Paperback: "Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers" by Grant Naylor

 Paperback: RED DWARF: INFINITY WELCOMES CAREFUL DRIVERS by Grant Naylor, 1989  AND 1992, 0451452011.

I wanted to rewatch RED DWARF the television program. I could not find the program on any of the streaming services I use. I checked the library catalog for DVDs and found this paperback. I mostly enjoyed it.

Stop reading if you've not seen the TV show. You won't care.

The story is something of a prequel with Lister living in a storage locker on some slummy moon (planet?) and joining the space company as a way to make his way back to Earth. Rimmer is alive and annoying and ends up Lister's roommate. Lister acts up as a way to be sentenced to suspended animation so he can just wake back up after a few years when the ship arrives at Earth. Rimmer is killed when the rest of the crew are killed.

Lister is woken and I don't recall why. Rimmer essentially lucks out in being a hologram rather than the thousands of other people. (There are more explanations of all this stuff, you can read the book if you want to know.) 

Kryten is discovered when the ship runs across Kryten's abandoned hulk on a planet. And we learn about cat's long geneaological heritage.

Comic Novel: "The Black Monday Murders" by Jonathan Hickman

 Comic Novel: THE BLACK MONDAY MURDERS: VOLUME 1: ALL HAIL, GOD MAMMON by Jonathan Hickman and a bunch of artists, 2017, 9781534300279.

I heard about this somewhere. I enjoyed the artwork and the story.

Plot: The world's financial markets are controlled through dark magic or the will of gods. Seven different organizations control their own markets. Important events require blood sacrifice.

More plot: A controlling member of the Caina family is murdered in New York. He sits on the secret controlling board and must be replaced. His long-gone - banished, mainly - sister is recalled from Europe to take his place. 

Time skips back on forth of the decades. Some characters live loooong lives due to power and magic. We get: 

• occult symbols
• power that makes people immune to anything
• family drama
• sexy sexy sex
• occult symbols and ancient languages
• more sexy sexy
• familiars

I enjoyed it.

DNF: THE OCTOPUS by Frank Norris

 DNF: THE OCTOPUS: A STORY OF CALIFORNIA by Frank Norris, 1901, 2005?, 1404322949.

Decently bound hardcover with no LOC cataloging-in-publication information. Odd, that is why a guess of 2005 for this print.

I read LAWN BOY a few months ago - not sure if I yet made any notes about the book here - and the narrator lists a number of books he is reading. OCTOPUS was one of those books and I decided to give it a try. 

Wealthy farmers with large land parcels in California have to ship their grain. The only shipper is the railroad which has a stranglehold. The railroad sets the rates and has the legislature and any Fed commissions in their pocket. The farmers have pushed back over the years with no success. I left the book when the farmers are meeting and trying to form a league to fight the railroad.  

I've had the book a long time and only read a fifth of the book. An interesting enough story but the older writing style requires a more relaxed reader than me. I did really enjoy how the shifting narration would take on the personality of each character. The quirks, the tics, the interests. One guy has a fear/desire for women that drives aggressive behavior. An older guy will talk forever and never stay on topic. 

Anyhoo. I quit it.