I am only a moderately intense follower of the Xanth novels, but this one looked like fun (I usually get around to them eventually), so I checked it out.

The humor is still there. There are too many puns for me, though I do enjoy many of them, and this one was on the topic of destroying puns even! My impression is that over time the humor has been toned down a bit and the social commentary has gotten just a bit stronger, a feeling I also got about another book I read recently.

If you’re a Xanth fan, you’ll want to read this one, of course. If you’re not, I’d generally recommend starting earlier in the series, though no matter where you start, Xanth takes a little bit of getting used to!

I rate it 4 stars.

I asked my pastor for a good book on the basics of Christian conversion and he handed me William Barclay’s little book Turning to God.

It’s a small book, with just 103 pages of reasonable size text. It’s not complex. The vocabulary is straightforward. I wouldn’t recommend it for speed reading, but you don’t need any strong theological background to follow the discussion.

Barclay works from the conversion stories and evangelistic methods presented in the book of Acts to develop both an understanding of what conversion means and the approaches to evangelization that will produce conversion.

This is an exceptionally good book. It appears to be out of print, but there are quite a number of used copies available online.

I give this a definite five bright stars!

The most recent one (at least that I’ve gotten my hands on) is Snuff, and the only new thing I’d have to say is that it tends to add a bit more thrill, mystery, and social commentary, while being slightly less humorous than previous volumes. I don’t find that annoying. It’s still funny. It’s still great writing.

So what more can be said? Read this book. If you haven’t read anything by Pratchett,. start with an earlier volume, such as Hogfather. But get to Snuff as soon as you can.

I rate this 5 of 5.

I always hate summarizing the story, but this book features Alli, who has the money to live a life of leisure but wants to be a cop. Unfortunately, she gets furloughed right after graduating from the police academy. But at the same time she’s drawn into a mystery–the disappearance of a friend.

The story loosely brings to mind those well-off detectives, such as titled characters in British mystery, who have outside resources and aren’t afraid to use them in the cause of justice. As one character in the book eventually decides, Alli is rich and pushy, but also very smart.

I read the hardcover edition, 353 pages, and rate it 5 of 5 stars.

In Bones of Empire he continues the story previously told in At Empire’s Edge, and I actually found this book more engaging than the other. We get some politics, a very little bit of military, and a great deal of police work. The story moves along nicely. Dietz still engages in the use of incomplete sentences. All the time. It annoys me, but that’s a stylistic detail, and personal taste. I would think such incomplete sentences used as spice would be good. Used too frequently they distract me.

I rate this book 4 out of 5.

Nick May is coming out with his second book, Minutemen. (His previous title is Megabelt from Energion Publications.)

This book is not at all like Megabelt. It’s the story of four young men whose relationships haven’t worked out (or are deteriorating) and the decisions they make as things spiral out of control more and more. There’s no obvious solution to the ever increasing problems. But the one thing you can expect in this book is that unexpected–and positively weird–things will happen.

Nick claims no moral to the story, but I can make several of them, and perhaps that’s the point of not having an intentional moral proposed (and made obvious) by the author–one can make up one’s own.

This is coming from the brand new Eucatastrophe Press.

I’ve enjoyed previous books by John Ringo, especially the Prince Roger series, so when I saw this book at my local public library I grabbed it and read. Of course, I was jumping into the middle of a series, which is generally a bad idea, but that happens to me quite often.

The book starts slowly. In fact, I was beginning to wonder whether Ringo had abandoned action entirely. In the end, however, perseverance paid off, and things got more interesting. Not that the character building isn’t interesting. I’m just not used to having so much of it at the start. You will continue to see the early characters as the story develops.

This is some good space opera with a “Terra über alles” feel to it. Though earth is the underdog in the story to all appearances, there is a clear human superiority going on as human ingenuity surprises the aliens. I rather enjoy that sort of story for a change, and Ringo does action rather well.

I rate this 4 stars.