Indelible by Karin Slaughter

In this book of the Grant county series, Karin takes us back to the beginning of Sara and Jefferey's relationship and ahows us his past on a visit to his home town. Of course death and mayhem follows them there too. You would think that they would realise by now that there is so much death around them and the one common denominator is themselves. They should just break up and help save a few hundred peoples lives.

A Faint Cold Fear by Kartin Slaughter

The 3rd book in the Grant county series. I did not think it was as good as the previous ones. As the emotional rollercoaster her characters are on is sometimes a little too much and unecessary I feel. I just want grab Sara, Lena or Jeffrey by the throat and knock some sense into them.

Extremely loud and incredibly close by Jonathan Safran Foer

What an absolutely lovely book. could not stop reading it, but at the same kept stoping every once in a while and my imagination would wonder at what I had just read, then re-read.
No idea or comprehension of what it must be like to be in Oskar's situation and certainly no wish to know first hand either. The ending will stay with me for a long time though.

The walking dead by Gerald Seymour

A number of different stories converging on an Arab young man’s search for martyrdom in te streets of Luton. Well written and up to te very end you have no idea wich way the book will go. will he blow himself up or will he not. A lovely diary is being read in paralel by one of the main characters of his great uncle who went to fight the fascists in Spain which I guess tries to show the idealism of the different generations and perhaps the futility of it.

Kisscut by Karin Slaughter

In Kisscut Karin Slaughter has handled the dreadful subject of child abuse without any histrionics, which are an inherent danger for any author considering a story in which child abuse could be a theme. She has fashioned her story with deftness and intelligence, developing her characters within the complex framework of a gruesome set of crimes and yet as well as the gory details, you know them all better than you did at the end of the last book.

The faithful spy by Alex Berendson

present day espionage, if you call it that. American undercover with the Taliban for years forsaking wife and son for the good of his country. The predictable badies are still the badies, but at least it does ask some questions. Shame really, good story, but some trains of thought could have been followed a bit further...but I guess his home audience would have had problems with that.

Dead until dark by Charlaine Harris

A bit slow, but worth the patience. An enjoyable whodunit with the added bonus of vampires and people with special abilities. This the first in the Sookie Stackhouse series which consists of 11 books, so far.

Blue shoes and happiness by Alexander McCall Smith

Mma Ramotswe sat out under the hot Botswanan sun drinking a cup of red bush tea. She picked up the paper and started chuckling at the new advice column, Aunty Emang. At her age there were some things you just knew. There were the difficult problems, such as why a wheel was round, and the trivial, such as where her husband, Mr JLB Matekoni, had left his toothbrush.

And it was in these very trivial problems that the only begetter of the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency specialised. "Men are weak," Mma Ramotswe mused. Her assistant, Mma Makutsi, sensed another profound insight was imminent. "Mr JLB Matekoni's weakness is cake."

This was indeed interesting and worthy of another cup of tea. Mma Makutsi went to the kitchen where she encountered Mr JLB Maketoni."Sometimes a football team wins," he said. "And sometimes it loses."

This second piece of wisdom in as many minutes was interrupted by a shout. "There's a cobra in my office," cried Mma Ramotswe.

Just then Mr Whitson, one of Mr JLB Matekoni's customers, rushed in and grabbed the snake. "You're safe now," he said. "By the way, I wonder if you can help. All the local people near the game reserve are acting strangely."

It sounded like witchcraft to Mma Ramotswe, but she decided to say nothing as a distressed young woman, wearing an apron covered in food, entered the room. "I would guess that you are a cook," said Mma Ramotswe. "You are truly gifted with second sight," the girl answered. "I am at my wit's end. Mma Tsau is giving away free food to her husband and she thinks I am blackmailing her about it."

Mma Ramotswe drank her tea and smiled kindly. "Leave it to me." Mma Makutsi was very disturbed.

Her fiance, Phuti Radiphuti, had fallen silent when she had declared herself to be a feminist.

"You must cook him a meal to reassure him," Mma Ramotswe insisted. Mma Makutsi followed this excellent advice to the letter, but Phuti failed to arrive. "Oh what shall I do?" she cried. "You must go and talk to him," said Mma Ramotswe.

"Oh thank God, you're here," said Phuti. "I was unexpectedly called away and I was worried you might think I did not want to marry you anymore." Mma Ramotswe sighed with the release of such unbearable tension.

A nurse darted into the office. "There's something strange about the Ugandan doctor," she said. "He's giving the wrong blood pressure pills."

Mma Ramotswe noted down the details before accompanying Mma Makutsi to buy some new shoes. "They look a little small."

Mr Polopetsi had grown concerned that Mma Ramotswe had made no attempt to solve any of her cases, so he drove to Mr Whitson's game reserve.

