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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 20, 2019 15:03:37 GMT -5
Between Juarez and El Paso by Alec CizakJack Laramie, the Drifter Detective is back in a tale by neo-noir author Alec Cizak. This time Laramie is looking in to the disappearance of a young co-ed from an El Paso college for her father an old army buddy of Laramie's. But he finds that it's not just his friend's daughter that is missing...a number of girls are missing from the same campus. And the college's records show no evidence they were ever enrolled. This is a bigger case than what we usually see Laramie dealing with as he becomes embroiled in U.S. government agencies and the Nazi's they recruited following WWII. We also get a not so veiled look at a WWII war veteran who went on to be a high-placed spook...and an even higher place in the U.S. Executive Branch. Another good short outing with the Drifting Detective.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Aug 24, 2019 16:16:19 GMT -5
the Lily and the Lion by Maurice Druon
When it comes to historical fiction, it's difficult to criticize the plot, since it actually happened, but one can't help but feel disappointed at Robert's end... it seemed truly ignoble. Perhaps a bit of embellishment was in order? Even the author admits it.. he writes (in all caps), after Robert's death he has not the heart to tell more of the story, even though he has brought events up to the beginning of the Hundred Years' War.
I can blame him a bit for the lack of story for Guccio, who makes but a cameo appearance here...his important son nothing by a literal epilogue after the main thrust of the story was complete. Why get us, the reader, invested and not follow up?
Taken by itself, I found this book the weakest of the series... too many sudden deaths and too much time passing.. characters quickly change their basic characters, not because of bad writing, but because time has passed. We don't see the events that change them, just that it happens.
I understand why, as this is Robert's story, and not a history of France, but the result is rather disconcerting. Also, why not give us some stories of Robert the Outlaw, wandering the outskirts of France? That would have been far more entertaining than 50 pages of description of at tournament.
I'd definitely highly recommend the series, but in some ways the first half of it may be all one needs.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Aug 27, 2019 8:12:37 GMT -5
Rogue Protocol Martha Wells
It seems I liked this more than alot of the recent reviewers. It was nice to see our hero have a focus, and wanting to help the humans that helped her seems like major character development. I enjoyed Miki quite a bit.. like Lassie in robot form, which was really fun.
Definitely looking forward to read the next one.. but I admit another adventure with little or no forward motion on the main plot will be disappointing... this one was fine, though.
I feel like it was really interesting to see the comparison of the different bots that exist in the world, and see Murderbot figuring it all out.
My main complaint isn't really one, but if Secunits are so big and scary like Murderbot says, why did the whole story work? Shouldn't the humans have been more distrustful? That's really part of the story though, as it could be all part of the anxiety/depression angle and not actually true.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 29, 2019 10:23:20 GMT -5
Florence of Arabia by Christopher BuckleyBuckley aims his wit and satire at the Middle East (more particularly a very thinly veiled Arabian Peninsula) and the treatment of women by the states in that area. Our protagonist and title character, Florence Farfaletti, is a former State Department employee who offered the chance by a nebulous quasi-governmental agency to effect change in the Middle East and empower women there. Her chosen mechanism is a women's television network that aims to bolster women's rights. That it begins to be successful leads to disastrous consequences and leads to our heroine leading an underground battle like her namesake. There's a huge amount to skewer in the area and Buckley uses his satirical powers to kabob Middle Eastern politics, religion, hypocrisy and gender inequality. While it's not quite as funny as some of his other work, it's still just as timely as it was in 2004.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Sept 2, 2019 8:02:51 GMT -5
Kindred SpiritsAlan Brennert, 1984 Yep, that Brennert fella most people on this forum think of as an occasional comics writer for DC has also written a number of mostly well-regarded novels and short stories (and he's also had a rather successful career as a television screen-writer and producer for that matter). This is a romance novel, but with some really fantastical elements. For the first fifty pages or so, it seems like one of those stories that's eventually adapted into a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie, but then things take a pretty dark turn, and then a very unexpected turn. I don't want to give too much away in case anybody decides to read this, but it's worth keeping in mind that Brennert is both a comics and science fiction writer as well. The story focuses around Michael and Ginny, two native New Yorkers who are both a bit socially awkward in different ways, which makes them both insecure, lonely and quite unhappy. They come together in very unusual circumstances, and help each other grapple with their own insecurities and shortcomings. The way it ends it also unexpected (for me, anyway); it's both bittersweet but also quite satisfying. I haven't read many romance novels, but I can easily say that this is my favorite.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 3, 2019 15:57:01 GMT -5
