Tag: series

Children of the Mind

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Card, Orson Scott. Children of the Mind. Tor Books, 2002.

Reason read: started in October in honor of Science Fiction Month.

Children of the Mind is the second half of Xenocide which explains why the residents of planet Luistania are still looking for a way to escape the decimation of their planet. This is also the final book in the Ender quartet. The survival of the children of the mind hinges on Computer Jane’s ability to move the humans, buggers, and pequeninos to a more hospital planet for colonization without overtaxing her bandwidth. Every jump takes her down a notch. Meanwhile, Peter Wiggin, Ender’s older brother, travels to meet with the Starways Congress to convince them to stop their campaign to destroy Lusitania. Only Peter isn’t Peter. He is another entity of Ender. In fact, Ender has three bodies: his own, Peter’s and Young Valentine’s. Children of the Mind, like the other books in the series gets a little didactic and preachy.
I have to wonder how many people freaked out when they got to the demise of Ender as we know him.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 224).

Three Doors To Death

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Stout, Rex. Three Doors to Death: a Nero Wolfe Threesome. Viking Press, 1949.

Reason read: I first started the series fifteen books ago in honor of Rex Stout’s birth month.

Man Alive (published in December 1947) – A man once thought to be dead of suicide is found dead again.
Omit Flowers (published in November 1948) – as a favor to a friend, Nero Wolfe takes on the wrongful accusation of murder. Virgil Pompa, a restaurant chain manager has been fingered for the crime.
Door to Death (published in June 1949) – my favorite of the bunch. Nero’s caretaker of over 10,000 orchids, Theodore Horstmann, has taken leave indefinitely to care for his ailing mother. This abandonment is absolutely unacceptable to Wolfe. The travesty forces him to leave his beloved brownstone to recruit a replacement who has, of course, been charged with murder.

As an aside, for as many times as Archie says Nero never leaves his brownstone, I wonder if someone has actually counted up all the times he has and why.

Author fact: Stout passed away at the age of eighty-eight.

Book trivia: to track Stout’s publications one has to be pretty savvy. Three Doors to Death is comprised of three novellas which were published as stand alone stories. The three stories were republished in a collection called Five of a Kind.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

Xenocide

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Card, Orson Scott. Xenocide. Macmillan Audio, 2004.

Reason read: to continue the series started in October in honor of Science Fiction month.

As Orson Scott Card moves away from the childlike narrative of Ender’s Game the series becomes more deeply philosophical. In each subsequent Ender novel, Card questions the argument surrounding free will. Xenocide expands on these ideas as it examines cultural differences, religious ideology and the ethics of destroying a race because of its potential danger. Card takes his readers to the planet Lusitania where humans (including Andrew Wiggin and his family), the Pequeninos (Piggies), and the Hive Queen are all under threat by the Starways Congress. The Congress is hellbent on blowing up the planet because they fear the Descolada virus which is essential to the Pequeninos but deadly to humans. Card keeps Ender and his family mostly in the background as he explores these heavier concepts. I found it to be heavy mucking.

Book Audio trivia: there is a whole cast of narrators for Xenocide: Scott Brick, Gabrielle de Cuir, Amanda Karr, John Rubinstein, and Stefan Rudnicki.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 213).

Second Confession

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Stout, Rex. Second Confession. G.K. Hall and Co., 1992.

Reason read: to continue the series started in November of 2024. I am now a year into the Nero Wolfe series.

It all starts when a father wants to hire Nero Wolfe to confirm or deny his daughter’s fiancé is not a Communist. James Sperling believes his daughter’s suitor needs to be investigated before they marry. At first Nero is reluctant to take the case for he knows Sperling has connections to the mafia. That is the least of his troubles when the man in question is found murdered and all evidence points to Nero. [Stout likes vehicular homicide and it is Wolfe’s vehicle with the blood evidence.]
It is rare that Nero Wolfe leaves his brownstone in New York City as the country makes him nervous, yet, in Second Confession Wolfe finds himself in Chappaqua, just above White Plains, New York. Another variance of this Nero Wolfe mystery is a different set of law enforcement running interference. Despite these differences, fear not! Archie is his old sarcastic witty self.

As an aside, I truly enjoy learning more about the highly entertaining Archie Goodwin. This time we learn he has gone to high school in Ohio.

Lines I liked, “I wouldn’t go to the extreme of calling him a cheap filthy little worm, but he is in fact a shabby creature” (p 93) and “There are numerous layers of honesty, and the deepest should not have a monopoly” (p 276).

Author fact: Rex Stout served as chairman of the war writer’s board.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 209).

