To get you in the mood for Valentine’s Day here’s Valentine Musical Selections from 1997. These 16 songs are not the usual mix of love songs. Yes, there’s Curtis Mayfield’s “Oh So Beautiful” but I’m guessing most of you are not familiar with Holly Palmer’s “Come Lie With Me” or Nu Flavor’s “Heaven.

For Smooth Jazz fans there’s “Seduction” by Boney James and Hiroshima’s “Love How You Love Me.” If that music doesn’t get you the the mood for amour, nothing will. Do you have any plans for Valentine’s Day? GRADE: B+

TRACK LIST:

1	Quincy Jones Featuring Tamia–	You Put A Move On My Heart (Edit)	4:20
2	Holly Palmer–	Come Lie With Me	4:44
3	Boney James–	Seduction (Edit)	3:45
4	Marilyn Scott–	I’m Calling You (Edit)	3:37
5	Chaka Khan–	Through The Fire	4:47
6	Tevin Campbell–	Could You Learn To Love	4:09
7	Nu Flavor–	Heaven	5:25
8	Donovan–	Please Don’t Bend	4:12
9	The Blue Nile–	Sentimental Man (Edit)	3:40
10	Eric Benét–	I’ll Be There (Radio Edit)	4:16
11	Hiroshima (3)–	Love How You Love Me	4:58
12	Phajja–	What Are You Waiting For (Edit)	4:03
13	Kevin Mahogany–	I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know	6:08
14	Joshua Redman–	When The Sun Comes Down (Edit)	4:36
15	Curtis Mayfield–	Oh So Beautiful	4:38
16	Andy Snitzer–	Remembrance	5:34

I’m not a big fan of romance fiction but I read the 12 stories full of amorous mystery with a dollop of fear in Murder Most Romantic (2001) in the run-up to Valentine’s Day. My favorite story is “Twelve Days” which involves an Elon Musk-type genius who has threatened to release a viral code that will incapacity nearly every computer in the world. A talented woman hacker goes into the virtual reality world where the culprit is hiding in the attempt to stop the disaster.

Some of the stories feature stalkers. Other stories mix charm with deadly intensions. If you enjoy romance stories mixed with suspense, you’ll like this anthology of passion and menace. GRADE: C+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction / Denise Little — 7

Homicidal honeymoon / Laura Resnick — 9

Scottish ploy / P. N. Elrod — 29

www.gonnahavekelly.com / Diane A. S. Stuckart — 47

Perfect man / Kristine Kathryn Rushch — 71

Celtic cross / Yvonne Jocks — 107

Hostage to love / Mary Watson — 123

Dizzy and the biker / Susan Sizemore — 145

Night hawks / Jody Lynn Nye — 169

Keeper of the well / Deb Stover — 181

Dearly beloved / D. R. Meredith — 201

Show must go on / Nessa Hart — 217

Twelve days / Laura Hayden — 235

Authors’ Biographies — 255

Copyrights & Permissions — 271

I’ve been a fan of Matthew Hughes since Fools Errant and Fool Me Twice were published by Warner Books in 2001. Hughes has mastered the tone and worlds of the great Jack Vance. Hughes’s pastiches of Vance’s Dying Earth and the Gaean Reach space operas ring true and capture the richness of a unique Science Fiction universe.

In Hughe’s latest novel, Henchmen (2025), two characters meet and find themselves embroiled in the machinations of the Vanderoy Wizards’ Guild. Vunt is a gambler with greater expectations.  Oldo is has left his family’s farm in search of adventure. 

The two young men meet when they both seek work at a riverside warehouse that handles goods being shipped up-stream and down-stream.  The operation reeks of illicit activities, but Vunt and Oldo accept the lucrative pay while they investigate their boss’s shifty schemes.

The schemes involve magical items of great power. The Wizards’ Guild offer Vunt and Oldo jobs as henchmen and send them on a dangerous trip to discover who desires the magical objects and what plot is brewing to invoke ancient powers by power-mad thaumaturges.

Fans of Matthew Hughes will enjoy the episodic style of Henchmen, the battles of spell-slingers, and the dreaded terrors of the Underworld. Vunt and Oldo, minor characters in Hughes’s Baldemar stories, get to take center stage in their own novel of wizardry, menace, and danger. GRADE: B+

I’m reviewing Stephen Spotswood’s faux-Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin novels, Murder Crossed Her Mind (2023) and Dead in the Frame (2025) because (MINOR SPOILER: Spotswood ends Murder Crossed Her Mind with a cliffhanger).

