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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 11, 2015 23:22:42 GMT -5
The Eternal Savage by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Man was this a struggle. I know I read this in the dim recesses of the past...but I almost didn't make it through. I had to chip away at it over a long period of time. I'm big Burroughs fan. This is by far the worst of his early work, most of which is, at worst, extremely entertaining. This one just didn't work for me and puts me in mind of when he was phoning in his last few books.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 19, 2015 19:34:51 GMT -5
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
I've been meaning to read this for a while, and having it offered at our library's new sci fi book club (but failing) was enough to get me to pick it up.
Sadly, it really just didn't do anything for me. It took me FOREVER to read, I just couldn't get into it. Shadow, the main character, seemed like nothing as much as a depressed version of Jack Reacher. It took 2/3 of the book for anything to actually happen, then, when it finally did, there were no resolutions, and very few revelations that weren't already fairly obvious.
There were some fun short stories within, but why were they there? I suppose they were sorta related thematically, but they didn't add anything to the novel... it's like the publisher demanded more pages.
Definitely his weakest work I've read.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 19, 2015 20:44:34 GMT -5
American Godsby Neil Gaiman I've been meaning to read this for a while, and having it offered at our library's new sci fi book club (but failing) was enough to get me to pick it up. Sadly, it really just didn't do anything for me. It took me FOREVER to read, I just couldn't get into it. Shadow, the main character, seemed like nothing as much as a depressed version of Jack Reacher. It took 2/3 of the book for anything to actually happen, then, when it finally did, there were no resolutions, and very few revelations that weren't already fairly obvious. There were some fun short stories within, but why were they there? I suppose they were sorta related thematically, but they didn't add anything to the novel... it's like the publisher demanded more pages. Definitely his weakest work I've read. I'm really not sure it's possible to disagree more.
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Post by berkley on Dec 20, 2015 0:34:02 GMT -5
The Eternal Savage by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Man was this a struggle. I know I read this in the dim recesses of the past...but I almost didn't make it through. I had to chip away at it over a long period of time. I'm big Burroughs fan. This is by far the worst of his early work, most of which is, at worst, extremely entertaining. This one just didn't work for me and puts me in mind of when he was phoning in his last few books. Like you, I'm sure I read this when I was young but can't remember the first thing about it now, not even how I liked it at the time, so it doesn't seem to have left much of an impression.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 20, 2015 7:58:07 GMT -5
American Godsby Neil Gaiman I've been meaning to read this for a while, and having it offered at our library's new sci fi book club (but failing) was enough to get me to pick it up. Sadly, it really just didn't do anything for me. It took me FOREVER to read, I just couldn't get into it. Shadow, the main character, seemed like nothing as much as a depressed version of Jack Reacher. It took 2/3 of the book for anything to actually happen, then, when it finally did, there were no resolutions, and very few revelations that weren't already fairly obvious. There were some fun short stories within, but why were they there? I suppose they were sorta related thematically, but they didn't add anything to the novel... it's like the publisher demanded more pages. Definitely his weakest work I've read. I'm really not sure it's possible to disagree more. Care to elaborate? Maybe I was missing something (due to the fact it took like 3 weeks for me to read)
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 20, 2015 12:51:11 GMT -5
