Hello and welcome to issue #1402 of Edi's Weekend Wave.
The first week of 2014 is gone. I had to work more hours than expected and therefore I have been tired in the evening. I wanted to write two more posts but that does not work with closed eyes. Nevertheless I try to find time to write my third review in January 2014. There are 20 days left until end of the month ...
From time to time my wife and I are spontaneous. We visited the Echdampf-Hallentreffen in Karlsruhe and enjoyed "steam-driven model railways, road vehicles, ships and stationary engines".
That is the reason why you get this post a bit later than usual.
ENJOY READING ....
Edi's Guidepost
The Lighthouse
News and information straight from the horse's mouth by Lighthouse keeper ediFanoB
Reading progress
Books
The latest report from our shelf shop net correspondent Bona
New books on my shelf/reader or when one book leads to another
Get a digital copy of The Return of the Free by Mark Lord for free
Blogosphere
Messages from the depths of the blogosphere by spheronaut Bona Fide
When I was young
The end of a trilogy is in progress
Walking Cities
What a great site!
Movies
Remote control junkie Fide and his zapping highlights
Sherlock
Quotes
The member of the house of quotes and a quote himself the Keeper of the minutes ( we call him Kotm) fished for you
German proverbs, sayings and idiomsQuote related to temperature
The Lighthouse
I'm satisfied with my reading progress in the last week. I finished two books because I found the time to read 70 pages per day. 2012 started similarly and I ended up with 81 books.
I still work on my books to read in 2014 shelf.So far the list contains 62 books. I'm sure there will be some changes within the year depending on my mood, on promises, on unexpected deliveries and more.
I finished
- Hive Monkey (pb, January 2014) [ISBN-13: 978-1781081662] by Gareth L. Powell.
My comment on GOODREADS:
Hive Monkey by Gareth L. Powell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A good sequel but I liked the first book a bit more.
- Hunter of Sherwood: Knight of Shadows (pb, 24th September 2013) [ISBN-13: 978-1781081624] by Toby Venables.
My comment on GOODREADS:
The Hunter of Sherwood: Guy of Gisburne: Knight of Shadows by Toby Venables
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finally I finished reading my paperback copy which stands for 544 pages and not of 384 pages as shown here on GOODREADS.
WOW! I'm a lucky reader. This is the third book I read in 2014 and like the two other ones it is a really good one.
It definitely exceeded my expectations.
Toby Venables did a great job with is characterisation Of Guy of Gisbourne, Robert of Locksley, Prince John and King Richard.They all appear authentic and to follow their development in form of flashbacks within a persuading, powerful and fascinating story is most convincing.
I wish to read more stories with Toby Venables' Guy of Gisburne!
I'm
- 74 pages in London Darkness: Infernal Inventions (digital, 2012) [Kindle Asin: B008BO5S68] by Chris Stocking.
In case you do not know the book, I added the cover and the blurb for you.
"Victorian London–When Ryker Mayson comes across the dead body of a high-ranking member from the League of Inventors, his life changes forever. Murder, lies, and deceit become all too familiar as Ryker searches the dark city streets to find out who is behind these deaths, and why. With the help of Wendell, his Gnomish best friend, Celia, his prostitute lover, and some newly made friends from the League, he scours the city in search of whomever is lurking in the shadows, slaying unsuspecting inventors for taking part in a tragic injustice." [Source]
I find it a bit confusing when authors use the long and short form of their fist name like in this case where you either find Christopher or Chris.
No progress
- 241 pages in the Amelia Peabody's Murder Mystery Omnibus (digital, pb, 2012) [Kindle Edition ASIN: B007PRZJAW] by Elizabeth Peters.
- 98 pages in The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime (digital 2011) [ Kindle Edition ASIN: B004FPYX72] by Judith Flanders.
- 172 pages in the Emperor of Thorns (pb, August 2013) [ISBN-13: 978-0007439058] by Mark Lawrence,
- 175 pages in Deadhouse Gates (pb, 2006; first published in 2000) [ISBN-13: 978-0765348791] by Steven Erikson
Enjoy your weekend ....
Books
Dear readers, I'm the one to tell you about books - only books? What about novellas and other stuff? My name is Bona. I scour shelves, shops and the net for books. If you call me a book whore I would not gainsay you. But be aware I have my own, sometimes elusive taste.
New books on my shelf/reader or when one book leads to another
This week I received my paperback copy of A Study in Ashes (digital, pb, December 2013) [ISBN-13: 978-0345537201; Kindle Edition ASIN: B00D5BEDPE] by Emma Jane Holloway.
"As part of her devil’s bargain with the industrial steam barons, Evelina Cooper is finally enrolled in the Ladies’ College of London. However, she’s attending as the Gold King’s pet magician, in handcuffs and forbidden contact with even her closest relation, the detective Sherlock Holmes.
Not even Niccolo, the dashing pirate captain, and his sentient airship can save her. But Evelina’s problems are only part of a larger war. The Baskerville Affair is finally coming to light, and the rebels are making their move to wrest power from the barons and restore it to Queen Victoria. Missing heirs and nightmare hounds are the order of the day — or at least that’s what Dr. Watson is telling the press.
