Short Recommendations - Uncle Hugo's

started moving again. When I altered the temperature setting to get some cooling, the fuses blew again. On Monday the
repairman came out, checked over the unit, and told me that one of the two compressors had shorted out. He had taken the
bad compressor out of the circuit, but found enough other things that had gone bad or were about to go bad that he
suggested replacing the 17-year-old unit with a new, more efficient model instead of putting thousands of dollars in repairs
into such an old unit with so many problems. A sales engineer came out, looked over the situation, and gave me three
quotes: about $5000 to repair the old unit, about $10,000 to replace the old unit with a new, more energy efficient unit of the
same size, or about $15,000 to replace the old unit with a larger new unit with a more powerful fan that would also require
replacing all the duct work above the suspended ceilings. I went for the middle bid, and the replacement unit was installed
recently.
Once again we had lots more new titles than we had space for in the paper newsletter. We had to cut about half the listings.
Most paranormal romances, gaming related items, action adventure series titles, Doctor Who books, kids and young adult
novels, reissues, and non-fiction books were either eliminated or had their descriptions drastically shortened for the paper
newsletter, but full information is on our website. There are also book reviews at our website. Thanks to the 100 or so people
who switched from the paper newsletter to the electronic version in the last 3 months. That will save us about $400 per year
in expenses.
Short Recommendations
by Don Blyly
Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep ($8.99) came out in 1992 and won the Hugo Award for Best Novel of the year. It
introduced a planet of dog-like aliens that are intelligent in one way as individuals and intelligent in a different way when they
form packs. When a human spaceship crashes on the planet while fleeing an interstellar war, the children on the ship are at
the not-so-tender mercy of the medieval Tine. After 19 years, we finally get the sequel, The Children of the Sky ($25.99,
October). I made the mistake of assuming I'd remember enough of the first book after 19 years to enjoy the sequel. I did
enjoy the sequel very much, but I wish I had re-read A Fire Upon the Deep before starting on the sequel.
I've been impressed by everything I've read by Michael Flynn, but I'm puzzled by what his publisher did with his latest two
books. The January Dancer ($7.99) came out in hardcover in October, 2008, but was not released in paperback until July,
2011. The sequel, Up Jim River ($7.99) came out in hardcover in April, 2010 and in paperback in February, 2011. Why put
the sequel out in paperback six months before the first book? Fortunately, they are written so that they can be read as
independent novels. Thousands of years in the future, mankind has spread through a significant portion of the galaxy, but
faster-than-light travel has recently been rediscovered after a dark age where each planet developed its own culture. Various
factions are fighting for power among the human worlds, and there are powerful alien artifacts scattered about. In The
January Dancer, a tramp freighter needs to make repairs near an unnamed planet and the crew stumbles onto an alien
artifact of great power. Soon, agents of various powerful factions, plus a pirate fleet, are trying to seize the artifact. Great
space opera results. In Up Jim River, the daughter of one of the agents in The January Dancer approaches an old man who
was another of the agents in The January Dancer (who might be her father) to ask for his help in trying to find her mother,
who disappeared on a later search for another alien artifact. Again, great space opera results.
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin ($7.99) is a fantasy that has received lots of award nominations, and
deservedly so. In a universe that once had 3 gods, and later had many more gods as the first 3 gods had kids, a war broke
out among the 3 most powerful gods. Bright Itempas won the war, killed Enefa (another of the 3 major gods), and enslaved
the other major god and those of the kids who picked the wrong side in the war. He decided that the family of his chief priest
among the humans should rule the world, and he passed control of the enslaved gods to the ruling family to be used as
weapons to conquer the world. The story takes place thousands of years later, when Yeine Darr is called to the ruling city of
the world by her grandfather, the ruler of the world. Yeine's mother had been an heiress of the ruling Arameri family, but had
abdicated and fled to another continent to live what seemed to be an ordinary life. Now, Yeine is named one of three possible
heirs to rule the world, and she is not prepared for the snake-pit that is the capital of the world. And it takes her a while to
learn that she has actually been picked to be the blood sacrifice that will allow one of the other candidates to become the new
ruler of the world. But the enslaved gods have other plans for her.
Black Blade Blues by J.A. Pitts ($7.99) is an urban fantasy with Sarah Beauhall, apprentice blacksmith with attitude, as the
protagonist. Sarah also works evenings as a props manager on low-budget films. When her favorite sword is broken on the
set, she decides to reforge the sword. Things start to get strange when one of the extras on the film shows up to help her,
claims to be a dwarf, claims that the sword is magical, and claims that shapeshifting dragons secretly rule mankind. It turns
out that everything he tells her is true, and the dragons really want that magic sword. And Odin keeps showing up to give her
advice. A subplot is that Sarah is from a very conservative family, has recently started a lesbian relationship, and is having all
sorts of internal conflicts over this. This subplot is handled intelligently without getting preachy and without slowing down the
primary plot. A sequel, Honeyed Words ($14.99), recently arrived, but I haven't had a chance to read it yet.
Land of the Dead ($7.99) by Thomas Harlan is the third in the series that began with Wasteland of Flint and House of Reeds
(neither currently in print, but we often have used copies). In this series, the Japanese and the Aztecs united before the
Europeans reached Mexico and went on the conquer the world and get into outer space, where they discovered lots of alien