Station Eternity: Mur Lafferty This book has been on my TBR stack for a while; I borrowed it from my son soon after he bought at the Planned Parenthood book sale two years ago. I wanted to read this book because I was looking for science fiction books set on a space station. This fits the bill for sure, but it is also a first contact story and a mystery. There are even some elements of spy fiction, since the US military sends a spy to the station with several missions. At the beginning of the book, the setting is the space station, Station Eternity. The station is sentient, and has control over who can board the space station. Most of the beings on board the space station are aliens. There are many different alien species on the station; one of them is the Gneiss, who are very large and look like rocks. Another species is very small. They resemble the wasps on earth and are called the Sundry. Some of the Sundry are blue, some are silver, and they have their differences. Initially, only three humans have been allowed on the station: The ambassador from earth, who achieved his position due to his facility with languages, and doesn't have a clue about diplomacy; Mallory Veridian; and Xan Morgan ("Xan" is short for Alexander). Mallory and Xan are both in their early thirties, I am guessing, and they knew each other on earth before they were given sanctuary by Station Eternity. The book is divided into three sections. The first section introduces Mallory, Xan, and some of the aliens, plus details Mallory's experiences on the space station. At the end of Part One, a shuttle with visitors from earth has arrived and there has been a mishap when the shuttle attempts to dock with the Station Eternity. In Part Two, the point of view shifts away from Mallory to various aliens and the new arrivals from earth, and provides more background information for Xan. Several of the humans who were chosen to visit are connected to either Mallory or Xan in some way. Much of the story is revealed in flashbacks in this section, and that can be confusing. The third section pulls together several ongoing plots with both the aliens and the humans, and resolves the mystery plot. My Thoughts: I am glad I finally read Station Eternity; it was the perfect story for me and especially at this time. I needed a book with humor. It was longer, at 445 pages, but it was also fast-paced, which made it an easier read. The first contact story was unusual (at least it seemed so to me since I haven't read that much science fiction), and a good mystery too. The book I read prior to this book was The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam by Chris Ewan. The main character in that book was a thief who also writes mysteries about a thief. I was surprised to find that the main character in this book, Mallory, also writes mysteries. In this case she writes mysteries because no one will hire her for any job because everywhere she goes, murders occur. So she writes thinly veiled mystery fiction about her life. This is also a story about families and relationships. When the humans on the shuttle arrive, a lot of them have connections to either Xan or Mallory (or both). And there is a grandmother who has brought her granddaughter to the station because she thinks that the aliens can cure her granddaughter's injuries. There are some challenges in reading this book. There are a lot characters. Combine that with the changes in point of view characters and the frequent use of short flashbacks, and it can get confusing. Some of the scenes with the aliens were over my head. But none of that bothered me. I loved it from beginning to end. This is the first book in the Midsolar Murders Series, and I will be getting book 2 in the series. http://bitterteaandmystery.blogspot.com/2026/11/station-eternity-mur-lafferty.html #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Short Story Wednesday: "Summer Games" by L.C. Tyler In this story the narrator, John Smith, is invited to a country house weekend by an old coworker who he can hardly remember, although he knows that he did not like him very much. The ex-coworker, William Kilvington, inherited a castle from his uncle and quit his job. The invitation mentions that there may be a corpse or two, so John assumes it will be a murder mystery game. Out of curiosity, John decides to go. The party will begin on Midsummer's Eve and he is instructed to tell no one that he is coming. John arrives via taxi, due to a delay in transportation, although all the other guests arrived via prearranged transportation. The guests are a mixed bag. Among them is a coworker who worked with them in their previous job, the builder who has been working on the castle, and one of Kilvington's cousins, who is contesting the will. There are complications, of course, and soon there is a dead body. The story was humorous and the ending was very unexpected. I liked the story a lot. First two paragraphs: "It's like an enchanted castle out of the Arthurian Legends," I said. "From such a battlement might Morgan le Fay have watched in vain for Lancelot." The taxi driver nodded thoughtfully. "Shit road, though," he said. This story was published in Midsummer Mysteries: Short Stories, edited by Martin Edwards. I first read a couple of stories from this book in August of this year, and reviewed them here. L.C. Tyler, the author of this story, has written two crime series. The first series is the contemporary Ethelred and Elsie mysteries, which is a humorous series, and the second is the John Grey historical mysteries set in the seventeenth century, which I assume are more serious. You can check out Tyler's website here. This story is the first fiction I have read by Tyler, but my husband has several books in the Ethelred and Elsie mystery series and I plan to try that series myself. http://bitterteaandmystery.blogspot.com/2026/10/short-story-wednesday-summer-games-by.html #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Books Read in August 2026 I only read 5 books this month. Don't get me