A HASTILY THROWN-TOGETHER, ABBREVIATED BITS & PIECES

Openers:  Virgil Augustine's cell phone rang just as he was reaching for his coat to go home.  It was Bud Roldan, the facilities director for the museum.  "You atill in the building, Virgil?" Bud asked.

"Just barely," Virgil said.  Tonight was the weekly date night for Virgil and Emily Augustine; they would pay their teenage daughter, Libby, to watch her twin brothers, which Virgil knew meant she would be in the living room texting her friends while Andy and Hunter played video games in the basement, and Emily and he would have either Mexican or Chinese food and then watch whatever was showing at the Wapa Cinema.  This week it was some animated movie involving waterfowl.  This is what passed for romance when you were middle-aged and being in small-town Ohio, and Virgil was not one to miss it.  "What is it, Bud?"

"Well, it's..."  Bud trailed off, and Virgil waited, eyeing the door of his office, yearning for escape.  "You should probably just come and see this for yourself," Bud finally said.  "It's easier than trying to explain it.  We're in the Moon Room.  Come on up."  Bud hung up.

-- When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi  (2025)

This is a stupid book.  A really stupid book.  And therein lies its glory.

It's conceit is simple: the moon has suddenly, inexplicably and spontaneously, turned into cheese.  That's it.  It is not a fantasy; but, within its limits, it is a hard science fiction book.  No explanation is given for this phenominon because logically there isn't one.  So live with it.

Or not.  Because, despite having the same mass -- and therefore the same orbit -- as the old, rocky Luna, physics dictates a disaster bordering on the great extinction even that destroyed the dinosaurs.

Scalzi limits his observations to various parts of the United States in chapters covering the days of the lunar month.  Rather than a farce, he gives us a hard-edged satire that takes in the political system, big business, religion, the scientific establishment, the arts, and ordinary people with all their flaws and jealousies, fears and hopes, love and passions, blazing intelligence and blind stupidity.  It's a great canvas for our current world.

And the damned thing about it is that it works.  It is a good, solid, enjoyable novel.  Recommended for those who can set aside their disbelief to read about a world doomed by cheese.

Incoming: 

