back from the bookstores

Heads up to the UKians -- lots of new audiobooks on CD at silly prices in The Works this evening, including the first 6 Discworld books read by Tony Robinson for a fiver each, the first three Aubrey-Maturin read by Robert Hardy, some new Poirot including one read by David Suchet, Some of the Inspector Frost books, and some other stuff I've now forgotten that I might have been tempted by had I not already bought five of the above.

Also wandered into Waterstones in search of The Fuller Memorandum, the third in Charlie Stross's Laundryverse. Charlie had reported it to be in the three for two offer, which indeed it was. Alas, there was nothing else in the 3-for-2 that I wanted but did not already have, and I don't just mean "did not want at full price". I think there was only one item that might have interested me even had it been on the three for a fiver table in The Works. I am getting older and crankier about my taste in books, it seems. So I wandered out again sans books. I *will* get The Fuller Memorandum, because it's exceedingly good, but I'm going to think about whether I want to get it in ebook. To which the answer will almost certainly be no unless the DRM goes away before I feel a desperate need to read it again Right Now, but you never know.

interim June book log, and reviews coming up

36) Finished the third Inspector Singh, which was marvellous. Flint has really got into her stride with this one. Superb police procedural set in Singapore, by someone who knows the culture from the inside. It's set in Singh's home town, so we see more of his Sikh background, not least because a distant relative is involved in the case.

37) Finished Stevie Carroll's short "The Monitors" in the erotic romance anthology "Echoes of Possibilities" from Noble Publishing. I expected this to be good, and it was. A science fiction piece that deftly sketches a future culture as background for a ship's crew shift change encounter that could just lead to something more. It's a het piece, though not a standard issue m/f piece, as the m in the m/f is a transman in a world where trans surgery is effective but not yet cheap.

I'll try to get reviews of these written at the weekend.