction has to leave something to mystery. Though often when this happens, critics complain that the author has a "lack of imagination" because he didn't reveal all the goods. In this particular book, as well as Clarke's "2001", the mystery is it's strength.

A massive cylinder enters the solar system. Because of it's symmetrical shape - it must be artificial. Even a couple of centuries in the future in which the book takes place, this is far beyond our technology, so obviously, it has to be alien. We humans rendezvous with it and begin to explore. The characters become more perplexed with every event that takes place within it.

We, the reader, are given enough information to make an assumption of what the purpose of this alien vessel may be - but there is also a lot of things going on inside Rama that could turn our guesses upside-down. Is it a transport ship of some kind? An ark? A probe? Or is it's purpose something that humans cant really comprehend? Each of these possibilities, and more, plays around in our heads long after the book has been read.

We think we know what it might be, but we are also aware that we could be dead wrong. The mystery - the wonder - is what makes this book great!
4703690
Combine the questionable death of a mysterious young entrepreneur, his unemployed housemate with an open agenda, and an illicit toilet-making business and you've got a mystery book (self-published, at that!) bursting with San Francisco flavor and irresistible personality.  Alex Baker, the newfound amateur detective, carries the story in his own haphazard way and I gladly wandered with him.  With sharp dialogue, relevant humor, and a quirky cast of characters I found it difficult to put the book down.  What struck me most often was the rich sense of place woven into each chapter.  Almost every page offers a glimpse of the San Francisco scenery: the people, streets, neighborhoods, pubs, cafs, and conversation.  I felt like pouring my own pitcher of Anchor Steam to complement the reading experience.  In the end, the book's conclusion leaves you wanting more of Alex Baker's wit and good humor.  I just hope the author has more mysteries in store for the young sleuth to solve.
462089
Black In White is a sci fi mystery set in San Francisco that is pretty contemporary with the expectation that our main characters are from a different Earth dimension.  Even though the series is call the Quentin Black Mystery the story is mostly told through Miriams point of view, someone that is half of this Earth and probably half of another.

The mystery part of the story was fairly good with Miriam and Quentin both trying to solve a serial killer case that Miriams SFPD detective friend really wants to pin on Quentin.  There are some romantic elements of the story that I think could probably use some work.  Quentin can read minds but he really seems clueless on how to court Miriam.  The almost sex scene was a bit rough around the writing edges.

Over all this was entertaining and with a decent pace, and not a bad start to a new series.
2434481
A stranger introduces himself to bookmaker Ned Talbot as the father he thought had died 36 years earlier.  Then, within hours, the man is stabbed and dies.  So begins a mystery of fake identities of fathers and horses.  Sad to say, this mystery falls flat.  Dick Franciss last novel Silks was as smooth as  well, silk.  Written with his son Felix, it was genre writing at its best.  This novel feels like Felix has taken over the reins, and the transition from fact-checker to author has failed miserably.  Dick Francis always had the knack for blending the research on his various topics into an exciting plot.  The author of this book overloads the reader with the results of his research without remembering to activate the plot.  Its a bad stumble right out of the gate.
1779164
I've been disappointed with the last few mysteries I've read, but a collection of short stories piqued my interest again so I went on a hunt for a good one. I saw this had won the 2012 Edgar Allen Poe Award, so I decided to give it a shot. All in all, I enjoyed this one and would give it 3.5 stars. I liked the protagonist-- felt he was complicated with a past without being overly moody, sharp without being cocky and too perfect, personable minus the James Bond smoothness. The plot also was full of clever twists that kept me guessing. That said, in the end, everything just was wrapped up too nicely for me in a way that left me a bit unsettled. The mystery stretched on longer than it needed too, and as many characters pointed out again and again, the police seemed a bit inept at their jobs. And I really didn't care for Flea-- maybe this would've been different if I had read Skin first. But as annoying as I found Flea in this one, I'm not sure if it's a book I'd really want to read. I would like to read another Walking Man book because, well, I was intrigued by the Walking Man, a character with a very minor role in this one.
1302905
What can I say about this book? It does what it says on the tin: provides a modicum of entertainment; creates a murder mystery then, importantly, solves it before the reader has enough clues to guess the perpetrator (or before I had, anyway). There is also at least one red herring: in this case an enigmatic note addressed to the victim which, as it turns out, had nothing to do with the crime.
 All this takes place in a fantastical setting: an early 20th century steampunk landscape in which great and majestic steam liners ply, not the oceans, but the skies, courtesy of an anti-gravity generator called a "Faraday device". The details of this alternative universe are well imagined, including social customs and inhibitions which remain, in spite of the wildly enhanced technology, true to the real world of the period.
 Even the writing style has a flavour of the time; this has the advantage of helping to draw the reader in - but is also counter-productive to a degree, in that it reads in places like a police or journalistic report: not strong on empathy or "poetry". As a reader, I cherish the evergreen hope of being mentally transported by a book - by something as simple as the lyricism of a description, for instance. In this respect, "Murder out of the Blue" left me feeling a bit short-changed. The writer seems oddly disassociated, even from his heroine, Maliha. For example, she learns from a newspaper article that her mother and father have died in a fire that destroyed the family home. This fact is simply thrown into the mix, almost at the end of the book - for effect only, I felt, as it contributed nothing to the storyline.
 The other quibble I had with the book was with errors missed in editing - small in themselves but quite a few of them, especially punctuation. Also, some oddities of expression and grammatical sloppiness, such as subordinate clauses posing as stand-alone sentences (maybe intentional for stylistic variation, but didn't work for me).
 That said, overall I liked "Murder out of the Blue", and can visualise it as part of the series, which has the potential to flesh out the Voidships universe still further and develop the social, political and technological themes touched on in this book.
259086
The author shows creativity and imagination, and as far as I could manage to read, it seemed to be edited well enough. I prefer hard SF, where I can see the progress of the story within a scenario I can believe - this goes well beyond what I like. If there were a different ranking system perhaps I could have appreciated the story better; here I stopped reading after one third. Sorry
2968201
I am not sure what to make of this book.
It seems like great care was taken to ties this book into the Stephen King universe.
Not sure about the legality there. On the other hand, there are fake blurbs for the protagonist's books.
The city of Shadow Cove MA doesn't exist - that's okay. But the publisher, with no other titles since inception in 1971 (maybe the year the author was born?) seems to be based in a fictional place.

