Star of the Morning by Lynn Kurland

I can’t remember when I had as much fun as I did reading Star of the Morning, the first of Lynn Kurland‘s Nine Kingdoms novels.   The king is annoying, but Miach and Morgan are likeable.  There is plenty of sword fighting, magery, and romance (but no sex).  I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the books about Morgan and, I hope, Miach:

• The Mage’s Daughter
• Princess of the Sword
• A Tapestry of Spells

Blog Posts, Articles, and Reports To Read: April 2013

• “MOOCs Are No Education Panacea, but Here’s What Can Make Them Work“
• “How To Make A MOOC, MIT Style“
• “4 Wonderful Critical Thinking Graphics“
• “The Past, Present, And Future Of MOOCs“
• “9 Tips Every Teacher Should Know about Google Scholar“
• “Online Learning Helps Undergraduates Get Better Grades“
• “MOOCs: Who’s using MOOCs? 10 different target audiences“

Blog Posts, Articles, and Reports To Read: March 2013

• “The Four Student Archetypes Emerging in MOOCs“
• “Changing Course: Ten Years of Tracking Online Education in the United States“
• “Emerging Student Patterns in MOOCs: A (Revised) Graphical View“
• “Who’s afraid of the big bad MOOC?“
• “Beyond the Buzz, Where Are MOOCs Really Going?“
• “The MOOC Model: Challenging Traditional Education“
• “Digg Will Build RSS Reader“

Blog Posts, Articles, and Reports To Read: January 2013

• “MOOCS, Online Learning, and the Wrong Conversation“
• “The 15 Education Technologies To Know About This Year“
• “The moot point of MOOCs“
• “Students Rush to Web Classes, but Profits May Be Much Later“
• “16 Learning Trends, We Simply CAN’T Ignore!“
• “Is 2013 Year Of The MOOC?“

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold

I don’t remember having read anything by Lois McMaster Bujold before.  I enjoyed The Curse of Chalion and finished it in less than 24 hours.  I’m glad I didn’t stop reading it after the first chapter as I was tempted to do.  As Jo Beverley is quoted in a blurb on the back cover  “It is a truly enthralling story with a wonderful hero, dire challenges, and a subtle but thoroughly satisfying love story.”  I’m looking forward to reading the other books set in this universe, Paladin of Souls and The Hallowed Hunt, as well as other books she’s written.

The Siren Depths by Martha Wells

The Siren Depths (San Francisco: Night Shade Books, 2012), Book 3 of Martha Wells’ Books of the Raksura, is the best of the three books in the series.  (I wrote about The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea last month.) Moon and the reader learn about his early life and how he ended up being alone in the Three Worlds.  In this volume, Wells does more in the way of character development, though her imagination is still obvious.

The cover of this book has a similar problem to the last one:  The Raksura, if it is Moon, is the wrong color.

I’m planning to read Wells’ Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy next.

A Marked Man by Barbara Hamilton

A Marked Man is Hamilton’s second Abigail Adams mystery.  I liked it even better than the first one, The Ninth Daughter, which I read in December.  There are fewer interruptions in the action.  I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series, Sup with the Devil.

I’ve also become interested in reading more about the real John and Abigail Adams.

Silent Weapons by David Mack

Silent Weapons is the second book in the Star Trek:  The Next Generation:  Cold Equations trilogy.  I didn’t like it quite as much as the first book, The Persistence of Memory, which I read and wrote about in November, probably because there are so many characters to keep track of , most of whom are not in the Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series or movies.  The third book in the series, The Body Electric, was released in December.

Blog Posts, Articles, and Reports To Read: December 2012

• “A Course to Remember: Facilitating Memory Retention in eLearning“
• “The future of MOOCs“
• “The Tower of Babel: MOOCs, Online Learning, and Language…“
• “Rubric for evaluating message board posts“
• “Mixing it up in MOOCs“
• “10 Plagiarism Signs you should Be Aware of“
• “Community Colleges Try MOOCs in Blended Courses“
• “5 Ways Technology Will Impact Higher Ed in 2013“
• “New technology opens door to world of virtual classes for students“
• “10 Books For Learning Professionals To Read In 2013“
• “Blended Learning for Academic Resilience in Times of Disaster or Crisis“
• “Student as Avatar: A Study of Informational Preferences in a Virtual World Class“
• “110 Predictions For the Next 110 Years“
• “Whither MOOCs in 2013?“
• “A must Have Educational Technology Cheat Sheet“
• “What I’m learning from Harvard: A MOOC story“
• “An insider’s guide: what it’s really like to study a MOOC“
• “Online learning in 2012: a retrospective“
• “Six Social-Digital Trends for 2013“
• “Using Pinterest in the Classroom #edtech“
• “Teachers Manual on the Use of Pinterest in Education“
• “Seven Tips from Colorado State University OnlinePlus to Make the Online Learning Experience More Personal“
• “A Simple Guide To 4 Complex Learning Theories“
• “A Quick Guide To The History Of MOOCs“
• “Developing a MOOC-Inspired Course“

The Ninth Daughter by Barbara Hamilton

The Ninth Daughter (New York:  Berkley Prime Crime, 2009) is Barbara Hamilton‘s firstAbigail Adams mystery.  The novel is set in 1773 Boston and surrounding areas.  Well-known Sons of Liberty, like John Adams, Sam Adams, and Paul Revere, make appearances.

According to a post on Barbara Hambly’s website, Hamilton hopes “that the series continues at least far enough for Abigail to do some sleuthing in tandem with Martha Washington in the seige-camp outside of occupied Boston during the Seige, and–crossed fingers–with Mr. Jefferson in pre-revolutionary Paris.”

The next two mysteries in the series are A Marked Man and Sup with the Devil.

Barbara Hamilton is apparently a pseudonym of Hambly’s (“Barbara Hamilton“).  Hambly has been one of my favorite fantasy writers for many years; I particularly enjoyed her Darwath series, Windrose Chronicles, and Sun-Cross novels (“Barbara Hambly“).