Catching Up On My Writing About Reading

REVIEWS OF UNUSUAL SIZE

A million books! Give or take. It's been far too long since I've updated my reading list and reviews on here. I'm not sure why. If I'd just write the dang review right after I read it, I wouldn't have such a daunting pile of books in front of me! Onward!

BOOKS

5 THINGS ABOUT...

TANNER'S TWELVE SWINGERS
by Lawrence Block
1999, 272 pages

1 -   The third book in the increasingly over-the-top Tanner series finds our sleepless hero travelling across the country, collecting an increasingly screwball collection of refugees.

2 -   I found myself getting annoyed with Tanner's character as this story progressed. At first, I loved the idea - a man that never sleeps and uses the extra 8 hours a day to learn languages, read books and champion lost causes but it seems to have changed to championing radical military groups from assorted countries, which I find much less appealing.

3 -   Tanner is still a great guy though and despite the escalating goofiness, I enjoyed the ride.

4 -   It should be interesting to see where the series goes with the next book.

5 -   Block initially resisted the title, preferring The Lettish Tomatoes, but I like the title quite a bit.

 6/10
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TROUBLE IN PARADISE

by Robert B. Parker

1998, 304 pages

1 -   Police Chief Jesse Stone has to protect his sleepy town from an elaborate and not very well planned out robbery scheme.

2 -   Jesse Stone remains a very appealing character. He has a distinct set of ethics and despite the self loathing is a good man. That kind of character is fun to read about, which would explain why there are over thirty Stone novels and a series of movies starring Tom Sellick.

3 -   Speaking of whom, Stone compares himself to the actor at one point, which made me wonder which came first, I would assume the movies.

4 -   The character of Crow is a good one. Nasty and mysterious, though you never really get a good feel for why he's so bad.

5 -   I felt this book ended far too abruptly, with everyone kind of just giving up, dying or escaping in a few pages.

6/10
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NOW & THEN

by Robert B. Parker

2007, 322 pages

1 -   This was the first Spenser novel I've read, though I used to watch the show regularly as a kid.

2 -   Spenser is just as cool in the books and Hawk is even cooler.

3 -  Spenser gets caught up in a simple infidelity investigation that turns complex, with spies, murder and government secrets.

4 -   Soon, Spenser has to call in his buddies to protect his lady. They were my personal favorite about the book. Loved them.

5 -   Robert B. Parker died recently and I've just started reading his work. There's a good reason he's so respected. His books are fun to read and have excellent characters.

 8/10
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BLACKMAILER

by George Axelrod

  1952, 202 pages

1 -   Old-School crime from the author of The Seven Year Itch.

2 -   Another extremely fine release from the good folks over at Hard Case Crime, with a gorgeous new Orbik cover and the retro-sweet touches that make me googly eyed.

3 -   Satiric, fun and nasty, a hapless book publisher has to unravel the secret behind a prestigious and previously unknown manuscript from a recently deceased Nobel Prize-winning author. But if it's unknown, why do so many people seem to know about it, and why do they all want him to print it?

4 -   Swishes hollywood starlets, thinly veiled homages to authors and personalities around in a tumbler to create a delightful little drink.

5 -   Did I mention how much I love Hard Case Crime? Look at that cover above, then go here to see the original. Back? Isn't this new cover a peach? I raise my glass to HCC for reprinting these gems and scattering them out for a modern audience. And making them look good.

8/10
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VOID MOON

by Michael Connelly

2000, 450 pages

1 -   A rarity for Connelly, a one-shot featuring a "villain" as the main protagonist.

2 -   Years ago, Cassie Black went to prison for her part in a casino robbery gone horribly wrong. Out on parole, she tries to leave her old life behind. Until she learns something that forces her to take a job back in Vegas, to the same casino where her beloved died all those years before

3 -   Standard Connelly, which is to say a quick read with original characters. I liked it, but I never got the feel of Vegas that I usually get from books like this.

4 -   A couple of silly parts in here too, and the villain was never as stone-cold as they made it sound on the cover. In fact, he seemed a bit bumbling.