"The locals were superstitious about the hornbill," he said later.

"Sadly, it's now a late hornbill as you put it in a box," Mma Ramotswe observed tartly. "And by the way, Aunty Emang was responsible for Mma Tsau's and the Ugandan doctor's troubles."

Mma Makutsi grinned. Mma Ramotswe had saved the day again. "Time for tea," said Mma Ramotswe.

Blood Hunt by Iain Rankin

It begins with a phone call. Gordon Reeve's brother has been found dead
in his car in San Diego - the car was locked from the inside, a gun in
his hand. In the US to identify the body Gordon comes to realise that
his brother has in fact been murdered. What's more, it is soon obvious
that his own life is in danger. Once back in Scotland he finds out that
there have been more visitors than usual to his house and his home has
been bugged by professionals. But Reeve is a professional too. Ex-SAS,
he was half of a two-man unit with someone he came to fear, then to
hate. It looks like his Nemesis is back.

Overall it is an easy read. The action flows quite easily and you do not need to think too much.

A Question of Blood by Iain Rankin

Inspector Rebus he is called upon to solve a school shooting that has left three dead and one wounded. At the same time he becomes the prime suspect in the grizzly death of a lowlife criminal named Martin Fairstone, who was harassing his partner, Siobhan Clark.

One night, Rebus goes pub-crawling to find Fairstone with the intention of setting him straight about staying away from Siobhan. But, as does happen in life, the two get smashingly drunk and Fairstone invites Rebus home for a nightcap. They are going to bury the hatchet, and as far as the DI is concerned, that was all there was to the meeting. He leaves, hails a cab and falls asleep until he reaches home when he realizes that … "he'd done it again. Ended up drinking too much … [the]
driver had to wake him up. Rebus [remembered] running a bath … world tilting in the darkness, shifting on its axis, pitching him forwards so his head thumped against the rim of the [tub] … waking on his knees, hands hanging over the side of the bath" having turned on only the hot water tap. "His hands were scalded by the rising water … Scalded."

At that moment he has no idea that Martin Fairstone burned to death in a grease fire a short time after Rebus left. When word gets out that Rebus is in the hospital with burns on his hands (he insists he is scalded), his superiors start to ask uncomfortable questions. He is called on the carpet and put on suspension, despite his vehement denials of any involvement in the fire. But Rebus has a fine reputation as an investigator and is requested by the DI who is working on the school shootings.

Thus, he is also allowed to be an unofficial, ad-hoc member of the team with Siobhan as his driver/assistant/partner. Once he is on the scene he is devastated to learn that one of the dead boys is the son of his cousin, a man he hasn't seen in decades. Rebus "had been thinking about families: not just his own …" but of so many people he knew --- how we lose touch, how "life" interferes, how Rebus himself replaced his family with co-workers who became close friends "producing ties that oftentimes seemed stronger than blood."

The full cupboard of life by Alexander McCall Smith

Here is the fifth novel in the internationally bestselling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency hit series. Once again we are transported to Gaborone, capital city of Botswana, and into the world of Mma Ramotswe and her friends.

THE NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY. FOR ALL CONFIDENTIAL MATTERS AND ENQUIRIES. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED FOR ALL PARTIES. UNDER PERSONAL MANAGEMENT.

Mma Ramotswe and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni are still engaged, but with no immediate plans to get married Mma Ramotswe wonders when a wedding date will be named, but she is anxious to avoid putting pressure on her fiancé. For indeed he has other things on his mind -- particularly a frightening request (involving a parachute jump) made by Mma Potokwani, the persuasive matron of the orphan farm.

Mma Ramotswe herself has weighty matters on her mind. She has been napproached by a wealthy lady to check up on several suitors. Are these men interested in her or just her money? This may be difficult to find out, but it's just the kind of case Mma Ramotswe likes and she is, as we know, a very intuitive lady.

Meanwhile, Mma Makutsi -- plucky assistant detective and deputy manager of the Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors garage -- is moving. Her entrepreneurial venture, the Kalahari Typing School for Men, is thriving and with this new income she has rented two rooms in a house. Her spare time is occupied with planning the move, the décor and her new life in a house with running water all to herself.

In the background of all this is Botswana, a country of empty spaces and echoing skies, a country so beautiful and entrancing that it breaks your heart.

The serial killers club by Jeff Povey

One of those books that you want to stop reading but can't. The plot revolves around a loner Douglas who is not really a serial killer, yet, but he loves the company and camaraderie of the serial killers club, in which he finds himself, and won’t give it up no matter what. As members discuss their latest activities, non-killer Douglas is placed at a disadvantage. The only remedy is to kill off the other Club members as they become suspicious of him, which makes him a serial killer of serial killers.
Most of the attempts at humour are predictable and not really funny, but the story keeps you going. A shame really as I thought the story had good potential.

