I’VE BEEN TRYING TO TAKE IT A BIT EASY, as exhaustion was setting in, and in the spare time I’ve opened up I’ve been reading a complete collection of Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy mysteries, compled and edited by Eric Flint.

I’m a fairly big fan of Flint as a science fiction writer, but he’s also done quite a service by lending his name and efforts to bringing back new editions of classic science fiction and fantasy. He’s also put together new releases of works by Murray Leinster, James Schmitz, and Keith Laumer. For an up-and-coming new writer like Flint to spend time bringing out this sort of thing seems to me like a real service, and I appreciate it.

The Lord Darcy stories — mysteries set in a world where the Plantagenets still rule Britain, and where magic works but electric lighting is a closely guarded state secret — are classics, and work quite well on many levels. If you’re into this sort of thing, and haven’t read them, you might want to check them out.

UPDATE: Reader Greg Dougherty emails:

If you’re going to include links to the books, you might want to also include links to Webscriptions, where you can get non-encrypted, non-copy-protected electronic versions of the books for at most $5 / book.

www.webscription.net/

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me, though if you print them out instead of reading them on the computer, it might be cheaper just to buy the book.