(1969) A transporter experiment results in duplicating Mr. Spock. One of the Spocks is eeeeevill ... but which one? Meanwhile, the Klingons have violated the Organian peace treaty and started a war on the Federation. It's not a great episode, but it is a curious visit to (what are now) the early days of the franchise, when much of the series' Bible hadn't been written yet and it shows. And for that it's fun.

(2023) Sam is an entomologist whose fieldwork job has just fallen through, so she moves in with her mother ... whose personality has inexplicably changed to become more like Sam's creepy, cruel, racist grandmother's. Things get weirder from there. The creepy bits are mixed with snarky humor and a generous helping of random facts about bugs and vultures. The result is a lot of fun. Also, yay vultures!

And here's my #BookSpinBingo card for June. Looks like a fun one.

Thanks @TheAromaofBooks !

My #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin reads for June are a couple of vintage reads: 1950's military-sf adventure and 1970's cozy mystery. I'm already about halfway through the first, and looking forward to the other.

Thanks @TheAromaofBooks !

And here's my #BookSpinBingo card for May. I did not do well keeping up with Perry Rhodans this month, but I did score one bingo at least!

Thanks @TheAromaofBooks !

At this point it's unlikely I'll finish another, so here is my #BookSpin #DoubleSpin #BookSpinBingo list for June.

Thanks for keeping this game going, @TheAromaofBooks !

(2005) What a terrific collection. I especially liked "Pop Art," whose premise feels like a high-concept bad idea but turns into something surprisingly affecting. And "Voluntary Committal" is just wow.

I liked most stories in this issue, but especially Suzanne Palmer's "Falling Off the Edge of the World," in which salvagers discover a derelict spaceship where two survivors have lived for decades; Ray Nayler's "The Empty," in which a robot-minder balances career and corporate profit against conscience; and the end of Kris Rusch's "Court Martial of the Renegat Renegades," a tight courtroom drama set in her Diving Universe.

#BookSpin read for May

(2023; French original, 2012)

A young French woman meets a Russian conscript on the trans-Siberian railway. Both are fleeing something: the woman is escaping an unfortunate relationship, and the soldier is desperate to desert. On an impulse, the girl lets him into her cabin. It's a short literary thriller with lovely prose and brisk pacing.

(2015) U.S. Marine and bioterror specialist Joe Rush is sent to the arctic where the crew of a nuclear submarine have fallen ill with an unidentified sickness. But the Marines aren't the only ones interested: someone has been feeding information to the Chinese, who send a sub of their own. It's a pretty good technothriller, acknowledges the effects of warming on the arctic, and offers some difficult moral dilemmas.

(1789) Radcliffe's first novel is a short one, and focuses on a clan rivalry in the Scottish Highlands. There's little hint of the supernatural here, but there are settings in old castles with secret passageways, and a sensational plot involving treachery, revenge, and a lost heir. It's a lot of a much of plenty, but fun in its way. I ear-read the Librivox version, which is read very well by Lauren Randall.

(2022) It's a set of interconnected stories focusing on cultural conflicts in colonial Rwanda, and evolving stories about Jesus, Mary, and Kibogo -- a folk hero who went away and will someday return when his people need him. This is brilliant: tight prose, layered narrative, powerful themes, and sly humor, it's one of the best things I've read this year.

I'm not sure exactly what I'll read for #20in4 but these are some likely candidates.

Goal will be 20 hours. With the long weekend I feel pretty optimistic.

(1986) This was the bestselling novel in the US for 1986. I know this is a favorite for many readers, and I get it -- I love the blend of personal and cosmic horror, and SK knows how to stage it effectively. But I find his sprawling prose style exasperating, the wink-nudge racism hasn't aged well, and there's a scene near the end that left me needing a brain bleach, not to mention holding an #unpopularopinion.

(1721) Count de Vinevil is a French nobleman who moves to Constantinople with his daughter and foster son to avoid onerous taxes. But in Turkey his daughter catches the eye of a lustful and powerful "Mahometan" who plans to abduct the girl and kill her family. It's a strange, xenophobic story with an implausible plot, unpleasant characters and a moralizing narrator. It's difficult to enjoy, even when granting license for its time.

(1722) Another knocked off my "oughta get around to it someday" list, and I get its lasting appeal: Moll is as charming and unreliable a narrator as any you'll find. There's stuff here about economic conditions for women in the Restoration, and something about colonization, but mostly it's about trickster Moll surviving by her wits (though she's reformed now, honest!) Of its time but still very readable.

(2021) Alternate universes and clones and sentient furniture and anticorporate satire. What's not to love?

(2016) That was fun!