Echo Park by Michael Connelly

It feels like I have been waiting ages for the latest Harry Bosch book, and it was well worth the wait. Excellent twist though could have spent more time on the justification in my opinion. Also good to see that the great Harry Bosch can get it wrong too ;-)

Transcendent by Stephen Baxter

The 3rd in the Destiny's children series and the 7th Baxter book to date. I am enjoying the way he is weaving the various characters into the different books with such ease.

below a C&P from Wiki.

The story alternates between two timelines: the world of Michael Poole in the year 2047, and that of Alia, a posthuman girl who lives approximately half a million years in the future.

Engineer Michael Poole is recovering from the death of Morag, his pregnant wife. Poole works as a consultant designing space propulsion systems, and dreams of being able to one day explore the stars. However, there are more pressing matters; humanity faces a serious bottleneck, with the Earth reeling from the anthropogenic effects of global warming; automobile production has all but ceased, except for hydrogen-based mass transit, and air travel is limited to the very rich. Due to climate change, the oceans have become dead zones, with rising sea levels and severe weather displacing millions.

While working in Siberia, Michael's son Tom is injured by an explosion of methane gas from previously frozen hydrates, suddenly released from the now-melting tundra. Michael begins to research whether this is an isolated incident or the beginning of something more serious. With the help of an artificial sentience named Gea, he discovers that a potential release of all such frozen greenhouse gasses could destabilize the environment enough to make the Earth untenable for human habitation, in a repeat of the Permian extinction.

Michael consults members of the Poole family, who come together to work on the problem. Tom, John, and the elderly George (star of Coalescent), reunite, and a maverick geoengineering company funds the project. Michael designs a subsurface refrigeration system that could stabilize the frozen hydrates. Meanwhile, Michael continues to be haunted by visions of his dead wife, apparitions he has been seeing his entire life, even before he first met her. He becomes obsessed with discovering the origin of this phenomenon, and his quest for answers drives a wedge between him and his family. Aunt Rosa Poole (from Coalescent), a Catholic priest and ex-member of the Order, helps Michael research the problem, drawing on her vast knowledge, stemming in small part from her relationship with the Coalescent hive and its historical archives. The rest of the Poole family joins the investigation when Morag appears during a trial test of the engineering project. This time, everyone sees Morag, even observing drones recording the event. After the project is bombed by a terrorist group, Morag goes from being an apparition to reincarnating in physical reality. This frightens everyone, even Michael.

500,000 years in the future, the Nord, a generation ship, sails through the galaxy carrying Alia, a young girl, and her family. As part of a government program called the "Redemption", Alia is obligated to witness the life of Michael Poole, from start to finish. Pressured by her family to leave the ship, Alia becomes a candidate for the Transcendence, a collective group of immortal posthumans who are attempting to evolve into a form of godhood, in effect leaving their humanity behind. After travelling the galaxy and observing several posthuman life forms, Alia travels to Earth to meet the Transcendence. Alia learns the Transcendence is attempting to redeem the past suffering of all humans, first by witnessing every single one as Alia witnessed, then by living as every single human and experiencing everything that they experienced. However, since observing is not seen as sufficient for redemption, the Transcendence ultimately desires to erase all suffering in the past, thereby ensuring that every human that could have existed does so. Lastly, if that is seen as too great a task, the Transcendence is prepared to reach back in time and stop humans from ever existing, thereby "erasing" the suffering that they intend to redeem.

Upset about the goals of the Transcendence, Alia makes her way back to the Nord, only to find that it has been attacked in an attempt to get her to go back and face the Transcendence by a group who believes the Redemption is a mistake. Upon returning to the Transcendence, Alia agrees to find a human who can join the Transcendence long enough to debate the Redemption and help them find the best course of action. To do so, Alia projects herself into the past, to the time of Michael Poole. She appears to him as his dead wife, but changes into her true form, that of a small, hairy primate, a form evolved for low gravity environments.

Alia convinces Michael to face the Transcendence. After an initial period of adjustment, Michael makes contact with the Transcendence. Able to see both sides of the argument, Michael forgives the Transcendence for their meddling, but asks that they stop their efforts. Michael is returned to his own time, where he successfully completes the refrigeration project. The Kuiper anomaly, first introduced in Coalescent, disappears, and is revealed to be related to Alia's connection with Michael, having first appeared in the solar system at the time of Michael's birth. In the far future, the Transcendence collapses and the Witnessing program is shut down.

