#BookReview: Come Fly With Me by Camille Di Maio

Perfect Escapism. Even as certain elements of this book are damn near torn from the headlines of the past several weeks – for the record, *long* after Di Maio had completed writing this book, as I’ve had it myself for nearly four months already – this book really is pure, damn near perfect, escapism. For most people. For those in at least one sadly far too common situation – one my own grandmother experienced during the period detailed in this book – it could potentially be triggering. Yet even in this, Di Maio provides a solid set of escapism, and even in this, there is ultimately purpose in the story beyond “you can survive”.

Instead, the vast majority of this tale focuses primarily on one particular lady and the situations she finds herself in during the early 1960s as she attempts a career as a Pan Am stewardess. We see in detail the exacting standards of the position and the more-intense-than-one-may-realize training they underwent. We see the (then) exotic locales that are still wildly different than what most Americans today are accustomed to – and yet those locations have also been increasingly “Americanized” and generally commercialized over the ensuing decades, to the point that this book really hits the nostalgic appeal of the locations in the eras portrayed and, as the text takes place nearly entirely in the early 1960s, largely glosses over all that they have become.

Our other primary narrator from this period is another view of the trials women went through in this period, and here Di Maio does a particularly superb job of showing that looks can indeed be deceiving, and sometimes one must actively seek out the real truth in matters.

Our final perspective – yes, this is technically multi-perspective, but there really are just the three – is a modern day person looking back on the halcyon days portrayed in the rest of the story. It is through her eyes that we see both all that was, story wise, and… even a glimpse of Di Maio herself, as she notes in the Author Note. (No, not even spoiling that here, although that particular tale sounds pretty fucking awesome. 🙂 )

Ultimately this is one of those books that does a truly phenomenal job of providing maximal escapism through exotic travel in a long-gone era… and it is one that is going to tug your heart strings quite a bit at times, both making your heart race from a variety of situations and in making the room quite dusty indeed at points.

For those who may have worried where Di Maio was or if she was coming back at all or if she could come back and stay just as good as she once was, with her last major release being almost exactly three years to the day before the publication date of this book… I’ll tell you now: I’ve now read over half of Di Maio’s major releases, first encountering her with 2019’s The Beautiful Strangers, and at least of the books I’ve read from her… this may well be the best one yet.

Very much recommended.

This review of Come Fly With Me by Camille Di Maio was originally written on February 14, 2025.

#BookReview: Cities In The Sky by Jason M. Barr

Solid And Seemingly Comprehensive Examination Of The Topic. This is a book that takes a look at the ever-evolving quest to build the world’s tallest skyscrapers, from its origins in the 19th century (and the debate over who first created what) all the way through Summer 2023, when the book was being written. Along the way we learn of various periods of American skyscraper construction – yes, including Sears Tower, the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center towers, and others. But we *also* get just as detailed a view of skyscraper construction in other areas of the world and how each builds on advances in the other locations as time progresses. We visit the Middle East and learn of its mega projects. We visit Hong Kong in both the Colonial and Chinese eras. We visit Taiwan and China and see how their standoff plays out in their construction efforts. Along the way, we get the histories and economics of how and why such structures are wanted and what makes them profitable – hint, it isn’t always the rents they generate from tenants. We even get a solid examination of the arguments for and against such structures, along with the (seemingly requisite in this type of book) predictions for the future and a few suggestions for how to make those predictions become reality.

Overall truly an interesting book, well written for the average reader – yes, there is some jargon, but Barr does a solid job of using it sparingly and explaining it reasonably well when he does. Also reasonably well documented, clocking in at 20% of the text of the Advance Review Copy edition I read.

Very much recommended.

This review of Cities In The Sky by Jason M. Barr was originally written on April 27, 2024.

#BookReview: Tides Of Fire by James Rollins

Sigma. Is. Back. With Kingdom Of Bones, it looked like Rollins was delving too far into the fantastical and leaving behind the more grounded roots of this series. Here… the ties are more to the scifi than the fantastical, including The Abyss, Pacific Rim, Earthcore by Scott Sigler, and even… Mass Effect 3??? Yes, there is one particular scene roughly 2/3 into this tale that while not *quite* word for word with a particular moment in Mass Effect 3, is damn close – and the sentiments and reasons are identical within their worlds. (To be fair, in this particular situation… the wording is always going to be very similar, no matter where you encounter it.)

But more than the scifi zeitgeist connections here, this tale truly gets back to the real roots that make Sigma Force so special. We’ve got the historic and the scientific, and again, the scientific is at least more closely based on actual science this time around. But we’ve also got the camaraderie among the team, including having most of the team (minus Painter, Lisa, and newer team member Jason) together the first time we see them and having a bit of a mini-adventure then as the overall tale begins to pick up. Then we’ve got the Sigma Split, with the team breaking up to go their own separate projects to try to uncover and stop whatever is happening. Each of their specialties get highlighted and tested to degrees not seen in recent Sigma books in a fair amount of time, even Gray’s “special brain”. More akin to David Wood’s Dane Maddock Adventures in this particular point, there are even several callouts to other characters from prior Sigma tales and how those characters are still impacting the world even through the events of this tale.

And that epilogue… It sets up the 2024 entry into this series to be one of the most explosive in quite some time, and you’re going to want *that* book in your hands the moment you finish this one.

Very much recommended.

This review of Tides of Fire by James Rollins was originally written on August 12, 2023.