Chemistry

[nineveh_uk]

Scanning the bookshelves in search of something fairly short and fun, I picked up Agent of Change by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. Ah! I thought, space opera. Perfect for a couple of days before I go on holiday. I put it in my bag, and opened it on the bus. A paragraph in, and I knew it was going to be a very long bus journey. I kept going for the half-hour, but no good. It was perfectly well-written, but we didn’t gel. (On the plus side, this means that ankaret won’t have to wait years to get it back.)

On getting home, I therefore hunted for something else and came across Janet Neel’s Death among the Dons, recently picked up in a second-hand shop on the advice of antisoppist (at least I think so, that could be wishful thinking and a bid for theft). I wasn’t sure I wanted to read a detective novel, so I had a quick look at the first couple of chapters. I was hooked within a paragraph. Reader, we were made for one another.

On another note entirely...

Oxfordshire speed cameras switched off: Oxfordshire motorists speed. My colleague who drives into Oxford says it’s a nightmare – a big increase not only in speed, but in drivers aggressively tail-gating to bully people observing the speed limit into going faster.

Comments

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

I would not have started you on Agent of Change, myself. I think either Conflict of Honors or Scout's Progress would be a better bet for you--less space opera, more Jane-Austen-in-space.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I don't mind the space bit, but it was a bit grimy spaceport. If the others are different, I might have a look at some point.

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed Agent of Change well enough (and is that Lyta Alexander a.k.a. Pat Tallman on the front cover?) to buy several more in the series, but it quickly deteriorated into telepath fantasy, a genre I deplore.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

is that Lyta Alexander a.k.a. Pat Tallman on the front

Oh that's who it is! I knew she reminded me of someone.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Are you sure that's not antisoppist's Agent Of Change? I think someone else has got mine.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It was via antisoppist - I thought it actually belonged to you, but it sounds like I'm wrong.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Nope, definitely not mine - I thought I'd lent mine to lurkingcat, but actually it's on my shelf, so I think the one you have must be antisoppist's unless she's got some other Liaden pusher out there. I'm fairly certain I only have one - it's not like Plan B which I inexplicably have two of, and can't give one to someone to try to get them into reading Liaden books, because it's pretty much the definition of a book where you would not want to start there.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

antisoppist has come forward and claimed it (I blame her - I was sure she said it was yours).

Double-copy can be annoying (though I do own a couple of Gaudy Nights, one to read, one to keep pristine with the set). I need to search my shelves tonight to check before I buy kingdom of the Ice Bear that I definitely don't have it.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Double-copy can be annoying

You wouldn't want to see our array of Silmarillions, then ...

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

It is my Agent of Change (on Ankaret's recommendation). It took me a while to get past all the shooting but I liked it lots further on. However, I haven't worked out which one to read next for fear I will encounter telepathic cats.

More importantly Death among the Dons is also mine and you can't keep it because I would miss it greatly. But I'm glad you like it as I love Janet Neel and all her administrative detail but wasn't sure whether that one was too heavy on childcare problems (or maybe you haven't got as far as the wondrously competent Francesca's post-natal misery yet).

Honestly, you go away for a few days, check in with great typing effort on your phone, and people are stealing your library... :-)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Blast! It was one in a pile with the ones from the second hand shop and I was hoping it was one. But there appear to be plenty of copies available second-hand. I like books about heroic university administrators. Francesca has just explained about the baby who never sleeps, something with which as a person who sleeps well, but under narrowly defined circumstances that do not include being woken nightly by babies, I sympathise deeply. (The blithe advice "sleep when the baby does" makes me want to hit things on behalf of new mothers everywhere. How???)

heroic university administrators

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

I think it was a tale of your heroic university administrating that made me throw it at you in the first place. In the earlier books Francesca works for the DTI though, and there is more McLeish than Francesca in some of them. I love DATD for Francesca being knocked completely off balance by the demands of her baby and the recognition that work was essential for her sanity. And Dame Sarah.

Sleep when the baby sleeps is useless if your child only sleeps when walked miles across town in a pram - I used to sit on benches and read until she woke up again - or if it is the only time you have 2 free arms to have a shower. And if it's a second or third child, no way.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

The speed camera thing is one of those situations that makes me wonder if I am just an Alien From Another Planet. Because I basically think laws are there to be kept. The speed limits have not actually changed and it is still illegal to break them, it's just that you are much less likely to be caught.

I wonder if there is a Myers-Briggs style indicator which divides people into natural law-keepers and natural rule-breakers. Or maybe that would just be me and everyone else.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

The people I hate are the people who say "but I am a good driver, I can judge the safe speed for the road".

I keep to the speed limits mostly because they are there for safety's sake - they have been judged by the professionals. But on the M621 coming into Leeds - which maybe be grim at rush hour, but when I drive it is wide and empty and lovely - I grit my teeth and drive at 50mph because that is the speed limit. I know that it would be safe for me to go at 70mph, and some people do. But I don't, because if I want to be the judge of safe road conditions (and I don't, because I don't know what's round that bend), then I have to allow other people to be so too, and the evidence shows that "other people" on the whole are not accurate judges of safe speed, but quite the opposite.

(Though apparently most people actually support speed cameras, even if irritated by them - they're just one of those things when a few people pushing it can be really significant. I know that cameras make my driving worse, because I am am already going at 30mph, so get paranoid I need to go at 29 1/2. But that's a fault in my driving, and probably a safer one that someone racing through at 50.)

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. There are times and places when I can quite see the temptation to speed could be justified it on the grounds of safety. But the point is that I don't make the rules and if I think the rules are wrong, there are ways to address that, rather than just breaking them.

[coughingbear]

I'm a great fan of Janet Neel, and strongly recommend all the Francesca books (though the very last one had run out of steam a bit, I think). She is excellent on work, which is very unusual.