(1888) Author Kingsford was one of the first formally-trained women physicians, also a committed anti-vivisectionist, vegetarian, and theosophist. This collection of her dreams and stories inspired by her dreams contains some arresting imagery, but also suffers from stock characters and over-earnest prose.

(2021) It's a YA thriller about two Black kids at an otherwise all-white academy who become targets of an anonymous harassment campaign. I liked the premise, and most of the development, but the climax was too rushed and deus-ex-machinaey for me. But I'm not the target audience and others have loved it so ymmv.

It's been a target of book bans: with its diverse characters and social justice themes, it's not hard to see why. Read #BannedBooks !

(1722) Belinda, a "young Lady of considerable Fortune," stops at a boarding house while visiting London. She learns of another boarder who always takes meals in her room and is known only as "the Recluse." Belinda arranges to meet, and they trade stories of being deceived in love. The plot is less frenetic than Haywood's earlier "Love in Excess", but the lurve is just as thick. Best is its resolution, which grants the women agency and friendship

(2018) This is the memoir of centenarian sprinter Ida Keeling, who took up running in her sixties and set records into her 100's. Somewhat to my disappointment, only about 20 of 200 pages are about running. Instead it focuses on her struggles as a black single mother in early-20th century Harlem. For what it is, it is an interesting and valuable document; and kudos to Ida for the life she lived. I just wanted more running.

(1719) Defoe's sequel to "Robinson Crusoe" sees an aging Crusoe longing for his adventurous youth. He buys a merchant ship and arranges to have it stop for a few days at his former island home where he checks in on the Spanish castaways and English mutineers whose hands he left it in. He then travels further around the world through more adventures. It's interesting, but difficult to sympathize with RC's 18th century preoccupations and prejudices.

(1890) Eccentric scientist Henry Barnett discovers how to manipulate "forces" to negate Earth's gravity. His explorer friend MacGregor organizes an expedition to Mars, where they meet an ancient race living in utopian anarchism. The Vernish adventure parts are not bad, but the utopian travel narrative is muddled and silly; most interesting is how the plot anticipates better-known stories like The First Men in the Moon and The Cold Equations.

(2023) I first encountered Buckell through "Galactic Tourist Industrial Complex", his story for the New Suns anthology where Manhattan is an intergalactic tourist trap. That one is here with fourteen other hard-sf stories, including a couple of responses to Tom Godwin's "Cold Equations"; and several set in a world where Earth is colonized by hypercapitalist aliens. All are good and I want to read more Tobias Buckell

This is my #DoubleSpin for May

And here's my #BookSpinBingo card for May. Good luck everybody!

And thanks @TheAromaofBooks !

My #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin reads for May. Most months, my BookSpin and DoubleSpin reads offer a study in contrast. But this month I get a double dose of short-form science fiction deliciousness. I'm already well into the DoubleSpin read, and will probably finish today or tomorrow

Thanks @TheAromaofBooks !

(1965) "Secret Weapon Horror"

The CREST II finally breaks through to the surface of the tiered world Horror. Atlan counsels Getting the Hell Out of the system, but Perry and the Terrans cannot resist exploring the surface -- and promptly become targets of a weapon that shrinks them by a factor of one thousand. Millimeters tall, they are now trapped on the surface

(1721) While strolling on his seaside estate, a Welsh gentleman spies "a maid of exquisite beauty and shape" standing in a cave. He discovers that the girl and her mother are exiles from France, and he determines to restore their lives and marry the maid. There's a lot of travel (to France, to Sweden, to Wales), family issues, highway robbers and missing persons. It's busy, prone to moralizing, and a little bonkers, but never nothing happening

(1925) I was an English major, so I've read about and talked about and occasionally made references to Gatsby. But I never took a course that required it: it's always been a text I intended to get around to.

Turns out it's brilliant, and I should have read it long ago. I'll certainly read it again.

(1988) Fourth in Hart's "Death on Demand" series, featuring mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurence, notre Laurence-Darling because the "Honeymoon" of the title is Annie's. The honeymoon is interrupted by murder and the suspicious disappearance of a friend, whose name Annie must clear. The solution is convoluted, but the story delivers eccentric characters and literary references, which is the series's appeal.

This was my #BookSpin read for April

Here's my #BookSpin #DoubleSpin #BookSpinBingo card for May

@TheAromaofBooks

April had some disappointments, but I scored one bingo ... And have lots of things to move to the May card

(2019) Third and last in Chupeco's "Bone Witch" series. It does its job fine, build in what has gone before and delivers satisfying closure. But I've rated previous entries as "So-So", and same goes here because of a collection of mostly minor complaints about style and structure. Others have loved the series so ymmv.

