From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

Pretty good for a short month...

Spellcheck tells me "embattered" is not a word. It should be.

As usual, links are Amazon affiliate ones which could in
theory earn me something.

====


Twelve Months (Dresden Files Book 18)
by Jim Butcher
https://amzn.to/3OY8gCN

What do you do when your hero is suffering? In the old days, perhaps
you would focus him on his way forward with a new righteous fury
and have him honor his dead with retribution. And there's still a
place for that in straight-ahead adventure. However, if you have
been following a first-person hero for decades (and it has been,
hard as that is to believe), privy to his thoughts and hurts, that
works less well. On the other hand, you don't want a book in an
adventure series that is bogged down in the healing process with a
mopey hero angsting his way through life to the point that the book
is a slog for the reader. I have read some like that, and I don't
care how "believable" it is, it's just no fun.

I think Jim Butcher, who apparently has had some trauma in his life,
gets it about right here. We join Harry Dresden in the aftermath
of the Battle of Chicago where he is at his lowest point. Apart
from losing many other good people, he has lost the, recently
acknowledged, love of his life, Karin Murphy. I will admit that I
was fairly sure, given the supernatural circumstances involved in
her death, that she would be back, but if that is eventually to be
the case, which I now doubt, Butcher is playing it very straight,
and Harry doesn't even consider that as he tries, and nearly fails
to go on with life. What eventually gets him through is friends,
family & responsibility: His daughter, his brother & nephew, the
Carpenters, the Knights Of the Cross, the battered and hurting
supernatural community of Chicago, the myriad of things not done
which will be left undone if he checks out.

As I said there is a balance here. Harry is hurting, and we see
that, but we also follow him through an eventful year where he deals
with major events, at first poorly and later better so that the
focus on the arc of the series is never lost. And while never
forgetting Karin, Harry, like many widowers and especially long-lived
wizards, is starting to suspect that there can be more than one love
in life, and perhaps one of the burdens Queen Mab laid on her Winter
Knight will be less onerous than expected.

This was a meaty book that took a good while to read, and there is
another Dresden novella due in May, which I have happily pre-ordered.

Beast Business
by Ilona Andrews
https://amzn.to/4raaQmC

The main novella in this "Hidden Legacy" book focuses on the
Illusion Prime Augustine Montgomery, whom we have mainly known
from afar as the Baylor's somewhat ambiguous debt holder,
and Animal Prime Diana Harrison whose family is now closely
associated with the Baylors. Harrison has a problem which
for various reasons she can't bring to them. Her brother
has bonded with a Summoner's creature, and alien cat, and
with nature taking its course with the only other such in our
world, there is now a kitten. Which has been kidnapped,
and which will die if not reunited with its mother in a fairly
short time-frame. Harrison knows Illusion magic was involved,
so she comes to Montgomery to hire the best. And of course,
there is always a bit of Romance in an Andrews book, Hidden Legacy
more than some of their other series, so the two Primes are,
shall we say, impressed with each other, and if they don't
get killed in the somewhat unexpectedly deadly adventure, there
may be more to write in that story. As always the Andrews
tell a good alpha/alpha story with plenty of adventure.

Interestingly though in some ways this book is very much
Arabella Baylor's. She figures strongly in the main
story, and then has several short stories after that, and
she is a fun character, something I realized after her
epic & funny battle with the Russian Bear. This time we
get to see her acting like a detective from a detective
family instead of just wreaking havoc across the countryside,
though she does get to do a bit of that as well.

Also, in a folding back on the main story, we get to
know the littlest Harrsion, Matilda, quite a bit better,
and she is a fun character as well.


Ground State
by Craig Alanson
https://amzn.to/40GD6T0

As is often the case, the previous Expeditionary Force
book ended in disaster: Joe & Skippy had managed to
destroy the receiver that the extra-galactic Outsiders
were using to send their forces into the Milky Way, but
not before an Outsider Scout had transited the receiver.
So now instead of eliminated the menace, there are *two*
Outsiders at large and the Merry Pirates have no way to
locate them, much less stop them. Given that the Awful Kitties
are still working with the entities, under the mistaken
impression that they are Elder AIs trying to waken Sentinels
and restore the pre-Earth balance of power, they will have
plenty of resources to rebuild the receiver at an unknown location.

What are Earth's most fearsome AI & Oddball Strategist team
to do? Well, mope around perhaps a bit more than usual, and
then pull a (somewhat Checkov justified) deus from the machina.

The coming next blurb implies that this is the penultimate book in
the series, and I think that's fair and something I am ready for.
There is a lot in motion, and various things, like the Kitties are
coming to a head while the continually escalating levels of peril
do have to stop somewhere. Although not here, as the title comes
into play at the end, and boy, things look bad for our heroes! (And
everyone else...) Is that a spoiler. Not really.

