Blue Bay Mystery The Boxcar Children #6

2020-03-14

Vacation this summer? Let’s get purposely stranded on a tropical island!

There’s actually a lot more of the feel of the first book to this one, since they’re on the island for a few weeks without any way of getting more supplies other than what they can build and find themselves. They do have two adults along though: Grandfather and newcomer Lars Larson¹–who previously got shipwrecked here … and apparently wants to go back for vacation now? Sure. And Mike again, who’s fun enough. Do any of the other children have friends to spoil with vacations from a rich grandfather?

Atlantis Found Dirk Pitt #15

2020-03-12

One of the things Clive Cussler does really well is take some bit of knowledge or lore and turn it up to eleven and see where that takes the world. Raise the Titanic! A treaty that sold Canada to the US. Lincoln kidnapped and shipped to Africa.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be that accurate to what actually happened, but almost all of the stories make a good ‘well it would be cool if it was true’. Atlantis Found is exactly that sort of book. You have a lost advanced civilization well before the earliest known examples that eventually became the story of Atlantis with a [reasonable enough reason](https://arstechnica.com/science/2014/04/massive-asteroid-may- have-kickstarted-the-movement-of-continents/) why we haven’t found any examples of them in modern day (until now!). The science isn’t perfect, but it’s close enough to make a good story. Add in some neo-Nazis and a doomsday plot? And you have classic Dirk Pitt.

Mike's Mystery The Boxcar Children #5

2020-03-07

So… the children own a town now? That’s cool. And Mike’s family (Surprise Island) lives there. Such mystery!

No, actually the mystery comes up when Mike’s house burns down. Which … actually ends up working out because instead of doing laundry (which she doesn’t care for) now Mike’s mother can make pies for a living. 60 pies a day! Sure.

City of Miracles The Divine Cities #3

2020-03-05

City of Miracles is a bizarre, fantastic end to a bizarre, fantastic series. Once again with another point of view, this time we follow Sigrud, with Shara and Mulaghesh both taking minor background roles, what with Shara dying in the first few pages… Hey. It’s not a spoiler, if it happens that early in the book… Plus, you know she always has another trick up her sleeve! ).

Sigrud is a fascinating character seeing him deal with yet another loss and on yet another mission to track down and kill those responsible in a way that only he can do is well worth reading on it’s own. Combine that with the inevitable-in-hindsite fallout of killing or driving off all the godly beings in a land…

Flood Tide Dirk Pitt #14

2020-03-05

Pitt also studied the shattered windshield, the splintered engine hatch, the holes stitched across the bow, the wisp of dark smoke rising from the engine compartment. “If you’d arrived two seconds later, Admiral Sandecker would be stuck with the chore of writing my eulogy.”

Again?

Mystery Ranch The Boxcar Children #4

2020-03-03

MORE RELATIVES!

This time, apparently Grandfather has an estranged sister, living nearly on her own out in a giant ranch house somewhere or the other. She keeps running off the help, so of course Jessie and Violet (being the girls) go to help her –and miraculously have no trouble doing so. It’s kind of hard to believe, but it’s nice to have another change of scenery. And hey, I always love reading aloud books in my ‘creaky old woman voice’. :D

Investigating Cryptocurrencies: Understanding, Extracting, and Analyzing Blockchain Evidence

2020-02-28

I find Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies endlessly fascinating. They hit a number of my personal interests, in particular low cryptography and level network protocols/data formats. I’m generally familiar with how blockchains work in general and have actually played a bit with demo implementations of the same technology. That being said, there are a lot of details on the business and variety between different technologies that I find less than knowledgeable about.

The book will not help you build your own cryptocurrency.
The book is not a detailed technical deconstruction of the technologies behind cryptocurrencies, although I do cover them in sufficient detail for you to be able to understand the concepts and explain them to others.

The Yellow House Mystery The Boxcar Children #3

2020-02-28

Remember Surprise Island ? Remember

Then Henry said, “Grandfather, that’s one thing we can’t understand. Why didn’t we ever get to go into that little yellow house? Doesn’t it belong to you?”
Mr. Alden looked at his grandchildren. Then he said quietly, “That’s another story.”

City of Blades The Divine Cities #2

2020-02-27

“Welcome to old Voortyashtan,” the captain says with false cheer, waving at the mouth of the Solda. “Though you can’t see much of it these days. It’s moved, y’see, about three hundred feet. Vertically, straight down.” He grins and laughs wickedly.

City of Blades surprised me.

Shock Wave Dirk Pitt #13

2020-02-26

Shock Wave is yet another crazy book. Par for the course at this point. This time around, we have shipwrecks, sea serpents, diamonds, and a strange ‘acoustic plague’ that kills every living thing within a hundred kilometers. The bad guys are evil, the good guys are going to win in the end, and it’s going to be a crazy story along the way.

Characterwise, it’s more of the same. It’s fascinating to see a fairly believable love interest for Pitt in Maeve¹. And we have more and more from the side characters, in particular Giordino with Pitt and Rudy Gunn and Admiral Sandecker doing their own part to save the world. Giordino even gets a big show hand to hand fight at the end, although why in the world he didn't just shoot her, I'll never know . Also another transgender villain? Why? Again, it’s just a few lines, but … why?