It's one more Monday in a long string of Mondays (thank god, we're alive, right?)

I'm still laptop-less. Tonight on the news I heard about the new I-pad 3 that's come out. It's suppose to take great pics, and have a pretty good photo app (at least, I think it takes pics, might have understood that wrong - cause can't imagine holding it up to take pictures, now that I think about it.) and has great screen resolution for reading text. Might be something to save up for in the future - haha, y'know to spend all my money that I DON'T have on. Onc can always dream, though.

Hosted by Sheila of Book Journey, it's time to discuss our current reads....

I'm having stronger than usual shoulder pain, and the other back issues haven't gone away, so there won't be a lot of typing going on tonight...

This past week, I finished reading R.M. Meluch's The Sagittarius Command. Boy what a good, fun Space Opera romp! (I love that word, ROMP, it's so...ROMPY!)

I also reviewed it (faster than normal). Now I'm about 100 pages from the end of the fourth in the series - Strength and Honor. Just as fun, except there's way more information being introduced - space information...science and planet/star formations, etc. Luckily these are presented as one or two page sections, and aren't two eye-glazing. There's also some history, although it's future history. important to the story, yet --well, there's quite a bit of it. Thank goodness Meluch has an interesting way of presenting her "info-dumps" - interesting enough to keep me reading.

Thanks to my brothers, I'm going on a trip - except it's by plane, it's to a place very far away, and right now the location is secret - because it's a surprise for someone....I don't think this person reads my blog, never gave the info up. But I'm getting nervouse because I don't like planes. I don't like being around a lot of people, crowds kind of freak me out and it's going to be in a hot and steamy place. I don't do heat well. tend to melt.

Even so, I am looking forward to it - though I might need a hefty dose of valium.

I'm starting to stress out about everything to do with going on a plane trip.

I.D.

carrying tubes of toothpaste

my perfume that I can't go without

my medicine, do I have to bring my whole bottle?

all of them? each one is a month supply of medicine, and what if it gets lost?

what if I throw up on the plane

what if we have a crazy stewardess?

how am I going to make it up all those steps?

Should I ask my doc to send a note about my back problems?

I should have already taken care of that. geez

what if I don't have enough money for anything?

I hate never having as much money as the rest of my siblings

I don't even have a credit card, and they're always - "lets go out to this expensive restaurant!" Can't afford it.

now I'm getting negative

I'm nervous.

I'm also kind of aging, and I don't have pretty skin anymore on my legs, and my muscular brothers who are younger than I am and still are handsome - they're going to be all handsome while I look like a wrinkly, pale, overweight person with lumpy skin on my thighs. I'm NOT GOING SWIMMING unless I wear bicycle shorts -

I'm also not going to get a brazilian wax.....not for me

Okay - enough of that

I'm going to have fun no matter what.

The Sagittarius Command by R.M. Meluch - review

The Sagittarius Command

*****

Book Three of the U.S.S. Merrimack series

R.M Meluch

SciFi (2007)

cover - I like the cover. There are weird things exploding in space, spaceships taking hits, and those strange little eating entities affectionately called Gorgons by the Navy and Marine crews that man the U.S.S. Merrimack.

One of the things I enjoy about some women SciFi authors is the interesting blend of science, SciFi, Space Opera/Odyssey, tough fighting marines, opposing factions, spies, enemies and the interpersonal relationships between all characters that all tend to evolve when people work and live together for long periods of time. Not to be sexist, but sometimes you don't get quite the blend I'm looking for with a male writer. I know some men write the type of stories I love to read - and then again there are some times when I enjoy a more "male" perspective. I certainly do not look for or enjoy when a SciFi or horror novel goes all gooey and lovestruck - overwhelming the story. I'm referring to the novels that tend to end up being a strong romance novel with some fantasy, SciFi, horror or U.F. just lightly blended into the book. To me, they tend to read as if the genre came second to the love story. Which is fine, if that's what you're looking for. It's just not what I'm looking for.