I'm really not sure it's possible to disagree more. Care to elaborate? Maybe I was missing something (due to the fact it took like 3 weeks for me to read) It's been a few years since I've read it, but I'll try. First it may have hurt that it took you so long to read it. It builds upon itself and the burn keeps coming. You also have to pay attention and it helps to have a very wide firm grasp of mythology. There are a lot of "hidden Indians", so again small things are important. On one level it's the ultimate puzzle book for nerds. But it really is also a huge and somewhat scathing look at Americans and what we value, all the more interesting because Gaiman very clearly loves American and its culture. But the war between the old gods that were brought here by the immigrants and the new Gods of rampant capitalism and commercialism is fascinating. It's also interesting that Jesus is barely mentioned in the original text and appears only briefly in the author's preferred text (apocryphal). Clearly as Mr. Jaquel says, Jesus has done pretty well here. So is it that Jesus is bigger than the Beatles and doesn't have to deal with the petty squabbles of the New Gods? We also have to think about Shadow's age, the fact that he's a rabble-rousing dissident and he seems to be wandering through his own personal desert. Low-Key clearly thinks he's Balder. But is it possible he's another Son of God? One who was also hitch-hiking along a road in Afghanistan and couldn't get a ride. Ultimately American Gods is to gods and mythology what Sandman was to stories. And it really is a natural extension of what Gaiman spent 70 issues talking about in that comic. It's certainly not as accessible as some of his other prose. It's not as personal as The Ocean at the End of the Lane which is equally brilliant and far more beautiful. But it is one of the best books I've read that was published in the last
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 20, 2015 13:46:31 GMT -5
That's what I WANTED the book to be, but I thought it just didn't deliver. I saw Shadow very much as Thor, rather than Balder. I also feel his 'American Gods' were very poorly developed... we get a few thugs, but it wasn't clear if they were the gods, or if they were like Shadow. Maybe that was the point? I do suspect that there was a few things I didn't get (I'm not much up on Native American mythology, and there was definitely some in there), so maybe that was an issue.
He doesn't even really name any of them (just Media, IIRC). The old gods were fun, but I wasn't really feeling like they were the 'good guys' at any time.. they were just there. I figured out Hinzelman pretty much right away, and 'Low-Key' was pretty obvious, as was the fact the Wednesday was clearly up to something besides a war, though exactly what I didn't have until it happened.
I think the biggest point that bugged me is it was never made clear (or even hinted at, really) if Shadow's wife/buddy did what they did because Odin made them, or it was just co-incidence that Shadow was totally available and ready to be a free agent.
I think that was the main thing... we had a war between old gods and new set up, and I just didn't care who won.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 24, 2015 7:28:31 GMT -5
The Stars are Too High by Agnew Bahnson c. 1959 When a ex-Nazi and his two American friends build a plane that can span the globe in a few hours, they look at it as an oppertunity to end the Cold War. They try to convince the US and Russian governments they are aliens, hoping to unite them, but it fails, so instead they bring the world to the brink of WWIII. They get caught, and the book ends without resolving much. This started out as what could have been a really fun cold war era story, but petered out really badly. The somewhat random insertion of a romance plot is the middle did it no favors, and it seemed like it ended without the resolution
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Post by Calamas on Dec 27, 2015 13:32:03 GMT -5
RECENTLY FINISHED:
Eye of God by Jon L. Breen Breen is best known as the long-time reviewer for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. A respected reviewer. Most writers reluctantly agree with his negative points and he openly qualifies up front when a personal bias or preference affects his reaction to a work--positive or negative.
Here I have to do the same. I was expecting too much. There was too much advance praise. There are good things here. Set in the late 90’s a private detective, Al Hasp, is blindsided when his partner can no long reconcile his profession with his growing relationship with God. At the same time a famous televangelist is being betrayed by someone in his inner circle. Hasp hopes that sending his partner in undercover will open his eyes because obviously all televangelist are con men. It doesn’t work out that way. There are a couple of murders, some interesting characters and the solution is fair. My problem, mainly, was Hasp seemed only interested in the preservation of his agency and he was not particularly likable in going about it. I found it a grating contrast to the tone of the rest of the novel. But, as stated, it may be my issue.
Mind Prey by John Sandford In the seventh Lucas Davenport novel a psychiatrist and her two children are kidnapped by a deranged ex-patient. Like the best of Sandford it builds suspense in the middle and races as it reaches the conclusion. I find--so far--that I very much enjoy his work and I’m happy to say I have a long way to go to catch up.