Exultant by Stephen Baxter

Below is a review taken from Wikipedia, as for my impressions, a good read, but sometime the depth of scientific detail spoilt the enjoyment.

Exultant is set in Baxter's "Xelee sequence"
twenty thousand years into the Third Expansion of Mankind, "a titanic project undertaken by a mankind united by the Doctrines forged by Hama Druz after mankind's near extinction." The human-supremacist Interim Coalition of Governance has conquered almost the whole Milky Way — all but the alien Xeelee concentrated at the galactic core around a supermasive black hole called Chandra. The mysterious Xeelee are far more advanced but less numerous than the humans, and the war has been at a stalemate for three millenia even though the entire Coalition has been directed toward the war effort and ten billion humans die at the front every year. In a war fought with faster then light technology (i.e. time travel, each side has foreknowledge of the other's actions and can develop counter-measures to plans before they are made. Pirius is a fighter pilot stationed at the front. When a battle turns to disaster for the Coalition forces, he disobeys suicide orders to stand and fight, choosing instead to risk survival. In a desperate gamble to outrun a pursuing Xeelee, Pirius captures a Xeelee fighter for the first time in history. Returning to base via FTL travel, he arrives two years previous to the battle, when his younger self is still a cadet. Rather than being lauded as a hero, both instances of Pirius are court-martialed for disobeying orders. Commissary Nilis of the Office of Technological Archival and Control, part of the Commission for Historical Truth, defends both the older Pirius (whom he calls "Pirius Blue") and the younger one ("Pirius Red") but loses the trial. Pirius Blue is sent to a penal unit at the front as a foot soldier, and Pirius Red is remanded to the custody of Commissary Nilis, who has plans for the fruits of Pirius Blue's battlefield victory. Using the Xeelee fighter and the innovative tactics that saved Pirius Blue, he starts to plan an unheard of assault on the Xeelee's primary stronghold at Chandra itself.
While Nilis and his new team struggle to confront ossified government and military institutions, they try to understand and to develop new and sometimes alien technologies: FTL computers, a gravastar shield to protect them from FTL foreknowledge, and a black hole gun capable of disrupting a supermaive black hole's event horizon.
Meanwhile, in the course of his new duties to Commissary Nilis, Pirius Red is practically taken on a tour of the solar system and some of the Coalition's most scandalous secrets, rife with references to events from previous books in the Xeelee sequence.
Finally, Pirius Red and Blue are reluctantly reunited for the assault on Chandra that could end the war, but the black hole hasn't given up all its secrets yet.

The Bancroft strategy by Robert Ludlum

If you are a fan of Robert Ludlum then you will not be dissapointed with this book. I certainly was not. Managed to read most of it by going in to work early and stopping off for a long coffee and a read at Schuman's.
I am curious though how this ghost writter is able to write under Roberts name for so long.
When Todd Belknap - a field agent for Consular Operations with a reputation as something of a cowboy - is cut loose from the agency after an operation goes wrong, his best friend and fellow agent is abducted in Lebanon by a vicious militia group. When the government refuses to help, Belknap decides to take matters into his own hands. Meanwhile, hedge fund analyst Andrea Newton gets an unexpected call - she has been left six million dollars by a cousin she's never met. But there's one condition: she must agree to sit on the board of the Newton foundation, a charitable organization run by the family patriarch, Paul Newton. Having never even met the family - her mother was married only briefly and cut all contact many years ago - Andrea is intrigued. But the foundation, supposedly dedicated to doing good deeds, appears less and less benign the more deeply involved she gets... What exactly is their involvement with the 'Genesis' - a mysterious group working to destabilize the geopolitical balance at the risk of millions of lives? As events escalate, Todd and Andrea must form an uneasy alliance if they are to uncover the truth behind 'Genesis' - before it's too late.

The patience of the spider by Andrea Camilleri

A kind of sad inspector Montalbano book. There is more of a feeling with this one that he may be retiring soon and his relationship with Livia may be coming to an end, at least the ground has been set.

234 pages in this book and it was by page 80 that I knew what the plot was, though as always, I had to wok my way to the end and very enjoyable it was.

One of my wishes in life would be to have a meal with the inspector in an eatery of his choice.

Coalescent by Stephen Baxter

A good read, though there were a couple of places that I wished it would move on a bit. Historically very interesting, and gripping in a few places. The ending could have been better, but then, it does continue in another book, so let's see what the second in the series will be like. I would give it a 3 out of 5

The book is comprised offour distinct parts. The primary purpose of part one is the introduction of the characters, in ancient Britain and the present. Part two introduces a modern first-person view of the Order in Rome while following Regina's budding legacy centuries before. Part three hosts the clash and resolution of Poole and the Order's realities. Part four is a look eons into Humanity's Expansion into the Universe and provides a conclusion in George Poole's present.