Dandelion Wine by Ray BradburyIt's been a long long time since I last read this one. This one holds an odd place in my personal Bradbury pantheon. It's an absolutely beautiful work. Possibly his most beautiful extended work. But it's not one of my favorite of his works. Which isn't to say I don't love it...because I do. But it doesn't thrill me the way The Martian Chronicles does. It doesn't make me think as deeply as Fahrenheit 451. It doesn't make me shiver the way Something Wicked This Way Comes does. It's a beautiful meditation on summers (by no means my favorite season) long gone and now mostly forgotten...if they ever really existed outside the minds of twelve year old boys and middle-aged men remembering their boyhood. This is mostly a mash-up with Bradbury taking stories that had been previously published in the slicks (mostly) and putting them together with new material to bring us a summer in the life of Douglas Spaulding, a twelve year old boy in a small town in Illinois in the 1920s. Spaulding is a thinly veiled author insert for Bradbury who lived in Waukegan, Illinois as a youth with a large extended family. Greentown and Spaulding's family are stand-in's for Waukegan and Bradbury's family...and Dandelion Wine is a reminiscence of those long gone summers. I've seen some people complain that the book has no plot, which, while largely true, is very silly. Summer doesn't have a plot. Summer, particularly for a twelve year old boy, is (or was) a series of adventures which don't necessarily all add to the whole. Summer is a feeling. It's the freedom that comes from not having to go to school...from the feel of new sneakers...from being able to chase around with your friends from dawn til dusk and maybe a bit beyond. This is pure nostalgia mixed with magical realism to give us a look at a time that is far gone...if it ever was. And even if that time only existed in the minds of twelve-year old boys and middle-aged writers, it's still a very real place that is well worth spending a summer with all its small joys and large losses.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 4, 2019 13:19:51 GMT -5
True Detective by Max Allan CollinsI've read quite a bit of work by Max Allan Collins. But it was all comic books. Starting out with the wonderful Ms. Tree. Continuing into the not so wonderful Wild Dog and his terrible run on Batman/Detective. And on to the truly excellent Road to Perdition. I always meant to sample his prose work but just never got around to it. So many books. So little time. At one point I had intended to start with Quarry...but since I'd recently finished the Parker novels I didn't want to jump right back in to a series that was clearly informed by those books. I went with Heller because I did recently finish up Toby Peters and wanted another historical detective type book. And I'm glad that I slotted this into a "historical fiction" slot instead of a "noir" slot because this reads far more like a historical fiction novel than a hadboiled detective or a noir novel. Not that Heller doesn't kick a few cans and take some names. And there are noirish elements. But this isn't the kind of lean writing that we expect from those genres. There's a lot more background and exposition that makes this feel more like a historical novel than what we used to get from the Black Mask boys and the gents from Gold Medal Paperbacks. There's a lot to like here. Heller is an interesting character with a nicely filled in background. He's semi-clean in a very dirty city, but soiled enough to be interesting. The novel itself has a few different plot-lines that end up tying back together. Collins meshes Heller with actual historical figures in a pretty organic way that feels less forced (though maybe a bit less fun) than Kaminsky did with Toby Peters. There's a benefit to reading books like this in this day and age with Wikipedia at your fingertips. It's fun to see Barney Ross as a pal of Heller's and then look at him from a historical stand-point as well. The multiple plot-lines in the book tying up in the end made this feel a bit like an HBO drama a la Boardwalk Empire or The Sopranos. And that's not a bad thing. This really feels like a blueprint for a great first season story arc. As it is...it's a fun book. And I'll be back for the second in a couple of months.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 4, 2019 15:54:56 GMT -5
Continuing to hit the first volumes of some of the series fiction I have, this time the Lone Ranger series by Fran Striker... while I love the character, and there were parts of the novel I enjoyed, it felt like it dragged on too long and the villains had a few too many impossible escapes to come back to create more mischief and pad the story out. At times it made the Ranger and his companions seem either foolish or incompetent that the bad guys got away to fight another day for so long even when the plans were spoiled. Less would have been more, with this one. I will give another book in the series a shot at some point, but it's not a priority for me right now as I have a bunch of stuff I am excited to dig in to. -M I've read one Lone Ranger novel, Lone Ranger Rides, which was written in 1941 and was a re-working of the origin and the Cavendish Clan. It was okay, but definitely nothing special. Fran Striker started out as a short story writer but was best known for writing for radio dramas, notably The Lone Ranger. It feels to me that he wasn't really comfortable with long-form prose and the cliff-hanger and episodic nature of his writing shows where he came from.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Sept 4, 2019 17:16:10 GMT -5
(...) At one point I had intended to start with Quarry...but since I'd recently finished the Parker novels I didn't want to jump right back in to a series that was clearly informed by those books. (...) Actually, I think Collins' Nolan series is more informed/inspired by Westlake's Parker. Otherwise, I know what it's like have so, so many books to read, but if you like Collins, you should definitely get around to reading the Quarry books. They're quite good. As are, for that matter, the Jack and Maggie Starr murder mysteries, set in the late '40s/early '50s, with characters based on actual personalities and situations in the comic book and newspaper comics scene of the time.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Sept 8, 2019 12:19:36 GMT -5
Time and ChanceAlan Brennert, 1990 Another outstanding novel by Brennert, much better, in fact, that Kindred Spirits, which I mentioned above. This one revolves around its protagonist, Richard/Rick Cochrane - they are the same man, but who have different life paths, based on a crucial decision made in their early 20s. Richard breaks up with his college love, Debra, to pursue a career in acting, and eventually becomes quite successful, landing roles on stage and screen. Rick marries Debra and moves back to his hometown in New Hampshire, taking a job in an insurance company. Both are unhappy with their lives, questioning whether they made the right life choices, and start seeing flashes of each other's lives, i.e., their respective roads not taken. Then, under some strange circumstances, they meet, and once they get over the shock, decide to replace each other... Damn, Brennert can write. This is a surprisingly gripping read.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 10, 2019 13:33:59 GMT -5
Cop Hater by Ed McBain
I can see why the author wrote for TV... you can almost hear the theme music as he opines about the city (not quite New York, but clearly similar), or when the detectives of the 87th precinct gather to get briefed. This book was just the right length to be an hour-long episode for sure.
