Tag Archives: Lis Carey

Lis Carey Review: Limited Edition Blackout Cake Flavor Creme Oreos

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Oreo cookies proudly own their status as junk food, and have never let me down. Empty calories for the masses, which have become increasingly colorful over the years. The latest Limited Edition, though, doesn’t flaunt bright colors, but chocolate. Dark and milk chocolate.

Review by Lis Carey: I have a certain love for Oreo cookies, as I think befits a working class “you’re going to college and going to be middle class” kid of the Fifties and Sixties. No, we weren’t raised to be gourmets. We were raised to have good table manners, to know what to do with the more unusual utensils seen only at the rare “really formal” meals, such as at weddings and Christenings. (And maybe, sometimes, Easter. But not Thanksgiving or Christmas, where the point was to enjoy the food, not show off one’s higher skills.)

The food itself, in our family, had its roots solidly in the peasant cultures of Sicily, Ireland, France, French Canada, Poland…. Okay, it was varied, to a point.

And then there were snacks. Only my two grandmas held the hard line against buying snacks rather than baking them. My mother and aunts were, as my Sicilian grandma had predicted, Americans. Oreo cookies were a favorite throughout the extended family. We learned to love them in their classic form–two chocolate wafers, with a vanilla creme filling. I’m sure there was never any real vanilla in that filling; this was empty calories for the masses.

Eventually, of course, there were innovations. Golden wafers. Double stuffing. Novelty colors for major holidays. Well, holidays. For the start of spring.

At the right time of year, Oreos are now quite colorful.

But this year, something quite wonderful came along. A new novelty Oreo! Something designed to tempt me personally. Because, you see, in addition to Oreos, I also love chocolate. Especially if I can put more chocolate on it. And then more on that.

I present to you the Blackout Cake Flavor Creme Oreo.

The classic chocolate Oreo wafers. Two layers of creme filling, one of which is milk chocolate, and the other, which at least aspires to being dark chocolate. I won’t say that it’s really dark chocolate, but it’s closer to dark chocolate than it is to the milk chocolate of the other creme layer.

Regardless, this is a cookie with three different flavors of chocolate. That picture isn’t as good as I hoped, but you can just see the darker layer of chocolate, though it’s not easy to distinguish. (I really thought I’d done a better job in that picture. Sorry.)

I received this package of the Limited Edition Oreos as I gift, and I ate them. I ate all of them, and enjoyed every bite. Not in one sitting! I spaced them out over several days.

The last one tasted as good as the first. Now they are gone, and I’m not sorry I didn’t share.

Lis Carey Review: The Last Moriarty

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Holmes is back from his “death” at the Reichenbach Falls, but only Watson and a very select group of mostly official clients know. When Mycroft bestirs himself to come to 221B Baker Street, they know it’s serious business. Mycroft is there to summon them to a very high-level meeting at the Diogenes Club, to ensure that a planned very secret meeting with some prominent American businessmen goes off safely, smoothly, and, yes, secretly. It proves to be even more dangerous than feared, and along the way, some of Holmes’s own long-buried past resurfaces.

The Last Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James #1), by Charles Veley
Thomas & Mercer, November 2015

Review by Lis Carey: Mycroft Holmes takes the unusual step of visiting his brother Sherlock and Dr. Watson at 221B Baker Street, to summon them to an important meeting at the Diogenes Club. The meeting will involve the Prime Minister and other senior ministers, and concern a planned conference with important American businessmen–for highly sensitive reasons.

At the meeting at the Diogenes Club, they learn the Prime Minister believes word has leaked and there may be an attack planned on this conference. It would be a major embarrassment to the government–and as events unfold, Holmes and Watson become increasingly irked that avoiding embarrassment appears to be the biggest consideration. Little of Holmes’s security advice is headed; his brief is simply to prevent the attack while his advice is ignored.

A man is found dead, and is discovered to be an employee of John D. Rockefeller Sr., who of course is one of the prominent businessmen involved. When Inspector Lestrade, Holmes, and Watson attend the examination of the body, it’s Holmes who realizes the man was not drowned, as initially believed, but suffocated with chloroform. Mr. Rockefeller’s head of security was murdered. Shortly thereafter, a carriage is blown up with dynamite outside the hospital–and inquiry into existing records shows that an exceptionally large amount of dynamite has been stolen over the past year. Something truly dangerous is afoot.