Part one

George Poole

George Poole copes with the mid-life crisis of losing his father. He meets Peter McLachlan, an eccentric member of an online free-thinking group called the Slan(t)ers. George Poole
uncovers an old picture showing a sister he never knew. Poole also discovers that his father regularly donated large sums of money to an organisation called the "Puissant Order of Holy Mary Queen of Virgins". Combined with a sense of futility in determining his future and encouragement from both his former wife Linda and Peter, Poole decides to uncover the mystery of his missing sister.

Poole leaves England to visit his sister Gina in Florida for information, despite their strained relationship. After spoiling his clever nephews as well as clashing with his distant sister Gina, Poole extracts the contact of a Jesuit priest in Rome and his own retired grandfather in Florida. Poole learns from his grandfather, Lou Casella, that his twin sister was given to the ancient Order when Poole's parents were unexpectedly landed with twins.

Regina

Born into a wealthy mosaic-designing family of 5th-century Roman Britain, seven-year-old Regina is uprooted from her comfortable villa due to her Father's death and the Roman Empire's withdrawal. The Roman Empire loses its strength in Britain as invading Saxons pummel the Great Wall north of Roman settlements to where Regina and her grandfather Aetius relocated. Aetius dies after losing control over his unpaid mutinous soldiers.

Regina seeks refuge with her servant Cartumandua's relatives in Verulamium but is betrayed by Regina's boyfriend Amator who rapes and abandons her. Verulamium burns down, forcing Regina and Cartumandua's family to live off the land in poverty for over sixteen years. Regina kills a roaming Saxon who nearly rapes her daughter, Brica. This event convinces Regina, the leader of their hamlet, to accept the invitation of warlord Artorius (King Arthur) to help restore order to Britain again.

Part two

Lucia

In modern Rome, Lucia, a fifteen-year old scribe for the Order, is devastated when she begins to menstruate — unlike any of her friends and colleagues within the Order. Once this is discovered Lucia is initiated into in her new role within the Order. Meanwhile, Lucia falls in love with seventeen-year-old American Daniel Stannard despite what is expected of her. After giving birth following only three months of pregnancy, Lucia never sees her baby again. Emotionally unstable, she runs away with Daniel.

Regina

Back in 5th-century Britain, Regina establishes her life working with Artorius, eventually managing his kingdom's record keeping. Artorius takes Regina as his wife for symbolic and moral reasons. She disdains Artorius' barbaric practices and thirst for conquest. Regina accompanies Artorius to a War Council where she realizes to stay attached with the reckless Artorius would mean certain doom for her progeny. In order to search out her mother, Julia, Regina secures passage to Rome by allowing herself and her daughter to give sexual favours to a wealthy merchant named Ceawlin.

Upon arriving in Rome, Regina contacts Amator, now openly homosexual and a wealthy bakery owner, and demands recompense for abandoning her and her family. Regina re-establishes contact with her mother, Julia, after a cool reunion. Regina joins the Puissant Order of Holy Mary Queen of Virgins, a Christian-adapted faction of the Vestal Virgins located on the Appian Way — an organisation that her family has become intimate with. Regina's leadership revives the ageing Order by converting it into a successful private school. Years later, on the night following her daughter's marriage, the Sack of Rome in 455 by the Vandals occurs. Regina's foresight saves the Order when the women and children are evacuated into the underground Catacombs she had had dug for a sanctuary.

In Regina's twilight years, she establishes important rules precedents for the Order. Unnecessary and unsupportable birthsare prohibited. A handful of mothers must dedicate their lives to replenishing the Order with births. Before her death in 476 AD, Regina establishes three main rules to govern the Order:

• Sisters matter more than daughters.
• Ignorance is strength.
• Listen to your sisters.

Part three

In the centuries following Regina's death, the Order assists the poor, robbed, and injured, gaining donations to its coffers from the occasional assisted person who became wealthy. Another Crypt that developed similarly to the Order is found and plans made for its eradication and occupation. In 1537 the Order survives the pillage of Rome by Antipope Clement VII by sacrificing five of its members to rape and death in order to divert Clement and his men's attention from an entrance to the Crypt.

George Poole

Meanwhile, in the present, George Poole, followed by a nervous Peter McLachlan, has a cool reunion with his lost sister Rosa. Rosa gives George a tour of the Crypt, the Order's secret human cache. Peter speculates with George about evidence of intelligent dark matter life moving through earth. Daniel serendipitously meets with George Poole, who is searching for additional information about the Order. Daniel, George Poole, and Peter take the very pregnant Lucia to a hospital where Peter becomes suspicious of the mysterious Order. The Order promptly retrieves Lucia from the hospital but not before Peter and George learn that most of the Crypt's inhabitants remain prepubescent indefinitely (reproductive suppression).

