What are you reading in 2024?

[Ralif Redhammer]

I gotta say that "cozy cyberpunk" isn't a genre I would have expected to exist, but if people want to read it, I'm sincerely glad it does exist.

As I get into it, some of the stories can still be quite dark, though the difference is that people react based on hope, not the usual nihilism or cynicism.

 

[prabe]

As I get into it, some of the stories can still be quite dark, though the difference is that people react based on hope, not the usual nihilism or cynicism.

I guess I'm just responding based on my feelings about "cozy" mysteries, which are often so low-stakes as to belie the fact they're almost always murder mysteries. Cyberpunk with more than a vague whiff of hope does seem like a plausible subversion of the subgenre, though.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I guess I'm just responding based on my feelings about "cozy" mysteries, which are often so low-stakes as to belie the fact they're almost always murder mysteries.

It worked for Murder, She Wrote for 12 seasons, to name just one example. Small surprise modern mystery sections are jammed with the sub-genre.

There were 264 episodes of that show according to wiki. That's twice as many murders than there were people in my entire graduating class back in high school. "Cozy" mysteries. You bet.

 

[prabe]

It worked for Murder, She Wrote for 12 seasons, to name just one example. Small surprise modern mystery sections are jammed with the sub-genre.

There were 264 episodes of that show according to wiki. That's twice as many murders than there were people in my entire graduating class back in high school. "Cozy" mysteries. You bet.

The big secret of the show was that Jessica Fletcher killed at least most of the victims, and framed a series of patsies.

 

[trappedslider]

The big secret of the show was that Jessica Fletcher killed at least most of the victims, and framed a series of patsies.

It would explain why the cove had a higher murder rate than NYC
__

Started Twin Crowns by Catherine Doyle

Wren Greenrock has always known that one day she'd steal her sister's place on the throne. Trained from birth to return to the palace and avenge her parents' murder, she'll do anything to become queen and protect the community of witches who raised her. Or she would, if only a certain guard wasn't quite so distractingly attractive, and if her reckless magic would stop causing trouble. . . .

Princess Rose Valhart knows that with power comes responsibility--and she won't let a small matter like waking up in the desert with an extremely impertinent (and very handsome) kidnapper get in the way of her duty. But life outside the palace is wilder and more beautiful than she ever imagined, and the witches she has long feared might turn out to be the family she never had.

But as coronation day looms and each sister strives to claim her birthright, an old enemy becomes increasingly determined that neither will succeed. Who will ultimately rise to power and wear the crown?

 

[Autumnal]

The big secret of the show was that Jessica Fletcher killed at least most of the victims, and framed a series of patsies.

Joe Michael Straczynski, lead writer and story editor for a bunch of the seasons, strongly endorses this theory whenever he’s relaxed and feeling goofy.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

The big secret of the show was that Jessica Fletcher killed at least most of the victims, and framed a series of patsies.

Joe Michael Straczynski, lead writer and story editor for a bunch of the seasons, strongly endorses this theory whenever he’s relaxed and feeling goofy.

You have to admit, a Brindlewood Bay variant where the crime-solving seniors are actually a secret murder-cult whose "solutions" are designed solely to keep the heat off of themselves would be an interesting twist.

 

[Nellisir]

There were 264 episodes of that show according to wiki. That's twice as many murders than there were people in my entire graduating class back in high school. "Cozy" mysteries. You bet.

slightly over 5 times more than my graduating HS class (we had a neat 50)

 

[Richards]

I was on a business trip this past week, which left me plenty of time for reading at airports, on the plane, and in my hotel room. As a result, I started and finished the following:

• The Cabinet of Dr. Leng, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child - the 21st book in the "Agent Pendergast" series that began with The Relic. I enjoyed this one much better than its predecessor, Bloodless, which I had felt was a betrayal to the overall tone of the series; much like "The X-Files" should always have Agent Mulder personally see for himself the evidence of whatever alien/paranormal/supernatural event he's looking into but the evidence should not become apparent to the world at large, Bloodless betrayed the previous tone of the series by having the weird thing Pendergast was investigating (which in and of itself was so out there it felt out of place in the series) out there for the public to see. This latest book, which also has a plot point that's way beyond the normal scope of the series (which I've always felt had previously constrained itself to "the more believable end of the X-Files spectrum"), was at least well-written, engaging, and had three different plots that merged seamlessly into one. The worst part about it: the cliff-hanger ending. The silver lining: it says "To Be Concluded" at the end, so it looks like the next book in the series is to be the last. I think it may be about time to put the Pendergast series to rest.
• The Kaiju Preservation Society, by Robert John Scalzi. [Edit: I'm not sure where I got "Robert: from - thanks, Autumnal!] I bought this one at a Barnes and Noble during the trip, as the second book I bought (on-line) didn't arrive in time, and I had heard good things about it. Having never read Scalzi before, I don't know how it rates with his other novels, but this was a light-hearted read about how nuclear explosions can cause the barriers between alternate worlds to fade, and the "next alternate world over" from ours is an Earth where the dinosaur-killing meteor never hit, allowing dinosaurs to evolve into kaiju: Godzilla-sized creatures who have their own biological nuclear reactors within their bodies and rely upon "parasites" (some of them are actually beneficial to the kaiju) to regulate their body temperatures and so on. The main character is a last-minute addition to a field team, so we get to learn everything through his eyes as he experiences them, and he's a good sort. The worst part about this book was I blew through it in a couple of hours (at the airport, start to finish, before I even got on the plane - bummer!)

As a result, with only one book left in my "travel stock," I had to decide whether to start the 500-page book I had with me or spend several hours on a plane reading nothing, so I could start the book waiting for me at home that should have arrived in the mail on the day I left. I went ahead and started You Don't Want to Know, by Lisa Jackson. This one's about a woman who spent a few years in and out of mental institutions after the disappearance (and probable death) of her little two-year-old son, and now she keeps seeing him, two years later, still at the same age he was at when he disappeared. So someone's trying to drive her over the brink or something, which is suspiciously like the plot of another Lisa Jackson thriller I read just in the last few months (only that time it was a cop's dead wife who kept showing up). But now, having started it, I'll have to finish it before I can read the book I purchased for my trip - oh well. (It's a self-imposed rule, but a rule nonetheless.)

Johnathan

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

The Kaiju Preservation Society, by Robert Scalzi.

I haven't read that one, but I did force myself through some of his Old Man's War series (the first three, I think) and found they were absurdly quick reads as well. Not great fare for a long trip, they run out too quickly. His writing style's very digestible but not memorable - kind of like an inferior version Alan Dean Foster to me - and the ones I read were a bit too predictable with some really glaring Chekov's guns scattered around. Not an author I'm likely to revisit without a very strong rec.