Tiamat’s Wrath by James S.A. Corey

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I believe there’s only one book left in the series and it’s pretty apparent the way everything was coming together in this book. It also strongly rewarded readers who’d read the novellas. Having done so provided advanced knowledge of who Timothy was and also a better understanding and empathy with Cara and Xan. They weren’t necessary for getting this book, but they sure made it a lot more fun to read.

Summer Knight by Jim Butcher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Things continue to evolve in Dresden’s Chicago. By this point it’s become obvious to me that the main series (as opposed to short stories) requires the reader to read them all in order rather than just jumping in to any particular case. Like a season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, each story builds upon the previous one. This one contains characters from Fool Moon playing a huge part, a deal that Dresden made in Grave Peril forcing a big part of the plot, and both women in his life only have resonance if you’ve been reading since the first book.
As far as the case, I think it proceeds on a good pace. While, as usual, I couldn’t solve it ahead of time, all the clues are there for you to trace back and see that Jim Butcher isn’t cheating. This one involves The Fae and so it’s a good thing that over the past 3 years of fantasy humble bundle books, I’ve been learning about faerie rules. They do a decent job explaining stuff, but knowing that there are Summer and Winter Sidhe Courts ahead of time allowed me to just focus on the story.
As I was recommending this book to a fellow SF fan, I realized that this book (and the series so far up to this book) is VERY male-gaze-y. It doesn’t bother me, but knowing about that (and this book was - SURPRISINGLY - written almost TWENTY years ago), does make me think twice before recommending it if the person might take that the wrong way.
Anyway, I’m definitely enjoying the series and it’s on to book 5 whenever that shows up in my To-Read list.

• bistec de palomilla
• bistec empanizado
• potaje de frijoles negros
• lechon asado

May was Cuban food month. I’d received a new cookbook of recipes from the Miami diaspora and back in Cuba. So I tried my hand at a few new recipes. Technically, I’d done the breaded steak (usually called Chicken Fried Steak in the USA) and pork shoulder Cuban style before, but this was the first time doing it with these recipes. I was very happy with all the results, although I learned a few things along the way for the next time I make these dishes.

Stronger Than a Bronze Dragon by Mary Fan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the second book I added to my to-read list after meeting Ms. Fan at Farpoint 2019. Even though both Starswept and this one are rated 4 stars, that’s more a consequence of only have 5 stars to choose from, because I enjoyed this book more than Starswept. STaBD had two things going for it steampunk and immediate action. Taking the last one first, as I noted in my Starswept review, the early, slow chapters are key in providing a base from which to deviate in later chapters. But there’s just something so exciting about a book opening up with a bunch of warrior women fighting demons that makes you want to keep going. (By the way, I’ll admit to my unconscious bias - until specifically called out, I’d assuming our main character was a man)
So … Steampunk. I’m not the type of person who cosplays Steampunk or anything, but as a genre it always starts things at a higher level when I find myself in a Steampunk world. Ms. Fan, however, has given me something new and fun here. Most Steampunk takes place in England, The Commonwealth, and occasionally, on The Continent. But this story takes place in Victorian China. And it has demons and ghosts and stuff and my ignorance over Chinese mythology leaves me unsure how much is made up by Ms. Fan and how much is known mythology.
The story turns out to be part mystery, part unwanted arranged marriage, part Mulan, and part romance. And it works! Sure, Anlie is a bit of a Tsundere character and that can get a little tiresome, but she does eventually learn some character growth. If you like Steampunk, but are tired of the same old stuff, check this out and you may find yourself pleasantly surprised.

Because of my age relative to the era of computer, for a good portion of my life computers were Serious Things used for work and school. They also belonged to the family and there’s no way we could have gotten away with putting stickers on them without getting in trouble. So back in 2006 when I went to Blackhat and Defcon, for the first time I saw people’s laptops covered in stickers. The EEE PC (new at the time) had a meetup session where I saw others who’d painted their machines various colors. I’d ended up with a bunch of stickers after Blackhat and Defcon, so I decorated my first-ever laptop, an Acer.

