That Japanese idea about a phone booth to talk to the dead is reprised in one of Doug Johnstone's wonderful series about the Skelf family in Edinburgh (which I have mentioned previously) https://www.goodreads.com/series/279716-the-skelfs

Those books look like fun, Lex. I'll keep them in mind.

LadyK, those books are great fun, and a fifth in the series comes out later this year.

Meanwhile one of my daughters has lured me back into Arkady Martine's wonderful Teixcalaanli world and I am reading A Desolation Called Peace (you need to read A Memory Called Empire first) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Desolation_Called_Peace

Lex, those do look fun, and I just bought the four books in a bundle on Kindle.

Hope you enjoy them hagatha: I believe a fifth one is due later this year.

Now I'm dipping into a new Harry Hole book from Jo Nesbo

I'm a little more than half way through December Park by Ronald Malfi. Someone is abducting young teenage kids & one turned up murdered. This is a coming of age book about 5 fifteen year old boys who take it upon themselves to try to find out who is doing this. This is a very well written book about 600 pages long, & it's been keeping me up well past my bed time.

That sounds interesting, judith. I'll check it out.

Ronald Malfi looks like an author to watch - thanks for the mention judith!

As a result of some email exchanges elsewhere, I have been looking back at the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan and much, much more) and Rider Haggard (King Solomon's Mines and more), all extremely cheap on kindle with collected works for less than £1, also touching on The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (a precursor to Jurassic Park) - great fun even so many decades later, and of course not politically correct!

Hi Guys,

I read the book about Harry Potter and the cursed child. This is very nice. I take a pleasure to read the Churchill's biography.

Have a nice day.

to GameBoomers, LouisOeuvrard!

Hi LouisOeuvrard ... wishing you a wonderful day!

I'm currently reading The Caves of Steel by Isaac Isimov 🤖

Welcome Louie . Brent Weeks Night Angel Nemesis is up next for me.

Salut LO, et bienvenu ici a GB!

Currently back to Niven and Pournelle for Lucifer's Hammer, reminiscent of John Wyndham territory

Ah. Old school Sci-fi. Good stuff. Although I tried to -re-read the Riverworld series after 45 years and hated it. Just bad writing.


I'm reading the third and so-far last Ash Henderson book by my favourite crime writer, Stuart MacBride. A gritty series, and the main character is darker than Logan McRae.


Now I'm on Joe Abercrombie's Age of Madness series. He is a darned good writer. No fluffy sentiment.

hagatha; I was thinking of you while reading this book because it's in the wilderness in northern B.C. The book is called "In the dark" by Loreth Anne White & is 413 pages long & Amazon.ca has it for Kindle at $2.49. I thought you would need to de-stress while unpacking at your new home.

"The promise of a luxury vacation at a secluded wilderness spa in northern B.C. has brought together 8 lucky guests, but nothing is what they were led to believe. As a fierce storm barrels down & all contact is cut off, the guests fear that it's not a getaway, it's a trap. Agatha Christie's novel sits on a table. Inside is a poem called "8 Little Liars". All 8 people become frightened because they all have something to hide." I personally really enjoyed this book.

I started Jonathan Kellerman's book called Guilt yesterday.

I've started re-reading Neuromancer by William Gibson. I actually opened up a thread in the Darkside forum, because of a review on it by one my favorite YouTubers. Decided I'd post over here instead since it is, but it isn't, but it is game related.

Anyway, Gibson is the author who invented the terms Cyberspace, Virtual Reality, The Matrix and a ton of others back in 1984, when the book was written. That's not to say there weren't previous writers who explored similar concepts, it's just that no one else to that point truly created that new world and sub-genre with such specific imagery and infrastructure. It is the seed and root of Cyberpunk. Every book, movie and game that resides in the sub-genre owes their existence, at least in part to Gibson, the novel Neuromancer and the books and authors that gained related recognition or grew out around them. So, yeah, I'm recommending it to anyone who hasn't read it yet and enjoys Sci-Fi, OR is a fan of the Cyberpunk sub-genre of gaming.

Yes, Neuromancer is well worth reding.

I've read quite a few of Gibson's books and really liked Neuromancer. I also recommend his Agency, which I read earlier this year.

The other ground-breaking cyberpunk novel is Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash, another wild ride and so worth reading.

Absolutely! Stephenson was great at combining odd topics. Who would have thought to put Cyberpunk together with Sumerian mythos. Awesome stuff.



Yeah, one of the reasons I started reading Neuromancer again is because I never finished the series (I'm so ashamed ), I got through Count Zero years ago, but never picked up Mona Lisa Overdrive.

Joe Abercrombie is awesome. Best Served Cold is my favorite of his but they are all good.

The thing I love about Abercrombie is that his characters never actually change and grow. There's no sappy redemption arc for any of them. They're mostly the same people at the end as they are at the beginning.



Unfortunately, Neal Stephenson's books have become a bit of a bore over the last decade or so. He seems to be sacrificing story for obsessive detail and it just doesn't work for me any more.

I have just started Neuromancer thanks to TM's mention of it, the atmosphere calling to mind Blade Runner: Neal Stephenson could be up next as neither he nor William Gibson iare authors I had previously explored.

Meanwhile I had just finished a couple of fairly recent Michael Connelly books, the Bosch and Ballard series (including what may be Harry Bosch's swansong) and the excellent Fair Warning featuring the journalist Jack McEvoy.