Chinaman’s Chance by Ross Thomas Lately I’ve been going back and picking up writers I’d dropped during a period when I only had enough free time to read my very favorites. This is Thomas’ first outing with Artie Wu and Quincy Durant, who seem to his favorite reoccurring characters (The fans’ favorites are McCorkle and Padillo, although if most had known he’d also written the Phillip St. Ives series as Oliver Bleek, that may be a contender). Always readable, Thomas sometimes lost his way when winding things down to the conclusion. At his best, he sets a range of characters in motion and the audience is along for an entertaining ride. With the exception of maybe one too many plot twists at the end, Chinaman’s Chance is one of those rides.
The Blackbird by Richard Stark Alan Grofield, who supports his life as theatre actor with scores made as a professional thief, is captured during the same getaway that opens the Parker novel Slayground. “Thankfully” Grofield is offered a way out by the Feds due to acquaintanceships established in his previous adventures. A meeting of nefarious people representing nefarious nations for some unknown purpose is taking place in Quebec, and Grofield becomes a last ditch means of discovering what it is. This seems to be the least liked of the Grofield novels but I enjoyed it the most. Oh well.
Strega by Andrew Vachss In the second entry in the series, Burke continues to live and work just outside the law, scamming the crooked and bringing down the depraved. Here we learn more of Burke’s past and why his bond with the supporting characters we’ve already met is so strong. The novel is anything but streamlined but Vachss is such an excellent storyteller that it doesn’t matter. The only fault, and a minor one at that, is that I was surprised to find Burke still pining over Flood, whom he lost in the previous book. I’d never gotten the sense that that loss was so overpowering. But that might just be me. Hmm, seems to be a theme in this batch of book.
Scandal at High Chimneys by John Dickson Carr This was written at a time when Carr was moving away from his established detectives. He would come back to Gideon Fell eventually, though he would never visit Sir Henry Merrivale again. During this period he would pick an interesting time or place (or both) and set his mystery there. High Chimneys “attempts to present . . . an accurate picture of life at several levels of society in the year 1865,” as Carr states in the afterward; essentially, the Victorian era. In this he succeeds. As for the mystery, he invokes some fairly dodgy wordplay to initially mislead the reader, rare for Carr, who usually played fair. In the end the characters were barely interesting enough, and the times and atmosphere depicted richly enough, that I didn’t care who the murderer was. An acceptable effort but hardly among his best.
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Post by Calamas on Dec 27, 2015 13:35:19 GMT -5
RECENTLY FINISHED (Continued):
Plunder Squad by Richard Stark At some point I decided I was going to finish the classic Stark novels by the end of the year. Too many years have passed and they are quick, enjoyable reads; why not? Plunder Squad opens with Parker dealing with two immediate problems: funds are running low and a man he once left alive (not intentionally) wants revenge. A third problem immediately crops up as he discovers that this current job is unworkable. Soon he finds a finds a better prospect, but while planning this one he has to clean up the remnants of the first and deal with the revenge-seeker before he strikes again. Quick and enjoyable.
Sudden Prey by John Sandford One of my person quirks seems to be that if I read two books in a row from the same writer, I don’t seem to enjoy the second one as much. Who knows, maybe the second one has always been a lesser work. But since I planned to catch up on John Sanford, no harm in interspacing them with Richard Stark for a while.
Both Dick LaChaise’s sister and his wife are killed in a shootout with Lucas Davenport’s team outside of a bank they’d just robbed. The LaChaises are not a turn-the-other-cheek family. With the help of two equally demented friends, Dick LaChaise sets about his revenge. They are crazy but not stupid and do not go down cleanly or easily. Once you accept the fact that the Minnesota Twin Cities area has more serial killers than New York and L.A. combined, this is a very entertaining series.
Lemons Never Lie by Richard Stark Perhaps the first clue that Donald Westlake was planning to close out the world of Richard Stark, the previous Grofield adventures involved him being dropped into someone else’s intrigue against his will; this one could have been a Parker story. It involves a job that is a definite no from the beginning, and how that job follows him back to his civilian life. There is also a serious turn of the kind this series seldom touched upon that leads to the finale. The story does come back to its original style, though, with the conclusion. But there is definitely something brewing behind the scenes.