I do disagree with the author's preface when he says he was trying to write about a group to be a composite hero, though at least for this book. Steve Carella is very clearly the main character and the hero (and a bit of research shows it doesn't change as the series continues). I was definitely less noir and more Barney Miller than I was expecting, but that's not a bad thing.
The mystery was a good one.. no obvious clues as you went along you got to figure things out along with the characters... the pacing made sense and kept me interested.
Glad I when out on a limb (well, a short one) and got the 1st two books of the series, definitely worth using for my kindle experiment!
What Kindle experiment you ask? Well, my wife acquired an old iphone 5 from a friend.. it seems you can use it for apps and with wifi without actually having any sort of cell plan... so ta-da! it's a kindle. It served well for being able to read after dark on the car ride home from seeing my daughter play in the band at college!
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 10, 2019 13:38:15 GMT -5
Cop Hater by Ed McBain I can see why the author wrote for TV... you can almost hear the theme music as he opines about the city (not quite New York, but clearly similar), or when the detectives of the 87th precinct gather to get briefed. This book was just the right length to be an hour-long episode for sure. I do disagree with the author's preface when he says he was trying to write about a group to be a composite hero, though at least for this book. Steve Carella is very clearly the main character and the hero (and a bit of research shows it doesn't change as the series continues). I was definitely less noir and more Barney Miller than I was expecting, but that's not a bad thing. The mystery was a good one.. no obvious clues as you went along you got to figure things out along with the characters... the pacing made sense and kept me interested. Glad I when out on a limb (well, a short one) and got the 1st two books of the series, definitely worth using for my kindle experiment! What Kindle experiment you ask? Well, my wife acquired an old iphone 5 from a friend.. it seems you can use it for apps and with wifi without actually having any sort of cell plan... so ta-da! it's a kindle. It served well for being able to read after dark on the car ride home from seeing my daughter play in the band at college! I've read a few of McBain/Hunter/Etc.'s noir paperback originals. I generally liked them quite well. I haven't delved into the 87th Precinct stuff because I'm generally not big on police procedurals. Maybe some day.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 10, 2019 14:13:25 GMT -5
Devil Red by Joe R. LansdaleHap and Leonard are back and they are actually working as operatives under the direction of Marvin Harmon and his new P.I. office. Marvin has them recover $87 stolen from an elderly woman which is right up their alley as it involves kicking ass and ignoring names. When they start working on a cold-case homicide it may be out of their league, even though Leonard has started wearing a deerstalker hat as part of his new position (or maybe just to irritate Hap). The case ultimately leads to a vampire cult, another meeting with the Dixie Mafia, and the return of an old adversary who may be a bit more friendly this time. I'm a big fan of Lansdale in general and Hap and Leonard in particular. But this is unquestionably the weakest entry in the series so far. The interplay between Hap and Leonard just isn't quite as fun. The plot goes too far afield of where the boys really belong. None of it just feels quite right. And the the return of the adversary/ally just didn't work for me at all. Which is not to say the book isn't readable. It's certainly okay. But it's just not up to par.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 11, 2019 21:22:43 GMT -5
Hey, looking at your review and your comment on my review.. you think Lansdale as calling out Ed McBain with the $87? Or just a random number?
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 12, 2019 2:03:54 GMT -5
Hey, looking at your review and your comment on my review.. you think Lansdale as calling out Ed McBain with the $87? Or just a random number? That hadn’t dawned on me. I’d say it’s at least a decent chance. Lansdale is well versed in the history of a number of genres.
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