36) Space Vulture: this little gem by Gary K Wolf and archbishop John J. Myers is a consciously retro adventure, written as it would have been serialized in Planet Stories. It is also an awful lot of fun. I hesitate to tell you anything about it because the story is pure plot, barreling along with lots of plot twists, captures, escapes, "Didn't I Mention" skills and developing enough of a plan to get the heroes through the next 5 minutes. The titular character is an irrevocably evil galactic criminal, slaver and commander of his own zombie army, and the only person who can challenge him is Space Marshall Corsair, owner of two perfectly balanced ray guns and the drive to do good. One thing that I was very happy with is that while the book was written by the archbishop of Newark, NJ (no, really!), the book's religion correct for the characters and the setting. Three of the characters are Catholic. Two of them sometimes pray for moral support. That's it. There's no evangalizing, no hammering of morality, and even the somewhat scummy secondary character's grotwth into a less scummy person felt more like the plot to any "have the guy become a better man via romance/children/telepathy/what-have-you" that populate Hollywood comidies rather than, say, Easutices conversion on the Dawn Treader. In other words nothing to distract from the space opera plot. I was afraid I was going to be lectured, but instead I was just shot at, attacked by zombies, tossed into malfunctioning escape pods, stranded on desolate planets, threated by flesh consuming aliens and other good clean fun.
Non Book Entertainment - I Love A Mystery: Given that I've had to make long drives to the new job , I'm jazzed that Rachel picked up the "I Love A Mystery" radio show collection from the library today for me to listen to on the trip. 20 hours of classic radio show mysteries, many in 15 minute broadcasts so it's easy enough to start and stop.
Groovy! I listened to two whole stories this week (a total of 7.5 hours of ragio goodness): The Thing that Cried in the Night and Bury Your Dead Arizona. As fate would have it Bury Your Dead is one I'd heard already, provided by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
doc_mystery some time back, but since I listened to that while recovering from oral surgery so my pain numbed recollections didn't distract from the enjoyment.
Non Book Entertainment - I Love A Mystery: Given that I've had to make long drives to the new job , I'm jazzed that Rachel picked up the "I Love A Mystery" radio show collection from the library today for me to listen to on the trip. 20 hours of classic radio show mysteries, many in 15 minute broadcasts so it's easy enough to start and stop.
Groovy! I listened to two whole stories this week (a total of 7.5 hours of ragio goodness): The Thing that Cried in the Night and Bury Your Dead Arizona. As fate would have it Bury Your Dead is one I'd heard already, provided by
doc_mystery some time back, but since I listened to that while recovering from oral surgery so my pain numbed recollections didn't distract from the enjoyment. 
