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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadence" data-source="post: 9843620" data-attributes="member: 6701124">Read Nicola Upson's "The Christmas Clue", a fictional take on the real creators of the board game Cluedo / Clue and its creation.  It was a fine novelette if one wants a Christmas themed mystery, but wasn't spectacular.   Had to order it through Amazon UK, but being on sale made up for the extra shipping to the states.--I'm about 2/3 of the way through Ann Cleeves's "The Dark Wives".  I have watched all the Vera episodes and liked them, but wasn't wowed by "The Glass Room" that I think wasn't made into a TV show or her three Matthew Venn books.  Saw "The Dark Wives" out in paperback at B&N over Christmas and didn't realize it had been made into an episode from the cover blurbs.   I think I like this one better than the corresponding TV episode and enough (so far) that it might get me to try some others of Cleeves's. The character portrayals are strong, the plot seems solid, and the internal monologue gives things you don't get from the show.  Didn't finish it yet because...--My copy of "Lies Weeping" - the latest Black Company book by Glen Cook - came in.  I've read all of his works (except his first published under another name) and really like most of them.  But I was disappointed in the later Garrett novels and was not a fan of 2018's "Port of Shadows" for the Black Company.  I think this review of "Port of Shadows" [ <a href="https://fantasyliterature.com/reviews/port-of-shadows/" target="_blank">Port of Shadows: A disappointing return to a fan-favorite series | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews</a> ] kind of hits my view of it, and its criticisms of "pet phrases", "lazily modern", and sometimes childishly prurient" (albeit, nothing like the very late Fafhrd and Mouser) also applies to some of his other later works.  For example, it explains why I think Garrett Files (7-9) could have been great with just a small bit of editing, and part of why I'm not particularly a fan some of books 10-14 or some parts of the "Instrumentalities of the Night" series."Lies Weeping" starts a new arc after 1996-2000's "Glittering Stone" and I think having read that arc is really needed. It refers to some things in "Port of Shadows", but I don't think one needs to have read that one (I was fine and don't remember much of Port's plot - although I might go back and skim some of it now).  In terms of the issues brought up in the "Port of Shadows" review, there was some of that here, and I think a bit of editing (one characters nickname and rewording just a bit of the overindulgent musing of two of the three annalists it uses) would have helped a lot.  [ispoiler]Or maybe it was a timeless realistic take on spoiled rich teens?[/ispoiler]  But it kept me interested, and it both moves the Company's story forward and fills in things about its background. I would recommend it to those who made it through the series up to "Soldiers Live" and I will be getting the next one.Some side notes - I didn't like how [ispoiler]powerful Tobo was[/ispoiler] in "Water Sleeps" and "Soldiers Live", and that wasn't a problem here.  This one also  gives the second time that the Company books have crossed over with one of his other series too ([ispoiler]This one has a mention of something from the Dread Empire behind one of the other gates. Years ago, one of the Starfishers short stories - In the Wind - had the whales and mantas from the plain of fear[/spoiler].[/ispoiler]</blockquote>

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