Dry Bones in the Valley

Tom Bouman

Murder/mystery set in central Pennsylvania, where the culture is agriculture and northern appalacian, and new tensions have set in as big oil has begun to offer big money for fracking rights. In this setting, local township cop Henry Farrell is handed a murder when a body is found on the property of a local recluse. Which eventually leads to another body... and another murder... and... In most ways, this is a typical small town police procedural, and where these kinds of stories make their marks is not in the clever plot, but in the storytelling about the small town. Here Bouman delves into the life of fiercely independent individuals who each have their own ideas about how to move into the 21st century. He reveals a part of the country that is new to me, and I found it engaging.

Read

Kirinyaga: A Fable of Utopia

Mike Resnick

The story of an African tribe moving to a new place (that happens to be a space station in the year 2130, but that is totally irrelevant) to create a utopia based on that tribe's founding values, shunning all things European and all results of colonization. It is told from the first person perspective of the mundumugo (the witch doctor or tribal elder or respected shaman), whose original vision it was to set up this utopia. The story takes place over the course of a decade or so, and each chapter is basically a stand-alone story that addresses a particular difficulty or challenge to the utopia. In each case, the mundumugo uses story and fable to guide the children and the elders how to think in order to maintain and enhance the cultural integrity of this utopia. And in each case, it turns out that only the mundumugo sees the bigger picture. This is a great story of power, colonization, utopia, wisdom, perspective, change, community, democracy, culture, tradition, story-telling and thinking.
Read

Ancillary Sword

Ann Leckie
Bood 2 of the Imperial Radch trilogy

Good ol' fashioned sci-fi, space thriller. Many systems, with "gate travel" allowing the traversal of vast distances relatively quickly. The galaxy is in political turmoil. The individuals in the story are trying to do right, and be on the right side for humanity. Love it. What makes this particularly interesting is the use of AI. The main character, Fleet Captain Breq, is actually an AI. And even better is the logical extension of how an AI development would happen. Breq used to be a ship (in the first book Ancillary Justice). The ship had part of its intelligence in ancillary humans (bodies with implants) and Breq is the last remaining portion of this ship. In the same way, the supreme ruler of this area of space is the Lord of the Radch, and this Lord is an AI who has also extended her intelligence into many thousands of ancillaries. The current "trouble" is that the Lord of the Radch was spread too thin and bifurcated... meaning she battles against herself. Fabulous. So many fun things to consider, and don't even get me started on the fact that the entire character set is female. Need to go back and read the first book now.
Read

Killshot

Elmore Leonard

This crime thriller follows Blackbird, a first nations man residing in Toronto, through a few weeks of his life as an assassin for the Canadian mob. We start with a "standard hit" and then Bird gets connected by chance with a punk named Richie Nix, after which Bird's standard way of looking at, and interacting with, the world change. Regular folk Wayne and Carmen Colson out of Detroit get drawn into this story as well. The explicit plot tension is between the Colsons and the Nix/Bird duo. The more interesting tension is between the Colsons, and also between Nix & Bird. That said, I was only marginally engaged throughout. The story was good, and I enjoyed reading it. But it did not pull me in and demand that I read it. One of those books that lays around on your table for a month, half read.
Skip