• Why I am no longer a skeptic
  
  A fascinating deconstruction.
  (tags: religion )
• The Tom Baker Years « Adventures with the Wife in Space
  
  The Invasion of Time rated worst, Seeds of Doom and City of Death best.
  (tags: doctorwho )

I’m getting to the end of the Torchwood books; this one has all the narrative problems of a book set between series 2 and Children of Earth – massive alien menace threatening to destroy the world starting with Cardiff, serious threat to Ianto’s life, both of which we recover from effectively with a giant reset button. It is well told, with great scenes from the blowfish and the visceral horror of the undead, but the framework is a bit predictable.

The Gregor Demarkian mysteries were recommended to me by some time back, and I have several on the shelves; this is the first in chronological order, an Armenian-American widower and FBI veteran who is co-opted by a wealthy family to investigate a suitably Byzantine series of murders. It was well described in beautiful detail of setting and character, but the family are almost all really unpleasant people (apart from one sister who is a best-selling fantasy novelist) and I guessed the culprit correctly at quite an early stage. I’ll read the ones still on the shelf but not sure that I will seek out any more after that.

One of the 2-in-1 Who volumes for younger readers produced earlier this year, with no particular thematic link between the stories other than that both happen on alien planets. The Underwater War is rather slight, an old-fashioned don’t-fear-the-Other tale with an implausible language made of colours, but some decent Rory/Amy character moments and a gratifyingly large number of Old Who continuity references (things have rather changed in that regard since the early years of RTD). Rain of Terror is more substantial, ‘orrible omnivorous voracious aliens, corrupt scientists and an epic train ride; but loses points for gender determinism, with two brave little boys and a frightened little girl helping / being rescued by the Doctor. Get it for a young friend or relative and then borrow it from them.

• Checking Naomi Wolf’s 8 big problems in the Assange case and coming up empty
  
  Assange defence witness speaks bluntly.
  (tags: wikileaks )
• How Two Amateur Sleuths Looked for FinSpy Software
  
  Tracking state espionage.
  (tags: internet )
• Campaigns Play Loose With Truth in a Fact-Check Age
  
  “They don’t care, because it gets votes.”
  (tags: uspolitics )

Non-fiction 4 (YTD 40)
The Battle for God, by Karen Armstrong
The Portable Greek Historians, ed. M.I. Finley
The Reign of Elizabeth 1558-1603, by J.B. Black
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, by Émile Durkheim

Fiction (non-sf) 8 (YTD 31)
Gold from Gemini, by Jonathan Gash
Watchman, by Ian Rankin
The Public Prosecutor, by Jef Geeraerts
Jade Woman, by Jonathan Gash
Emil and the Detectives, by Erich Kästner
The Great California Game, by Jonathan Gash
Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Not A Creature Was Stirring, by Jane Haddam

SF (non-Who) 7 (YTD 50)
Spectrum IV, ed. Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest
Heir to the Empire, by Timothy Zahn
A Wrinkle In Time, by Madeleine L'Engle
Morgoth's Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien
The Quantum Rose, by Catherine Asaro
Yearwood, by Paul Hazel
The Poison Factory, by Oisín McGann

Who 7 (YTD 50)
Dark Horizons, by J.T. Colgan
Doctor Who: The Time Traveller's Almanac, by Steve Tribe
The Wheel of Ice, by Stephen Baxter
Warlock, by Andrew Cartmel
The Space Age, by Steve Lyons
Alien Adventures: The Underwater War, by Richard Dinnick
Alien Adventures: Rain of Terror, by Mike Tucker

Comics 4 (YTD 17)
With The Light vol. 5, by Keiko Tobe
Barbaraal Tot Op Het Bot, by Barbara Stok
The Book of Bunny Suicides, by Andy Riley
Return of the Bunny Suicides, by Andy Riley

~8,500 pages (YTD ~54,900)
7/30 (YTD 55/188) by women (Armstrong, Haddam, L'Engle, Asaro, Colgan, Tobe, Stok)
1/30 (YTD 8/158) by PoC (Tobe)
Owned for more than a year: 16 (The Quantum Rose [reread], A Wrinkle in Time [reread], The Battle for God, The Poison Factory, Spectrum IV, The Space Age, Yearwood, The Portable Greek Historians, Watchman, Warlock, Tender is the Night, Barbaraal tot op het Bot, The Public Prosecutor, The Reign of Elizabeth 1556-1603, Not a Creature Was Stirring, The Time Traveller's Almanac)
Other rereads: 0 for total of 2 (YTD 14/188)

Big 2012 reading projects:
August 31 takes me to Book XI, Chapter XV of War and Peace, and Ezekiel chapter 25 in the Bible.

Also started:
The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser
The Very Last Gambado, by Jonathan Gash
The Undertaker's Gift, by Trevor Baxendale

Coming next, perhaps:
Assassin's Apprentice, by Robin Hobb
Independent People, by Halldor Laxness
Q, by Luther Blissett
Not of This World?: Evangelical Protestants in Northern Ireland, by Glenn Jordan
The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction 2007, ed. by George Mann
Ōoku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 5, by Fumi Yoshinaga
Blood Hunt, by Ian Rankin
Powers, by Ursula Le Guin
Dagger Magic, by Katherine Kurtz
Representing Autism, by Stuart Murray
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
The War of the Jewels, by J. R. R. Tolkien
Adventures on the High Teas, by Stuart Maconie
The Twilight Lords, by Richard Berleth
A History of Christianity, by Diarmaid MacCulloch
Conquest of the Amazon, by John Russell Fearn
The Tomb of the Cybermen (Script), by Gerry Davis
The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James
Set Piece, by Kate Orman
The Banquo Legacy, by Andy Lane
The Invention of Childhood, by Hugh Cunningham
Sightseeing in Space: The Web In Space, by David Bailey
Sightseeing in Space: Terminal of Despair, by Steve Lyons
Kraken, by China Mieville