Avalon

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Lawhead, Stephen R. Avalon: the Return of King Arthur. Avon, 1999.

Reason read: King Arthur was born in December…supposedly.

The is a classic tale of the struggle between good and evil. Cast as the power hungry antagonist is Prime Minister Thomas Waring. When the last King of England committed suicide Waring was under the impression he would lead England from his seat in government. Out of nowhere along comes James Stuart, an apparent nobody with all the credentials to prove it is he who is actually next in line for the throne. All of the characters you expect from King Arthur’s time are represented in modern day Britain. Ancient enemies are present with a modern day twist.
My favorite parts were when James experiences fiosachd, a kind of mental time travel where he can see his surroundings in a medieval light. Sights and sounds shimmer into his mind like a memory but appear before him as real as his own skin. Modern day dissolves to reveal a time before time.
My least favorite part was the relationship with Jenny. She rebuffs James and seems to fancy another until she does a surprising 180.

Confessional: I went back and forth about whether or not Avalon was part of the Pendragon series. In the end I decided it wasn’t because I couldn’t care enough if it was or wasn’t.

Book trivia: Avalon is the LAST book in the Pendragon Cycle series (according to Lawhead’s website). Once again, I have read these books out of order.

Author fact: several of Lawhead’s books have been made into television series for 2025.

Music: “Auld Lang Syne,” “Bowl of Punch Reel,” Gerry Rafferty, “Crown Him with Many Crowns,” “Amazing Grace,” “We Rest on Thee,” “Wedding March,” “O Worship the King,” “Blest Be the Tie That Binds,” “Scotland the Brave,” and “Be Thou My Vision.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “King Arthur” (p 136). What Pearl does not tell you is that at the time of the publication of Book Lust, Avalon was the last book in the Pendragon Cycle series.

Speaker for the Dead

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Card, Orson Scott. Speaker for the Dead. Macmillan Audio, 2006.

Reason read: to continue the series started in October in honor of Science Fiction Month.

As a small child, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin saved planet Earth from war with the Buggers. Now as an earthly yet ageless thirty five year old adult, Ender is faced with a second alien invasion with the piggies. War seems to be inevitable. Ender has transformed himself into a Speaker for the Dead and must reconcile his horrible past as Ender Wiggin the Xenocide. Not many know he is one and the same. It is a dance of identity to come to terms with the past.
I found it interesting to learn that in order for Speaker for the Dead to work Ender’s Game had to be a full blown novel. The sequel actually birthed the first book’s existence.
As an aside, I do not know how Speaker for the Dead can be pigeon holed into the genre of science fiction when it carries themes of philosophy, religion, family, psychology, religion, socio-economics, ethics, ecology, genetics, mysticism, hatred, and science.
I applaud any book that makes the reader feel something whether intended or not. If the author can be clever enough to hide personal feelings while promoting an unfavorable view, more power to him or her. Speaker for the Dead made me laugh and cry, hate and love, all at the same time.
The best part of Speaker for the Dead was Ender’s conversation with the Bishop about death – how another culture could see death as the greatest honor.

Line I liked, “I think, said Ender, that you should not plant anymore humans” (p 415).

Author fact: to look at Orson Scott Card’s list of books is impressive. I am only reading seven Ender books for the Challenge.

Book trivia: Speaker for the Dead is an indirect sequel to Ender’s Game. You can get by without reading Ender, but why would you want to?

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 213).

Killer Smile

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Scottoline, Lisa. Killer Smile. Read by Kate Burton. Harper Collins, 2004.

Reason read: I forgot to finish the series started in December of last year in honor of Pennsylvania becoming a state. Somehow I let this one fall off the list.

Mary DiNunzio works for Benny Rosato’s law firm as an associate. Mary’s latest pro bono case is on behalf of the estate of an Italian-American interned in Montana during World War I. Amadeo Brandolini committed suicide during his internment and the family wants to sue the government for reparations. DiNunzio’s mission is to sort out the legalities of Brandolini’s estate, but ends up righting a long-forgotten carriage of misjustice. What starts as a simple estate case turns complicated when people start dying; people who had dared to talk to Miss DiNunzio.
For comic relief, DiNunzio’s boss keeps sending Mary on dates with impossible men. I appreciated how Scottoline wove this side story into the bigger plot.

As an aside, Mary DiNunzio sometimes annoyed me. Lawyers are supposed to be somewhat smart. I found it irksome that Mary did not know where to find Montana on a map, she did not know what an engineer does for a living, could not identify a marlin, and she had no idea what quantum physics was. I’ll forgive her for not knowing the difference between a bow and stern of a boat. but am I making an assumption that lawyers are supposed to be savvy and book smart?
Prophetic vision: in my copy of Killer Smile there are a series of book club questions. One of them is “Do you feel safe in your country?” Killer Smile was written in 2004. Let’s ask that same question twenty one years later.