Soleil by Jacqueline Garlick

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

It is a real bummer for me to give this book 1 star. I really enjoyed the first book in the trilogy. The second book was fun. But this book… kind of just felt like perhaps this series should have been a duology instead of a trilogy. While the first third or so was a good bit of fan service, it could have maybe just been a post-script novella? The rest of the book was just full of the introduction of all sorts of new rules and technology to the way the world worked that I didn’t think made sense in the third book of a trilogy. On top of that, the last chunk - from when our main characters end up in a canyon until the end just didn’t make any god forsaken sense. (view spoiler)[Who rebuilt the dead people? I kept thinking it was all going to end up being a dream or parallel universe or something (hide spoiler)]
This book might be great for you. And that’s OK. I don’t want to “yuck” anyone’s “yum”. But it did not work for me. This is why there was such a gap between updates towards the end. This is why I read more than one book at once. So if one isn’t motivating me, I’ve got others to still be excited about. Anyway, a real bummer because I believe Ms. Garlick had a blast creating this series and really seems to love the characters. I enjoyed interacting with her on twitter while reading the first book and going through all the fun twists and turns there. Anyway, I’m rambling…

Sam (4 years old): Can I have a coloring page for a nocturnal creature?

Danielle: Can you give me an example of a nocturnal creature?

Sam: Vampires!

Serious Python: Black-Belt Advice on Deployment, Scalability, Testing, and More by Julien Danjou

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is an AWESOME book that has completely transformed the way I code in Python. That might sound like the opening to a parody review, but I’m being sincere. One of the best things about Python is that it has a low barrier to entry and it’s easy to get started programming. One of the worst things about Python is that it has a low barrier to entry and it’s easy to get started programming. I’ve been going through the past 15ish years with just a surface-level understanding of my favorite programming language.
On my biggest, most used (by others) Python program, I’ve gone from code to looks like this ( https://github.com/djotaku/ELDonation…) to a package that’s published on PyPi ( https://pypi.org/project/eldonationtr…) and auto-generated documentation( https://eldonationtracker.readthedocs…), pulling from my Python docstrings ( https://eldonationtracker.readthedocs…) with even more ways I’m going to fix/optimize my code and make it more Pythonic. I think this is the best book I’ve read on Python programming since the Mark Pilgrim book that got me into Python that decade and a half ago.

Over the Wine-Dark Sea by H.N. Turteltaub

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the second time I’ve read this book, the first time being nearly 20 years ago when it first came out. A few key bits had stuck with me, like Menedemos’ womanizing and a battle at sea. But after 20 years, most of the details had faded, so it was almost like reading it anew.
As a history geek, I found it a lot of fun to read historical fiction that isn’t set in one of the traditional time periods like Victorian England or Napolean’s Reign. The two characters also make great foils for each other, impulsive Menedemos and his philosopher/wannabe-historian cousin Sostratos. While it’s obviously a work of fiction, it was neat to see what things are the same about humans no matter how far back you go (haggling, superstitions, balancing desire with prudence) while other things are so different (how they viewed meals, technology, gender relations).
Perhaps obviously, since the main characters are sea traders and the majority of the book takes place during the trading season, it’s structured almost as a series of episodes, each taking place in a new city. There isn’t a truly overarching plot and it’s both metaphorically and literally about the journey, not the destination(s). The biggest narrative momentum comes from Sostratos’ character growth, but even that is relatively minimal.
Overall, I think it’s a pretty fun read, particularly if you’re interested in ancient Greece.

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 134 by Neil Clarke

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I wasn’t quite into this one as much as some other recent issues. Here are my reviews per story:

Prasetyo Plastics - Less of a traditional story and more of a meditation on unbridled capitalism that does not descend into a libertarian dystopia. Rather, it’s another that asks if we truly realize what we’re doing to this planet on a scale that we believe has never been attempted before.