Walt Longmire, Collected Shorts

No Walt Longmire collection is complete without this collection of short stories. Few (any? I can't recall) are mysteries (no, wait, at least one was), most of them being adventures of some sort, with all of them being further insight into the mythical world of Absaroka County, Wyoming.

The stories were originally published as Christmas stories for fans, and not available in collection form (or at all, maybe, depending on the original publications, none of which I'm actually bothering to track down, to be honest). I'm late enough to the Longmire train that they are available in one volume, which delights me.

Each story takes place in a well defined time in the Longmire saga. While they could have been entertaining to read properly in order with the full-length mysteries, I still enjoyed reading them all at once in the end, as I wait for Dry Bones to come out NOT SOON ENOUGH (cough, three weeks).

So, for any Longmire fan, this collection is totally recommended. I had a number of laugh-out-loud moments in the book: Johnson's wit is still sharp.

I'm not sure who recommended this book to me, likely Andy or Kris. The basic premise is that in a not-too-distant future (like, really not too distant, the world is pretty much shit, and humans interact in a virtual world, pretty much hermitting except for, well, not much. The creator of the virtual world technology dies, and leaves the inheritance of his vast fortune to the first person to find an easter egg hidden in that virtual world. The biggest issue with the easter egg hunt is the stunning size and complexity of the virtual world created.

The book is full of 1980s trivia, including more references to early gaming culture than I have seen in a long, long, long time.

It was a great, if somewhat awkward at times, read.

And as Andy says, "Was there ever a greater decade than the 80s?" The answer is, of course, "No."

Recommended.