It’s six years after Moriarty died, and Holmes was believed to have died, at the Reichenbach Falls. Since his return, Holmes has been keeping a low profile, but investigating this case takes him out more into public than he has until now. One of those necessary ventures is to the D’Oyly Carte Opera, housed at the Savoy Theatre–next to the Savoy Hotel, where the dead man was staying, and John D. Rockefeller Jr. is staying. This is far less conspicuous than going to see Rockefeller Sr. on his yacht.

However, while at the theatre, they encounter two women–a young American singer, who has recently been added to the chorus, by the name of Lucy James, and an older woman, Zoe Rosario, a violinist of considerable talent. Miss James has her own concerns to present to Holmes, and is both close to Rockefeller Jr., and very, very observant, making her a useful contact. Miss Rosario, among other interesting features, refers to Holmes as Sherlock, while Holmes quite clearly is avoiding her. This turns out to be more closely related to the main mystery than there is initially any reason to suspect.

The main story has Holmes and Watson trying to track down the real identity of, and an actual London residence of, Mr. Adam Worth, a principal investor in the D’Oyly Carte Opera, whom Mr. Carte admits to some serious doubts about, and has been trying to replace. Where is he from? What is his real background? And why do his properties seem to figure in the disturbing events surrounding the planned conference, while also seeming completely uninhabited?

There’s a lot going on here, with some remarkably interesting twists and turns along the way. It’s a very interesting and ultimately satisfying story, grounded in the Holmes and Watson we know, and in the real history of the period.

I’m looking forward to reading more of these.

I received this book as a gift.

Lis Carey Review: Unity Con

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Spade is determined to stay far away from Unity Con, a convention run by people he loathes, who have no conrunning experience, whom he is convinced will make a disaster for all of fandom if well-known conrunners are seen to be involved. Then he gets a call from Paladin, telling him about a disaster that’s going to damage fandom anyway, unless she and Spade can prevent it. And Spade can’t say no to Paladin.

Unity Con (A Spade/Paladin Conundrum), by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
WMG Publishing, November 2021

Review by Lis Carey: Spade is in Garland, TX, hanging out with people he likes instead of going to Unity Con, a convention he has sworn not to attend, because it’s been organized by a group, or rather two groups, of people at the heart of a major brouhaha around the Hugo Awards a few years ago. They’ve now decided to start a new convention, uniting fandom — and they’re all sf pros, not the fans these two groups look down on as mere amateurs. It isn’t just that Spade doesn’t like most of these people. It’s that he sees a disaster that could create problems for all convention-running fandom if they have anything to do with it.

Spade is staying away. Far away.

Then he gets a call from Paladin, who is at Unity Con.

There’s been a murder.

One of the major organizers of the con, a man Spade met and immediately clashed with years ago when the organizer was a young man just entering fandom, is dead. Paladin has only just managed to secure the scene and get the police called, and this is really important, because in addition to the man being dead, the funds raised to pay the property where they’re holding the con has vanished out of the account. This isn’t just a murder. It’s a murder, and embezzlement that could wreck organized fandom for years to come. It’s Spade’s worst nightmare, and he wants to stay far away from it. And Paladin is asking him to come. He can’t say no to Paladin.

He’s also by far the best forensic accountant in fandom.

Coincidentally, Unity Con is held at the ranch where Justice Antonin Scalia previously died. There’s a short-lived attempt to cover up the death at Unity Con the same way Scalia’s death avoided a real investigation. Spade is soon at the ranch uncovering alarming secrets, and becoming more and more convinced he was right about what a terrible idea Unity Con was.

It’s a fun story, although, like Spade, I wouldn’t have wanted to attend Unity Con.

I received this novelette as a gift.

Lis Carey Review: Elysium Fire

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Elysium Fire is the second adventure of Prefect Tom Dreyfus and his deputies, Thalia Ng and Sparver Bancal, confronting a new crisis. Or two crises. Or maybe the two crises are converging into one… They’re facing the new fragility of the Glitter Band, a seemingly inexplicable wave of deaths, and a very effective demagogue of murky background and unknown motives.

Elysium Fire (Prefect Dreyfus Emergency #2), by Alastair Reynolds (author), John Lee (narrator)
Audible Audio, January 2018

Review by Lis Carey: The Glitter Band is a collection of 10,000 city-state habitats orbiting the planet of Yellowstone, existing in near-perfect democracy, with that democracy guarded by Panoply and its prefects. Prefect Tom Dreyfus has faced crises before, and overcome them.