Defense Attorney Forest Whitsun, hires Pentecost and Parker to find his former associate, Vera Bodine, who worked as a secretary for a law firm. Vera Bodine had a photographic memory that made her invaluable to the lawyers in the law firm where Witsun once worked. Whitsun and Bodine became friends and when Bodine retired, Whitsun would visit her and bring her food. Later, Bodine was approached by the FBI to help them find Nazis in the New York City area during World War II.

Whitsun discovered that Vera Bodine–who rarely left her apartment–was missing. He doesn’t have time to search for her with his heavy work schedule so he hires Pentecost and Parker.

Things get complicated fast. Will Parker is ambushed under the boardwalk. Pentecost is threatened by the psychopathic millionaire, Jessup Quincannon. Some issues get solutions, some don’t. GRADE: B+

Just published Dead in the Frame picks up where Murder Crossed Her Mind ended: with the arrest of Lillian Pentecost. Pentecost is sent to the New York Women’s House of Detention–a brutal prison–while Will Parker tries to make sense of the framing of her boss.

Having read all five books in the Pentecost/Parker series, I would award MOST COMPLICATED PLOT to Dead in the Frame. There is the key murder that has put Pentecost behind bars, but then there are peripheral deaths that are part of the twisty scheme to have Lillian Pentecost convicted of murder.

Will Parker narrates much of the book, but every so often, Spotswood provides a chapter of Pentecost’s prison journal with its dismal aspects of vengeful prison guards, terrible food, and rats.

I must confess, I did not have Dead in the Frame figured out. I unravelled some of the tangled plot, but the big Reveal came as a surprise. The Pentecost/Parker mysteries have been the highlight of my 2025 reading. Don’t miss this series! GRADE: A

The Kansas City Chiefs are going for a “Three-peat”–winning three straight Super Bowls–while the Philadelphia Eagles are going for revenge for their defeat in Super Bowl LVII. The Chiefs are 2-point favorites. Diane and I will be eagerly watching the Super Bowl commercials. Which team will you be rooting for?

I’ve watched several Spider-Man animated series over the years so I was in the target market for this new retro-Spider-Man series on Disney+. Peter Parker is voiced by Hudson Thames and the teenager is tormented by teen-age angst. He’s in love with his former baby-sitter…who shows no interest in his affections. Parker is always late to class and yearns to study robotics.

While there are variations from the classic Spider-Man origin story, the bite from a radioactive spider stays the same. Parker must adjust to his new super-powers while protecting his secret identity. And, hopefully, he’ll get a less kludgy Spider-Man suit (above).

Disney+ will release new episodes on Wednesdays and this season, consisting of 10 episodes, will explore a reality where Norman Osborn becomes Peter’s mentor instead of Tony Stark. Are you a fan of Spider-Man? GRADE: Incomplete (but trending towards a B)

Donald E. Westlake’s The Actor (aka, Memory) follows actor Paul Cole who sustains a concussion and ends up in a hospital. The brain injury affects Cole’s memory. He struggles to remember his pre-concussion Life and has to deal with an iffy short-term memory, too.

Memory is Westlake’s last novel and a departure from the crime novels he’s most celebrated for. The actor, whose memory problems steal the joys of his Life, lurches from one pitfall to another. His friends try to help Cole, but even they get frustrated by his inability to remember recent incidents. Cole’s inability to remember wrecks his hopes of returning to acting. But…what other jobs could he do? How can he cope with daily Life if he can’t recall what that Life consists of?

Westlake wrote Memory in the ‘60s, but couldn’t get it published. Westlake then focused on being a successful genre writer. Memory ended up in a desk drawer and where it languished, even after Westlake achieved success. Westlake’s friend Lawrence Block read Memory shortly after it was written and considered it a great book. After Westlake’s death in 2008, Block asked Westlake’s widow to look for a copy of Memory in Westlake’s files.  Abby Adams Westlake found it, and Block helped get it published. GRADE: B

Memory is being filmed as a major motion picture starring Andre Holland (Moonlight) and Gemma Chan (Crazy Rich Asians) directed by Duke Johnson from a screenplay he co-wrote with Stephen Cooney. The movie has a planned 2025 release date.

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I thought this 80s Love Songs compilation would bring some romantic thoughts into your minds. I always liked Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away.” Marvin Gaye’s classic “Sexual Healing” and “Slow Hand” amp up the mood.

But there are a couple of clunkers here. Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” and Leo Sayer’s “More Than I Can Say” are weak links.

