Book Log 75/2016 - Miniatures - The Very Short Fiction of John Scalzi

I'm not generally a great reader of short stories, but these are short stories by John Scalzi. OK, I thought - I'll give it a go. I'm glad I did. Verging  on the humourous (mostly) there are stories here about sentient youghourt ruling the world, a superhero booking agent, complaints form smart-applicances, absurdities of human/alien interaction and a selection of all the alt. history ways Hiltler might die. All this and a poem for Penelope. Highly recommended.

Book Log 76/2016 - Julia Quinn: The Viscount Who Loved Me - Bridgertons #2

Julia Quinn's sequence of books about the Bridgertons takes the matrimonial foibles of each alphabetically-named Bridgerton sibling in turn. The first book featured Daphne, oldest girl but fourth sibling. In it we met Anthony who was pigheaded and hot tempered, attempting to shove a sharp spoke into the wheel of matrimonial bliss for his sister and his one time best friend from school.

Now Anthony gets his own book.

It's interesting to see a character broadened out. Not an entirely lovable character in the first book, we now see something of what was behind his actions. He's got a secret. It's a little nuts, but he believes it implicitly. Because the recent males in the Bridgerton family have died young, he thinks that will be his fate, too. After all, his father was killed by a bee sting. If something like that can fell so great a man, then what chance does Anthony have. As a result of seeing his mother's life as a widow, he determines that though he must marry and produce an heir, he shouldn't marry for love. He's not afraid of death, but he is afraid of leaving someone he loves to face widowhood.

Bonkers, right? Of course. He's devoted the last ten years of his life to being a principled rake (his conquests have always been women who knew what they were getting into) but now he's looking for an innocent. He draws up a list of the attributes his wife should have and picks out a very pretty miss. Only then does he discover that her older, plainer and much stronger sister is determined to protect her from suitors such as him. Sparks fly when he meets Kate...

Quinn injects humour and snappy dialogue into the Regency romance and this is a perfectly diverting piece of fluff.