Author fact: Did I already mention that Scottoline was a trial lawyer? I am pretty sure that I did. She graduated from law school in 1981. The other fact is that Scottoline is really funny in her interviews.
Narrator fact: Kate Burton is really good!

Book trivia: Scottoline was encouraged to bring the story of Italian-Americans interned in Montana after learning the history of her grandparents’ experiences. She even shares photographs of their alien registration cards. Scottoline wanted to bring that lesser known history to light.
Killer Smile is Scottoline’s eleventh book.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest: Pennsylvania” (p 25). Pearl mentioned this was one of her favorites.

Trouble in Triplicate

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Stout, Rex, Trouble in Triplicate. Viking Press, 1949.

Reason read: to continue the series started last year in honor of Stout’s birth month.

Trouble in Triplicate is actually three short novellas:

  • Before I Die – Dazy Perrit, king of the black market, has come to Nero Wolfe to help him with his daughters. One is blackmailing him and the other has a nervous tic Perrit thinks Wolfe can cure.
  • Help Wanted, Male – Wolfe hires a body double when his life is threatened while he works a murder case.
  • Instead of Evidence – It is not everyday that a man shows up on your doorstep and announces that he is about to die and proceeds to name his future killer. This is a mystery all about identity.

New things I learned about Archie Goodwin: he is from Ohio. He is an ankle man. He has a strange prejudice against people with the name Eugene.

Lines I liked, “He paid us a visit the day he stopped a bullet” (p 3), “If you are typing to can’t talk” (p 160), and “He sounded next door to hysterical” (p 185).

As an aside, Stout mentioned Billy Sunday in “Before I Die” and I had to wrack my brain. Where had I heard that name before? From the lyrics of Ramble On Rose by the Grateful Dead.

Author fact: Stout moved to Paris in order to write full time.

Book trivia: you get three stories for the price of one in Trouble in Triplicate and the stories are not tied together in any way.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter obviously called “Res Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

Ender’s Game

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Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Game. Read by Stefan Rudnicki and Harlan Ellison. Macmillan Audio, 2004.

Reason read: October is Science Fiction Month.

Planet Earth is prepping for a galaxy war against the Buggers. The last skirmish was eighty years ago and Earth barely survived. Recruiting this time around has to be aggressive and highly tactical. Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, born in a society of limiting offspring: only two children per family, is known as an extra or Third. As a Third Ender must leave planet Earth at six years old for a boarding school where he trains to be a soldier. He leads an army of other children and it is here that he proves to be a natural-born leader and a prodigy at winning battles. So the saga begins.
Back home, the proverbial power struggle between good and evil begins. While Ender grows into a tactical fighter, his brother Peter demonstrates increasing violent tendencies every day. Their sister, ironically named Valentine (the symbol of love) as the token female, stands in the middle of the two brothers.
One of the most fascinating elements of Ender’s Game is that Card challenges the assumption about reality and what is “normal.”

Author fact: the idea for Ender came when Card was sixteen years old. He was fascinated by the idea of a Battle Room.

Book Audio trivia: listening to the audio was a treat because Orson Scott Card explained his process for writing Ender’s Game. I had no idea the book was meant to be read aloud. Also, when Card first presented Ender’s Game he was told it was fantasy. He needed to change some details, bring in aliens to make it science fiction.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 213).

And Be a Villain

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Stout, Rex. And Be a Villain. Bantam, 1994.

Reason read: to continue the series started a year ago!

Nero Wolfe is crafty. The way he finds clients is to insert himself into a dilemma (pretty much always a murder) with the promise of a solution (usually by proving someone’s innocence)…for a price (usually pretty steep). However it is up to Archie Goodwin to sell that service and bring the client onboard. When on-air guest Cyril Orchard is murdered by cyanide poisoning during Madeline Fraser’s radio program, Archie’s spin is that the heat will be off Madeline as a suspect if she hires the great Nero Wolfe to find the real killer. Logic prevails and Madeline agrees to Wolfe’s demands; except now it looks like the poison was meant for her. Is someone out there is trying to kill her? At the same time Beula Poole is found shot to death and a seemingly unrelated gynecologist is being blackmailed. Then a third person is poisoned. Are all of these events related? The case so stumps Wolfe that he begrudgingly involves his on again-off again nemesis, Inspector Cramer. As usual, Goodwin is the star of the show.

