For a long while the only Louis L’Amour books I’d read were not westerns: The Walking Drum (set in Europe in the Middle Ages), and The Last of the Breed (about a Native American pilot who is shot down by Soviet Russia). I liked both books, but having heard that L’Amour writes westerns (ha ha) I tried a few, and I love them. I have read a handful of them now, and yeah they are good.
The Quick and the Dead is a terrific quick read about a city dweller family of three who gets in over their head on their way across the prairie. Luckily, Con Vallian happens by and lends a hand.
I read this book while in a rented cabin in central Utah near the Capitol Reef National Park. I left it in there on the bookshelf for the next person…
I’m still keeping up with Shawn D. Standfast’s Asimov Future History Project. For three weeks (including next week; I’m a week ahead now) we’ve been reading the I, Robot trilogy written by Mickey Zucker Reichert and published from 2011 to 2016. The books are: I, Robot: To Protect; I, Robot: To Obey; and I, Robot: To Preserve. I’ve read all three now, part of the second and all of the third on audio.
They… are not terrific. But there’s some good in there too.
The books are about Susan Calvin, the famous robopsychologist character in some of Isaac Asimov’s robot stories. In Asimov’s stories, she’s described as a cold, logical, and brilliant.
But that Susan Calvin isn’t the one in these novels. From the first pages, I knew we weren’t in Asimov’s universe, since those pages say “Chapter 1: July 2, 2035” and introduce us to a twenty-something Susan Calvin who is starting her clinicals as a psychologist (treating humans) at a Manhattan hospital. Asimov’s Susan Calvin was born in 1982, so there was no attempt to fit this Susan Calvin with Asimov’s.
What I liked best about the books didn’t have anything to do with robots. Reichert skillfully wrote several character medical scenarios that would have fit very well in episodes of House, with Susan Calvin playing House. Solving those mysteries was compelling stuff, and it kept me going.
Robots are not the main part of the plot in books one and two. The third book is a robot mystery. The overall aim of the plots are to bring this book’s Susan Calvin from a brilliant psychologist solving problems for humans to the brilliant but cold robopsychologist we all know. Reichert’s Susan goes through a lot.
In the end, though, I can’t recommend the books. They were quick easy reads and I read all three, which says something positive about them, but the characters and situations didn’t rung true for me.
Julie and I finished Njal’s Saga and posted a Good Story podcast. I enjoyed it even more the second time. I’ll leave the talking about it to the podcast, but we barely scratched the surface! There was so much more to Hallgerd and Njal and Gunnar… if you want a fantastic resource to learn everything you ever wanted to know about Njal’s Saga (and other Icelandic sagas), check out the Saga Thing podcast.
I originally read this saga in a Booktube group. The hosts of the group included myself (first video here) and these fine folks:
Elena Makridina
Bookish North
Richardson Reads
A Cruel Reader’s Thesis
Steve Donoghue
The Bookish Bryants
Rambling Raconteur
In April, this group and I will do this again with Egil’s Saga. We all posted an announcement video on the Saturday I was on vacation, so here’s mine. It’s got absolutely no information about the saga AT ALL.
Books In:
