Elves should have mathematicians, too

Despite all my brilliant plans, I still didn't write commentary as I went, so . . . more short bits of babble and what I remember. Things which are not plot facts are of course subjective, and even plot facts may be misremembered, since I don't have the books in front of me. (This list does cut off a month after the last, even though I'm late about posting it.)

1. Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos-Donna Andrews
   
   Meg the blacksmith is selling things she's blacksmithed at a Revolutionary War reenactment. That's almost like blacksmithing, right?
   
   
2. No Nest for the Wicket-Donna Andrews
   
   Meg the blacksmith does extreme croquet.
   
   
3. Midshipman's Hope-David Feintuch
   
   I found this book via someone talking about it on the internet -- a mixed review, but intriguing enough to seek out. This person's complaints were mostly about the use of physical discipline on the spaceships.
   
   I was way more puzzled by the religion. See, there'd been some kind of big unification thing, where all the religions got together and decided fighting about it was stupid, and so they made the new official religion that everybody could believe in . . . only "all the religions" seemed to mean "Catholics" and "Protestants" and other flavors of Christianity, and maybe Judaism if we stretched things. What did they do with everybody else? I have no idea.
   
   Also, the bit where the computer tech seems to be extrapolated from a world where MS-DOS became the prevalent operating system (granted the publication date makes this not-crazy) was kind of amusing.
   
   
4. Spirit Gate-Kate Elliot
   
   This is an ebook that's been sitting on my computer for years, since the publisher had some kind of free ebook day, and I'd only ever read the prologue . . . I really should have read it sooner, because I enjoyed it. (Now I just have to go find the rest of the series.)
   
   I think I didn't read it sooner because the prologue point-of-view character is not the point-of-view character for the rest of the book, and the switch was jarring enough combined with reading on computer screen that I didn't want to put in the effort.
   
   
5. A Carrion Death-Michael Stanley
   
   Mystery novel set in Africa cowritten by two people across multiple time-zones? Certainly worth investigating.
   
   I don't think I'm going looking for the rest of the series, though. Maybe I've just gotten too accustomed to the quick reads of cozy mysteries, but . . . this was a little bit of a slog to get into. There was also a lot of time-jumping between sections (March/January/etc.) and the first time it happened I didn't realize it was jumping backwards, I thought it was now almost a year later, which didn't help.
   
   The other bit that rather irked me was the section where they gave the reader a red herring about the identity of the murder victim. As in, section from point of view of red-herring-guy, section from point of view of murder victim referred to only as "the prisoner" (or something along those lines). And while the detective did come across red-herring-guy as a red herring, he was a lot more of a red herring for the reader than for the detective -- we didn't see the detective coming to conclusions about him, we were just given a whole bunch of evidence the detective didn't get.
   
   
6. Gone West-Carola Dunn
   
   
7. Cockatiels at Seven-Donna Andrews
   
   Guys. This one starts with Meg the blacksmith actually blacksmithing. Until the point her random friend drops off a kid for her to babysit, and promptly disappears . . .
   
   
8. You Only Live Twice-Ian Fleming
   
   
9. Six Geese A-Slaying-Donna Andrews
   
   Meg the blacksmith organizes the holiday parade.
   
   
10. Swan for the Money-Donna Andrews
    
    Meg the blacksmith is organizing a rose show. At the home of a woman obsessed with black and white. It's reaching a point where maybe she should be "Meg the event-planner".
    
    
11. Halting State-Charles Stross
    
    I got the book after this, Rule 34, out of the library in hopes that rereading it directly after reading Halting State would make me like it better. Only then I didn't actually read it, so I can't say whether that worked. (I think the problem is that I really like Halting State, and the second-person characters in it, so the sequel has a lot to live up to -- and one of the second-person characters in that is actively objectionable.)
    
    So, yes. Second-person near-future awesomeness. Also bank robberies and international intrigue, via MMORPGs.