lets have another enemy bigger than the borg!!!!!

read a star trek voyager novel children of the storm, just like the series scripts in which the voyager crew on their second mission to the delta quadrant meet another enemy one which has obliterated the borg once and for all and is suprise suprise -non corpereal and extremophile instead of the usual stick on ears and earth morals however despite early promise the tale goes no where except as a usual star trek script

what can you expect from a novel with the TV characters playing their usual roles and room for two appendices at the end one showing starship classes and crew complements. the other the names of the main bridge crew of each ship

the mammoth book of dracula ranging from original bram stoker to spoofs and rips off of i am legend from deathless dracula fighting the nazis (twice) to post nuclear war vampires shows that fundamentally vampire tales are a one trick pony

second chance at eden stange to read a story by peter F hamilton only thirty pages long a lot of backstory from the great trilogies such as the first voyages of the lady macbeth and the invention of bitek some approaching asimov others off target

slaughter on a snowy morn by colin evans the story of the stielow murder case and the crooked testimony and phoney forensics that nearly sent a man to the chair in 1915-1918

this is the second book this year that has governor charles whitman as a crooked politician who having killed charles becker ( satans circus by Mike Dash ) now hopes to ride to the white house via another high profile murder case with the same doubtful evidence

northland novel gone south

read the lat gospel by david gibbons having read his earlier and better works this is a talk thriller a diving adventure full of gas
also read bronze summer by stephen baxter the second in the northland trilogy the first being the stone spring a good book about the tidal wave that engulfed doggerland this second book about northland definitely gone south a mix of absolute fantasy and historical fiction as hitites and trojans fight over the potato crops of northrn europe after the eruption of hekla 3 circa 1159bc as usual trite with the sadistic scenes of ancient world cruelty added over the 21st century charactors and language expect iron winter is about the kaali meterorie strike well i had the idea three years ago with my sun daughter tale

a jury of her peers american women writersby eline showwalter over 20 years ago i wrote the poetry fragment " a woman writer something itself sterile the face blurred and loud " accurate and long overview of woman writers no time for gender in literature you either have no talent i in the first plave or outlive your talent

a renegades history of the united states promised much in radicalism but turned out to be chapters about minority groups from freed slaves to gay rights a lot about music from minstrels to jazz less about freedom and morals

penguin book of egyptian myths and legends ny joyce tyldesley readable colection of nyths legends and fairy stories that make up what we know and love about egypt

victorian detectives

the dead witness a connoiseurs collection of victorian deective fiction by michael sims very good in that it is actually crime fiction written in the victorian and edwardian period and not the foggy cliche of the historical whodunit although soem are the usual anthology fodder such as dupin, holmes and father brown to lesser known tales of violet strange, max carrados uncle abner and november joe
the disappearing spoon yet another chemistry thrilling history telling the story of the periodic table but this one is readable and clearly written all the way from lead leprosy to childrens games with mercury and on to the only natural nuclear fission reactor in the world
stars wars clone wars siege a run of the mill star wars novel this time set in the last days of the republic the clone wars obi wan and anakin as jedi heroes parachuting behind enemy lines to destroy a secret weapon, very ordinary and trying to give depth to a cartoon only anakin's occasional sulks and tantrums indicate what is to come barely two years later
dino gangs the theoryby dr philip curie that dinsaurs were team players and pack hunters

royal storyboard

murder of the romanovs by andrew cook the ofter repeated tale of the simple autocrat his imperious wife, the four doll princesses and the sad little prince who led an existence of one long holiday and come the revolution hoping to be rescued by their royal relatives thy all got shot
lots of newly released photos and appendix records even has time for claimants and the other executed romanovs
planet word companion to a bbc TV series i never watched stephen fry is listed as author but only wrote the foreword well researched by content ranging from ape to advertising ,backslang to bahasa but hasn't the tale been told before
the telescope by richard dunn attractive pictorial pocket history the history of the telecope from spyglass to hubble good on the early period but mainly greenwich based
the sisters brothers by patrick de witt read this as a great western an odyssey fully told with a ghost town of western types full of cinematic images and story telling

medieval clocks and moon dials

it is in this time of year you can see the night sky looking at thr big full moon and remembered when everyone else used it in poetry i used it to tell the time using a moon dial phase clock i made from cardboard for anyone interested in such things this is a great site of resources

http://www.middleschoolscience.com/earth.htm check out make a plantisphere, big dipper star clock moon clock and astrolabe templates

I find using the big dipper star clock and noctunal above less useful as they only tell the time on the hour based on the month note you line up cassiopeia and the big and little dippers so they match what you see in the night sky and according to the position you can read the month and hour

the noctunal is something i alwys wanted but real ones are expensive and made of wood and ivory and do not make an easy template i eventually found a diagram of parts of a noctunal which i printed out on cardboard

the old boat the old story

read the mammoth book of historial crime fiction edited by mike ashley ranging from the bronze age to the 1920s it promised much and delivered part more novellas ten short stories some overplayed for example the roman investigators or medieval sherlock the most orignal was a tale of butch and sundance on a new york crime spree waiting for their boat to south america but this just left the dock story wise others even a sister fidelm story just potboiled to flagged conclusion

street fight in naples by peter robb a panorama of naples claimed to be a thousand year history bit mainly stuck in the 17th century bit fragmented and dull even in the story of the fisherman demologue Masaniello, who is just one of the charactors

the ascent of media from gilgamesh to google roger parry well structured and good history of media from writing on clay tablets to ebook but on the whole read like a website

city of fortune bt roger crowley (note books i read this week mostly by a roger just concidence) crowley is a venice specialist and this did not disappoint telling of early venice exploiting its connectins to the byzantine trade links , exploiting the decline and fall of the byzantines at the expense of its commerical rivals genoa and pisa in trade and war then venice coming up against an all powerful ottoman empire and the new world trade routes

pirates and friends

pirates of the seven seas angus konstam a lavishly illustrated AA guide to pirates from the ancient world to moden somalia vivid accurate and a brilliant illustrated guide with all the top ames inside from blackbeard henry morgan black bart roberts to ann bonny and female pirates of china and even finds place for privateers

wired for god charles foster the origins of human spirtuality and experience from wearig a god helmet to second hand shamanism tantric sex , magic mushrooms NDE and OBEs

corsets and clockwork steampunk romances some barely ticked along over absurdly overwound some good stories liked the ones about a cannibal fiend mermaid clockwork war crabs versus nazis , wild west airships
the sword of damascus another aeleric novel this one reads like a 25th anniversary rennion story with the 97 year old monk ex byzantine chancellor kidnapped by the caliphate to recreate the greek fire of his youth ,same plots same story lines