Steven’s Comments (group member since Dec 29, 2023)

Steven’s comments from the Virtual Mount TBR Challenge 2024 group.

#17 - The Immediate Discography: The First 20 Years by Mark Jones

A history of Andrew Loog Oldham's short-lived Immediate label, along with a highly detailed and annotated discography of releases and reissues up to 1985. Very useful for those interested in collecting classic vinyl.

Everand

#16 - How It Unfolds by James S. A. Corey

A story in Amazon's Far Reaches series. This tells the story of a human effort to spread outward across the nearby galactic region, using an information-heavy transmission medium (think Star Trek's transporters writ large and doing copies.) It's also a story about the emotional growth of the protagonist, and while it's a bit stiff in places, the central conceit is clever, and comes with a rather neat twist. My main complaint is that this could very easily support full novel length, and probably should.

Prime Reading

#15 - Slow Time Between the Stars by John Scalzi

An Amazon Original story in the Far Reaches series. The journey of an unmanned spaceship designed to find a suitable new home for humanity...but it's a journey in time, distance...and philosophy and ethics. A gentle, thoughtful, story.

Prime Reading

#13 - The Radio Operator: Robert Ford’s Last Stand in the Fight to Save Tibet by James McGrath Morris

The story of Robert Ford’s time in Tibet as a radio operator helping to link Tibet to the world and provide communications across the country. Unfortunately things came crashing down as Chinese imperial ambitions infected their supposed communist ideals, and they once again invaded and occupied Tibet. Ford spent four years in a Chinese prison, being abused until he signed a forced confession, whereupon he was released. This short book compresses his diplomatic career after his release, unfortunately, but it’s enough to give a picture of an intelligent, strong man.

Audible Plus

#12 - Yiddish Radio Project: Stories from the Golden Age of Yiddish Radio by Henry Sapoznick

A concise history of Yiddish radio in the US, with discussion of his it started and how it was influenced by the arrival of Jewish refugees from Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. Sapoznick includes a frenetic mixture of examples from the collection of transcription discs he rescued and helped to restore, and spends a little time explaining the Klezmer revival of the 1990s.

It’s fast and lively, but might be a bit overstuffed for some. Best appreciated, I think, a piece at a time.

Audible Plus

#11 - Superman Vs. the Ku Klux Klan: The True Story of How the Iconic Superhero Battled the Men of Hate by Rick Bowers

A concise history of the genesis and effect of the famous radio serial where Superman deals with an expie of the KKK. It could have used more in the aftermath section, though, given that we have yet to be fully rid of the Klan, and that the methods used in the revival have been repeatedly used by hate groups since.

Audible Plus

#10 - Kwik Krimes edited by Otto Penzler

A bit of an experiment, it seems. Penzler here assembles the usual mass of stories, but all are under a thousand words. Being flash fiction, these are mostly scenes rather than narratives -- in, out, done as a short, sharp, shock.

I enjoyed the collection quite a bit. There's some downright poetic writing here, magnetic turns of phrase that elevate simple tales. There's some clunkers, too, of course, mostly just bog standard stuff rather than stylistic howlers. Plus, the terseness really boosts the grue in certain stories.

Kindle Unlimited

#9 - Van Der Graaf Generator: Every Album, Every Song by Dan Coffey

A trawl through the mostly-studio output of Van Der Graaf Generator. I found this to be more lightweight than needed, but Coffey did at least cover the impo4tant side aspects of the group -- certain Peter Hammill solo releases, and latter-day live sets, though there's far too many missed points of interest. Also, the usual Sonicbond proofing and layout issues rear their head again, though not too badly this time.

Everand

#8 - Yes: Every Album, Every Song by Stephen Lambe

Part of Sonicbonde’s On Track series. Fairly coherent, if lightweight, and stuck with a few typos and layout issues, but it’s a moderately interesting read, covering the tumultuous life of Yes and their highly variable work. Lambe is perhaps kinder to some releases than most might be, and at no point is the writing particularly deep (there’s little attempt to tackle Jon Anderson’s lyrical output, for instance, and no attempt to look at the lyrics from others.)

Everand

#7 - Hawkwind On Track: Every album, every song by Duncan Harris

A track by track look at the studio recordings of Hawkwind, with a cursory look at the evolution of the group over their (then) fifty year career. It's more than a little clunky, but Harris does make some telling points about the band's output over the years, though he does miss some nuances in the work, including completely missing the big reference of All Aboard The Skylark -- The Skylark of Space by E. E. "Doc" Smith.

Of more import is the production of the book -- well, the ebook, at least. The layout is very messy with random hyphenation and bad kerning, and the edition I borrowed repeats most of the book between the bibliography and the publisher's backmatter.

Everand

#6 - soft magic. by Upile Chisala

Very personal poetry from Malawian poet Chisala in her first collection. It's a gentle but determined set of poems, but I was taken by the plain directness of this:

If no one has called you brave lately, I will.
You are fighting sadness with everything you've
got and for that you are mighty.

I'll enjoy listening to this again, I'm sure.

Everand

#5 - Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O'Hara

O'Hara, early on, already deep in his passion for New York and for people, words spilling everywhere and forming pictures. Fantastic stuff, though this collection is much too brief!

Everand

#4 - Enough Rope by Dorothy Parker

Parker's first collection of her amusing, acerbic verse -- something that stands the test of time, managing to be of its time in many ways, and timeless in others.

Everand

#3 - Pig: Poems by Sam Sax

From pigs is pigs to that'll do, Pig...Sax uses the pig as both metaphor and reality in a journey through his world. As much prose as lyric, Sax examines how we relate to pigs, with elliptical journeys into an existence as a gay male. At times quite vivid and fascinating.

Everand

#2 - Dead Brigade by James Lovegrove

After a mission goes wrong in Kurdistan, British Army sergeant Jonah Hammond spends years in the quartermaster’s office, trying to deal with PTSD…until his old unit leader shows up looking to recruit him to join a secret unit. As it turns out, it’s a program to turn corpses into cyborg soldiers using nanobots, and Hammond's to train and lead them.

Essentially science fiction using horror tropes, the story suffers from being incomplete — there’s an ending, but it’s wide open. Also, the setting often comes across like a BBC TV serial from 1960 — the science unit seems to be operated by a single person. The missions are depicted in a perfunctory manner, too, with the antagonists rarely named.

There’s the bones of a bigger, better, deeper story here, though I doubt we’ll ever see it.

Audible Plus.

#1 - Cold Brew Catastrophe by Christine Zane Thomas

Lightweight mystery fare with an ending that’s out of the blue but does a great job of red herrings. I enjoyed the Tuckerizing of various comics names and the suggestion that protagonist Kirby has a touch of Spider-Man’s “Parker luck” given how things go for him.

Third of four in the “Comics And Coffee Case Files” series.

Kindle Unlimited

Here we go again….

Hey, it’s me again! I considered not joining in this year as my reading has been all over the place. I am, however, addicted to books. So here I go again.

I’m Steven E. McDonald, author, but in life I go by David Alexander McDonald (who’s a composer and musician.) I’ve been reading since I was three years old. I own a ridiculous number of books, but I still borrow…and have a ridiculous reading list there too.