With the U.S.S. Merrimack series, the blending of SciFi, humor, horror and personal relationships have just the right touch. An overall theme in this series is the war between the Romans (who have left Earth to claim as much space and as many worlds as they can, while re-building the Roman Empire) and the United States government along with the horror aspects of the hive like behaviour of the Gorgons. The gorgons travel through space, seemingly impervious to any repeated attacks as they literally eat their way through space ships, planets and galaxies - eating anything organic. And they are attracted by same resonance that the space-going ships and planets use to send messages to each other. Not a good thing.

At the end of book two, Rome had surrendered to the United States - or rather, to John Farragut, the captain of the U.S.S. Merrimack. He took their surrender and now both sides are supposed to be cooperating or at least working together to find the home planet of the gorgons and destroy them. Farragut, a very interesting, almost absurdedly charismatic man is made Commodore of a five ship fleet. He's in charge of the whole operation. The Romans don't particularly want to work with him. His own crew seems to be intensely loyal to him because of his way with people and soldiers. He not only remembers small details of his crews, but when he talks to a crew member, they feel like they are the only person he's paying attention to at the moment. Even some of the men who hate him, his enemies can't help begrudginly respecting and liking him. He almost seems to good to be true - and could be considered the male version of a Mary Sue, except that the story is so fun to read, the dialog so engaging, and Farragut is not completely perfect. But he's a fun character to read with his almost superhero ways.

The fleet comes into quite a few scrapes, where it seems like all is lost, but they manage to pull through - and this would be kind of unbelievable, except that this is SciFi and the narration and dialogue is so fun, that I just enjoyed the scenes and the impossible saves.

In fact, I enjoyed this novel just as much - possibly a bit more than the first two novels. The only thing that kept this from being a Six on my scale was that there were a few instances where the characters began to speak philosophy a bit more than I enjoy reading. I'm not really into too much of that "thinking man's" dialogue. However, I am impressed that Meluch stayed away from massive infodumps - SciFi reading can sometimes be a little overwhelming to the unscientifically geared mind when introducing a scientific theory. There was a bit of information being passed along in the guise of dialogue - but thankfully this wasn't an overwhelming experience.

On the whole, loved reading The Sagittarius Command, enjoyed the fighting, the action, dialogue and characters. I'm blissfully going to grab that fourth novel in the series that's waiting over there on the shelf....

Teaser Tuesday

Some exciting news - J.A. Campbell's YA urban fantasy, Senior Year Bites, was released in e-book form in June of 2011. Luckily for us fans, Campbell has been working on a sequel titled Summer Break Blues - She just found out that her sequel is being published. Woo-Hoo!

Let's hear it for first time sequels!

As soon as I find out when it'll be published, I'll post it - but you can keep an eye out by going to J.A. Campbell's website.

Now it's time for Teaser Tuesday. Hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading - you guessed, we tease with snippets of our current reads, or in some cases, a book that's handy. :)

I'm in the middle of The Sagittarius Command by R.M. Meluch.

I've corrected it (them), but it seems almost everytime I posted about this series, I've mispelled her name - sometimes I put MJ Meluch and other times RJ Meluch. Must have been Trippin'! It's for sure R.M. Meluch (right in front of me, so I know for reals, for sure)

from page 191/192

'She boarded Merrimack under a Marine watch the whole way.

"What was that?" Cain Salvador cried after Amadea was escorted off the deck.

"White Tiger," Said Ranza Espinoza.

"I mean on her chin!"

"That would be a beard," said Ranza.'

Oh Yeah!

I don't have much more for you than this tonight - still having formatting and browser difficulties. I have to go to one browser to post and another JUST TO INSERT LINKS. How crazy is that? Uninstalling adobe shockwave didn't do the trick - I think it's a browser thing.

Here's another LOL Cat, because I'm obsessed, therefore, you should be too!