There’s a new crisis building, an outbreak of strange, unexplained deaths. People are suddenly dying of the malfunction and overheating of their neural implants. There are seemingly no connections, no similarities, in the victims to point the way to the cause. While the deaths are few and scattered at first, the deaths are rising exponentially. Rumors are starting to spread, risking an even more deadly outbreak of panic.

There’s fallout from the previous crisis, two years ago, in which some habitats were destroyed as part of the effort to stop the spread of a destructive artificial intelligence. A separatist movement has grown up, though so far only a few habitats have actually seceded from the Glitter Band. Now, though, an activist called Devon Garland has been traveling from habitat to habitat, giving rabble-rousing speeches telling people that Panoply isn’t protecting them, but its own power and influence.

Dreyfus tries to raise concern about Garland among his colleagues, without success. Soon Garland is targeting him personally in his speeches, and showing up in places he shouldn’t know Dreyfus would be. In pursuit of answers, Dreyfus is interviewing the only “witnesses” he has, the betas of those who have died of the “melter” phenomenon, and simultaneously chasing down information on Devon Garland and his background.

Meanwhile, Dreyfus’s friends and deputy field prefects, Thalia Ng and Sparver Bancal, are sent off on a mission of their own, to check out the latest melter death, and get caught in “just an accident” that is awfully questionable, and kills an innocent witness. As evidence builds, the two crises start to look like one, and Dreyfus, Thalia, and Sparver all go through conflicts and stresses that alter their own views of themselves and each other.

It’s exciting, though-provoking, and has real character development.

I received this audiobook as a gift.

Cider’s Blueberry Greenies Treats Reviews

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Hi!

I am Cider, Lis Carey’s service dog. I work hard and get paid decent, and some that pay, of course, is in treats. I was a little surprised, though, to get an email from Cat Eldridge, relaying a request from Our Gracious Host, Mike Glyer, asking me to review one of my favorites, Greenies Blueberry Flavor Dental Treats for dogs.

 The first thing you should know is, despite the name, they’re not blue, and not shaped like berries. Lis says the berries used in them are blue, but hoomans don’t think food should be blue, so there you are.

The shape is kind of like a little toothbrush, about which more later.

The big thing is the taste. They taste really good, with a flavor I don’t get in other food. I guess that’s the Blueberry. Then, the texture. It’s chewy and crunchy, which makes it fun to eat. It’s not very big—I eat the Teenie size because I’m a small dog, but they have bigger sizes. Much bigger, for those poor dogs that suffer from gigantism.

Now the toothbrush thing. I said these are “dental treats.” Chewing them regularly, in addition to tasting good and being fun, they help keep my teeth clean! Which means I don’t need dental cleanings very often! That’s good because a dental cleaning means going to the veterinarian, and they make you sleep. And when they do that, who knows how many sharp pokes they might give? I mean, I like Dr. Julie and all, but she is way too fond of poking me!

I also want you to know that the cat members of your families are not forgotten. Greenies has dental treats for kitties, too. They come in funny flavors like catnip and tuna, but Lis says those flavors are pretty popular with cats.

So that’s my review. I hope you enjoy it. I’m supposed to say the treats were a gift, but I’ll have you know I earned those treats, working hard for Lis!

Lis Carey Review: The Hanging Tree

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Peter Grant is back in London, and instead of welcome peace and recovery from his encounter with the Faerie Queen, he’s got a phone call from Lady Tyburn, calling in a favor. Her daughter was at the scene of a death, apparently an accidental overdose, and Lady Ty tells Peter to keep her out of it. Getting involved in this case that didn’t look at all like Folly business leads to quite exciting, and, oops, dangerous encounters with both Lesley May, and the Faceless Man.

The Hanging Tree (Rivers of London #6), by Ben Aaronovitch. DAW, January 2017

Review by Lis Carey: Apprentice wizard PC Peter Grant gets a call on a case that at first doesn’t appear to be Folly business. A young woman has died of a probably accidental overdose, during a party at a very fancy address. No apparent magical involvement.

But Lady Tyburn’s daughter was also at this party, and she wants her daughter kept out of the case. Peter owes her a big favor, and Lady Ty is calling in the favor.

All is looking good for keeping the daughter out of the case, until she says, in the middle of an intentionally low-key interview, with Peter and others, that she supplied the drugs.

But it’s clear she didn’t intend any deaths. There’s also something very odd about the high-end flat where the party and the death occurred, starting with how they had access.