Defense of the Commonwealth (Commander Andrews Book 1)
by John Spearman
https://amzn.to/406t3GQ

Spearman has a very direct style: This happened, then that happened,
then this other thing happened. I think it works pretty well in
his "Orion Spur" series, which drove me to give this one a shot.
Here, I think it works less well, as there is less action, and the
places where there should be more focus on the character just get
the "she did this & then she did that" treatment.

Commander Perseverance Andrews a young officer in the Royal Navy
of an Anglo-American space polity. Unexpectedly (and somewhat
unconvincingly) put in charge of a new generation ship, she & her
cohort of Young Turks find themselves at the forefront of a somewhat
unexpected war with the Chinese & Russian space polities. Until
in the aftermath of the first battle, Andrews gets sent on an
exciting... publicity tour.

Frankly, I have already pretty much forgotten the details here, and
don't plan to read the next book.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
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From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On 3/2/2026 10:53 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

Pretty good for a short month...

Spellcheck tells me "embattered" is not a word. It should be.

As usual, links are Amazon affiliate ones which could in
theory earn me something.

====

Twelve Months (Dresden Files Book 18)
by Jim Butcher
https://amzn.to/3OY8gCN

What do you do when your hero is suffering? In the old days, perhaps
you would focus him on his way forward with a new righteous fury
and have him honor his dead with retribution. And there's still a
place for that in straight-ahead adventure. However, if you have
been following a first-person hero for decades (and it has been,
hard as that is to believe), privy to his thoughts and hurts, that
works less well. On the other hand, you don't want a book in an
adventure series that is bogged down in the healing process with a
mopey hero angsting his way through life to the point that the book
is a slog for the reader. I have read some like that, and I don't
care how "believable" it is, it's just no fun.

I think Jim Butcher, who apparently has had some trauma in his life,
gets it about right here. We join Harry Dresden in the aftermath
of the Battle of Chicago where he is at his lowest point. Apart
from losing many other good people, he has lost the, recently
acknowledged, love of his life, Karin Murphy. I will admit that I
was fairly sure, given the supernatural circumstances involved in
her death, that she would be back, but if that is eventually to be
the case, which I now doubt, Butcher is playing it very straight,
and Harry doesn't even consider that as he tries, and nearly fails
to go on with life. What eventually gets him through is friends,
family & responsibility: His daughter, his brother & nephew, the
Carpenters, the Knights Of the Cross, the battered and hurting
supernatural community of Chicago, the myriad of things not done
which will be left undone if he checks out.

As I said there is a balance here. Harry is hurting, and we see
that, but we also follow him through an eventful year where he deals
with major events, at first poorly and later better so that the
focus on the arc of the series is never lost. And while never
forgetting Karin, Harry, like many widowers and especially long-lived wizards, is starting to suspect that there can be more than one love
in life, and perhaps one of the burdens Queen Mab laid on her Winter
Knight will be less onerous than expected.

This was a meaty book that took a good while to read, and there is
another Dresden novella due in May, which I have happily pre-ordered.

Beast Business
by Ilona Andrews
https://amzn.to/4raaQmC

The main novella in this "Hidden Legacy" book focuses on the
Illusion Prime Augustine Montgomery, whom we have mainly known
from afar as the Baylor's somewhat ambiguous debt holder,
and Animal Prime Diana Harrison whose family is now closely
associated with the Baylors. Harrison has a problem which
for various reasons she can't bring to them. Her brother
has bonded with a Summoner's creature, and alien cat, and
with nature taking its course with the only other such in our
world, there is now a kitten. Which has been kidnapped,
and which will die if not reunited with its mother in a fairly
short time-frame. Harrison knows Illusion magic was involved,
so she comes to Montgomery to hire the best. And of course,
there is always a bit of Romance in an Andrews book, Hidden Legacy
more than some of their other series, so the two Primes are,
shall we say, impressed with each other, and if they don't
get killed in the somewhat unexpectedly deadly adventure, there
may be more to write in that story. As always the Andrews
tell a good alpha/alpha story with plenty of adventure.

Interestingly though in some ways this book is very much
Arabella Baylor's. She figures strongly in the main
story, and then has several short stories after that, and
she is a fun character, something I realized after her
epic & funny battle with the Russian Bear. This time we
get to see her acting like a detective from a detective
family instead of just wreaking havoc across the countryside,
though she does get to do a bit of that as well.

Also, in a folding back on the main story, we get to
know the littlest Harrsion, Matilda, quite a bit better,
and she is a fun character as well.

...

Dadgumit, you beat me to Beast Business as I decided to read it for a
third time before my review. This book is going straight to my six star
list.

Lynn

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