George Poole convinces his Jesuit priest contact to grant Peter access to ancient Catholic records. George's patriarchal roots are traced to a surveyor named George Pool who came to Rome in 1863. George returns to the Crypt looking for information and finds himself smothered with the familiar smell and contact of those in the Crypt, all of whom share his similar facial features (namely, cloudy grey eyes). His sister Rosa almost persuades him to become assimilated into the Order as a stud but an urgent text message by Peter brings him to his senses.

Peter has a theory explaining the strange peculiarities of the Order. The Order is a family of eusocial humans that evolved from the intense pressures to survive the various conquerings of Rome over the centuries. He cites naked mole rats as an example of eusocial behaviour in mammals. He explains how Regina's three rules result in a "genetic mandate for eusociality." He calls the Order a "human hive" and labels them "Coalescents" — a new kind of human. Peter then suddenly leaves after receiving a text message.

Days later, George learns that Peter has invaded the Crypt and is threatening to set off Semtex plastic explosives in order to expose the Order. Peter and the Slan(t)ers are responsible for the recent bombing of a San Jose research facility investigating quantum gravity technology — under the belief that a higher intelligence would notice the manipulation of space-time and eradicate a possible threat to their superiority. Peter's reasoning in exposing the Crypt is that the Order does not exist for any purpose except for itself. It threatens to destroy humanity as individuals and replace it with mindless drones. Peter Mclachlan then detonates his bombs and dies. George begins the evacuation of the Crypt and the mob of drones emerge hive-like from the crater in the middle of Via Cristoforo Colombo.

A geography of time : the temporal misadventures of a social psychologist by Robert Levine

A reccomendation from someone who certified me in a particular method(ology), Scrum, and he suggested a number of books. This was one of them, but it had very little to offer in terms of the original subject, but made for some very interesting reading nontheless.

In terms of a rating I would gie the book a 4 for readability and a 3 for content.

I liked his reasoning for why inner city kids from unemployed families do particularly bad in school and also a quote in the book that "to westerners the opposite of talking is not listening, it is waiting" for their turn to talk and express their view.

It also offered a very interesting explanation as to why Japanese have a habitof falling asleep in meetings. Something I had found strange and rude, but his explanation made me revise that opinion, and hopefully went a little way in helping me to not criticise what I do not understand in other cultures.

Flux by Stephen Baxter

Flux

As the novel begins, a glitch - an instability of the magnetic field inside the star caused by changes in the star's rotation - is about to destroy a net made up of ropes, where a group of 50 humans live. During this several of the older humans are killed, and importantly the humans lose their primary food source - a herd of "air pigs" - animals indigenous to the star.

In order to find more food, Dura, together with her young brother Farr, Adda (the oldest of the Humans and one of the novel's main characters), Philas (wife of a man killed during the glitch, this man was also seeing Dura) and 6 other adults travels high into the top of the mantle of the star to find food in the forest.

Whilst there Adda is injured by a pregnant sow air pig. Just after, the humans encounter Toba Minaxx, a human from Parz City. Parz is a massive wooden city where other star humans live, with a functioning economy and upper and lower classes etc. As becomes apparent, the ancestors of Dura's group did originally live in Parz, but left when their belief that the Xeelee should ultimately be accepted as being for the good of humanity was not accepted by the rulers of Parz. A hospital, "The Hospital of the Common Good" in the heart of Parz City is Adda's only chance for survival.

While in Parz, we meet several other characters: Muub, the head physician and advisor to Hork, the administrator of Parz. In order to pay for Adda's treatment, Dura's labour is sold to a "mantle farm" (where trees are harvested for use as fuel or as building blocks for the city), and Farr is sold to work in the underbelly of the city.

Farr makes two friends whilst here: Toba Minaxx's son Criss and Byza, a fellow miner. Criss teaches Farr to board (using a specially constructed plate to "surf" along the flux lines), an ability which allows him to escape from the eventual attack by the Xeelee.

After various plot points, the characters realise the instabilities are actually being caused by the attack of the Xeelee, and the next instability could destroy both Parz and possibly the star itself. Hork calls a combination of Muub, Dura (called due to her experience as a star human), Adda, Farr and a scientist to go down into the inhabitable centre of the star and try and retrieve ancient weapons, supposedly left by the humans who originally created the star human race.

Timelike infinity by Stephen Baxter

Timelike Infinity

Set thousands of years in the future (5407AD), the human race has been conquered by the Qax, a truly alien turbulent-liquid form of life, who now rule over the few star systems of human space - adopting processes from human history to effectively oppress the resentful race.