Line I liked, “No doctor should assume responsibility for the health of one he loves or one he hates” (p 168).

Author fact: according to one biography, Rex Stout devised and implemented a school banking system.

Book trivia: As with most Stout books the publishers lets the reader peek behind this curtain. This time And Be A Villain shared Viking’s lawyers’ attempt to find any detail that resembled real people or situations.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

Love at Second Sight

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Leverson, Ada. The Little Ottleys: Love at Second Sight.

Reason read: to finish the series started in August.

When we catch up to the lovely Edith she is now the mother of a ten year old and still married to the horrible Bruce. It has been three solid years since Bruce was so taken with Mavis Argles that he tried to run away and elope in France. It didn’t work out and Edith, faithful to a fault took him back. Home again, Bruce continues to point out Edith’s shortcomings like they are earth-shattering catastrophes, “…as a matter of fact, a curl by the right ear was only one-tenth of an inch further on the cheek than it was intended to be” (p 348), but Edith just shrugs him off more than ever. Despite her steadfast loyalty to Bruce, Edith hasn’t completely forgotten Aylmer Ross. Alymer, home with a war injury, is still madly in love with Edith, but she stubbornly is determined to make her marriage work.
The new element of Love at Second Sight is that Edith and Bruce are housing a widow who shows no signs of leaving. We have no idea where she came from or why she is there but, Madam Frabelle charms her way into every person’s heart and influences every mind. She determines the outcome of Love at Second Sight.

As an aside, Bruce and Madame Frabelle’s little journey confused me a little. First they are on a train, then a boat, then they frequent a hotel for lunch. Then they pop over to Hampton Court and then back to the river where Bruce shows off his rowing skills and then back to the Belle of the Rover and to the train. What a day!

Music: Mozart, Handel, Debussy, Ravel, Faure, “Drink To Me Only with Thine Eyes,” and “I’ll Sing Thee Songs of Araby.”

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Viragos” (p 227).

Absolute Truths

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Howatch, Susan. Absolute Truths. Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.

Reason read: to continue the series started in April in honor of Good Friday and Easter (the theme being religion).

Even though Absolute Truths is part of the Starbridge series, each story is self-contained and can be read on its own. It should be noted that each book is connected to the others through characters and plots. This has been said before, but never is it more true than in Absolute Truths. We come back to the character of Charles Ashworth. If you remember from the very first Starbridge novel, Glittering Images, Charles was sent to make sure there was nothing sinister happening in the Jardine household where a young woman (Lyle Christie) was serving as companion to Mrs. Jardine. Charles became obsessed with Lyle and eventually married her. When we catch up to Charles in Absolute Truths, Lyle running the perfect household. When Charles loses Lyle he has to figure out his absolute truth. I have to admit, I was disappointed to return to a character who already had the spotlight in 1937. It would have been more fun to explore the life of a younger character and move beyond the 1960s.
As with every other installment in the Starbridge series, the main character is plagued by sexual impulses and the threat of excessive alcoholic stupors. Charles Ashworth is no different. He is wracked by guilt over things he barely understands. As always, ghosts circle and demons threaten. Jon Darrow leads the charge back to sanity, asking the question: is love the absolute truth?

Quote to quote, “No degree of impatience can excuse vulgarity” (p 43).

Author fact: Wheel of Fortune is Howatch’s most notable novel.

Book trivia: Absolute Truths is the sixth and final book in the Starbridge series. Book Lust To Go only lists three of the books while More Book Lust mentions seven. Pearl is in error when she lists Wonder Worker as part of the Starbridge series.

Music: Jack Buchanan, “Tennessee Waltz,” David Rose’s “The Stripper,” “Zadok the Priest,” and “Thine Be the Glory.”

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Fathers, Mothers, Sisters, Brothers: the Family of the Clergy” (p 86) and again in Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Entering England” (p 76). As an aside, Pearl mentions Wonder Worker as the last Starbridge book in the series. Even though Wonder Worker does have some of the same Starbridge characters Howatch does not consider it part of the series.

Tenterhooks: The Little Ottleys

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Leverson, Ada. The Little Ottleys: Tenterhooks. Virago, 1908.

Reason read: to continue the series started in August.

