First things first. Happy birthday dad! He turned 78 today, and despite half his body not functioning properly(one lung, one kidney, diabetic, one leg) his mind is still sharp and he’s still loving life. One of my main functions in life is supplying him with dvds, so that he can enjoy the more recent movies. Stopped by, gave him a couple of gifts, and another load of movies.
On the news front. Let’s see, the big thing is the G20 summit in London. Usual suspects protesting, with your standard vandalizing and aggrevating police tactics. Be extremely suprised if ANYTHING comes out of it. Be flabbergasted if anything good comes of it. Our tax dollars at work. Locally, turns out that the school system here, which everyone brags on, has something like a 20% dropout rate. That’s better than the neighboring city, which is down around 31%, the worst in the state. But it’s going to be a very brutal surprise to a lot of people who believe their oh so precious kiddies are the future of the country. going to be looking forward to the followup on that one.
Sad news at work. Two of the guys, one a direct workmate, no longer work for the department. They had some problems in gaining a certification, and it was decided that enough time had passed. Seriously sucks, though I am confident both will go on and do well in the future. Meantime, the department is 4 people down. Have to wait and see what we end up getting as a replacement.
Onto the topic of the evening. Today’s review is Storm from the Shadows, by David Weber. The latest entry into the Honorverse, this book is the one that lights the fuse. While the putative focus of the book is on one the character of Admiral Michelle Henke, friend of Honor Harrington and 5th in line to the throne of the Star Empire of Manticore, the book actually spreads its focus over a number of characters. In fact, the book actually starts with an overlapping view of the events in At All Costs. We see Henke’s capture by Manticore’s enemy the Havanites, her unexpected freedom, and reassignment to the newly annexed and brewing troublespot “the Quadrant/Talbot Cluster”. It was this part of the book that I found most disappointing, especially as I waited for the events back at Manticore to get to the characters in the Quadrant.
However frustrating the wait was, there were definite compensations. While we don’t get to see the overall goal of the evil shadow forces manipulating events throughout the galaxy, we do see the ringleaders stepping more into the open, and the launch of their Master Plan. We get a closer, unflattering look at the operations of The Solarian League and its massive but antiquated navy, and get to watch as events relentlessly push the League and Manticore to open war. As usual, Weber provides lots of technical background to the military hardware we see throughout his books, and in this case the indroduction of truly new and somewhat frightening technology wielded by the bad guys. The strongest point of the book was in the buildup to the climatic events of the final pages, where we are left with a true cliffhanger ending. Unlike At All Costs, where Weber brought massive fleets to bear for the mandatory naval action, the big battle here is fought on essentially squadron level, and with some suprising results. Not to fear; with a battered Manticore facing off against the behemouth Solarian League, there is promise of many fleet shattering battles to come. Never mind the nasty cliffhanger… so, all in all, a solid Honorverse offering. More to be read for what it sets up than what actually occurs in it. It’s a comfort to know Weber has the next two followup books in the pipeline; I hate the thought of waiting too long for this.
On the other book front, I’m into Sarah Zettel’s “Fool’s War”. From the copyright, the book has been out over a decade. I’ve seriously missed out on this author. This is the second book by her that I’ve read, and already I can tell I’ll be tracking down anything and everything else she’s done. Good crisp well paced sci fi, with strong female lead characters, and well paced action. Got to love Mallozzi’s blog for getting me to break out of my rut, and sampling more writers. Speaking of which, I need to buckle down to read up April’s BotM club selections. Got the May books in at the bookstore waiting to be picked up. Speaking of mallozzi, check out his blog at Josephmallozzi.wordpress.com. He has a rather entertaining April Fool’s day joke to discuss. Anyways, already a quarter of the way through 2009. Time really is relative, as it seems to relentlessly speed up.
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