Second paragraph of third chapter:‘Certainly,’ replied the man who was calling himself Mr Fisher. He unbuttoned his jacket, shifted forward in his seat and gave the psychic his undivided attention.
I am familiar with Adams’ Whoniverse writing (includes a particularly good Torchwood novel), but this is a different series, the middle book of a loosely ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:“I was. . .” Delroy started to excuse himself.
A really accomplished technothriller, set in a slightly divergent timeline where the Caribbean states have got their act together to be an effective counterpart to the larger countries who want to play in their sand. Our protagonist, allied with a mysterious but ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:I was always a solitary child. Back then, those white deserts at the top of the globe fired my sense of adventure. I read Willard Price, Jack London, Alistair MacLean. Other boys could reel off every player who ever scored for Liverpool; I could tell you about Peary and Cook, Nansen and Amundsen. I grew up, a lot ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third story ("When This Peace Thing Blows Over", by John Skylar):For a black hole, there's a spot, the event horizon, where you can't escape even if you're a beam of light. Past that, the hole is totally black. Hence the name. But around that border, gravity focuses light from the other side of the hole. It creates a bright, ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:It's too soon, sire. You do not have enough influence over his will. There is no telling what may happen. The melding is still in its early stages.
I've previously read Kearney's first two novels, The Way to Babylon and A Different Kingdom, both of which involve liminal adventures of a chap in our world who finds ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter (a long one):Smells came over the still waters of the harbour, unidentifiable, disturbing in a way that she was not sure if she liked or disliked. And distant cries, in a language she did not know. A large catamaran, with twin red sails, was cutting across the bows of a motor-launch which was chugging out on one ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third story ("Old Faithful", by Raymond Z. Gallun):The two messengers who had come to his workshop that afternoon had not seen into his heart, and he received their message with the absolute outward calm that was characteristic of his kind - at the end of forty days Number 774 must die. He had lived the allotted span fixed by ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third story ("Ashen Light" by Archie Black):Hartmann was founded in 2448, one of a hundred roughly nucleated villages developed on the IT by the Venusian terraformers. Farms, it had been decided, would most closely mimic the comfortable terrestrial existences that the colonists would be forsaking and create the powerful sense of ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter:The French commander, I see, enjoys his comforts. In the corner of the tent there's a bed with a crowning hill of silk pillows, and just by it on a French mahogany desk there sits a bottle of Champagne: a Veuve Clicquot, 1855, a very good year. I spot a six foot candelabra cactus in a pot and on the wall, next to a ( Read more... )

For once, I'm not citing the second paragraph of the third chapter, because I did not get that far. It turns out to be the second book in a series where I have not read the first, and the action is so tightly connected to the previous volume that I could not make head nor tail of it, and gave up after only 16 pages. For what it's worth, the ( Read more... )