Patrick O'Brian - The Letter of Marque
Patrick O'Brian - The Thirteen-Gun Salute
Dan Simmons - The Fall of Hyperion
Henning Mankell - The Fifth Woman
Philip Pullman - The Golden Compass
Philip Pullman - The Subtle Knife

Two more O'Brian books which by now it seems almost pointless to review. They continue good, of course. Though I have to say both of these seemed a little short and perfunctory in terms of plot development. Maybe he was getting tired. Anyway, I'm both eager to keep reading and depressed at the thought that I'm getting closer and closer to finishing the series. Except that I'm fairly sure I'll be able to start right back over at the first book if I feel like it, having forgotten the details over the course of reading the 20-book series. So that's nice. I've also been branching out to other naval fiction -- Hornblower of course, and the lesser lights like Bolitho.

Last month I raved about Dan Simmons's "Hyperion" and was looking forward to reading the followup; there were so many unanswered questions after the first book that the second should be considered more as the second half of the first book rather than merely a sequel. Anyway, the second one was good and satisfying in many ways, but not nearly as good as the first. Hyperion was amazing, a literary story that introduced fascinating characters and mysteries, all set in a well-imagined future universe. But as is so often the case, the denouement has trouble living up to the setup. Fall of Hyperion takes a more conventional narrative style and is all-around a more conventional book, tying up loose ends, throwing up some crazy science fiction stuff, and trying to make it all make sense. There's lots of good to it, but at some point all the crazy explanations and time travel and what-have-you is too complicated (and not purely interesting enough) to bother trying to keep track of. Still, I recommend the two books: like I said before, Hyperion was one of the most fascinating books I've read in a long time.

Henning Mankell is another author I keep reading whose books are sort of all similarly good and don't really need much reviewing. If you like this sort of police procedural thing, his books are pretty good, and The Fifth Woman was another good one. One thing I like that he does is occasionally switch from the detective Kurt Wallander to the murderer, giving us some insight into the crimes so that we're usually a bit ahead of Kurt and can see where he's going, though we never get the full story until the end. I think there's a certain satisfaction in sort of knowing where things are going but watching the details get worked out -- it's kind of like the pleasure of watching a heist movie where you've seen the whole plan mapped out in advance, and then get to see how it all works out (usually, not without some problems). If that analogy isn't too much of a stretch.

I'm not going to review Pullman until I finish the third book. I decided to reread them in advance of the movie coming out, and it's interesting to see how it all looks the second time through.