Tag: Book

Framed in Death by J.D. Robb (2025)

I put this on hold at just the right time, so I was one of the first few library readers to devour this book.  This is the umpty-zillionth in the “in Death” series written by Nora Roberts under her pen name J.D. Robb.  My standard advice is, if you are new to the series, don’t start here. Go back to Naked in Death and see if you like that one. If you do, you’ll be OK with the standard two sex scenes in every book, and the bracketing of every case with death/investigation/takedown/interrogation-confession, all centering around Eve Dallas, Lt. NYPSD and her life partner Roarke (dreamy billionaire/former thief).

What makes this series fun to read (and I’ve read all of them) are the now-large cast of supporting characters that experience growth, and fun details of the universe that Robb has fleshed out over time.  As one example, there is almost no Coca-Cola in this universe, but in this book it actually gets mentioned.  I noticed!

Robb releases this book series on a twice-a-year schedule. (Even with a formula, how does she do it? There are some decent deep facts that make it into each book.) I need to go put a reminder in to place the next hold in January for a February release.

Razor’s Edge by Martha Wells (2013)

In finding a cover image, I found out that this novel will be reissued in November 2025 as one of the “Essential Legends” series.  This is, of course, Disney’s way to cash in on their scuttling of the entire Expanded Universe ficton when they decided that only movies were canon at that time. Of course, they have sold plenty of books in the “new canon” since then!

That is obviously a sore spot with me! I had this book on my radar for a very long time but never hunted it down. I did so and finally read it this week. Having grown to love Martha Wells’ Murderbot series, I wanted to see if I liked any of her other prose.

This is a decent Star Wars novel.  It’s not one of the best in the EU, but it tells an interesting story.  There was some effort in the staging of the plot so that some characters are going through roughly parallel situations at the same time.  I thought Wells was most interesting in showing the growing attraction of Han & Leia.  I feel for writers in the SW or Trek universes as they can only take the characters so far, or choose to write them at a certain point so that they can only grow a certain amount.

This story was a part of a “duology” when first published (the second book is not by Wells) but I feel no need to seek that one out.

When HARLIE Was One by David Gerrold (1972)

I picked this one up at a library sale in New York and it took a few months to get to it.  Like most authors I follow, I’ve been reading David’s work very much out of order.  This is an early work, and one that David refers back to in later works. HARLIE is an artificial intelligence–but referred to absolutely as an artificial human (my emphasis).  I ran into David at the 2025 Worldcon and told him I had just finished this book and exclaimed “How did you get so much of it right IN 1972?” He just shrugged.

The book’s not perfect–the subplot with the main scientist getting a girlfriend is fairly by-the-numbers but the relationship is necessary for development of an understanding about HARLIE.

All in all, an amazingly prescient story that is still relevant.