Story wise it is a clever idea but needs some help with the execution.
I also suspect the purists will have issues with the portrayal of the Salem witch trials and the cultural details of the time.
4891646
The San Francisco setting may be the best part of this book for me. The author clearly knows the city and waxes poetic about it in a way that locals will love. The story is a suspenseful walk through a mystery, but nothing truly grabbed me. It all wraps up, as usual in all but the best thrillers, very conveniently and a little too quickly in the end. The characters aren't as developed as they could be, and the title gives you a very different feel than what you'll find. The attempt at bringing modern technology that affects all of our daily lives into a suspenseful novel is strong, but didn't totally succeed.
1295192
The author apparently has written mostly mysteries prior tothis novel,and IMHO hasn't a clue what science fiction is about.  I didn't finish the book- perhaps it got more interesting later?  It also might be enjoyable for those who aren't looking for hard sci-fi.
898761
The comic opens with flight 815 where everyone forgets everything and everyone they ever knew.  The pilots have to be told how to land the plane.  Families don't recognize each other.  Meru is a writer who had just finished writing her unsolved true crime book that would become a best seller.  Now she is drifting trying to find something to write about next.  She lands on the idea to write about the missing man, Henry Lyme, from the amnesia plane.  She tells her agent who responds that she needs to stop chasing that story and just sit down and write something, but if she insists on chasing it she's not sending any money.

Meru interviews the passengers but learns nothing new.  Her agent gets a tip about something weird going on in Mexico and wires her some money to check it out.  These people have no memory but keep painting the same thing over and over again on pots.  They are dying of starvation because they are obsessed with painting the pots and nothing else.  The picture is of an animal that resembles folk art of Zanzibar.

Meanwhile, Meru has been followed by two groups of people: the CIA and the Immortals.  Both hope she will lead them to Henry Lyme.  The CIA guy, Bill,  helps her out and protects her from the Immortals.  Nothing can kill an Immortal except a headshot and maybe not even that.  The Immortals worked for Mind Management a shadowy agency who recruit people with certain abilities.

This was an interesting book that contained writing from the Mind MGMT Field Guide on the left edge of the page in tiny writing that would pertain to what was going on in that particular page.  For example: Minimize physical evidence when performing in-field erasures.  If time allows, sweep the area and contact Cadaver Disposal within 24 hours if applicable.  On the opposite page is a man discovering a dead body.  The artwork is very minimalist and sketchy but perfect for the story it is telling.  I have to tell you this was a weird comic, but weird in a good way.  I intend to read the next volume to find out where on earth it goes next because it could really go anywhere.
4039935
The Moving Toyshop is set in 1938. Richard Cadogan insists on an advance of fifty pounds for his new volume of poetry so he can take a holiday in Oxford and refresh his creative spirit. Arriving in the nighttime hours and wondering where he will stay, Cadogan notices a toyshop with an open door. Nosing about inside the shop, he encounters the unpleasant sight of an elderly woman who has been strangled to death. Several hours later, after being bashed in the head and losing consciousness, he scrambles out a window and makes his way to the police. When he leads them to the scene of the crime, he discovers that the toyshop has been replaced by a grocer. The toyshop, it appears, never existed.

Cadogan begins an investigation with his friend, an Oxford professor of English literature named Fen Gervase who has a Sherlockian reputation. A bit of sleuthing allows the duo to identify the victim as well as an initial suspect who had a strong motive to do her in, but none of that explains the sudden appearance and disappearance of the toyshop. A literary investigation ensues, involving comic verse (limericks, in particular), the poetry of death, and literary games (including Unreadable Novels and Awful Lines from Shakespeare).

Following the tradition of British mysteries, the story is convoluted but not confusing. A multitude of suspects have intriguingly mysterious connections to the victim. The plot even includes a variation of the locked room mystery. The explanation of the disappearing toyshop struck me as being improbable and the story depends on at least one coincidence too many, but the engaging Edmund Crispins writing style encouraged me to suspend my skepticism. Crispins prose is of the caliber that readers expect from a classic author of British mysteries. Pieces of the mystery are solved, step-by-step, as the investigation continues, culminating in a satisfying whodunit/howdunit reveal at the end. Thats a traditional way to sustain interest in a murder mystery, and it works well here.