5 -   My cover, featuring a white and black casino chip in an eclipse is much cooler than the cover online.

7/10
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PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS -

THE LIGHTNING THIEF

by Rick Riordan

2005, 375 pages

1 -   I wanted to not like this. But I did.

2 -   Percy Jackson is kind of the Middle Grade fiction that gets on my nerves. Modern feeling, with a sarcastic and snarky main character, a gimmick, and a huge following.

3 -   I read this because it's my nephew's favorite book and I promised him I would, if he would read the second one when I finished. He's read this installment six or seven times but hasn't read the second.

4 -   I was surprised at how likeable Percy ended up being, though his female friend is pretty forgettable to me. The idea, while gimmicky, is pretty well executed, too.

5 -   I love Riordan's previous adult novels, modern detective books. Check them out! (It's also possible that this is why I didn't want to like the Percy Jackson books, I like Rick's adult stuff too much to want him to stop writing them.)

 8/10
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DAY BY DAY ARMAGEDDON

by J.L. Bourne
 2009, 224 pages

1 -   Zombie mayhem written in diary form! Originally self published online, the book now has a proper release, a sequel and hollywood nosing around.

2 -   Too bad it's so dire.

3 -   The characters are thinly fleshed out, even the main character, who seems like a generic army boy. Stupid, well versed in gun terminology, conveniently able to fly a plane... Ugh. I'm really afraid that others will read the zombie novel I'm writing and say the same thing about it, but I got so annoyed with the main character here.

4 -   The zombies seemed to change their definitions slightly throughout the story, and not in the good way, more like the author forgot whether they could do something and just winged it.

5 -   All the same, it was a fast read and won't disappoint fans of the genre too much. I liked it enough to finish it on my computer when my version on the nook konked out 3/4 of the way through, I just really disliked the Hoo-Rah dumb jock main character.

6/10
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THE POSTMAN

by David Brin
 1997, 336 pages

1 -   When the world ends, a lone shyster finds a postman's uniform and mailbags and inadvertantly starts a revolution of civilization.

2 -   I dig the concept of this book, and Brin creates a very bleak but realistic world for the postman.

3 -   It starts out great, really strong, with one of my favorite post-apocalyptic worldviews and interesting people living in it.

4 -   Then it throws in genetic supermen, over the top war sequences, silly coincidences and an all too pat ending. Blast!

5 -   No Tom Petty.

7/10
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BLACK CHERRY BLUES

by James Lee Burke
 1990, 384 pages

1 -   I love Dave Robicheaux and the Louisianan world that Burke has created. Dave is a real person with a lot of little ticks and mannerisims that make him such a kick to read about.

2 -   To be honest, I don't actually remember what the story was in this novel... But I recall liking it. Something with a bad guy and fishing and... I can't remember.

3 -   (After checking....) Oh yeah! Robicheaux goes to Montana and stomps around Missoula a bit on the trail of a missing person. Which, by the way, I got the feeling that Burke actually visited Missoula for the novel. He manages to get the feel for the country along with details of the area spot on.

4 -   I always want a Dr. Pepper with fresh lime while I read these books.

5 -   The version of this book I read on my nook calls the town he visits "Poison, MT" I don't know if it was an intentional choice to use a fictional town, or if the computer program that converted this to a digital book misread the very real town of Polson, MT, which happens to exist roughly where he describes Poison in my text here...

9/10
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MONSTER PLANET

by David Wellington
2007, 320 pages

1 -   I liked the first one of these books.

2 -   Then the zombies started talking, gaining telepathic powers and other nonsense.

3 -   Then it got worse.

4 -   This book, the third, got even worse.

5 -   That's right, I'm criticizing a zombie book for being over the top and silly. A line must be drawn somewhere!

1/10

Book Reviews - Bride Of Recent Reads

Whoops, almost a month between reviews again! I've gotta stop taking so long. This set took me so long to type up that I've read two books since I started! Still, thirteen books in 28 days aint too bad.

