|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 15, 2018 12:51:14 GMT -5
Return of the Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs Sometimes the quest is far better than the culmination. The Mucker is far and away my favorite ERB book. It really just has everything in it. And it's the odd ERB book where the protagonist isn't the much vaunted hidden gentleman (though he's definitely a diamond in the very rough). Looking back to the early 80s when I first read The Mucker, I started looking for The Return of the Mucker. And it was elusive. Not like the ERB books that you became convinced were really urban legends (The Girl From Farris'; The Efficiency Exper). More like The Oakdale Affair and ERB westerns. You knew they existed. You might even know somebody who owned them (lucky bastards). But finding them in the wild...that was at best elusive, especially in small-town Idaho. Fast forward 35 or so years and I'm slowly re-reading Burroughs' oeuvre. Through the wonders of the internet, being an adult with a job and whatnot books that eluded me in my youth are now largely obtainable. So I was able to read The Mucker Returns. And maybe I shouldn't have. It's not that it's actively bad. Maybe if I'd read it at age 13-17 nostalgia would make it better than it is now. It's just very middling Burroughs. It has most of his ticks transposed to a mediocre western. All the coincidence...all the "love at first sight"...all the happy happenstance with really none of the verve and frenetic energy of The Mucker. It's an okay book. It's not "dire Burroughs" a la The Eternal Savage. But it wasn't what my teenage self had looked for so long.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2018 20:48:58 GMT -5
I lent my lady the Kindle for her trip to Las Vegas, so I needed a quick read before she left and knocked this one out in a couple of days. Still digging the series.
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 17, 2018 21:47:19 GMT -5
I lent my lady the Kindle for her trip to Las Vegas, so I needed a quick read before she left and knocked this one out in a couple of days. Still digging the series. I read that one a little over seven years ago. I really liked it at the time. I'm darned if I can remember it now. I noted that there were some police shenanigans going on that wouldn't fly now.
|
|
|
Post by berkley on Mar 18, 2018 23:45:30 GMT -5
That isn't one of his better ones but I'm a fan of those Robert McGinnis paperback covers, or at least the detective and gothic ones. If I find he did a cover of something I want to read, that's usually the edition I'll look for, if possible.
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 20, 2018 22:42:02 GMT -5
Iron Gold (Red Rising Book 4) by Pierce Brown
It's always difficult writing an epic saga... sometimes one gets into a rut.. having the same characters play out the same adventures over and over, perhaps on a grander scale each time. Sure, they can be awesome adventures, but the sense of progress is lost.
On the other hand, if one expands the story, includes new characters, and adds depth, things can get TOO epic and become sprawling and unfocused. The characters one loves, that made a book or a trilogy worthy of becoming an epic saga, get lost, or shuffled to the background. Or sometimes the book just begins to crumble under its own weight, and there are just too many side plots and stories for the main thread to move forward. One relishes those bits forward, but dreads the glacial pace, while welcoming new friends (or perhaps regretting the loss of old ones).
Unfortunately, Iron Gold does both things wrong, and gets just about nothing right. There's a 10 year fast forward, but while the type of government has changes, nothing really feels different. Darrow is still a warlord. worshiped by his men, but shunned by the government, and hasn't really developed at all... despite so much time and life passing.
The new PoV characters are, for the most part, either boring, unlikable, or both. The one that did shine, Lysander (really not a new character at all, just newly in the spotlight) uses about 1/3 of the book to do nothing but set up the sequel.. telling a tale that would have been better served either in it's own book, or mentioned in passing and skipped, as many other events were.
Worse still, none of the plot threads started here resolve.. they all end on cliff hangers, so one is left thoroughly unsatisfied. While I enjoy the world building and wish to know what happens next, I'm not sure I can picture myself reading through another 600 page book.
When the highlight of an epic novel is a throwaway line with a quick tribute to my favorite Babylon 5 character, you know something as gone wrong.
