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April 19, 2004
Finally Getting Around to Celebrating Easter--Soliciting Advice
On recent Science Ficiton, Mystery, and other light works of fiction you've read recently and enjoyed. My taste in mysteries tends toward the classic, the cozy, and the unthreatening. No Patricia Cornwell, no detectives after Raymond Chandler (and maybe Travis Magee, if you count him). I tend to like historical--particularly Anne Perry and Ellis Peters (as well as Elizabeth Peters).
In Science Fiction, I like works that don't feel they need to constantly knock religion and faith as some sort of bogeymen. Like particularly alternative histories, well written space opera, etc.
Fiction looking for reasonably good prose surrounding a story that doesn't reek. I'll probably pick up some more Evelyn Waugh (though I realize that doesn't exactly meet my criterion of "light.") What of recent vintage have you read that you really, really liked?
Posted by Steven Riddle at April 19, 2004 5:11 AM
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The Princes of Ireland by Edward Rutherfurd.
Posted by: Katherine at April 19, 2004 8:25 AM
Aunt Dimity's Death, by Nancy Atherton. Everybody loves that one, even those who won't admit it.
Charles Mathes writes books that you might like (though don't tell him they're cozies).
Posted by: Tom at April 19, 2004 8:34 AM
Dear Katherine,
Thanks for the reminder! I have read London and Sarum and enjoyed them well enough. I'll have to look into this one as well as The Forest and maybe Russka
Tom,
Thanks, I will look into both of those authors.
shalom,
Steven
Posted by: Steven Riddle at April 19, 2004 8:38 AM
I recently read a book called Dinosaur Summer by Greg Bear, which was a sequel of sorts to Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World. If you've read Doyle's book, it's really a fun read. It's set in an alternative-universe 1940s where dinosaurs are used in circuses, and the real-life special-effects man Ray Harryhausen is one of the main characters. (If you haven't read Doyle's book, that's fun light SF too.)
If you're interested in SF that's explicitly pro-Christian, a friend of a friend of mine named John B. Olson co-wrote a novel about a hypothetical Mars mission called Oxygen. It's a decent light read although I think they had too many we-think-they're-dead scrapes (that's a plot device you can use only so many times in one book, I think).
Posted by: Camassia at April 19, 2004 12:49 PM