I have fallen in love with Hard Case Crime, publishers of fine reprint and original hardboiled crime novels. They all have a stylin' new cover, painted exclusively for the book, lurid titles, excellent retro design. I love them ever so much. They even have a mail order service. Forget magazines, I want a new novel in the mail every month! Maybe next month I'd get Satan Is A Woman, or Losers Live Longer! Hooray for old-school crime!

THE COLORADO KID
By Stephen King
2005, 184 pages

What a great book. I've read online that a lot of people were either in love with, or despised the ending of this book. Without giving anything away, I fell solidly into the Love category. I wish King would write more stuff like this! Two old newsmen tell a roundabout story of a fellah's death to a young female reporter. There's both more and less to the story than it seems.

8/10


BUST
By Ken Bruen & Jason Starr
2006, 254 pages

Bust was the first HCC novel I read, and it was a great choice. Psychopathic hitmen, sexy women, rich men. Double-crossing each other left and right, with just the right amount of sex and violence. A perfect, old school crime novel.

9/10


THE LAST MATCH
By David Dodge
2006, 319 pages

My first real disappointment with the HCC line. If i'd read the afterword first, I would have gotten a pretty good handle on why I don't care for this novel. It was written by a woman's father, she edited and revised it, and from what I can tell, both of them were pretty pretentious about the story. These kinds of books need a sense of fun, not a feel that they think they're writing something important.

3/10


GRIFTER'S GAME
By Lawrence Block
1961, 205 pages

I love Lawrence Block. His writing always gives me a real feel for the era, and his deliciously immoral characters give me happy feelings inside. Read this.

8/10


THE VENGEFUL VIRGIN
By Gil Brewer
1958, 220 pages

Man, this book got me the funniest look from my nephew (in-law) when he walked in and saw me reading it. Nothing like a book with the word VIRGIN on it, with a shot of a blonde with a gun and money in front of a fire to shock a ten-year-old! Sweet ride from the author of Satan is a Woman. A pretty, naive and crazy young girl convinces the TV repair man to bump off an old man and run away with his money. Sounds so simple...

7/10

SLEEP WITH THE FISHES
By Brian M. Wiprud
2006, 239 pages

I've liked Wiprud ever since I picked up Stuffed at a used book store in Newport a few years ago. His characters are wacky, but not so over the top as to be completely unbelievable, and the stories are a rollicking good time. Unfortunately, Sleep left me a bit flat. I don't know if it was the fishing or that the main character seemed a bit less developed than his norm, but It left me craving one of his earlier books. It kind of seemed like a Hiassen book, actually. Good, but not qute as good as it could have been.

6/10

THE PISTOL POETS
By Vistor Gischler
2005, 340 pages

Gischler is one of those authors that I like a lot, but have a hard time remembering him when I go to buy a book or am shopping in a bookstore without my used list on me. I bought Gun Monkeys, one of his earlier books in a creepy old used book store in Northern Montana, and never saw another until last year when I managed to track down the rest. The story of Poets, which gets pretty convoluted has a teacher waking to find a dead student in his bed, a drug dealer trying to go straight, a reclusive professor, and a few little surprises along the way. I really got a kick out of this, though there were a few aspects that left me thinking I'd missed a paragraph explaining things. I'm also anxiously awaiting the arrival of his newest, Go Go Girls Of The Apocalypse. That's right, Go Go Girls Of The Apocalypse. a title so good that I had to write it twice.

7/10

JAKE RANSOM AND THE SKULL KING'S SHADOW
By James Rollins
2009, 397 pages

I really wanted to like this. I dig Rollins' adult novels, they're Indiana Jones style adventures with enough intrigue and black ops in them to keep you guessing and his first kids book looked to be more of the same, but for a younger set with a more over the top theme. Unfortunately, the plot is VERY over-the-top, with too many convenient answers. It was still fun, a great adventure and I'll read his others in the series when they're written, but this one left me rolling my eyes a few times too often to fully recommend it. Also, he uses the name Brontosaurus at one point, is that an accurate dinosaur name now?

