Booklog 23/2024: Dennis E. Taylor: Outland – Quantum Earth #1 – Audiobook

Audiobook, read by Ray Porter.

The students we first met in Outland are busy trying to make their new colony work on alternate Earth after the Yellowstone supervolcano has all but destroyed our own, but life in Rivendell is getting complicated, especially when a bunch of older refugees think that their age entitles them to run the place.  There are moral dilemmas and hard decisions. Bill and Kevin continue to explore a variety of alternate Earths, including some inhabitable and others decidedly not - including one still occupied by dinosaurs. I'm a sucker for society-building novels, so I loved this. I hope it's not the ;last one in the series. The reader is Ray Porter who reads Taylor's Bobiverse book. He does an excellent job.

Booklog 24/2024: Dennis E. Taylor: Earthside – Quantum Earth #2 – Audiobook

Audiobook, read by Ray Porter

The students we first met in Outland are busy trying to make their new colony work on alternate Earth after the Yellowstone supervolcano has all but destroyed our own, but life in Rivendell is getting complicated, especially when a bunch of older refugees think that their age entitles them to run the place.  There are moral dilemmas and hard decisions. Bill and Kevin continue to explore a variety of alternate Earths, including some inhabitable and others decidedly not - including one still occupied by dinosaurs. I'm a sucker for society-building novels, so I loved this. I hope it's not the ;last one in the series. The reader is Ray Porter who reads Taylor's Bobiverse book. He does an excellent job.

Booklog 25/2024: S.J. Bennett: Murder Most Royal – Her Majesty the “Queen Investigates #3 - Audioboo

Audiobook read by Samantha Bond.

Another one of the quirky little mysteries which make HM Queen Elizabeth II the main protagonist in solving a murder, aided and abetted by her assistant private secretary, Rosie, who does most of the leg-work. Set in 2016 when HMQE is 90, this involves the discovery of a severed hand floating in on the tide in a plastic carrier bag during the royal family's Christmas break at Sandringham. The Queen recognises the hand from a photograph by its signet ring and a missing finger tip. It's Ned St Cyr, a 70 year old member of a neighboring aristocratic family and as a boy he used to visit and play with the Queen's own children. Then a seciond man is found dead, presumed suicide, and a local woman is badly injured in a hit-and-run. The mystery becomes complex and the Queen is determoned to poiunt the police in the right direction. These are a cosy series of mysteries, beautifully read by Samantha Bond who gets the queen's voice perfectly. It's interspersed with real happenings such as the Brexit vote and the inauguration of the 45th American president - yes, that one.