Wyatt is a me­te­o­rol­o­gist working with the U.S. Navy on the small Caribbean island of San Fernandez. He's convinced that Hurricane Mabel will change course and hit San Fernandez. Trouble is, he can't convince the local dictator, Serrurier, to evacuate the low-lying capital because the rebels have risen.

This is a fine early modern thriller by Bagley. Aside from the im­prob­a­bil­i­ty of an in­sur­rec­tion and a major hurricane happening si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, it's quite believable. The tension mounts as the weather worsens, people act in character, and no one has improbable talents. Wyatt is naive …continue.

Sequel to Agents of Light and Darkness.

A mysterious chanteuse's songs are to die for at an exclusive club in the Nightside: her fans are committing suicide. John Taylor in­ves­ti­gates.

En­ter­tain­ing, though the writing style is clumsy.

Book #4 in the Merchant Princes series, sequel to The Clan Corporate.

The Clan share a mutation that allows them to walk between worlds, including theirs and ours. It's made them fabulously wealthy in their feudal world, though much despised by the old nobility. The crown prince has just seized the throne and is on a witch-hunt. In our world, the US government considers them narco-terrorists and is hunting them too. Miriam, the main pro­tag­o­nist, is trapped in a recently discovered third world, a Victorian police state. And a fourth world is …continue.

General Sternwood is old, rich, and crippled, with two wanton daughters. Philip Marlowe is brought in to deal with a black­mail­er. Within hours, he is tripping over dead bodies, live dames, tough guys, and skeletons in closets.

Chandler's famously convoluted story holds up well seventy years later. His style and his stories are much imitated, but retain their freshness. Marlowe lives by his own code of honor, which keeps him going in his dirty, no-good world. He cracks wise and rarely carries a gun while he does what needs doing.

Rec­om­mend­ed.

Séamus Joyce, a former senior civil servant, returns to Dublin from self-imposed exile in Germany. He has been engaged as a consultant by Finer Small Campuses to evaluate his alma mater, King's College Dublin, a third-rate, third-level in­sti­tu­tion.

Millar, himself an Irish academic, satirizes both Irish higher-level education and the brave new world wrought by the Celtic Tiger economy. It's a different world from the depressed, inward-looking Dublin that Joyce moved to as a student. The plot moves ef­fi­cient­ly and some of the characters are, well, characters. Not Joyce though: he's insecure and in­tro­vert­ed, still …continue.

A few decades hence, Britain has devolved into balkanized ministates. A Trotskyite, space-loving mercenary in­ad­ver­tent­ly awakens an AI and sparks the revolution. The plot is un­sum­ma­riz­able, but it's en­ter­tain­ing and complex, mixing action, political theory, cyberpunk, and romance.

There are two Dr. Temperance Brennan's. Both are forensic an­thro­pol­o­gists. One is the heroine of Kathy Reichs' novels, who, like Reichs herself, is a professor in North Carolina and works with the Montreal police. The other is the star of the TV show, Bones, is brilliant but devoid of social skills, works with the FBI in Washington DC, and has a state-of-the-art lab and a crack team of geeks.

A war has erupted between biker gangs in Montreal. Old bones have been found in the ground, including the skull of a teenaged girl, whose other …continue.

Seven years ago, “Paul Hardy” was found with his head smashed in. He recovered physically, but not mentally. After another accident, his wits come back and a few memories. Googling for the one name he remembers brings the NSA to his door. He goes on the run, causing the un­rav­el­ling of a coverup.

Efficient, well-plotted thriller in the paranoid vein. The plot is as risible as most such books, but no matter. Enjoy it for a few hours.

Anathem takes place on Arbre, a world where those of an in­tel­lec­tu­al bent sequester themselves in monas­ter­ies apart from the Sæcular world. When an alien ship is noticed orbiting the planet, avout from concents all over Arbre are drawn together for a Convox to determine how to respond to the threat of the Geometers.

Stephen­son's Anathem is an ambitious project, pulling together physics, meta­physics, world-building, an­thro­pol­o­gy, and an adventure tale. It's an alien world as he keeps reminding us by the huge vocabulary he's invented. Said vocabulary alternates between ex­as­per­at­ing and …continue.

England, 1958: an alternate universe where famous fictional characters really lived and the regime of Big Brother has just come to an end. Sixty years ago, the British Crown gathered together the Murray Group, ex­tra­or­di­nary ad­ven­tur­ers charged with sensitive missions. The remnants of the group fled England in World War II. Now they've come back to steal their dossier from MI-5, a dossier that could lead the Government back to them, a dossier that details the exploits of earlier …continue.