6/10


THE BRASS VERDICT
By Michael Connelly
2008, 422 pages

Connelly is a great writer, and his Lincoln Lawyer character is one of my favorites, second only to Det. Harry Bosch, yet this installment left me feeling pretty flat. The two never really seemed to mesh, Bosch especially coming off as flat, though that may have been because we saw him from Mickey Haller's view. Still, I get the impression that he could write a quick thriller on the pot, and this one still had a twisty plot and good dialogue.

7/10


EVIL GENIUS
By Catherine Jinks
2005, 486 pages

Man, I checked this book out from the library expecting a completely different novel. Somehow, I thought with the catchy phrases, cartoony design and big logo that I'd chosen a kids book, completely disregarding the fact that I'd grabbed it from the young adult section. It's about a kid that goes to an evil villain high school/college, where miscreants are trained for a life of crime. I had expected a book about a 12 or 13 year old doing that, instead, getting a teen with all of the angst and hormones that go with it, but that didn't make it a bad book. It was still funny, clever and a great read, just not what I'd thought I was reading.

7/10

EMERALD FLASH
By Charles Knief
1999, 292 pages

I loved this book. Funny, poignant and really action packed, this was my favorite from Kneif so far. His character, Private Eye, John Caine is a fellow in his late forties that is about as hard as they come. He lives on a boat, enjoys Hawaii and gets his butt kicked a lot. He always gives back better than he gets though and walks away with the girl. The settings for the book are gorgeous and his supporting cast, especially crime lord Chawlie and officer Kimo are very memorable.

9/10


WORLD WAR Z
By Max Brooks
2006, 342 pages

Overrated. I love the cheeky humor and daily usefulness of Max Brooks Zombie Survival handbook, but this overblown, "History" of a zombie war that never was left my calling out for brains and staggering around. It wasn't horrible and there were a few slivers of brilliance, but there was too much focus on silly things. Some people I know love it. Good for them.

3/10



FUZZY NAVEL
By J.A. Konrath
2008, 271 pages

Aww, man, did this book piss me off. Which is part of why I loved it. Joe Konrath's books all feature the detective Jack Daniels, her portly partner, her smarmy ex-partner, her mom, a friend, her evil cat and her boyfriend, as well as some of the best, soulless criminals around. For Fuzzy Navel, he crams all of them into a single house, surrounds it with snipers and shreds the walls with bullets. I read this in one setting and after the cliffhanger ending, if I'd had the next book, I would have read it too. Good, suspenseful, yet hilarious book.

9/10

Book Review - TOUCHED BY THE GODS by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Touched By The Gods by Lawrence Watt-Evans
527 pages, 1997

I should preface this by saying that Lawrence Watt-Evans is my favorite author, so anything written by him is going to get a biased review. Just a fact of life, so there.

That said, I love this book. I've always convinced myself that I should love big fat epic fantasy, and then, as I read them, either get bored, confused, distracted or derailed halfway through. In Touched By The Gods, Lawrence Watt-Evans manages to write a big fat epic while still keeping a tight little character focused story. Touched tells the story of Malledd, a blacksmith in a small village, content in his life. He has a nice family and enjoys working as a smith, an occupation he inherited from his father. Malledd also happens to be the chosen Champion Of The Gods. Exciting title, eh? Every generation, the gods, of which there are hundreds in the world, each with its own moon, choose a new champion, someone with great strength, endurance, leadership skills and abilities to uphold the Domdur Kingdom's way of life and secure foothold as ruler of the world. Luckily for Malledd, who is perfectly content to be ordinary, the champion hasn't been needed in ages.

Of course, no one would bother writing a story about a smith with great powers that just pounds out horse shoes for 500+ pages, so unfortunately for Malledd, a new, dark force arises and begins attempting to crumble the Domdur's hold on the world, harnessing the dark powers of the earth, conspiring with a rogue God, and bringing an army of night walking zombies along with him! Even with a Romero level of danger treading inexorably towards the center of power for the kingdom, Malledd tries to stay an ordinary man, obstinately staying home, and only joining the war efforts after they ask for smiths to help with weapon making. Eventually, he comes around, the gods make their will known, zombies are walloped, and Malledd comes to terms with his destiny.