Dr. Walid’s examination of the body, in particular the brain, suggests what sort of “something odd” they should be looking for.

Peter, with DC Sahra Guleed, of the Major Investigations Team, investigate the dead girl, her friends, and the families. What they find isn’t just concerning. Highlights, if that’s the right word, include an underground pool collapsing on Peter and one of the dead girl’s friends, a very destructive confrontation with Lesley May at Harrods, and another showdown with the Faceless Man. Festivities are further enlivened by teams (yes, more than one) of US intelligence contractors attempting to get hold of very valuable magical, or magic-related, artifacts that the Folly sees itself as the rightful owners of.

And right through the book, Beverly Brook is present, and Peter and Beverly’s relationship is progressing. Peter’s mother likes her, a fact which Peter finds terrifying.

It’s a lot of fun, along with being terrifying and exciting.

I received this book as a gift.

Lis Carey Review: Diamond Jubilee

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It’s June 1897, and the official celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee—60 years on the throne—is approaching. Holmes and  Watson receive an unexpected visit from Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), wanting help with a very worrying puzzle. As Holmes and Watson try to solve the mystery of the wall-eyed man who seems to have followed Clemens from Johannesburg, South Africa to London, they also learn that there seems to be conspiracy centered on the Queen’s Jubilee, and that the two mysteries may be connected. It all builds to a frightening conclusion, with trusted allies possibly being untrustworthy or even enemies.

Diamond Jubilee: Sherlock Holmes, Mark Twain, and the Peril of the Empire, by Paul Schullery (author), Nick Crosby (narrator). MX Publishing, October 2018

Review By Lis Carey: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are at home at Baker Street, when they receive an unexpected visitor. It’s Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, with a puzzle whose seriousness he is not quite certain of, but he fears the worst.

It’s June 1897, and Clemens is engaged in a world tour. It’s also the 60th anniversary of the reign of Queen Victoria, with the official celebration of her Diamond Jubilee coming up on June 22. A few weeks ago in Johannesburg, South Africa, Clemens had a disturbing yet seemingly minor experience.

He was giving one of his talks at a theater in Johannesburg. It was sold out, to the point that those with enough money to burn had seats on the stage not far from Clemens himself. He wasn’t happy about this, but he’s a professional, and concentrated on making his audience laugh. Mostly he succeeded–except for one of those men who’d paid for a seat on the stage, who never reacted at all. He was very distinctive, with a pronounced wall-eye, with that eye seeming larger than the other. His hair was also strangely spiky. Clemens worked hard to get a reaction, any reaction, and failed, but the rest of the audience was delighted, so he let it go. He didn’t see the man again.

At least, not until he arrived in London. Clemens settles his family in a quiet neighborhood, away from the literary high life, because he has both a book to finish, and their eldest daughter to mourn–Susy Clemens, who died in August 1896. As he is out visiting his English publisher, he sees, seemingly by pure chance, a man identical to the wall-eyed man in Johannesburg. The man is too quickly gone for Clemens to catch up to him or get any more information, but coincidence doesn’t seem a likely explanation. And due to other incidents, he thinks this may have to do not only with him, but with the Diamond Jubilee.

What follows is an alarming sequence of events, with the wall-eyed man entering and apparently searching both the Clemens residence and 221B Baker Street, and neatly evading successful tracking both times, Wiggins and the Irregulars finding confusing and disturbing information about him.

The police assign constables to guard the Clemens home after the wall-eyed man’s intrustion, and one of them is an atypically educated and cultured constable named Marston, who has an interesting family story, and is, like Watson, a veteraon of the Empire’s wars. He’s a good source of information, including leading them to a ratting club where the wall-eyed man often attends and becoms part of the entertainment.

Yet Holmes and one of the Clemens’s longtime household staff have real doubts about Marston’s intentions.

More evidence turns up, and Holmes and Watson go to visit Mycroft Holmes at his club–and get pulled into a very high-level meeting. The growing evidence that there’s a dangerous plot centered on the Diamond Jubilee is solidifying, and the government, from the Prime Minister on down, wants all hands on deck. Sherlock Holmes would have been sent for, if he and Watson hadn’t conveniently arrived under their own power.

There’s intrigue, a partially successful kidnapping, and the revelation of a more twisted plot than any had suspected. Both Watson’s medical skills and his military experience play an important role. The tension builds to a terrifying climax.

