All Books Read in 2024

Well, here it is, the 49 novels I got through in 2024. It's about 10 less than last year. I don't think much stood out this year, which is probably why the list is smaller. I got bored and doom-rolled too much on Instagram. 

2025 looks to be unpredictable and I won't set any goals in reading. But who knows, if tRump can keep us out of a civil war, if we don't end up killing ourselves over trans issues and what not, maybe I can get through more.

But no promises.

01. Doctor Who: Rebellion On Treasure Island by Bali Rai

02. The Boy Who Was Buried This Morning by Joseph Hansen

03. A Country of Old Men by Joseph Hansen

04. How to Sell a Haunted House By Grady Hendrix

05. The Busy Body by Donald E. Westlake

06. Backtrack By Joseph Hansen

07. Childhood’s End By Arthur C. Clarke

08. Death is a Lonely Business By Ray Bradbury

09. A Graveyard for Lunatics by Ray Bradbury

10. Let’s All Kill Constance By Ray Bradbury

11. Rendezvous with Rama By Arthur C. Clarke

12. Lincoln’s Dream By Connie Willis

13. Winter’s Gift by Ben Aaronovitch

14. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom By A.C. Crispin

15. Shades of Grey By Jasper Fforde

16. Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde

17. Forsooth By Jimmy Matejek-Morris

18. You Only Call When You’re in Trouble by Stephen McCauley

19. Stringers by Chris Panatier

20. The Celebrants By Steven Rowley

21. Doctor Who: The Well-Mannered War by Gareth Roberts

22. Faerie Tale By Raymond E. Feist

23. Baby, Would I Lie? By Donald E. Westlake

24. The Guncle Abroad By Steven Rowley

25. The Grave Tattoo By Val McDermid

26. Cop Hater By Ed McBain

27. The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

28. Trust Me on This By Donald E. Westlake

29. Conclave By Robert Harris

30. Icerigger By Alan Dean Foster

31. Money For Nothing By Donald E. Westlake

32. Doctor Who: In Wonderland By Paul Magrs

33. Nicked by M.J. Anderson

34. The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

35. The Ipcress File By Len Deighton

36. Slow Horses By Mick Herron

37. The Devil and Mrs. Davenport by Paulette Kennedy

38. My Brother’s Keeper By Tim Powers

39. The Jennifer Morgue By Charles Stross

40. The Bullet that Missed By Richard Osman

41. The Librarianist By Patrick deWitt

42. The Last Devil to Die By Richard Osman

43. The Dead Are Discreet By Arthur Lyons

44. The Detective and Mr. Dickens By William J. Palmer

45. I Gave At The Office By Donald E. Westlake

46. The Star Beast By Robert Heinlein

47. Secret Dead Men by Duane Swierczynski

48. The Masquerades of Spring by Ben Aaronovitch

49. Star Trek: Lost to Eternity By Greg Cox

Books: Star Trek: The Original Series: Lost to Eternity by Greg Cox (2024)

 

"2024: Almost forty years ago, marine biologist Gillian Taylor stormed away from her dream job at Sausalito’s Cetacean Institute—and was never seen or heard from again. Now a new true crime podcast has reopened that cold case, but investigator Melinda Silver has no idea that her search for the truth about Gillian’s disappearance will ultimately stretch across time and space—and attract the attention of a ruthless obsessive with his own secret agenda.

"2268: The U.S.S. Enterprise’s five-year mission is interrupted when Captain James T. Kirk and his crew set out to recover an abducted Federation scientist whose classified secrets are being sought by the Klingons as well. The trail leads to a barbaric world off limits to both Starfleet and the Klingon Empire—and an ageless mastermind on a quest for eternity.

"2292: The Osori, an ancient alien species, has finally agreed to establish relations with its much younger neighbors: the Federation, the Klingons, and the Romulans. A joint mission involving ships from all three powers, including the Enterprise-A, turns explosive when one of the Osori envoys is apparently killed. Each side blames the others, but the truth lies buried deep, nearly three hundred years in the past."

