If you're interested in the American pulp tradition of the early 20th Century, you must read Manly Wade Wellman. Wellman was a prolific writer of tales of the supernatural, with a focus on rural America and Appalachia. This collection includes stories starring his popular heroes Sgt. Jaeger and Judge Pursuivant. John the Balladeer, who figured in the recent film "Hellboy: The Crooked Man," is included in other volumes of this collection. The stories span haunted houses, demonic possession, vampires, werewolves, and more. It's all great fun! While reading this, however, one gets a sense of why Wellman hasn't remained popular. His stories feel very much of a time, a time when the Civil War was in living memory, race and class worked differently, and volume of writing outweighed beauty of prose. Nevertheless, I'm glad I read this book. It made for a spooky, entertaining time - in a throwback kinda way. You may enjoy it, too.

'The Flowers of Vashnoi' is a slight novella, telling a lovely little side-tale in the grand sweep of the Vorkosigan adventures. For all that, it's delightful. Lady Ekaterina Vorkosigan is in the hinterlands of the Vorkosigan family's ancestral county, on the boundaries of a territory laid waste in a nuclear war of several generations prior. She's there to check on a cleaning and reclamation project. She finds the unexpected. There's your hook. Hooks are fine, but all you really need to know is that this is an occasionally hilarious, occasionally heartfelt, altogether charming novella written by one the very best science fiction writers in the business. Best of all, this novel doesn't require you to know anything about the Vorkosigan Saga. Sure, you'll get some references if you're caught up, but the new reader can enjoy 'The Flowers of Vashnoi' just as well as the old hand.

I loved 'Children of Ruin.' The novel, like its predecessor 'Children of Time,' is a wonder. While much of the science fiction genre boils down to "The War of the Spanish Succession, but in Space," or "'The Lord of the Rings,' but in Space," 'Children of Time' explores something wholly different: Evolutionary Biology, but in Space. Why is evolutionary biology so fertile a field for science fiction? Because humanity tends to think of alien life along the lines of people, but with pointy ears or blue skin. In 'Children of Time,' as in this novel, Tchaikovsky explores utterly alien methods of communication, processing information, structuring societies, or getting to space at all. And he does it by platforming off creatures currently inhabiting Earth. This allows us to to visualize his characters, nonhuman as well as human, and make the imaginative leap with him to a future in which the descendants of beings we currently eat (or squash, or scrub away) become partners or enemies in a shared destiny. Oh, this is heady, interesting, fascinating, imagination-capturing stuff. And I haven't even mentioned AI. None of it would work, however, if the author couldn't execute on the fundamentals of storytelling. Fortunately, Tchaikovsky can block and tackle with the best of them. His characters are interesting, aggravating, sympathetic, obnoxious - most of all, they're memorable. I understood their motivations, at least to the extent he revealed them. While listening to this audiobook, I never lost track of who was doing what to whom, and why. Most importantly, he kept up the degree of suspense necessary to keep his speculation from devolving into self-absorbed rumination and "Aren't I smart, Mama?" filigree. To repeat, I loved 'Children of Ruin.' This book is smart enough to appeal to the rigorous, adventurous enough to appeal to the bored, and exciting enough to appeal to the casual. I loved it. *NOTE 1: You may have noticed that I said nothing about the plot - not even a teaser. This is intentional. Go in blind! *NOTE 2: I both listened to most of this book on Spotify, then read the rest on paper after I used up the former's time allotment. Narrator Mel Hudson speaks clearly and tells the story without getting in its way. This is a very nice, professional audio production.

First things first: Beryl Markham's "West with the Night" ranks among the great aviation memoirs of the early 20th Century. Markham's recounting of her childhood on a Kenyan farm, her time as a champion horse trainer, and her exploits an aviatrix are spellbinding. They're also beautifully written. Truly, "West with the Night" is an unheralded masterpiece. "The Splendid Outcast" ain't "West with the Night." This collection of stories, most published in women's magazines of the WWII era, lack the subtle poetry of Markham's memoir. For that matter, three of the stories in this collection weren't even written by Markham. Rather, they were written by her third husband, ghostwriter Raoul Schumacher. That said, these are not bad stories - particularly if one is interested in aviation or horses. I found them diverting, but not extraordinary. Let Markham's legacy be her memoir. As a writer of fiction, she was middling.

