A Chain Store Gains My Respect

In Which a Student Exerts Himself

From the immortal SEK, aka Professor Office Sex.

Traitor's Blade

Traitor's Blade by Sebastien de Castell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The remnants of a royal guard drift around in search of a purpose after the death of their king. A vaguely early renaissance setting with some good action scenes and banter between friends, mixed up with some really heavy melodrama.

I had mixed feelings about this one--I think the writing was above average and the pacing was pretty solid. The plot was good in concept but some of the twists that I think were meant to be surprising were over-telegraphed, while other elements still have me scratching my head--I think because they weren't at all resolved, as opposed to being too subtle for me.

Rated on the "Will I read the next one" scale: I think so. The story is probably worth two more books or so.

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Dresden Takes It, Dishes It Out

Changes and Turncoat by Jim Butcher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

We've come a long way since the charm of the early books where professional wizard Dresden, with his add in the yellow pages, was a hardboiled dick in the classic mode, a tiny non-entity who kept getting dragged into problems above his weight class.

He's still outmatched, but only because he's facing enemies of unfathomable power instead of corrupt FBI agents or whatever it used to be. Enjoyable, but now the charm comes from seeing how over the top the stuff can get.

Turncoat is mostly White Council plotting, and pretty much action from page one.  I think it's the first time Butcher works in "Dresden is one of the elite wizards"--not just in the wrong place at the right time, but a real player based on raw talent, even without real allies on the council

Changes involves the half-vampire Susan, his fairy godmother, and some time in central America. Some stories that had their origins many books ago get tied up while adding in some new loose ends that will be doubtless picked up later.

Spider walks down the street in a hat like that . . .

"Sparklemuffin", aka Maratus jactatus.  While dancing, no less . . . that's its leg it's sticking up in the air.

from

Science Book Catch Up Day

As long as I'm catching up on science reviews, I'll park this quote here as well:

Unfortunately, many of the papers on asparagus urine are short and lack detail.

from http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mythasparagusurine.html via metafilter.  Need to go back and read more on the site.  Any site that has that sentence is worth reading.

Merchants of Doubt

Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming by Naomi Oreskes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It is alarmingly easy it is to spread doubt about settled science, if you have some cash to spare and are sufficiently motivated.

To be clear, this book is not about the science of second hand smoke, global warming, or CFCs, but how the science is filtered as it gets to the public and policy makers. You will not come away with additional arguments you can use against self-styled skeptics. I mostly just found it depressing (though well written & researched.)