Humans have encountered a few other races, including the astoundingly advanced Xeelee, and been conquered once before - by the Squeem - but successfully recovered.

A human-built device, the Interface project, returns to the solar system after 1,500 years. The project, towed by the spaceship Cauchy returns a wormhole gate, appearing to offer time traveldue to the time 'difference' between the exits of the wormhole (relativistic time dilation), with one end having remained in the solar system and the other traveling at near lightspeed for a century. The Qax had destroyed the solar system gate, but a lashed-up human ship (a great chunk of soil including Stonehenge, crewed by a group called the Friends of Wigner) passes through the returning gate, traveling back to the unconquered humanity of 1,500 years ago.

One of the crew of the Cauchy returns with the Friends, Miriam Berg. The Friends have a complex scheme, which does not include a simple military return-and-rescue - the 1,500 year technology gap makes this "risible". From the Wigner thought experiment they have postulated an unusual theory on the ultimate destiny of life in the universe. They believe that quantum wave-functions do not collapse like the Copenhagen interpretation holds, nor that each collapse actually buds off separate universes (like the quantum universes hypothesis holds) but rather that the universe is a participatory Universe: the entire universe exists as a single massive quantum superposition, and that at the end of time (in the open universe of the Xeelee Sequence, time and space are unbounded, or more precisely, bounded only at the Cauchy boundaries of "Time-like infinity" and "Space-like infinity"), when intelligent life has collected all information (compare the final anthropic principle and the Omega point), and transformed into an "Ultimate Observer", who will make the "Final observation", the observation which collapses all the possible entangled wave-functions generated since the beginning of the universe. They believe further that the Ultimate Observer will not merely observe, but choose which world line will be the true world-line, and that it will choose the one in which humanity suffers no Squeem or Qax occupations. However, the Ultimate Observer cannot choose between worldlines if no information survives to its era to distinguish worldlines- if the UO never knows of humanity, it cannot choose a worldline favorable to it. In other words, some way is needed to securely send information forward in time.

As a consequence of this necessity, they intend to turn Jupiter into a carefully formed singularity and use the precisely specified parameters as a method of encoding information. Miriam Berg is more concerned over the immediate fate of humanity, with the threat of the future Qax, and transmits a 'help' message to the gate designer Michael Poole.

The Qax, naturally, panic a little at the escape to the past. A complex, unavoidably fragile species in their huge living Spline spacecraft, the few Qax present are somewhat at a loss. They decide to build their own Interface, with major human-collaborator assistance (headed by Ambassador Jasoft Parz), to create a link to their future to gain aid in resolving the problem - with more modern GUT-engine spacecraft they can make a 500 year link in just eighteen months. A startling high-technology future vessel (in truth, one of the legendary Xeelee nightfighter, an advanced and long-range fast scout ship), with a future Qax comes through the gate. Its first act is to execute the Qax Governor of Earth and gather up Parz, before passing through the original portal after the Friends and all humanity. The future Qax takes two Spline ships (presumably leaving behind the nightfighter; this might be the nightfighter that is discovered by the crew of The Great Northern millennia later in Ring through the gate and on the journey reveals to Parz the reason behind its desire to completely destroy the human race.

The Ring

The future Qax tells Parz that over the centuries, the Qax had worn down humanity through constant oppression, and had eventually decided to completely eliminate its space-faring capabilities. But before they did, as economical traders, they wished to get as much value out of their human pilots as possible. So certain pilots were dispatched on a number of dangerous or quixotic missions.

One such pilot was a man named Jim Bolder. The Qax had come into possession of a Xeelee nightfighter, and had modified it to support human control. Bolder's mission was simple: go to the Great Atractor, the cause of most galactic drift and find out why and how it exists. Bolder travelled to the bottom of the gravitational well, and found- the Ring. A torusa thousand light year in diameter, constructed of an unknown substance, rotating at a large fraction of lightspeed. The Qax goes on to speculate that the torus created a Kerr metric, and that it allowed egress from the current universe, that it was in effect an escape route for the Xeelee. Before Parz, the Spline warship, and the Qax exit the wormhole, the Qax asks, "What do Xeelee fear, do you suppose?". Regardless, Bolder escaped the Great Attractor and returned to the Qax home system, where he was supposed to be taken into custody by dozens of Spline warships wielding gravity-wave based "starbreakers" and his priceless data on the god-like Xeelee's ultimate project secured. Bolder either did not, or somehow escaped; in the ensuing fight, the starbreakers were accidentally fired at the Qax system primary star, and true to their name, destabilized it, causing it to go nova.