I love Watt-Evans books, and one reason is that he has a way of turning conventional stories in a new direction. I don't think I've ever read any other book about a hero so stubborn about staying ordinary. Even the more curmudgeonly of reluctant heroes holds a small glimmer of excitement about their path, a need to be the hero. Malledd doesn't, and holds out until he doesn't have much choice, and even then, waiting until the gods make their wishes pretty explicit. Touched By The Gods also has a unique world, with clearly established cultures, all revolving around the many moons, and the gods that reside on each. Their world is figured in triads of days, during each, a different god stokes the fire of the sun. I like that it seemed that each culture in the world, whether Domdur or a kingdom subjugated by them believed in the same gods, just followed the teachings of one over the others and had a different lifestyle. It added a different feel to the world.

All in all, a great read, and a fast one. I read the book, which is a pretty hefty size, in a couple of evenings. The only real quibble I had with it was that some of the names were a bit similar, or sort of difficult to keep separate in my head. Recommended!

9/10

Now Reading - Spider Legs by Piers Anthony & Clifford A Pickover (If I can finish it...)

Book Review - THE WOOD NYMPH AND THE CRANKY SAINT by C. Dale Brittain

The Wood Nymph & The Cranky Saint by C. Dale Brittain
1993, 320pgs

I love the title to this book. My last review was supposed to be a brief one, and I ended up rambling, so I'll make this one short instead. The somewhat bumbling court magician of Yurt, Daimbert manages to get into all sorts of adventures in this one, with an enchanted grove, a consecrated toe, big ol' magic Jackalopes and more! It's a really fun book, moves quickly, and manages to tell a rousing and humorous story without ever resorting to slapstick.

Recommended!

8/10

Next Up: Free Fall by Robert Crais

Book Review - A BAD SPELL IN YURT by C. Dale Brittain

A Bad Spell In Yurt by C. Dale Brittain
1991, 314 pgs

When I was younger, I read voraciously. I still read a lot, and quite quickly, but when I was a kid, I'd tear through stacks of books at a time. I'd either have a dozen books checked out of the library, or a huge fine from forgetting to take 'em back, and I read almost exclusively fantasy novels. The very rare sci-fi would slip in, and I read a lot of non-fiction about places I wanted to visit, but typically, unless it had a wizard or dragon on the cover, it never touched my pile. More recently, I've branched out a lot, reading a lot of detective novels, some horror, fiction, pretty much anything I can get my hands on is fair game now. All the same, I still have a great deal of fondness for light fantasy novels. One of the first "Grown-up" books I read was the Spell Of The Chameleon, by Piers Anthony, and while I quickly soured on his Xanth novels, I found two light fantasy authors I really liked, Lawrence Watt-Evans (My favorite author to this day) and C Dale. Brittain. Both of them wrote light hearted fantasy romps, usually with a mildly incompetent main character, and a bright view on the world. You always had a pretty good idea that they'd win the day, find their fortune, meet a few misfit friends and get the girl. I still have a soft spot for that. With that in mind, I snagged a couple of my light fantasy novels and added them to my reading pile that is primarily horror and detective novels to revisit.

I'm glad I did. A Bad Spell In Yurt tells the tale of Daimbert, a recent graduate from the wizard's school, and one who barely graduated by the hem of his robe. He managed to stumble into a position of Royal Wizard in the tiny kingdom of Yurt, where he hopes to lay low, make some friends, practice as little magic as needed and eat some mighty fine crullers. As luck would have it, there's some dark stuff going on in the kingdom and the surprisingly resourceful wizard is soon contending with dragons, illusions, love potions, demons, youth spells and telephones! Obviously, this isn't life altering reading, but it's an incredible amount of fun, and I really like the dynamic Brittain creates between the wizard and the chaplain of the kingdom, it's not something you often see in fantasy novels. Yurt is also written to sound an awful lot like a kingdom I'd like to be Royal Wizard for. I could think of worse jobs!

8/10

Now Reading - Extreme Odds by Rick Hanson

UPDATE! - A Bad Spell In Yurt is now available free from C. Dale Brittain's home page Here. Check it out!