We return to the marriage of Edith and Roger. By this time they have been married for eight years. As a twenty-eight year old, Edith has more spunk in Tenterhooks. Her relationship with Aylmer is one of refreshing independence and gaiety. I practically cheered when she ended a letter to him with “I want you” even though it was not what she intended to say. Poor Aylmer! But there is hope for Edith. She spreads her social wings, becoming popular with the Mitchells to the point where they cannot have a social gathering without her in attendance. She is desirable and charming. She even laughs off her husband’s verbal abuse and silly philandering. She proves to be stronger than he ever imagined.
Tenterhooks is a society brimming with silly people. Someone could say “do not write to me but here is my address of where I will be…”; where when marriage happens by accident that relationship greatly scandalizes the community for decades. The insult of the day was to say that someone was dowdy or out of fashion. Eloping while married can be laughed at and ignored.

Quote I liked: even though I did not care for Mr. Ross as a person I liked when he said “Time doesn’t go by hours” (p 218). More quotes to quote, “Why cry for the moon?” (p 269) and “It is human to play with what ones loves” (274).

Music: Tosti, Melba, Caruso, Bemberk, Dubussy, and Brahms.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Viragos” (p 227).

Too Many Women

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Stout, Rex. Too Many Women. Viking Press, 1947.

The backstory: a businessman falls victim to a hit-and-run driver. Accident or murder? The firm, Naylor-Kerr, Inc, where the businessman worked, is convinced it was foul play. The board of directors hire Nero Wolfe to prove it. The only problem is Wolfe thinks the clues to solving the case are hidden in the executive offices of Naylor-Kerr. It is up to wise-cracking and devilishly handsome Archie Goodwin to find the evidence by going undercover in Naylor-Kerr. He starts in the Structural Metals section but gets distracted by the Correspondence Checker, namely the victim’s fiancé. In fact, there are too many beautiful women for Archie to handle. He starts dating a few of them to get to the gossip. The best part of his job is entertaining the women in the company. Dancing, dining, and drinking to interview them all.
Once his cover is blown, true to form, Archie is still the sarcastic and sharp-tongued sidekick to Nero that we all know and love. When a second man from the same company is found dead in the exact same manner on the exact same street the pressure mounts to solve the mystery. Even though this was a case that was harder than most for Wolfe to solve as Wolfe mysteries, they wrap up Too Many Women like an episode of Scooby Doo with a long narrative about how it all went down.

A favorite quote, “It wasn’t a conception that hit him, it was a sedan” (p 96).

Author fact: Rex Stout held a job as a bookkeeper.

Book trivia: There was a significant absence of Nero Wolfe in this installment.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

Mystical Paths

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Howatch, Susan. Mystical Paths. Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.

Reason read: to continue the series started in recognition of Easter back in April.

As with every other Starbridge novel, Mystical Paths is designed to be read independently of others in the series, but it is recommended to read them in order. Characters who were in the background in previous novels jump to the forefront in later ones. This time, Jonathan Darrow’s son, Nicholas, narrates the story. Nicholas and his father are modeled after the work of Christopher Bryant and are both psychics. Nicholas is now twenty-five years old and has a “sex-mess” in the middle of the 1960s. He believes he is one half of his father and suffers from somnambulism. Every night he has to tether himself to something before falling asleep for fear of wandering off somewhere. He leads a double life in order to protect his father, his other half. Yet at eighty-eight years old, Jonathan Darrow is still sharp as a tack and can run circles around his son. Like the other Howatch books, psychological situations are examined through a spiritual and theological lens with the help of a spiritual advisor or religious mentor. Mystical Paths is one of my favorites due to the plots many twists and turns.
I think I have said this before, but the benefit of reading the Starbridge series in order, one right after the other is that besides character development the reader gets the varying perspectives of the same history. Each character recalls the same point in time with different feelings and memories. It reminded me of Michael Dorris’s Yellow Raft in Blue Water.

Every Howatch book (so far) has a character with sexual hang-ups or has trouble with alcohol. Nicholas Darrow is no different. Lines I liked, “As I mooched around, bored out of my mind, I wondered how the Church could survive the 20th century when one of its most famous training-grounds had been so wholly smothered by the dead hand of an irrelevant past” (p 19), “Funny how the vast majority of the human race has to generate a repulsive amount of noise before it can convince itself it’s having a good time” (p 55),

Author fact: Beyond the Starbridge series I have two more Howatch books to read for the Challenge.

Book trivia: According to the author’s note, Mystical Paths is the penultimate book in the Starbridge series. However, Pearl lists a seventh book, Wonder Worker, to round out the series. Wonder Worker is actually the first book in a different series.

Setlist: Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Beethoven, Rolling Stones, “River Deep, Mountain High” by Tina Turner, John Lennon’s “Money,” Mick Jagger, “It’s All Over Now” by the Rolling Stones,” Ella Fitzgerald, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Berlioz, Dead March,

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Fathers, Mothers, Sisters, Brothers: the Family of Clergy” (p 86).