The Last Legion by Chris Bunch

No doubt inspired by the Roman withdrawal from England, the book details the plight of a small force left to their own devices on a frontier of a failing interstellar empire. The main characters are likeable but somewhat shallow. The story line is good. I like the book but I have hopes that as the story proceeds in the next three volumes that there is more character development and more action.

Body of work of Chris Bunch
Review of the book: http://www.sfsite.com/04a/last54.htm

The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek by Evelyn Sibley Lampman

Here is another great childhood book. It is back in print. I read this book as a kid and later read it orally to my 5th grade class when I was teaching. Yes, it has a talking dinosaur but that isn’t the only reason I like it. Two kids find the dino living in a canyon on their ranch. The interplay between the kids and the dinosaur is great. The story is entertaining. It kept my 5th grade class memorized. If you have a child that wants to believe, this is a great story for them.

Body of work of Evelyn Sibley Lampman

The Dark Sleep by P.N. Elrod

I like old time detective stories. I am a Mickey Spillane and John P. McDonald fan. “Empty Copper Sea” by McDonald and “The Big Kill” by Spillane are good examples of their work. So when I ran across a detective series set shortly after prohibition with a hard nose by soft hearted P.I. as the main character I tried it out. Now there are some differences between Elrod’s work and the aforementioned Spillane & McDonald, primarily that Jack Fleming the main character is dead and he is a vampire. This in no way detracts from the entertainment value of the series. I have enjoyed every one I have read and


Body of work of P.N. Elrod

Site of P.N. Elrod: http://www.vampwriter.com/

The Book of Jhereg by Steven Brust

I’ve mentioned before I enjoy books with telepathic animals, the lead character in this fantasy, Vlad Taltos, is a witch/sorcerer and assassin. His familiar is a Jhereg which is a parrot size poisonous, telepathic, scavenger, predator mini dragon. Jhereg is also one of the 17 houses of the Empire. Trust me, it isn’t that complicated once you start to read. “The Book of Jhereg”, contains three complete novels, “Jhereg, Yendi and Teckla”. Since I am always looking for good prices on my books, this threesome is substantially cheaper than buying the three stand alone novels. These are the first three of Vlad’s adventures. First three is a bit of a misnomer as future books actually fit in better between some of these rather than a strict linear progression. It doesn’t hurt the story line though. Another interesting twist is that humans in these stories refer to a race of Elves and Easterners/Whiskers refer to what we would consider the normal human genome type. This is a fairly long series, so far I highly recommend it. Fantasy, sorcery, teleportation, murder, violence, love is all in there. I found it difficult to put it down. Brust is reasonably prolific so there is a wealth of good stuff out there to read.

Body of work of Steven Brust

Review of “The Book of Jhereg”. http://www.inchoatus.com/Reviews/Review--Book%20of%20Jhereg,%20Steven%20Brust.htm

The Intruders by Stephen Coonts

You may note that I generally like the book I am writing about. That is because I only write about the ones I have read and frankly why read something you don’t like. I liked “Flight of the Intruder” which is the prequel for this book better. Not that this is an entertaining book, it just wasn’t as entertaining. Coonts books are all high octane, peddle to the metal type of reading, full of manly men and womany women. (womany??) I have noted that friends of mine who happen to be either pilots or marines or god forbid both have a tendency to be a tad overblown macho wise. You’ll see a lot of that in this book. An entertaining read, hardly taxing, probably won’t make you ponder the inevitability of fate or anything but still worth reading.

Body of work of Stephen Coonts

Coonts’ site: http://www.coonts.com/Books/intruders.htm