We drove down to Portland, Oregon yesterday for PyCon. No trip to Portland would be complete without a trip to Powell's bookstore. I don't have much time this trip, but we did manage to spend an hour there last night, before they closed at 11pm. There's nothing like it in Seattle. I like Elliott Bay Bookstore but it's a pale shadow of Powell's. A long time ago, someone described Powell's to me as “the best bookstore in Seat­tle”—mean­ing that Seat­tleites who want to visit a world-class bookstore have to visit Portland.

I got out lightly. I spent only $85.

Five astronauts are stranded on Mars. Their only hope is to find the vehicle of an earlier crew who died—but that ship is at the north pole and they're south of the equator. And so they trek north across Mars. They know that the other ship can't hold them all, and some of them start dying along the way.

Landis is a NASA scientist who writes “hard science fiction”; i.e., SF that's solidly based in science, some of which is known for plodding writing and dull characters. Landis's characters …continue.

Nick Sandman earned a Victoria Cross in the Falklands and spent a year relearning how to walk. Now all he wants to do is to restore Sycorax, his beloved old boat. But to afford that, he has to work for TV star Tony Bannister. Bannister wants to win the St Pier­re–Hal­i­fax race with Sandman's help and he wants to make a doc­u­men­tary about Sandman, neither of which Sandman wants. Ban­nis­ter's wife died sailing the previous year and her wealthy father holds Bannister re­spon­si­ble.

Another of Cornwell's con­tem­po­rary sailing thrillers, which also holds up …continue.

It's late 1990 and Saddam Hussein has just invaded Kuwait. Paul Shanahan is an exiled Irish-American yacht delivery skipper. He used to be a gunrunner for the IRA, but rumors that he was a CIA agent have kept them at arms' length. Now the IRA have engaged him to sail $5,000,000 in Libyan-supplied gold coins across the Atlantic to buy 53 Stinger missiles. It stinks but he can't say no. And maybe he is the CIA agent that he's rumored to be.

Cornwell is best known as a writer of historical action …continue.

The Age of Affluence ended when the coastal cities drowned as the icecaps melted. Many now eke out a living digging through the detritus of the past. Nailer is a scrawny teenaged scavenger who finds a broken clipper ship after a storm. There's only one survivor, Nita, a swank girl who fled in­ternecine feuding in her trading clan. To protect her from his psychotic father and others who would sell her to her enemies, they go on the run to Orleans, with the aid of a “half-man”.

Baci­galupi's …continue.

Tom Mus­grave—­Mas­ter of Defence and Master of Logic, friend to Will Shake­speare—is present at the very first per­for­mance of Romeo and Juliet when the actor playing Mercutio is somehow fatally stabbed with an envenomed rapier during an on-stage duel. He uncovers perfidy and poisonings which stretches back for years and rises into the highest halls of the land.

Tonkin has not only created a brilliant and dangerous pro­tag­o­nist, he has metic­u­lous­ly recreated Eliz­a­bethan London, a city that is a stew of ambition, peril, and intrigue.

First Musgrave book; precedes …continue.

Jet Butler lives on an isolated mesa in New Mexico. One of her few friends is a suspect in a murder. Cordelia Morgan, an outsider, who turns out to be far more than she seems, is also interested in the murder, which seems to be somehow tied up in the sale of water rights.

This never quite gelled for me. Despite the author's flair for de­scrip­tion, I found the plot confusing and I was not engaged with the two pro­tag­o­nists.

It's Spring and crime is heating up in the 87th Precinct. A hippie has been found crucified, a cat burglar is leaving kittens at the scene of the crime, and the Deaf Man is taunting the detectives again, sending them clues of his upcoming crime. We see blackly humorous slices of life in the big city as the cops work their cases.

Spy Sinker, although it was written after Spy Hook and Spy Line as well as the previous Berlin Game, Mexico Set, London Match trilogy, tells the parallel story of how Fiona Samson came to be one of MI6's most effective double agents without her husband Bernard's knowledge. Told from the per­spec­tives of Fiona and of her case runner, Bret Rensselaer, we see her under increasing strain as the date of her “de­fec­tion” to East Germany draws near, which is compounded once she's alone in East Berlin. She never quite cracks …continue.

After the Vengeance of the Hunter, the Anreulag, the creature known as the Voice of the Gods, has gone rogue, waging war on the Adalonian empire that controlled her for centuries. The Order of the Hawks have found the long-hidden stronghold of the elves. The humans of Nivirry and the elves are throwing off the shackles of Adalonia, but the Anreulag has no regard for anyone's lives, human or elf. Faanshi, Julian, and Kestar may be able to stop her but it won't be easy.

A satisfying conclusion …continue.