The Fool’s Run by John Sandford Published originally under Sandford’s real name, this novel features Kidd, a computer genius (in 1989) who is recruited by a defense contractor to destroy a rival company over industrial espionage. A solid novel on its own, it is also interesting to look back at the “modern computer capabilities” of the day.
Butcher’s Moon by Richard Stark I wonder if I would still feel the same sense of closure if I didn’t already know it would be over twenty years before Parker would “comeback.” (Of course this is not counting his appearance as a character in a novel within a Dortmunder novel: Jimmy the Kid; a book I don’t consider a part of the Parker progression but still plan to read one day.) Butcher’s Moon immediately brings to mind The Hunter, where we first met Parker. Somebody has money that belongs to Parker and he’s going to get it back no matter what, a plot element that now brackets the series (as Westlake intended it at the time). This is also a much thicker book than the others, and Westlake abandons the four part structure as well.
And it is reunion of sorts. Half of the take is Grofield’s, so he’s there for the recovery too. And it becomes complicated enough that more help if needed. Handy McKay comes out of retirement. And others that we’ve met--and Parker hasn’t killed yet--appear. A professional gathering for the thieves and a celebration for us. It was the satisfying end that Westlake meant it to be.
The Empress File by John Sandford Kidd returns, as does LuEllen, a professional thief who is Kidd’s occasional partner and occasional lover. This time his task is to take down Longstreet, a corrupt Delta town on the eastern side of the Mississippi River, presumably in Louisiana but perhaps Mississippi. Not just an expert computer hacker, Kidd has made his official living as a designer of political strategy, the perfect person to destroy political structures. The conclusion is not as satisfying as in Fool’s Run because it ends in a physical confrontation, denying us the pleasure of watching them stick it to the bad guy. Still worth the trip.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 27, 2015 14:31:27 GMT -5
The Eternal Savage by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Man was this a struggle. I know I read this in the dim recesses of the past...but I almost didn't make it through. I had to chip away at it over a long period of time. I'm big Burroughs fan. This is by far the worst of his early work, most of which is, at worst, extremely entertaining. This one just didn't work for me and puts me in mind of when he was phoning in his last few books. I read it over my lunch breaks a few years back, having downloaded it from the Gutenberg project website... The previous books had been The mucker and swords from Mars. You can imagine the disappointment!
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 27, 2015 17:35:23 GMT -5
I read a couple Sanford books a couple years back... they were pretty good... I'd probably read more of them of I came across them.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 27, 2015 21:52:48 GMT -5
A Sailor of Austria by John Biggins I came across this when I was reading the Flashman books. When it came up for free on Amazon Kindle a few days back I ordered it. It's far more Patrick O'Brien than it is Flashman...in fact it's not really like Flashman at all. But it's a very interesting historical novel about a largely forgotten part of history, the Austro-Hungarian U-Boat fleet.
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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 30, 2015 10:24:10 GMT -5
A Sailor of Austria by John Biggins I came across this when I was reading the Flashman books. When it came up for free on Amazon Kindle a few days back I ordered it. It's far more Patrick O'Brien than it is Flashman...in fact it's not really like Flashman at all. But it's a very interesting historical novel about a largely forgotten part of history, the Austro-Hungarian U-Boat fleet. I guess their bases were on the Adriatic. Thought at first that A-H was landlocked. Kind of like the Atlantean Air Force, though...
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 30, 2015 10:47:37 GMT -5
A Sailor of Austria by John Biggins I came across this when I was reading the Flashman books. When it came up for free on Amazon Kindle a few days back I ordered it. It's far more Patrick O'Brien than it is Flashman...in fact it's not really like Flashman at all. But it's a very interesting historical novel about a largely forgotten part of history, the Austro-Hungarian U-Boat fleet. I guess their bases were on the Adriatic. Thought at first that A-H was landlocked. Kind of like the Atlantean Air Force, though... Yep. Main naval base was in what is now Pula, Croatia. It was mainly a regional navy. Most of the surface action in World War I took place in the Adriatic. The U-boat force ranged throughout the Mediterranean, though the Adriatic was the primary focus.
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