wrong. Five books in a month is fine. But I have a minimum of 15 books I want to read before the end of the year, and if I only read 5 a month I won't even finish those. Woe is me. However, with the exception of one book, I was very happy with my reading for the month. And the one book I did not enjoy was on my classics list and was a worthwhile read, so I cannot complain too much about that. Here are the five books I read in August: Nonfiction Count Them One by One: Black Mississippians Fighting for the Right to Vote (2010) by Gordon A. Martin, Jr. This book is an impressive account of one trial (United States vs. Theron Lynd) in Forrest County, Mississippi that affected the voting rights of blacks in Mississippi in 1962. The author, Gordon A. Martin, Jr. was a lawyer at the time and worked on the trial, traveling often between Washington, D.C. and various parts of Mississippi to find witnesses for the trial and to prepare them for trial. Twenty seven years after the Lynd trial, he traveled back to Mississippi to interview the witnesses in that trial, and discuss their experiences and the changes in Mississippi since that time. The book is very well written. See my review here. Fiction / Horror Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley I was going to say that almost everyone is familiar with the Frankenstein novel by Mary Shelley, but actually that is not true. Many people, including myself until I read this book for the first time at 77, are familiar with the Frankenstein story as told through various films, and there is a world of difference between the adaptations and the book itself. I do think this is a worthwhile book and many readers have enjoyed it and praised it. However, it wasn't a good fit for me. I expected to like the book, and it is not long, under 300 pages. But it took me forever to read and there were portions I had to read multiple times to get what was going on. The edition that I read has an introduction by Elizabeth Kostova, where she admits that she discovered (while reading it to prepare for writing the Introduction) that she had never read it before. I can understand how that could happen. ... with all the movie versions and the pervasiveness of the Frankenstein story in popular culture. The novel first came out in 1818, but the edition I read had the revisions made by Mary Shelley for the 1831 text. The editor of this edition, Maurice Hindle, notes the differences between the original edition and later editions. Crime Fiction Mortmain Hall (2020) by Martin Edwards This is the 2nd book in the Rachel Savernake mystery series. I enjoyed the book but it is the kind of mystery that you have to pay a lot of attention to, so it was slow going for me. The story is set in 1930. It starts out on London's Necropolis Railway, which was very interesting. I had not heard of that railway, but Glen had told me what he knew. It was a train operated especially to transport coffins and mourners from London to a cemetery in Surrey. The plot was complex and I was puzzled about what was going on the whole time, as I was in the first book in the Rachel Savernake series. Rachel is an unusual protagonist. In the end it all came together well. It is definitely in the style of a Golden Age mystery, with a list of the clues in the book (called a Cluefinder), added following the end of the book. The author noted that Cluefinders were used by some authors of that time, such as J.J. Connington, Elspeth Huxley, John Dickson Carr, and Edmund Crispin. The Cyclist (2020) by Tim Sullivan This is the second book in a series that features an autistic police detective. Detective Sergeant George Cross is quite capable in his job, in fact the cases he investigates have a very high conviction rate, which means that he (and his team) provide enough evidence to convict. However, he is difficult to work with because he is not very good at interacting with anyone. He doesn't know how to "play nice." This adds more interest to the story. In this book, George has a new team member, and both of them have to adjust to different ways of working together. The mystery plot was very good, and I learned a bit about competitive cycling. Plus the ending was very unexpected. The first book in the series was published in 2020 and the ninth book will be published in 2027. At this point, I plan to read them all. Death of a Dude (1969) by Rex Stout I bought this copy of Death of a Dude at last year's Planned Parenthood book sale. I had two copies in mass market paperback editions but I have been trying to find copies of the Nero Wolfe books in editions with more readable type. It is a very old book club edition but any hard cover edition of a Nero Wolfe book that isn't a book club edition is going to be too expensive. It had been a while since I reread this book so I did not remember much of the story. There are so many things I liked about this book: The setting is very different. Archie is staying at Lily Rowan's ranch in Montana (rustic setting), and Harvey Greve, the manager of the ranch, is charged with murder. Archie tells Wolfe that he won't be home until he can clear Harvey's name, but it seems like an impossible task. So of course Wolfe has to come solve the crime, because he needs Archie back at work. I always like it when Lily Rowan has a large role in the mystery novel. She and Archie have had a long term relationship throughout the series. This book was published in 1969, very close to the end of the series, and has a more modern feel than the earlier ones. About the photos: All of the photos in this post were taken at our local nursery, while we were looking for plants and gardening supplies. The only plant I can identify is the yellow begonia at the bottom. My husband took all of the photos and processed them. Click on the images for the best viewing quality. http://bitterteaandmystery.blogspot.com/2026/10/books-read-in-august-2026.html #august #maryshelley #mississippi #booksread #frankenstein #martin #gordon #lynd #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit