2009 Books #5-8
5. Sky Coyote (Kage Baker)
This is book 2 of The Company series. It was good. I like the concept of the series, though I will admit this second story didn't quite blow me away. (In the Garden of Iden was really quite good.) I'm reading #3 now, so we'll see if that supports my feelings in one direction or the other. In short, the concept is that a group of mortals in 2300-something figure out time travel. They discover that they can't change recorded history, but they can change little things, and more importantly, they can collect data on people, flora, fauna, geography, stuff, etc etc in those times to be able to preserve them. They can't take things back with them, but they can set up highly sophisticated warehouse-museums where they can store seeds, plant clippings, objects both quotidian and purely artistic, and so on. Then those things are still there for them in the 24th century, well preserved with 24th century technology, to play with. Computer data, like DNA and chemical make-up data, and text on all sorts of different things, can be transmitted to the future. They sometimes reintroduce things, particularly plants and animals, in later centuries, as they see fit. The problem is that it's ruinously expensive to send people into the past. Now it happens that they have also figured out immortality, but it only works if you start modifying people as children, turning them into cyborgs through a number of surgeries and other procedures. So what they do is, they send people way into earliest human history to "recruit" kids, often orphans of war and disease, and turn them into immortal agents who can work through the ages on the future mortals' orders. These immortals in turn recruit more agents now and then, as they find likely candidates. In this story, an entire village is being "collected" before the tribe of Indians that live there are completely wiped out a few decades later by another tribe. It's pretty fun.
#6-7 The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax and The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax (Dorothy Gilman)
I have started re-reading this beloved series about a woman in her retirement years who becomes a CIA agent and goes around the world on harmless courier missions that always end up becoming life and death adventures where she saves a bunch of people's lives and completes the mission more completely than anyone could have dreamed she would, often solving another whole problem along the way. I love these books.
#8 Things Cooks Love: Implements, Ingredients, and Recipes (Marie Simmons)
This is a pretty interesting book explaining a lot of kitchen tools and appliances in general, and then giving a number of chapters outlining regional cuisines and some of the tools specific to them. There are also entries on key ingredients in both parts. There are a couple of recipes accompanying each entry.
This is book 2 of The Company series. It was good. I like the concept of the series, though I will admit this second story didn't quite blow me away. (In the Garden of Iden was really quite good.) I'm reading #3 now, so we'll see if that supports my feelings in one direction or the other. In short, the concept is that a group of mortals in 2300-something figure out time travel. They discover that they can't change recorded history, but they can change little things, and more importantly, they can collect data on people, flora, fauna, geography, stuff, etc etc in those times to be able to preserve them. They can't take things back with them, but they can set up highly sophisticated warehouse-museums where they can store seeds, plant clippings, objects both quotidian and purely artistic, and so on. Then those things are still there for them in the 24th century, well preserved with 24th century technology, to play with. Computer data, like DNA and chemical make-up data, and text on all sorts of different things, can be transmitted to the future. They sometimes reintroduce things, particularly plants and animals, in later centuries, as they see fit. The problem is that it's ruinously expensive to send people into the past. Now it happens that they have also figured out immortality, but it only works if you start modifying people as children, turning them into cyborgs through a number of surgeries and other procedures. So what they do is, they send people way into earliest human history to "recruit" kids, often orphans of war and disease, and turn them into immortal agents who can work through the ages on the future mortals' orders. These immortals in turn recruit more agents now and then, as they find likely candidates. In this story, an entire village is being "collected" before the tribe of Indians that live there are completely wiped out a few decades later by another tribe. It's pretty fun.
#6-7 The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax and The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax (Dorothy Gilman)
I have started re-reading this beloved series about a woman in her retirement years who becomes a CIA agent and goes around the world on harmless courier missions that always end up becoming life and death adventures where she saves a bunch of people's lives and completes the mission more completely than anyone could have dreamed she would, often solving another whole problem along the way. I love these books.
#8 Things Cooks Love: Implements, Ingredients, and Recipes (Marie Simmons)
This is a pretty interesting book explaining a lot of kitchen tools and appliances in general, and then giving a number of chapters outlining regional cuisines and some of the tools specific to them. There are also entries on key ingredients in both parts. There are a couple of recipes accompanying each entry.