Karl's Reading List

Published by Random House New Zealand: Auckland, NZ, 2002. I'm starting to get a taste for non-fiction Alphabet Soup books; who knows what I'll pick for Z! With a little extra time on my hands while Elise and I recover from Covid, I've been able to get through this 10 person biography about prominent New Zealanders - or at very least, people with some connection to New Zealand. I say prominent, but there were a few individuals covered in this work that I had never heard of, and that is coming from a New Zealander with an interest in history. Not a full-on passion I guess. I mean, if I was full-on passionate about history I'm sure I would have heard of these people before, right? What makes this different from a regular biography is that the majority of the chapters were originally written as New Zealand Geographic articles. This results in an unusual feel; each chapter tells us the story of the individual in question (or at least part of it) while also describing the...

Published by Orbit Books/Hachette Book Group, Inc.: New York, NY, 2007 (2005). Book Four of 'The Saga of Seven Suns' series: ' Hidden Empire '; ' A Forest of Stars '; ' Horizon Storms '; ' Scattered Suns '; ' Of Fire and Night '; ' Metal Swarm '; 'The Ashes of Worlds'. By now I'm guessing you know there are spoilers for earlier in the series. About halfway through this book I took a break from the story and had a look at a section in the back called 'meet the author'. Within it Kevin J Anderson admits that originally this book and book 3, the previous installment , were intended to be one entry in the series. However, as he was writing the draft the story grew enough that he ended up splitting it in two, which also allowed him to explore a few extra plotlines he would have otherwise trimmed. This extra information helped me to make sense of the pacing of this book, as well as Horizon Storms before it. Basically...

Published in an omnibus edition with " Vintage Murder "; " Artists in Crime ", by Harper: Hammersmith, London, 2009. Originally published 1936. The first novel in this omnibus, but the last I have read, Death in Ecstasy is another Inspector Alleyn murder mystery novel, this one taking place in the temple of a cult near the home of newspaper reporter (and friend of Alleyn), Nigel Bathgate. During a communion-like ceremony one of the devotees is struck down by poison, and Alleyn is called in to investigate. As with all the classic whodunnits we are introduced to a number of characters, each with possible motives or alibis, including some fairly stereotypical individuals (common of the era). A mark of a good whodunnit is something that will keep you guessing while also offering you clues, and Death in Ecstasy manages well on this front. I felt like I was picking up clues throughout the story - some of which fitted in to the final puzzle and some of which did not. Y...