Things have improved in my mind just a little since the disaster that was introducing Ross 2 books ago. There are still irritating moments when Hannah “struggles” to adjust to being married (What if Ross doesn’t like this?, I think I might want kids, but does he?), but at least the mystery solving is back to what it usually is, and there’s more Hannah and friends-family to bring back the banter. The twist this time is that Hannah actually does not discover any bodies. This […]
Pie to Pi but a Little Underbaked
How to Bake Pi uses analogies to cooking and baking (and lots of other everyday things) to explain some fairly advanced mathematical concepts. These work nicely, especially for someone like me who hasn’t done anything beyond calculus 2, and that over 10 years ago. The invention of an olive oil plum cake recipe for example becomes a way of explaining generalization (how can something be called a ‘cake’ if it is not completely really a cake) and the mathematical practice of proof by contradiction (proving something […]
Ending on A Good Note
I was getting really worried for this series. I did not like the last 2 volumes I read; I kinda hated book 5 which I read just before book 3 which wasn’t much better. The Rise of the Automated Aristocrats, Book 6, went back to what this series does right: Burton and Swinburne together with pals taking on weirdness, and the final conclusion is pretty satisfying, even though it end up feeling a little like the whole series was designed around the question of why […]
Even H.G. Wells Can’t Save a Timey Wimey Mess
I read Expeditions to the Mountains of the Moon fifth even though it’s chronologically the third in the series. I’m not really sure it matters though since much of the time even the characters don’t know what’s going on, or remember what happened to them prior to the start of the particular book. This book basically takes Algy out of the picture for a lot of the story by having Burton hallucinate/travel back and forth between 1863 and 1914. Neither is a good time/place to […]
Fighting Demons with the Power of Music
The Magia the Ninth series has a thoroughly ridiculous premise, which is why it’s so much fun. It’s also only 2 volumes which makes the end pretty open-ended. I found myself wishing for maybe one or two more volumes to fill in a few of the many gaps. Basically a high school student whose parents were killed by a demon runs into the head demon hunter of the Church of the Masterpiece, Ludwig von Beethoven (cranky, ambitious, powerful, but maybe nice too). Beethoven, along with […]
7 Princes- Really 6- Indiana Jones style
The Seven Princes of the Thousand Year Labyrinth looks like an entertaining fantasy-mystery series. The basic premise is that seven different attractive young men wake or end up in the Castle-of-the Thousand-Year-Labyrinth. They are candidates to be the next emperor, since hereditary monarchy was outlawed centuries ago, and they can’t leave the castle until they decide among themselves who will be the next emperor; everyone else becomes the ruler’s new advisors.. Ewan is the main character and he looks like a naïve country boy, while […]
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