So I needed to try something different this week, to break up the cycle of books I’ve been reading, but obviously, I had to find it interesting and enjoyable. Claire Legrand’s Sawkill Girls is just that. I came across the title in a list of books to fill that Stranger Things craving, and was duly…
Category: The Book Shelf
Star Trek: Legacy (1991) – Michael Jan Friedman
More voyages with the starship Enterprise this week, as I dig into another of The Original Series novels from Pocket Books. Set during the original five year mission headed by Captain James T. Kirk, Friedman gives us a Spock story, that ties into his earlier missions with Captain Christopher Pike, who also makes appearances in…
Dr. No (1958) – Ian Fleming
I dig into another classic James Bond novel by Ian Fleming this week. Up this time is the sixth novel in the series, and one that served as the basis for the first film. The story stays fairly close to what has been explored in the film, with a subplot involving bird guano and conservation,…
Star Trek: Renegade (1991) – Gene DeWeese
Gene DeWeese delivers a pretty standard Trek tale for this week’s instalment of the Book Shelf. This is his third Trek novel, and while it’s not a horrible tale, it’s just a run of the mill story. Set during The Original Series, the Enterprise is called to a pair of warring planets to mediate their…
Lovecraft Country (2016) -Matt Ruff
This week I dove into Matt Ruff’s brilliantly entertaining Lovecraft Country, which takes all the things you love about a good Lovecraft story; otherworldly horror, science fiction mixed with horror, and some other familiar horror tropes, the creepy doll, the haunted house, and deliver it without Lovecraft’s far too prominent racism. As much as I…
Star Trek: A Flag Full of Stars (1991) – Brad Ferguson
The Human Adventure continues as I dive into the next Star Trek novel released by Pocket Books. This one falls into the sub collection known as The Lost Years, filling in the time between The Original Series and The Motion Picture. The first book was simply known as The Lost Years, written by J.M Dillard,…
From Russia With Love (1957) – Ian Fleming
This week I dove into Ian Fleming’s fifth James Bond novel, and the one that was most closely adapted for the big screen, though SPECTRE is slipped into the film version, whereas in this tale it is simply east versus west as SMERSH, the Russian spy organisation comes up with a plan to humiliate the…
Star Trek: Ghost-Walker (1991) – Barbara Hambly
Well, that’s three for three. The past few Trek novels have not wowed me, or even held my interest, though the Human Adventure definitely continues. This one shouldn’t have been such a surprise for me because I wasn’t a fan of her other Trek novel, Ishmael, and there’s still one more to come. We’ll see…
Equal Rites (1987) – Terry Pratchett
I head back to Discworld for this week’s Book Shelf, and delve into the third tale from the Terry Pratchett created universe. This story takes us in a different direction, leaving behind the characters introduced in the previous volumes, but gives us another hilariously magical tale. Young Eskarine is a girl, she is the eighth…
Star Trek: Home is the Hunter (1990) – Dana Kramer-Rolls
The Human Adventure continues as this week’s Trek tale continues to give us stories from the time period following the events of The Motion Picture. All well and good, but like the previous novel, this one feels like a bit of a miss as well. I love the setting of the book, I just couldn’t get…
The Mind Reels 