• Kevin J. Anderson & Doug Beason, Ignition.  Thriller.  "As millions of TV viewers tune in to watch, there's nothing to indicate that it's all aprerecorded show.  Terrorists have taken over Launch Control and are threstening to blow up the shuttle in less than three hours -- un;ess their demands are met.  Only colonel 'Iceberg' Freise, the mission's former commander, knows about the danger to his crew.  Unknown to all, he's in the restricted zone.  And now it's up to him to stop the clock before the countdown reaches...IGNITION."
• Leigh Bardugo, Hell Bent.   Fantasy.  "Alex Stern is back in the explosive sequel to Ninth House.  Find a gateway to the underworld.  Steal a soul out of hell.  A simple plan, except peole who make this particular journey rarely come back.  But Galaxy 'Alex' Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory -- even if it endangers her future at Lethe and at Yale.  Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can't call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe.  Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane text and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies' most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it."  Winner of the 2023 Goordreads Fantasy Award.
• Fred Blosser, Swords of the Crags:  Expanded Edition.  Sword and sorcery/fantasy/adventure collection channeling Robert B. Howard with six stories and five articles.  As usual, when James Reasoner recommends a book, I say, "How high?"
• Richard Lee Byers, The Reaver.  Gaming tie-in novel in the Wizards of the Coast Forgotten Realms: The Sundering series, the fourth (of six) book in the main series and the only one penned by Byers.  "In the third book (oops, somebody miscounted) of the multi-author Sundering series launched by New York Times best-selling author R. A. Salvatore, Richard Lee Byers introduces Anton Marivaldi -- a renowned reaver with an incredible thirst for bounty who, when it cimes to a choice between two evils, always chooses the one he's never tried.  Endless storms rack the Sea of Fallen Stars and the coastal regions surrounding it.  In panic and despair, many have turned to the goddess Umberlee, Queen of the Deeps, offering her sacrifices with hope that they will be spared the inevitable reckoning of her perpetual tempest.  Evandur Highcastle, undead pirate captain, raised from the depths to assume the mantle of Umberlee's chosen, takes advantage of the people's desperation to strike for both spritual and temporal power in her name.  Vying with highcastle for the hearts and minds of the people is Stedd Whitehorn, a little boy and the chosen of a god thought lost in time, Lathander, the Morninglord.  In a time of such upheaval, Stedd's message of renewal and hope runs in stark contrast to the savage ethos of Highcastle and his waveservants.  Whan Anton captures the boy in order to collect Highcastle's considerable bounty, the reaver is quickly caught up in the riptide caused by the sundering of worlds."  
• Michael Crichton,  Congo, Sphere, and Timeline.  Since reading Crichton's early "John Lange" novels from Hard Case Crime, I thought it would be interesting to read some of his other novels that I have somehow missed along the way.   Congo:  An adventure through the dark heart of Africa, "through cannibal country, past flaming volcanoes -- in search of the diamonds of the Lost City of Zinj."  Crichton's "intrepid band  (two of them Ph.D.'s)..."  [does the asterisk belong there?  I dunno.] "...consists of:  - A young California scientist (specialty: primate research) who is accompanied by his sensitive 'talking' gorilla, Amy (a vocabulary of 620 worda, a will of her own, and she cries if he leaves her)...  - A genius-y and gorgeous young woman from ERTS (Earth Resources Technology Services. Inc., a Houston-based corporation with hush-hush global interests) who is ruthlessly determined to secure the (indusrrial) diamonds) before her equallly ruthless rivals beat her to it... - A 'white hunter'  whose awesome savvy about the jungle (and the competition) stems from his deadly experience as a Congo mercenariy..."  [The blurb writer for the jackert copy really needs to find a new job.]  And there's a  murderous species of jungle gorilla.  This is my daughter Christina's favorite Crichton novel. and I won't tell you how many times I watched the movie with her.  Sphere:  "In the middle of the South Pacific, a thousand feet below the surface of the water, a huge spaceship is discovered resting on the ocean floor.  Rushed to the scene is a group of American scientists who descend together into the depths of the sea to investigate this astonishing discovery.  What they find defies their imaginations and mocks their attempts at logical rxplanation.  It is a spaceship of phenomenal dimensions, apprantly undamaged by its fall from the sky.  And, most startling, it appears to be at least three hundred years old...Has the ship come from an alien culture?  From a different universe?  From the future?  Why, initially, there are no creatures on the sea floor, and then, suddenly, swarms of 'impossible animals' of whole new specioes?  Who -- or what -- is transmitting messages onto the scientists' computer screen...messages that grow increasingly hostile?  