Terrier

Terrier by Tamora Pierce
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Nominally this is a young adult book and I gave it a shot as an audiobook, based on praise for the author various places. I'd probably have enjoyed this more in print. I'm not always sure what "young adult" means with genre fiction of the mind-candy variety. Sure, the protagonist was a 16 year old and there wasn't explicit sex. But there was certainly some gruesome violence in this story of a young guardswoman serving her apprenticeship in the slums, and dealing with poverty, domestic abuse, broken homes, child killers and some miners in bad need of union representation.

Liked it but didn't love it; certainly I get why people recommended Pierce.

Zeus is Dead

Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure by Michael G. Munz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

About as much fun as you'd hope for from the title, which is to say quite a bit.

The Greek gods withdrew under edict from Zeus; they meddled in the world but only behind the scenes. After Zeus' murder they're back in all their vanity and pettiness, expecting worship. They don't get power from being worshipped, mind you--they just like it.

The muse Thalia (who has picked up science fiction as well as comedy) joins two mortals to try and solve the mystery and provides running commentary. Even sillier and more farcical than someone like Christopher Moore, Munz tosses in a joke whenever he can. Some of the fourth-wall breaking stuff gets tiresome, especially a tendency to write a sentence and then comment on its grammatical weakness in the next one. On the other hand, a few got audible snorts of amusement and the plot was at least 80% satisfying, so pretty happy taking a chance on this one.

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The Emerald Planet

The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History by David Beerling
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is something in between a history of plants on Earth, and a set of essays on that theme. It does start with the development of leaves, and then moves on to the plants' creation of massively high oxygen levels in the Carboniferous (the era of dragonflies with 5' wings) so the first two chapters felt like it would be a tour of plant evolution.

This is probably far too broad a topic, and in any event is not what we get. Nothing about the evolution of flowers or the period worldwide redwood forests, for example. Instead the themes are not merely what was important to plants, but when plants were important to the climate, or even our understanding, through fossils, of the climate. This is a fascinating picture of a dynamic planet, constantly changing in response to a dance between geological processes and plants, which respond and then change the atmosphere and soil in turn.

The chapters cover the science with some technical detail, but also the history of the science, and in some cases the quirks of the scientists. The implications of these sorts of changes to modern day climate change is mentioned more than once, but happily the science is treated as interesting on its own terms, rather than a tool for the present. Some of the research referenced seems cutting edge, which is actually both a complement and a concern--I'd expect at least one or two of the stories to change as we learn more about the distant past. (Not a knock on Beerling, who is quite up front about uncertainties.) My only other nitpick is my ebook was missing the full color plates.

For my own reference the chapters are below--spoilerized, although the stories are tens of millions of years old, it's probably better to just read the book.

Three Men in a Boat

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This review is written a year after I listened to the audiobook, so details are scant, but this was one of the best audio choices I made.

A more-or-less totally fake memoir of Thames boat trip by three upper class twits in the late 19th century. Life on the Mississippi for the Eton crowd, as it were.

"Jerome K. Jerome" (the character) is a bit like Bertie Wooster, self-absorbed, pampered and clueless. He does, however, have a knack for narrating hilarious scenes of embarrassment and self-inflicted pain. He generally lacks Bertie's good nature or touching loyalty to his friends, which is actually good since he is so often the victim of his own shallowness that I was glad it wasn't happening to a nicer guy. There are some wry observations and wisdom but mostly just a series of very funny sketches.