This was my #DoubleSpin read for April.

(2021) It's a gay YA romance about a high schooler who's into crafting and especially cosplay. He enters a local cosplay competition but finds himself pitted against his ex-boyfriend, for whom his fire still smolders. I liked parts and eye-rolled parts, but I'm bumping "So-So" to "Pick" because it's on Matt Krause's list of books to be banned from TX school libraries. Pissing off the haters always gets extra points from me

Read #BannedBooks !

(1975) I loved the prose and the word games, but the story made no sense to me. Throw in some tropes that haven't aged well, and it's a book with some pleasures but mostly disappointment.

The Boston Convention Center has good security, but it doesn't have missile launchers, which means it would have a pretty tough time defending itself against Evie Odom.

My mother.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

(2018) Here's two novellas and a couple of short stories set in an alternate 19th century America where hippos inhabit the Mississippi. They're basically western capers with hippopotamuses and an inclusive cast. They're light and a lot of fun.

(2023) Devin Stacey is a "Contingency Communications Specialist" for the National Transportation Safety Board -- which is a way to say without sounding crazy that he talks to dead people for air crash investigations. What's even more far-out are the faceless pilot haunting him and the inexplicable crashes he has been investigating. It's a fun story with an engaging voice that leaves plenty of room for follow-ups, which I would read

(1976) Fifteenth in Tubb's space opera series featuring Earl Dumarest, orphan of Earth trying to find his way home. In this one, Dumarest gets caught up in a heist gone wrong, trapped on a plague ship, then drafted into serving as champion to a disgraced aristocrat. The action is fun as usual, though the plot is less coherent and the tone more misogynistic than is the case for better entries.

My #BookSpinBingo card for April. Nice to have the #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin reads in the same column this month. Good luck everybody!

And thanks @TheAromaofBooks !

My #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin reads for April: the final book in Rin Chupeco's YA fantasy trilogy, "The Bone Witch"; and the next entry in Carolyn Hart's cozy mystery series, "Death on Demand"

Looking forward to both. Thanks @TheAromaofBooks !

My #BookSpin #DoubleSpin #BookSpinBingo card for April.

Thanks again @TheAromaofBooks !

(1982) Sequel to Clan of the Cave Bear, which I liked in high school and liked again on rereading. Alas, this one was a miss for me, and not even because of the porny sex scenes, which are several but still fewer than I'd anticipated. What bothered me more was (what feel to me) modern sensibilities and obsessions that make it read less like prehistorical fiction than Flintstones cosplay. Others have loved it and I get that perspective too, so ymmv

(2010, French original 1892) Jules Verne's "Château des Carpathes" is the opposite of what you expect from Verne: with an apparently haunted castle and supernatural events, though the cover's promise of "The original zombie story" is a lie. There is some effective atmosphere and fun adventure, but it's unfortunately spoiled by a tired love story, a few too many improbabilities, and a random dash of antisemitism.

(1720) Count D'elmont has just returned to Paris from the Nine Years' War, and reader he is a fine piece of manflesh. Every woman who sees him must have him. Complications ensue. The plot is dense and involves love, deception, infidelity, love, mistaken identity, disguise, love, scandal, kidnapping, love, revenge, honor, true love, and swooning. OMG you would not believe the swooning.

It is awful.

Also, I sort of dug it.

(1965) "On the Trail of the CREST"
The last several episodes have followed Perry Rhodan and the crew of the CREST II, dealing with traps and perils somewhere in the void between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. Meanwhile back home, the crew of the ANDROTEST, an experimental craft in a program to develop intergalactic transport, are charged with tracking the CREST II. It's fine, but feels like an interlude.

(2021) Set in a near-future Alberta devastated by climate change and plagued by an epidemic of an untreatable fungal parasite. The narrator is a young woman offered a chance to rise above the dead-end scrabble for existence, but she must also think about those she may leave behind, and so takes a dangerous risk to balance the scales. It's bleak but packs a character-driven punch. I want a sequel.

This was my #BookSpin read for March.

(2020, Korean original 2013)

It starts out as a business novel set in the tourism industry, then at about halfway it takes a sharp turn into Kafkaland. The plot twist is both bizarre and scary plausible. I'd read more.

(2015) In the 19th century, Newton's laws were applied to astrophysics, but failed to explain the orbit of Mercury ... unless there were an undiscovered planet even closer to the sun. A generation of astronomers searched for (and sometimes sighted) a planet which it turns out doesn't exist. Levenson describes their efforts, with lessons about how science proceeds when observations don't match theory. Interesting, brief, and accessible (math-free!)