Do you remember these love songs from the 1980s? GRADE: B

Track Listing:

		Title/Composer	Performer	Time
	1	Take My Breath Away	Berlin	04:19
	2	No One Is to Blame	Howard Jones	03:36
	3	More Than I Can Say	Leo Sayer	03:04
	4	Sukiyaki	A Taste of Honey	03:37
	5	Lessons in Love	Level 42	04:34
	6	It Might Be You	Stephen Bishop	04:27
	7	Sexual Healing	Marvin Gaye	04:51
	8	Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now Albert Hammond / Diane Warren	Starship	04:22
	9	Slow Hand	The Pointer Sisters	04:52
	10	Celebration Joanna Clifford Adams / Robert “Kool” Bell / Ronald Bell / James L. Bonnefond / George “Funky” Brown / Claydes Smith / James “J.T.” Taylor / Curtis “Fitz” Williams	Kool & the Gang	03:33

For a quick and mostly accurate summary of 20th Century Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card’s MASTERPIECES: THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION OF THE CENTURY does a nice job. Yes, not all these stories are masterpieces–but they are very good. My major quibble is the lack of inclusion of Jack Vance stories.

The section on “THE NEW WAVE” brings back a lot of memories because those years were heavy SF reading times for me. Those stories and those writers redefined the SF genre.

The impact of “THE MEDIA GENERATION” stories is more questionable. William Gibson and Michael Swanwick have had an impact. George R. R. Martin’s “Sandkings” sent reverberations throughout the SF world in 1979. But Martin’s biggest impact was Game of Thrones.

Do you remember these stories? Any favorites here? GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION — 1

The Golden Age

• “Call me Joe” by Poul Anderson (1957) — 7
• “All You Zombies” by Robert A. Heinlein (1958) — 36
• “Tunesmith” by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. (1957) — 47
• “A Saucer of Loneliness” by Theodore Sturgeon (1953) — 80
• “Robot Dreams” by Isaac Asimov (1986) — 91
• “Devolution” by Edmond Hamilton (1936) — 97
• “The Nine Billion Names of God” by Arthur C. Clarke (1953) — 110
• “A Work of Art” by James Blish (1956) — 116
• “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed” by Ray Bradbury (1949) — 130

The New Wave

• “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” by Harlan Ellison (1965) — 145
• “Eurema’s Dam” by R.A. Lafferty (1972) — 156
• “Passengers” by Robert Silverberg (1968) — 166
• “The Tunnel under the World” by Frederik Pohl (1955) — 177
• “Who Can Replace a Man?” by Brian W. Aldiss (1958) — 203
• “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin (1973) — 212
• “Inconstant Moon” by Larry Niven (1973) — 218

The Media Generation

• “Sandkings” by George R.R. Martin (1979) — 243
• “The Road Not Taken” by Harry Turtledove (1985) — 276
• “Dogfight” by William Gibson and Michael Swanwick (1985) — 297
• “Face Value” by Karen Joy Fowler (1986) — 316
• “Pots” by C. J. Cherryh (1985) — 327
• “Snow” by John Crowley (1985) — 351
• “Rat” by James Patrick Kelly (1986) — 364
• “Bears Discover Fire” by Terry Bisson (1990) — 375
• “A Clean Escape” by John Kessel (1986) — 384
• Tourists” by Lisa Goldstein (1985) — 396
• “One” by George Alec Effinger (1995) — 408

The Wild Robot came and went here in September 2024. But it did well worldwide. The Wild Robot grossed $325 million worldwide at the box office, making it the sixth-highest grossing animated film of 2024.

A storm causes a Universal Dynamics cargo ship to lose ROZZUM service robots, which wash up on an isolated island. ROZZUM Unit 7134 (aka, Roz) attempts to find a purpose and ends up trying to raise a gosling. Lupita Nyong’o voices Roz as she frequently overrides her programming to accomplish her task. Roz makes friends with a snarky fox, Fink, voiced by Pedro Pascal. Together, Roz and Fink help the gosling, Brightbill (Kit Connor) learn to swim and fly.

I liked Catherine O’Hara as Pinktail, a maternal Virginia opossum who gives Roz some advice on raising Brightbill, Bill Nighy as Longneck, an elderly barnacle goose who helps Roz understand teaching Brightbill how to fly, and Mark Hamill as Thorn, a grizzly bear and the island’s most feared predator.

I’m a fan of robots so The Wild Robot entertained me. I suspect many of you would enjoy it, too. GRADE: B+