The Qax were forced to hurriedly evacuate. Many died, and the power of the Qax trading empire (and by extension, their Occupation of Earth) ended.

Ring, by Stephen Baxter

Ring, Stephen Baxter







Absolutately flew through this book! It was amazing. The story seems predictable at first, but you quickly find that this is not true. I read this book although it is part of a series, it stands alone just fine. All relative information needed is rehashed for the reader quickly. The imagination this guy has is truly humbling, though I wish I had paid more attention at physics classes to seperate the bs from the science ;-)

Ring tells the story of the end of the universe and the
saving of mankind from its destruction. Two parallel plots are followed
throughout the novel: that of Lieserl, an AI exploring the interior of the sun for millions of years, and that of the Great Northern, a generation ship of humans sent on a five-million-year journey (though only a thousand years will elapse onboard, due to relativistic time dilation effects).

Lieserl is abandoned for five million years leaving her to observe the sun's interior. She discovers dark matter based life, which she names photino birds. These birds gradually drain the energy from the core of a star, ending fusion and causing premature aging into a stable red giants—the birds' preferred habitat, as it has no risk of going supernova and destroying them.

A generation ship is sent with one end of a wormhole to explore the future and investigate the whereabouts of Michael Poole. The crew is broken into three factions—the primitives, the virtuals, and a survivalist
faction Superet. Their journey is a round trip taking them to the
future of our solar system through relativistic time dilation.

Between the factions, the primitives are a eugenics
project for Garry Uvarov who hopes to lengthen the lives of humanity
without the use of anti-senescence technology. The Superet rely heavily
on failing technology and maintain a totalitarian goverment which refuses to acknowledge the existence of other decks on the ship; the virtuals remain aloof.

Upon their arrival, the entire universe is full of red stars. The Northern makes contact with Lieserl, named after Einstein’s
daughter, who explains her observations of the photino birds. The
photino birds don’t just exist in our sun but every sun, helioforming
them to an amenable habitat. The Xelee, masters of baryonic matter, have known about the photino birds and have been striving to
thwart them. The baryonic universe is doomed but the Xeelee create a big dumb object which is an escape hatch. A cosmic string is made into a loop and creates the phenomena of the Great atractor. The function of the Ring is to create a Kerr metricat its centre, which, in this fictional universe, creates a portal to
other universes; the rotating Ring is somewhat similar to a tipler cylinder.
Whenever humans have met up with the Xeelee and pursued war, this was
merely an annoyance since the Xeelee were thinking on a larger scale
about more potent enemies. The crew of The Northern and Lieserl discover the folly of their species.

A Xeelee nightfighter is discovered in Callisto and it is rigged to piggyback The Northern
to the Great Attractor. Fifty days later they discover that the
Xeelee’s project has been destroyed but a recently awakened virtual of
Michael Poole shows Spinner-of-Rope, a primitive, how to pilot around
the fragmented cosmic strings and travel into the past using a closed time-like path; this method of time travel was first suggesed by J. Richard gott.

These last humans return to the Ring, in an era in which it was not
destroyed; the Xeelee allow them through, and they briefly attempt to
pick universes (rejecting the high-gravity universe depicted in Raft) and find sanctuary in another younger universe, after passing through the Ring, and get to work on starting a new world.

Michael Poole remains in our universe and witnesses the deaths of the last stars, and the decay of the last protons-
the final victory of the dark matter lifeforms over the baryonic Xeelee
and lesser races. Eventually, his consciousness disperses, and history
ends.

Bibliography - Andrea Camilleri

Inspector Montalbano

The Shape of Water 2002
The Terra-Cotta Dog 2002
The Snack Thief 2003
Voice of the Violin 2003
The Excursion To Tindari 2005
The Smell of the Night 2005 aka The Scent of the Night
Rounding the Mark 2006
The Patience of the Spider 2007

Bibliography - Iain Rankin

John Rebus Series:
Knots and Crosses (1987)
Hide and Seek (1991)
Tooth and Nail (1992)
Strip Jack (1992)
The Black Book (1993)
Mortal Causes (1994)
Let It Bleed (1996)
Black and Blue (1997)
The Hanging Garden (1998)
Dead Souls (1999)
Set in Darkness (2000)
The Falls (2001)
Resurrection Men (2003)
A Question of Blood (2004)
Fleshmarket Alley (2005)
Blood Hunt (2006)

Other Books:
The Flood (1986)
Watchman (1991)
A Good Hanging and Other Stories (1992)
Westwind (1998)
Death is Not the End (2000)
Bleeding Hearts (2006)

Writing as Jack Harvey:
Witch Hunt (1993)
Bleeding Hearts (1994)
Blood Hunt (1995)