While I liked the tale, it does have problems –mostly the 2268 time period. The 2024 setting is the best, if only because Star Trek fans knows what happened to Gillian Taylor. So using the format of the a true crimes pod-cast was an inspired choice to see how Melinda and Dennis piece all the parts together. With this being a loose sequel to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, this section gave fans and readers a chance to revisit (almost) some characters from that era that are still around in 2024.

It took me a while to figure out who the mysterious man in the 21^st Century was who was trying to hinder Melinda and Dennis’ investigation, but eventually I guessed (rightly) there was a connection with Project Chrysalis, which was part of the backstory of Cox’s Eugenics War books. So the villain is human and tied to the Augments.

Meanwhile, in 2268 we get the trope filled story of a "scientist captured: must rescue without breaking prime directive” blah, blah, blah. While probably the most classic aspect of Star Trek, and was somewhat entertaining, the only thing really going for it was knowledge it was set in and around season three of TOS. And putting Kirk and crew in danger was anti-climatic at best.

We skip to 2292, set after Star Trek V: The Final Frontier but before Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and is the other good part of the novel. Here we get more traditional Star Trek plot territories, along with understanding whom was behind all of it. It’s the second best of the tree time periods, as Cox ties a lot of continuity together –which has what these Extended Universe Star Trek books are really about.

I mean the 2268 time period was just filled with continuity references –sometimes to the point of annoying. Like the 1990’s Doctor Who novels, the writers tended to go overboard trying to connect so much unintended continuity, that the books lost something. Hard-core fans enjoyed, I guess, but here –like Cox’s Eugenics War series- tries too hard to make it line up perfectly. But it sometimes hurts the flow of the narrative. In the end, I felt the 2268 TV era part was unnecessary. 

We do get a resolution to what happened to Gillian Taylor, who pops up (in, I guess, a cameo) in the final chapter. We learn what she is working on, which will eventually become part of the animated Star Trek series Lower Decks, but I would admit as well, it was disappointing she showed up so late in the book.

It’s a fine book, but it’s a reminder why I eventually gave up reading a lot of these Star Trek novels. Long gone in one of these franchise books is a creditable villain. 

Books: The Masquerades of Spring By Ben Aaronovitch (2024)

“Here we meet Augustus Berrycloth-Young - fop, flaneur, and Englishman abroad - as he chronicles the Jazz Age from his perch atop the city that never sleeps. That is, until his old friend Thomas Nightingale arrives, pursuing a rather mysterious affair concerning an old saxophone - which will take Gussie from his warm bed, to the cold shores of Long Island, and down to the jazz clubs where music, magic, and madness haunt the shadows.”

The Masquerades of Spring is another novella to the Rivers of London series. As with the other ones, Peter Grant is nowhere to be found, as the book is set in the mid 1920s.

Augustus Berrycloth-Young (AKA Gussie) is a delightfully fun character and you can’t help but like him from the start. He's a bit of a dandy, incredibly witty, and very, very British. This novella gives Aaronovitch more comic license gets a better grip on both British and American slang that caused me some ire in Winter’s Gift.

It’s also very clear that Augustus is based on Bertie Wooster, created by P.G. Wodehouse. He’s a jazz-loving, “wizard” whose lack of insight rivals that legendary character. Still, his take on understanding opera is fairly brilliant:

"Now, I have often said that the principal difference between the musical offerings of Sissle and Blake, Gershwin and Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, and those of the likes of Verdi, Tosca and some other bally Italian I have forgotten the name of, is that one might take one’s seat for the former with no fear that one will leave the theatre none the wiser with regards to the story. Whereas on those occasions when I have been dragged bodily to the opera, I have spent the entire show trying to work out why Man A is singing angrily at Man B while Woman C trills sadly in the corner. And to rub salt into the wound, as it were, I have the strongest feeling that everybody else in the theatre but me knows exactly what is going on."