*Captain Vorpatril's Alliance* succeeds on the strength of its adorable characters and Lois McMaster Bujold's warm, funny writing. Structurally, however, this novel is a bit disjointed. The novel feels more like two novellas joined together than one coherent novel. In the first novella, Captain Vorpatril meets a woman on the run and falls in love. In the second, he meets her relatives and gets caught up in their drama. Both novellas have that Bujold touch, but I found myself halfway through this volume and thinking, "What now?" Add an exposition dump at the end, and one gets the feeling that the author discovered she could have written a complete novel based on that second half alone. None of this is to say that *Captain Vorpatril's Alliance* is bad. I carried it with me for a week, happily dipping into whenever the opportunity presented itself. While I wouldn't recommend it to the new reader of this series (that'd be the superlative *Memory*), Vorkosigan fans will enjoy *Captain Vorpatril's Alliance*.

I quite enjoyed 'The Apocalypse Codex.' I'd grown too familiar with author Charles Stross's writing idiosyncrasies. You see, I'd read the first three volumes in this series in rapid succession. It grew to be too much, so I stepped away for a year or so. Coming back to the series, I found Stross's voice to be fresh again. I was ready for a yarn. And what a yarn this is. In 'The Apocalypse Codex,' our plucky Eldritch Agent goes against American Evangelical Christianity in general and the heretical Prosperity Gospel in particular. Well, not directly: this particular sect is more about awakening mind-warping horrors from beyond reality. But the subtext is plain for all to see. The story offers everything I've come to expect from The Laundry Files: magic, expense reports, Lovecraftian horror, Human Resources meetings, action, red tape, comedy, and more. It's a charming mixture that makes for a good time. I'm glad I spent a little time away from "The Laundry Files." But maybe a year is too long. See you in a few months, Mr. Stross.

Well, that's it. Neal Stephenson's "The Baroque Cycle" is finished. This book suffers from the same malady as its predecessors: an insufficiently empowered editor. 'The System of the World' offers a bang-up conversation between Newton and Leibnitz. It wraps its major plot threads. It works. However, there isn't enough story to justify its length and Stephenson isn't a good enough prose stylist to justify his longwindedness. Still, I give this three stars for its carefully imagined 18th Century Europe. I feel like I got to know Newton and Leibnitz. I understand Monadism better than I had. And I now know a lot about the nuts and bolts of Baroque-era coining. I read this because a friend from church pressed it into my hands, exclaiming that "The Baroque Cycle" is his favorite work of fiction. I look forward to discussing his why.

This is a spooky little play on 'Pet Sematary,' with a sci-fi twist. That's really all you need to know. Read it in October.

Man, I love these books. "Babylon's Ashes," the sixth *Expanse* novel, tells the story of the full fledged Solar System - wide war that follows in the wake of the events of "Nemesis Games." This is tense, nail biting stuff, almost as gripping as its predecessor. However, this novel feels like events playing out as they more-or-less must. It's very well written and very entertaining, but I'd recommend it only to those already invested in the longer story that is *The Expanse.*

Solomon's Gold was dull. So, so dull. For any other writer, I'd give "dull" two stars. The novel is written in legible English and it isn't actively offensive. However, this is Neal Stephenson. He wrote *Cryptonomicon.* He wrote *Seveneves.* He wrote *The Confusion,* which came immediately before this novel in his Baroque Cycle. Neal gets graded on a curve. *The Confusion* combined Stephenson's love for the Dickensian with a fascinating tale about pirates, princesses, and stolen treasure. *Solomon's Gold* finds Stephenson giving full flight to his compulsion to describe, in excruciating detail, every neighborhood of Early 18th Century London - down to the last cobblestone. To leaven the dreariness, he distracts us with a tale about what a dick Isaac Newton was. This is not the stuff of which 5-star reviews are made. I feel like this book is an example of a writer getting too well-respected. Where was the editor telling him tighten things up, that his 300-page story could have been told in 125 pages, tops? Where were the beta readers, the friends and family who could have put a hand on Stephenson's shoulder and told him, "We love you, but this one's getting away?" Wherever they were, this book could have used them. I'm pressing on with the next book in the Cycle, but it has some amends to make.