But their plans are doomed unless Evelina escapes to unite her magic with the rebels’ machines–and even then her powers aren’t what they used to be. A sorcerer has awakened a dark hunger in Evelina’s soul, and only he can keep her from endangering them all. The only problem is…he’s dead." [Source]
This is the third and final book in the The Baskerville Affair series. So far I have read the first book which I liked except some romance parts.
In 2012 I read and reviewed REVISION 7:DNA (e-book and pb, 2011) [Amazon Kindle, ASIN:B009AHUELE; ISBN-13: 978-1935961505] by Terry Persun starring the extraordinary Neil Altman who has been trained by his parents to ac the two halves of his brain independently.
Author Terry Persun has been so kind to inform me that Neil Altman returns in Backyard Aliens (pb Dec 2013, digital Jan 2014) [Amazon Kindle, ASIN:B00HMCE5LE; ISBN-13: 978-1620151969]. He asked me if I would like to get a digital copy and I said yes.
"A followup to "Revision 7:DNA"
A pair of intriguing aliens pull at the hearts and minds of Neil and Mavra while the government is bent on research and analysis. Terry Persun’s latest science fiction novel explores the idea of alien contact through his main characters’ Neil and Mavra Altman—a detective who can think independently from both sides of his brain and the professional psychic he’s married to.
After two young boys find what they believe is a dinosaur egg, the military gets involved immediately. When aliens emerge from the eggs, Neil and Mavra are struck with a moral decision whether to allow the military to analyze the aliens or to help the aliens go free. Their travels eventually take them to Area 51, where Neil and Mavra are forced to come up with a foolproof plan. Excerpt: She didn’t look back from then on. She held the aliens tightly and rounded the corner. Neil stood inside the building and took her arm and led her to a running jeep. “In the back and under that blanket,” he said as he helped her climb in. Mavra lay on her back and the aliens didn’t move. She couldn’t help wondering how they could possibly trust humans after what they’d been through the last few days. Perhaps they knew there were good ones and bad ones. Perhaps they understood the difference between humane interaction and scientific research. Whatever it was, they held to her. Not moving and not talking, just still. She heard Neil say, “Nice night,” to the guards as they passed through the main gate." [Source]
With around 200 pages it is shorter than most of the books I read. Therefore I did not hesitate to add the book to my books to read in 2014 book shelf.
No more today, see you next week ......
Blogosphere
Hey, I'm Bona Fide. I just came back from my last foray through the blogosphere. What can you expect from me? I tell you: Everything from Art to Fart as long as there is any faint connection to books. And here is some honey from the beehive blogosphere...
When I was young
I was highly interested in airplanes. I read all the books and magazines I could get. There has been a time where supersonic passenger planes have been a hot topic. I liked to see all the coloured dreams of engineers. Nowadays it is just a faint memory. Therefore I send a big thank you to the stuff of Dark Roasted Blend who refreshed my memory with following gorgeous post.
American Supersonic Airliners: Race for a Dream
The end of a trilogy is in progress
Author Sabine Atkins announced that she is now working on the third and final book of her Varangian Trilogy. So far two books have been published and I reviewed both of them:
Varangian: The Stone of Babylon by Sabine Atkins review
Varangian: The Assassins of Teneo Mundus by Sabine Atkins review
She has been so kind to post a small teaser of the prologue. I liked it a lot to get a first impression of the third and final book in the Varangian Trilogy.
Walking Cities
The idea of a walking city is not new. You find them in fantasy and science fiction. But there are also people who work on serious designs. If you would like to know more about walking city then I recommend to have a look a following impressive post over at the WebUrbanist.
Nomadic Urbanism: Futuristic Walking City Draws on History
What a great site!
Last week I discovered
The PUBLIC DOMAIN REVIEW
A project of the Open Knowledge Foundation
"The Public Domain Review is a not-for-profit project dedicated to showcasing the most interesting and unusual out-of-copyright works available online." [Source]
This is an absolutely impressive and gorgeous project. I have been blown away. I could get lost in all the available books and pictures. In order to avoid that I limited the time to spend over there. Let me give you two examples to underline what I mean. Have a look at
Illustrations from a Victorian book on Magic (1897)
Inside the Empty House: Sherlock Holmes, For King and Country
That's it for today. Come back next week for more ......
Movies
Hey, it's me Fide. I'm a remote control professional. I'm that fast that I can watch two movies at the same time.
When it comes to the Game of Thrones TV series, we are far behind. So far season one and two have been aired in free TV. As far as I know we can expect season three around Easter.
Nevertheless I watch trailers related to season for like the following one which is really, really short ....
That's all for today. See you next time....
Quotes
I 'm the Keeper of the minutes. But I don't mind when you call me Kotm. No, no. I don't explain to you how to pronounce.
This is the kind of office conversation which you need on Monday morning to confuse your colleagues ....
"It doesn't make a difference what temperature a room is, it's always room temperature.'”
Steven Wright, US comedian and actor, 1955 -