It’s also fun to watch a British writer take a British character and drop him in New York of the 1920s, with its prohibitions, fancy clothes, and its brutish police force. So while it offers no new insight into Nightingale, it doesn’t really matter, as Augustus Berrycloth-Young makes the entire story shine. I wonder if Aaronovitch will let us see anymore adventures of Gussie and his manservant/lover Lucien (AKA as Lucy).

Books: Secret Dead Men by Duane Swierczynski (2005/2024)

“Detective Del Farmer is investigating a murder. But the usual suspects are all in his head. ‘Believe in nothing, believe in Hell, believe in the Brain Hotel... Secret Dead Men is the most inventive, uplifting, hilarious, moving novel since Catcher in the Rye’ -- Ken Bruen Del Farmer isn't your ordinary hardboiled private eye. Instead of collecting fingerprints or clues, he collects souls of the recently dead. His latest dead guy, Brad Larsen, might just be the key to destroying Farmer's longtime nemesis, The Association. Of course, Farmer is sadly mistaken. Larsen isn't offering up the goods. An FBI agent unstuck in time is toying with him. A mysterious couple keeps trying to kill him. Another job-a mundane babysitting gig that pays the bills-is threatening to steer him way off course into a violent hell of sexual deceit, fractured identities and cheap apartment toilets.

It’s an enjoyable book, somewhat original and quirky. While often humorous, it does contain enough hard-boiled aspects to fall within the noir genre. The supernatural aspect is often confusing, even with Swierczymski trying to explain it so even I can understand it. So it’s combination or weird stuff, marked by pulp-ish aspects with lots a violence –especially towards the end. It is set in the mid-1970’s, the Bicentennial year of 1976 to be precise (and the authors note at the end is seemly a addendum about the origins of tale, which sort of plays out like an extra chapter set outside books universe).

For the most part, it’s fun book, even if it was confusing at times. That becomes even more apparent towards the end, when everything sort of enters a quantum singularity devised by science fiction writers to explain the plot holes that time travel creates. It was maddening to keep things straight.

Though released in 2005 by the imprint PointBlank, this book was re-issued 2024 by Titan Books, a division of Penguin Random House, and Swierczynski has since written nine further crime novels, which apparently draw heavily on crime noir themes, making frequent use of femmes fatale.

Books: The Star Beast By Robert Heinlein (1954)

“In the future, Earth has had interstellar spaceflight for centuries and has made contact with numerous extraterrestrial intelligent species. John Thomas Stuart XI, the teenage protagonist, lives in a small Rocky Mountain town, Westville, caring for Lummox, an extraterrestrial beast his great-grandfather had brought home. Lummox has learned how to speak, and has gradually grown from the size of a collie pup to a ridable behemoth—especially after consuming a used car. The childlike Lummox is perceived to be a neighborhood nuisance and, upon leaving the Stuart property one day, causes substantial property damage across the city. John's widowed mother wants him to get rid of it, and brings an action in the local court to have it destroyed.”

An entertaining, if somewhat talky tale of diplomacy and family issues, The Star Beast excels in balancing humor with what is a very obvious plot. Designed for a male teen audience, it’s also clearly “of an age,” as the saying goes. I’ve said this before about the classic writers of the Golden Era of Science Fiction that as smart and often clever they were, when it came to actually try and predict a future beyond the 1950s, they fail. I mean, despite its futuristic “setting”, Westville is every homely small town Hollywood spit out in the era. And John Thomas Stuart and his girl Betty could be played by Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland (I’m almost sure Heinlien used them as basis here). Everyone still smokes, there is not much in the way of advanced technology in Stuart’s home (or anywhere else, it seems), and has about as much tension as a deflated balloon.

Still, there is something charming about a 1954 book when read in 2024. Beyond the annoying mother, who clearly has issues trying to both mother and father to her son, the “real” world is sort of suspended and we get a simple, familiar, predictable tale about a boy and his alien Lummox who, in the end, is not what he/she (who has, apparently, six sexes) and a His Girl Friday who seemly is brighter and tougher than the hero of this tale.