What is the giant, perfect, metallic sphere -- clearly not made by Man, and seemingly inpenetrable by him -- that they find inside the speceship?  And -- most crucially -- what is the rxtraordinary and terrifying power that threatens their undersea habitat, and then their very lives?"  Timeline:  "In an Arizona desert a man wanders in a daze, speaking words that make no sense.  Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known human assocociates.  Halfwaty around the world archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site.  Suddenly they are swept off to the headquarters of a secretive multinational corporation that has developed an astounding technology.  Now this group is about to get a chance not only to study the past but to enter it.  And with history opened to the present, the dead awakened to the living, these men and women will soon find themselves fighting for their very survuval -- six hundred years ago."  This was Kitty's favorite Ctichton novel, and we saw the movie many more times than the Congo movie.
• Michael Crichton (ahem) & Shahnewaz Bhuiyan. Triassic Moon.  Juvenile, "ages 5-17."  I have no idea what's going on here, guys.  From the Amazon description:  "Triassic Moon is a science fiction/adventure novel about alien hybrid dinosaurs and dragons that are created by [sic] group of mad scientists, androids, and aliens on a lost on a lost distant planet that is 30 kilometers [What! - JH] from earth [sic] call Eurora.  although [sic] soon [sic] accident occurs and the dinosaurs and the dragons go on a rampage so [sic], the scientists had no chose [sic] but,to [sic] evacuate and abort their space expedition mission and return home."   So here's the thing:  Amazon has this book listed twice, the one above, with 85 pages and listing at $2.99, and another with the same cover art and description, authored by "Michael Cole," for "8-15 years" with 15 pages, and priced at $3.58.  (The latter book also has a "follow the author" option for Shahnewas Bhuiyan.)  As far as I can tell, Triassic Moon was video game formerly called Jurassic Ruins, which was discontinued on June 8, 2021 -- one YouTube commentator wrote, "The game has been abandoned.  Good."  I'm wondering how in hell did Crichton's name get on this book, and how soon will it be before the attorneys for his estate pull the plug.  Because I'm evil, I think this story will become a Short Story Wednesday post.
• Stephanie Erickson Doyle, Florida Unsolved Mysteries.  Nonfiction.  Some two dozen exampkes of the "unsolved and unexplained" that took place in Florida, including "some famous events, and some that have stayed hidden from the public eye."  Sorry, I. not too impressed.  Still anything weirdly Florida is in my wheelhouse, so...  Included are "The strange abduction of a oy and his grandmother; The mysteries behind the infamous and evil Ted Bundy; The many disappearances in the bermuda Triangle; The anthrax scare and the anthrax reality; [and] Gravity Hill, where cars can roll uphill."  Ho-hum.
• Wayne D. Dundee, Rainrock Reckoning.  A Lone McGantry western.  "Former Indian Scout Lone mcGantry is hired by Harriet Munro, a fiery woman lawyer seeking to make a name for herself on the western Nebraska frontier.  munro has taken the case of beautiful young roxanne Bigbee -- a desperate fugitive fleeing a trumped-up murder conviction and a hangman's noose.  but before she can appear for the re-trial that Harriet has arranged, Roxanne must be rescued from the current threatening situation  her flight has placed her in.  It' up to McGantry to get her out."  Dundee was an award-winning mystery writer and founder of Hardboiled magazine, who transitioned to an award-winning western western writer.  He died last month at age 77.
• Frank Eisgruber, Jr., Gangland's Doom:  The Shadow fo the Pulps (50th Anniversary Edition).  Nonfiction.  An early study and history of the pulp character The Shadow:  'his identities, his agents and allies, The Shadow's sanctum, the villains he has faced, his international travels, and more."  An early and important example of pulp scholarship, with additional materials for this edition.  Recommended by James Reasoner, who knows his pulp, and by Evan Lewis [see below], who ditto.
• [Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November-December 2024]  A freebie.  Stories by Doug Allyn, Cath Staincliffe, Twist Phelan, Bill Pronzini, Robert Lopresti, Melissa Yi, and more.
• James P. Hogan, Voyage from Yesteryear.  Science fiction.  "Well into the 21st century, nuclear was once again loomed on the horizon and this time there would be no excape.  But an American probe has discovered a second life-bearing planet, waiting with open biosphere for refugees from Earth.  So that freedom, and the human race itself, shall not perish from the uhiverse, the Americans launch a crash project to colonize Chiron.  There's only one problem:  the science and engineering of the time are not up to the task of transporting living human beings between star systems.  The answer:  send a 'colony' in the form of DNA information, and use robots to give them living form at the other end.  Then use humanlike robots to raise the resulting children.  Amazingly, it works.  The children and their children's children are happy, healthy, and steeped int he ideals of America's founders.  They are everything their home-planet sponsors could ever have hoped for -- except that they really mean it about all that liberty stuff.  But now the Earthmen have had their war, survived, rebuilt -- and come to Chiron in new fast ships.  They're the government.  They've come to help.  But the damned Colonists have such an attitude..."