Good luck, Darrow.. I'll see what happens to you in the news feeds
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2018 14:49:44 GMT -5
Finished Quarry by Max Allan Collins. I think I had read the first couple of novels in the series several years ago when I had picked them up in a used bookstore back in Iowa. I finished the Quarry comic book the other day and decided to dive back in. I think Collins is up to twelve in the series and I’ve read maybe four. It was still good on the reread though.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2018 14:34:44 GMT -5
It’s been sitting on my shelf for about 5 years, but I finally got around to reading Jay Russell’s Brown Harvest. It was a fun read as Russell mashes up noir with classic teen/child mystery characters.
|
|
|
Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 22, 2018 16:46:30 GMT -5
Finished Quarry by Max Allan Collins. I think I had read the first couple of novels in the series several years ago when I had picked them up in a used bookstore back in Iowa. I finished the Quarry comic book the other day and decided to dive back in. I think Collins is up to twelve in the series and I’ve read maybe four. It was still good on the reread though. If you count the most recent comic book story, there's a total of 15 Quarry novels. I only started reading them a little less than 2 years ago and have read them all except the comic, because are they so addictive. It's a testament to Collins' craft that he can make readers sympathize with a contract killer.
|
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,070
|
Post by Confessor on Mar 22, 2018 21:12:24 GMT -5
Not a review of any specific book or story, but I just wanted to say that I've been re-visiting a lot of H. P. Lovecraft's short stories ahead of my visit to "Lovecraft Country" in north-east Massachusetts in June. I've long been a fan of Lovecraft's weird tales of horror, but I just wanted to note that one of the best things about his tales is that they almost always give me weird, unsettling dreams whenever I read them before bedtime. I can't think of a better compliment for a horror writer.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2018 23:49:15 GMT -5
Started reading Kat Howard's debut novel Roses & Rot this evening. Howard is one of the writers hand-picked by Neil Gaiman to be a part of his Sandman Universe line, so I wanted to sample some of her stuff from the library to see what it's like. So far, her prose style really flows and I find it very engaging. The basic premise: is a classic faerie bargain trope, but it's what you do with it that matters and so far Howard's characters and style are winning me over. -M
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2018 14:53:05 GMT -5
Not a review of any specific book or story, but I just wanted to say that I've been re-visiting a lot of H. P. Lovecraft's short stories ahead of my visit to "Lovecraft Country" in north-east Massachusetts in June. I've long been a fan of Lovecraft's weird tales of horror, but I just wanted to note that one of the best things about his tales is that they almost always give me weird, unsettling dreams whenever I read them before bedtime. I can't think of a better compliment for a horror writer. just for you then.... -M
|
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,070
|
Post by Confessor on Mar 23, 2018 17:32:00 GMT -5
Not a review of any specific book or story, but I just wanted to say that I've been re-visiting a lot of H. P. Lovecraft's short stories ahead of my visit to "Lovecraft Country" in north-east Massachusetts in June. I've long been a fan of Lovecraft's weird tales of horror, but I just wanted to note that one of the best things about his tales is that they almost always give me weird, unsettling dreams whenever I read them before bedtime. I can't think of a better compliment for a horror writer. just for you then.... -M That's amazing!
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2018 22:17:43 GMT -5
Finished Quarry’s List. Enjoyed it...again, probably more so this time around.
|
|
|
Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 25, 2018 5:08:28 GMT -5
Yeah, although I really like all of the Quarry books, I think my favorites are those initial four published from the mid- to late '70s. Those, plus Last Quarry and Wrong Quarry...
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2018 17:29:21 GMT -5
Finished Quarry’s List. Enjoyed it...again, probably more so this time around. I read that book also and it's really a gripping tale of a rival that's really puts Quarry at risk and the beautiful blonde by the pool is really a target? ... To me, this kept me most on my seat when I read it for the first time and I didn't know that you were a Quarry Fan that was written by Max Allan Collins. A great pulp fiction story and I find Collins work gripping, keep you thinking, and most of all it's has that Raymond Chandler feel. I loved Raymond Chandler books; and he writes like him in more ways into one.
|
|