Hello fellow readers! Last week I read a great book by a favourite author and a great short story by another favourite author. Totally different genres but both really enjoyable.

Let’s have the book first…

My chosen book was The Raging Storm by Ann Cleeves (#03 Two Rivers). I think I have probably read all of her books to date, although I might have missed a few. Anyway, here is the blurb:

“Fierce winds, dark secrets, deadly intentions.

When Jem Rosco―sailor, adventurer, and legend―blows into town in the middle of an autumn gale, the residents of Greystone, Devon, are delighted to have a celebrity in their midst. But just as abruptly as he arrived, Rosco disappears again, and soon his lifeless body is discovered in a dinghy, anchored off Scully Cove, a place with legends of its own.

This is an uncomfortable case for Detective Inspector Matthew Venn. Greystone is a place he visited as a child, a community he parted ways with. Superstition and rumor mix with fact as another body is found, and Venn finds his judgment clouded.

As the winds howl, and Venn and his team investigate, he realizes that no one, including himself, is safe from Scully Cove’s storm of dark secrets.”

And this was my short review on Goodreads:

The Raging Storm by Ann Cleeves
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have really enjoyed this series so far and this third instalment was excellent. Cleeves writes so well about the setting of her stories. I could smell and hear the sea, and also see and feel the raging storms. The characters were also very well written, although I did get a little confused by the large cast – but that is my issue.

Certainly, I didn’t work out “whodunnit” before the reveal and that is really unusual for me. I will definitely continue to read the series if Cleeves decides to write some more books!

View all my reviews

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Some time I must check Cleeves’ work, particularly the Vera Stanhope series, to make sure that I haven’t missed any of her books.

Now we have the short story…

Regular visitors to these Wednesday posts may remember that I am a huge fan of Scalzi’s work. When I came across this short story, Slow Time Between the Stars, I just had to read it and I wasn’t disappointed. This is the blurb…

“An artificial intelligence on a star-spanning mission explores the farthest horizons of human potential—and its own purpose—in a mind-bending short story by New York Times bestselling author John Scalzi.

Equipped with the entirety of human knowledge, a sentient ship is launched on a last-ditch journey to find a new home for civilization. Trillions of miles. Tens of thousands of years. In the space between, the AI has plenty of time to think about life, the vastness of the universe, everything it was meant to do, and—with a perspective created but not limited by humans—what it should do.”

Here is my response:

Slow Time Between the Stars by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is such a beautifully written and thought provoking story. Basically, the idea is “what if a human made AI took its own decisions to break away from its human programming amongst the distant stars!” The timescales of the tale are mind boggling to the human brain: countless millennia. Just inconceivable to such short lived creatures.

Very touching and almost brought tears to my eyes! Now I must search out the rest of this series.

View all my reviews

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Well, I hope you have enjoyed this post and also had a great week of reading too.

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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