The story was good, and I liked the characters, including most of Doyle’s characters. I wasn’t thrilled with how Lestrade and Gregson were depicted, but the back of my mind is suggesting than Schullery got them more right than my memory. This was a really satisfying book, and the narrator did an excellent job.

I got this audiobook free as part of signing up for the publisher’s newsletter.

Cats Sleep on SFF: Boskone

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Lis Carey shared this adorable photo:

Cider working hard at Boskone. Now, she’s helping me verify people’s vaccination status. Earlier, she volunteered in Dragonslair Children’s Program, although autocorrect thought that might be a children’s hospital. She also decided to support the Seattle in 2025 bid.

Photos of your felines (or whatever you’ve got!) resting on genre works are welcome. Send to mikeglyer (at) cs (dot) com

Lis Carey Review: The Scarlet Circus

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Jane Yolen has been writing wonderful fiction, for children and adults, for decades, and this book collects her shorter works of romantic fantasy fiction. That’s small-r romance, where romance is an element of the story, but not the whole story, and happy endings may happen, but are not guaranteed. The variety here is wonderful. A duke’s daughter is determined to save the king’s heir from a curse she is certain on reasonable grounds, is an old wives’ tale. A jeweler in the late 20th century meets a silversmith in the 19th century, and your assumptions are wrong. Alice meets Peter Pan. A Greek sailor meets a djinn. There’s tragedy and happily ever after and more ambiguous outcomes.

The Scarlet Circus (The Jane Yolen Classic Fantasy Stories #4) by Jane Yolen
Tachyon Press, ISBN 9781616963866, February 2023

Review by Lis Carey: This is the fourth volume in a series collecting Jane Yolen’s short fiction, in this case, romantic fantasy. It’s important to be clear that this isn’t Romance in the romance genre sense. These stories contain romance, but are not primarily about romance. It’s not the main point of the stories, and endings may be happy, sad, or something in between.

So, expectations set, right?

“Sans Soleil” is the story of a prince born with curse; he’s “as handsome as the sun,” and the sun will kill him if a sunbeam so much as touches his brow. But there’s a lovely young woman, daughter of a duke, who is convinced that this is an old wives’ tale, complete nonsense, and who is determined to save him from his confinement to the dark.

“Unicorn Tapestry” features one of the three daughters of a king, the least beautiful, and the one without any special talent to make her stand out. She’s assigned the task of embroidering the seat covers for the upcoming unicorn hunt. Her work is competent, and people will be sitting on them, not studying the quality of her work. But gradually, with the help of a very plain little bird, she discovers that her needlework can affect the world in small but significant ways. And someone may recognize what’s really special about her.

“Dragonfield” features a young woman who has her father’s healing gift, and is not much on doing the essential household chores. Tansy discovers evidence of a dragon back in the area after two centuries–and no one believes her. Once the dragon begins hunting in the village, no one has a clue how to stop it. When a “hero” is recruited from outside the area, with a lack of any information on what they want him for, the “hero,” Lancot, also has no real plan — but he and Tansy talk. Tansy knows where the dragonbane is, and Lancot knows how to build really good kites. They both confess–only to each other–that they are not heroes, but they do at least have a plan.

“The Sword and the Stone” is a different take on, well, you know. Nicely done, Merlin is determined to get Britain bound together as one country. Some of Arthur’s knights have a plan to get Arthur married. There’s a nice touch of historical accuracy — among the knights, only Arthur and a few others can be called literate at all, and reading and writing are work for them. The young lad that turned up at Merlin’s workshop, hoping to go to court and learn to be a knight, can read quite well, and that’s a clue. Fun story!

This is a very readable and enjoyable collection. Not everyone will love every story, but they’re all well-done, and I loved or seriously liked most of them, and found all but one at least enjoyable. In addition, the “story notes” include poems Yolen wrote connected to these stories–some poems were written first, and others after, but they’re connected, and she includes them for the enjoyment of the reader.

A really enjoyable collection–I said that, right?

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

Cats Sleep on SFF: The Last Unicorn

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Cider here. I hopes it’s okay I email you uninvited. 

A Book came for Mom, you call her Lis, but she needed a nap. So I supervised it for her. After all, it’s about another magnificent creature, a Unicorn. It might be dangerous!

Here are pictures you can use, if you like Magnificent Creatures.

Cider

Photos of your felines (or whatever you’ve got!) resting on genre works are welcome. Send to mikeglyer (at) cs (dot) com