• "J. Hunter Holly" (Joan Carol Holly), The Mind Traders.  Science fiction novel.  "A place of crawling spiders and poisonous snakes...where nighmares came true...that was 'The Blsck', where men were punished for challenging minds more powerful than their own.  The detective from Earth feared The Black more than any other torture his own planet could conceive.  But he had to uncover the sinister plot that threaened Earth and all its people."  Hollly was the author of (I fear) a dozen pedestrian SF novels, plus ion book in the Man from U.N.C.L.E. series she suffered a benign brain tumor in 1970, publishing three books afterward as Joan Hunter Holly.
• Evan Lewis, Bowie's Gold and Crockett's Devil.  Adventure novels, each featuring an American icon, from the award-winning writer and nifty blogger.  About Bowie:  "Jim Bowie is on a Quest for Vengeance == and the Lost Treasure of Jean Lafitte.  Famous knife fighter James Bowie wants a seat in congress.  But to win it he needs money -- and lots of it.  When an old pirate friend -- and his beautiful daughter -- seek his help with a treasure map, he's drawn into a wild race across the Gulf of Mexico," [not, I hasten to point out, the Gulf of America] "to Texas and beyond.  Opposing them is Bowie's most bitter enemy, a former captain of Lafitte's calling hinmelf The Last Great Terror of the Gulf.  The two men's fates have been long entwined, and their thirst for vengeance exceeds even their desire for the treasure.  Who will feed the sharks?"  The author, BTW, is a self-proclaimed Jim Bowie lookalike, but he also a great admirer of Davy Crockett (thus the title of his blog, Davy Crockett's Almanack, which brings us to the second book:  "The time:  1813. The Place:  The Mississippi Territory.  The Problem:  Rebelling Creek warriors, under war chief Red Eagle, spread terror across the frontier, slaughtering settlers and peaceful Creeks alike.  The Solution:  Kill Red Eagle!  But Davy Crockett disagrees.  He sees Red Eagle as the young nation's best hope for peace, and risks his hair -- and his life -- to stop the fighting."  I'm looking forward to readinf each of these books.
• Mike Mignola & Christopher Golden, BALTIMORE, or, the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire.  Gothicky paranormal fantasy.  'When Lord Henry Baltimore awakens the wrath of a vampire on the hellish battlefields of World War I, the world is forever changed.  For a virulent plague has been unleashed -- a plague that even death cannot end.  Now the lone soldier in an eternal struggle against darkness, Baltimore summons three old friends to a lonely inn -- men whose travels and fantastical experiences incline them to fully believe in the evil that is devouring the soul of mankind.  As the men await their old friend, they share their tales of terror and misadventure, and contemplete what part they will play in Baltimore's timeless battle.  Before the night is through, they will learn what is required to banish the plague -- and the creatue  who named Baltimore his nemesis -- once and for all."  Copiously illustrated by Mignola.
• Jim Nemeth (with additional material by Randall Larson), Robert Bloch:  An Unconventional Bibliography.  This book apparently supecedes Randall Larson's 1988 The Complete Robert Bloch:  An Illustrated Comprehensive Bibliography.  We'll see.
• Alexei Panshin, Rite of Passage.  Science fiction novel, winner of the Nebula Award and runner-up for the Hugo Award.  "In 2198. one hundred and fifty years after the desperate wars that destroyed an overpopulated Earth, Man lives precariously on a hundred hasitly-established colony worlds and in seven giant Ships that once ferried man to the stars.  Mia Havera's ship is a small, closed society.  It tests its children by casting them out to live of die in a month of Trial in the hostile wilds of a colony world.  Mia Havera's Trial is fast approaching and in the meantime she must learn not only the skills that will keep her alive but the deeper courage to face herself and her world."
• James Patterson & Chris Grabenstein, Pottymouth and Stoopid.  Children's book, one of thrty-five kid's books written by the pair.  The story of best friends David and Michael, and involves 'a TV show, a funeral, an evil cheerleader, and a couple of delicious McFlurrys."  Grabenstein also writes best-selling kids books in at least seven serie, as well as standalones, graphic novels, and plays.  He started his career in 2005 writing the John Ceepak mysteries (nine books through 2013), but abandoned the character in order to concentrate on his far more lucrative kid's books.  I truly wish he wopuld bring back John Ceepak.
