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The Jevlir Caravansary

Author: jevlir

  • Book: Hand of Evil

    I’m back to J. A. Jance again with this fascinating novel of suspense and mystery. I like Jance’s characters and her ability to keep the suspense going whilst keeping you involved with those characters. The mystery is good, though I guessed most of it a bit too early for my test. I might well credit that to chance, however, because I don’t do that so frequently with her books.

    In Hand of Evil, Ali Reynolds finds herself drawn into multiple cases of extreme evil, with one case distracting her from the other. It’s not her intention to get into police business, but she does. Along the way she finds herself falling in love, largely unaware.

    This was my first Ali Reynolds book, and I need to go back and read something earlier. I’m also looking forward to the new Joanna Brady mystery, Damage Control, scheduled for August 1, 2008.

  • Book: The Third Lynx

    I like Timothy Zahn’s writing a great deal, though I prefer the conqueror series to any of his other writing. Nonetheless Blackcollar and Cobra material is really, really good, so the comparison is not that hard.

    I found The Third Lynx and the earlier book in the series Night Train to Rigel to be substantially lighter than his other material. The universe seemed contrived at first, but then as I read I discovered that it is contrived in many ways, according to the internal logic of the story, so in my view all’s well.

    The characters are interesting, the background is intriguing and off the beaten scifi track, and the plot is good for an adventure story. As I said, it isn’t as engaging for me as the Conqueror series was, but that would be hard to accomplish in any case.

    My rating for this one is a 4 pushing a 5.

  • Book: Patrimony

    This is another Pip & Flinx adventure. I have to confess that while I love Alan Dean Foster, who is one of those authors I look for on most trips to the library and every trip to the bookstore, I am getting a little overdosed on these books. The problem is that we have had too many of them in which Flinx searches for his father, tries to learn about his powers, and deals with headaches. They are beginning to seem a bit repetitive. On to the next item I say!

    Well, this book did provide some answers, though I’m not going to say anything to give them away. At the same time, it bears a great deal of similarity to previous books. I wasn’t that excited about the plot itself. I do enjoy Foster’s relaxed way of presenting a new culture, and I enjoyed both planet and culture as described in this particular book. That part will keep me coming back to Flinx and to the Humanx Commonwealth in other forms as well.

    I rate this a 3 by itself, but would raise that to a 4 because of its relatives.

  • Psalm 46 for Lectionary Pentecost +3

    Since I blogged about this Psalm before, and rewrote it into an Italian Sonnet (largely for my own edification, though I couldn’t resist sharing), I thought I’d call attention to my previous post now that it’s the lectionary Psalm for this coming Sunday.

  • Added to my Blogroll: Beyond Words

    From a comment on my Threads blog, I found Beyond Words and after perusing it a bit, I decided to add it to my blogroll here.

    I keep intending to add new writing blogs here regularly, but it seems like this blog always gets my attention last, so things get out of date pretty quickly. Kathy has an engaging writing style with some often subtly challenging material. I’d commend this short story titled Heaven, and this post about a retreat as good examples.

  • Book: Deluge

    This is the third volume of the Twins of Petaybee series.

    To let you know how I felt about the book, let me quote what I said about Maelstrom, the second in the series:

    It is lighter than the Dragonrider series, and I don’t find the cultural background anywhere near as interesting, but the characters are engaging, and the story is fun. That’s a lot to recommend a book, especially since I look for books to read when my mind wants to rest rather than be challenged. I’m glad there are books that fit the bill.

    As I read that now, more than a year after I wrote it, I can only nod my head. That is exactly how I felt reading this volume. It’s why I keep on reading authors like McCaffrey. She can’t always be writing Dragonriders books after all, and once one has done a series like that, everything else is going to look just a bit pale beside it. But this whole series is good fun, even though it’s not all that deep.

    I intend to keep reading both authors.

  • Die Hard with a Vengeance

    I finally managed to watch this movie a few days ago, and found it to be pretty much what I expected. It was a very limited plot designed to connect the various violent scenes and special effects. Fortunately those were good.

    It’s nice to get this without paying for it (Netflix), but if you’d like some mindless diversion that’s fun, it’s the movie for you. If you want a story, well, not so much.

  • Added Postie Plugin

    have been learning to use my Palm Centro more from the road, or for times like right now when I have things shut down due to severe thunderstorms.
    So I installed Postie, which massively improves post by mail. I haven’t found posting directly impossible but this is more convenient.
    Watch for more short posts from the road. Note that the link is also a test.

  • Seven (or more) Deadly Words

    . . . in book reviews. In this intriguing post, Bob Harris crafts a compelling list of words that all writers should eschew when they muse upon the content of a book they are about to review. Unfortunately, despite his best use of vocabulary, I found his post neither lyrical nor poignant. Try harder Bob!

    Now I’m going to search on each of those words. I suspect that their only occurrences on this blog will be in this post. I must admit, however, that I both tend to use excessively complex syntax, and often words that are more obscure than necessary. I also fall afoul of (should that be on the list?) some of the words noted in the comments.

    Update: I find two reviews on this blog that use one of these words, one for “compelling” and one for “intriguing.” You will find “craft” in an entry about picking up a book at a craft show. The remaining four don’t occur. I’ll have to try harder! Also, HT to evangelical outpost.

  • Tlisli: In the Forbidden Ground

    [This is a work of fiction, as should be obvious throughout. Nothing in it resembles anything else enough to be mistaken for reality, but just in case someone disagrees, if you think it represents something in real life, it doesn’t. This is the second installment in the Tlisli Series, and is continued from Tlisli’s Escape.]

    Crossing the stream was not difficult, though it had it’s own dangers, and after crawling out on the other side, Tlisli plunged into the jungle on the other side. She hoped that just crossing into the forbidden ground would discourage her pursuers. But it was not to be.

    After several minutes of pushing through jungle, she noticed the undergrowth getting thinner, and soon she came out in a clearing. The clearing was occupied by a small hill, and it looked to her like the jungle surrounded the hill, but only grass and small plants grew on the hill itself. To her left, less than 30 meters away, it looked like there had been a recent washout, a gully with mud banks cutting into the hill. What was now a small brook flowed at the bottom of it, and appeared to go toward the stream she had crossed several minutes before.

    Tlisli decided that she would be better off passing the hill in this newly opened path than by walking over. There was no cover at all at the top of the hill.

    (more…)