• Jason Reynolds, Miles Morales, Spider-Man.  Young adult tie-in novel featuring the Marvel Comics character.  "When a misunderstanding leads to his suspension from school, Miles begins to question his abilities...As Miles tries to get his school life back on track, he can't shake the vivid nightmares that continue to haunt him.  Nor can he avoid the relentless buzz of his spidey-sense every day in history class, amid his teacher's suspect lectures on slavery and the modern-day prison system.  But after his scholarship is threatened, Miles uncovers a chilling plot, one that puts his friends, his neighborhood and himself at risk.  It's time for Miles to suit up."
• Fred Saberhagan, Berserker Blue Death.  Science fiction, the ninth book (and fifth novel) in the Berserker series; the first edition included a colon in the title -- Berserkeer:  Blue Death.  "The great blue berserker's destruction of the human colony Shubra was swift and merciless.  Niles Domingos's daughter lies among the dead.  Niles Domoingo is a man with a mission.  Vengeance at any cost.  With one small ship, he sets out against the great beserker called leviathan, tracking it through the interstellar mists of the Milkpail Nebula.  He is sure he is ready for anything.  but nothing can prepare him for the astonishing discoveries that lie between him and Leviathan."  Also, Berserker's Star.  The sixteenth, and penultimate, book in the series.  "Pilot Hsrry Silver's name is known throughout the galaxy.  While he has defeated his share of berserkers, he has also stolen a powerful weapon from the Space Force, making him a fugitive from the life he once knew.  Looking for an adventure Harry agrees to bring a passenger aboard his ship:  Lily, a woman who is on a quest to retrieve her husband.  It won't be easy, as Lily's husband has joined a secretive religious cult on Maracanda, the almost-planet lodged between a shifting black hole and a neutron star.  While the landscape of Maracana  is treacherous, so too, may be the people around Harry Silver.  For s the search for Lily's husband deepens, Harry finds himself investigating a larger mystery and looking for the missing person, almost ending up one himself.  And, as always, there is the threat of death from above, in the path of a machine whose only intent is to kill."
• John Scalzi, The Last Colony.  Science fiction, the third book in the Old Man's War series.  "John Perry has retired with his wife and aughter to one of humanity's many colonies.  It's a good life, but something's...missing.  When John and Jane are asked to led a new colony world, they jump at the chance to explore the universe once more.  But nothing is as it seems.  Perry and thee new colony are pawns in an interstellar game of diplomacy and war between humanity's Colonial Union and a new, seemingly unstoppable alien alliance that jhas demanded an end to all human colonization.  As these gambits rage above, onj the ground Perry struggles to keep his colonists alive in the face of threats both alien and familiar.  For his family's survival, and everyone else's, Perry must unravel the web of lies, half-truths, and deceptions spun around them and uncover the colony's shocking true purpose -- lest it become, truly, the last colony of the human race."
• George H. Smith, Doomsday Wing.  Science fiction.  "In the War Room of Command Post D the military and civilian anlysts stared in horror as the message appeared on the big screen:  ATTENTION ALL COMMANDS!  SAMOS SATELLITE 105 REPORTS ROCKETS FIRED FROM EASTERN SIBERIAN FRONT.  NORAD  A projection of the polar region appeared on the screen and all eyes followed a red dotted line that started in Siberia and had now reached the edge of the icecap.  It was ;icking up speed as it arched jup over the top of the world.  SAC TO ALL WINGS, SCRAMBLE ALL AIRCRAFT.  BMEWS NOW REPORTS 25 ICBM's..ESTIMATED IMPACT AREAS:  WASHINTON, OMAHA, VANDENBURGH, McCOY, MacDILL, COLORADO SPRINGS, MRCH FIELD, TITAN BASES AT TUCSON, DENVER.  PRESIDENT AUTHORIZES ALL FORCES TO ATTACK!  ATTACK!  ATTACK!  PLAN C FOR CHARLIE STARTS COUNTDOWNS."   A 1963 paranoia Red Scare novel from prolific paperback hack George Henry Smith, not to be confused with George O. Smith.  Ho-hum.
• Jason Starr, Gotham:  City of Monsters.  Television tie-in novel set between Seasons Two and Three of Gotham.  No longer a cop, James Gordon must face /hugo strange's monsters on the strrets of Gotham.  At the same time, Fish Mooney is vying for the top of the underworld, and Selina Kyle is wanting her own piece of the pie.
• Chuck Wendig, Wanderers.  Science fiction.  "Shana wakes up one morning to discover her little sister in the grip of a strange illness.  She appears to be sleepwalking.  And she is headed with inexorable determinationn to a destination that only she knows.  Soon shana and her sister are joined by a flock of sleepwalkers from across america, on the same mysterious journey.  And, like Shana, there are other 'shepherds' who follow the flock to protect their friends and family.  As the sleepwalking epidemic awakens terror and violence, and as civilization collapses, the secret behind this phenomenon will either tear society apart -- or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world."