I’m just about finishing End of Days by Robert Gleason, which I bought for a buck at the Rotary book fair a few weeks ago.

What an odd book. It’s a struggle to go through, honestly, but I must give it several points for trying something a little different in the genre of nuclear war fiction. It’s very much on the trippy side, as if the writer wanted to make us think he was on drugs when he wrote it.

The book is very big (nearly 800 pages in this paperback edition) and three quarters of it could have been edited out. But wouldn’t that have damaged the very nature of the work? The plot doesn’t seem to be the crucial point here, and far less so than the unorthodox alternance between action scenes and long stream of consciousness digressions.

The world of 2011 is facing a great threat: Russia has not yet become the Putin autocracy it is today, and its loose nukes are easily obtained on the black market -or just by walking into an abandoned military compound. Russian officers can easily be bought. A trio of rich siblings from a make-believe Middle Eastern country (we wouldn’t want to offend real world people, right?) get their hands on a lot of boom-booms and engineer the end of the world. Russian subs reach most of the great coast cities in the world and start launching missiles. The trio also impersonates the Russian defence minister (whom they’ve previously murdered) thanks to deep fakes and goad the brand new American president (his predecessor and all the previous cabinet now being radioactive ash) to launch a counterattack, which he does.

All through this apocalypse, we are treated to pages and pages depicting the adventures of a rat escaping the sinking of a ship, escaping a laboratory, fleeing to the sewers, and pages and pages of nuclear missiles actually telling us of their personal feelings. The one headed for Graceland is actually a big Elvis fan, wouldn’t you believe it! Some missiles recite poetry, some sing, and there are a LOT of such weapons in need of sharing their thoughts.

Did I mention the visions of a blind singing nun called Cassandra? No? They're in there too. Plus the musings of an orbital A.I. Then it all goes Mad Max for a while, except that somehow phones, TV and planes still mostly work.

Plenty of unnecessary scenes of torture as well, which is entirely weird and kind of disturbing. The author seems to have something for cattle prods and copper wire around the gonads.

I went and took a look at comments on Amazon; the surplus of one-star reviews confirmed my opinion: it's not a crowd pleaser.

Ah, well… It was only a dollar.

Man of War
Alexander Kent

One might think it a bit strange to read a book that is #26 of a series at random, but some times that happens when you get random stuff at library book sales. There's a method to my weirdness though.

Naval fiction has a certain flow to it, so it's not like one it totally lost, and you can get the feel of the style of the author still, to see if the series might be good.

Sure, the character bits probably would have been more impactful if one had read the previous books with the characters.. it seems this certain is almost generational, going back 30+ years to the first one with Sir Richard (this is apparently the 3rd book with his nephew Adam, who is the central character).

I few of the mentions of previous adventures (surely contained in the previous books) were a bit silly, but most sounded pretty good.

The 1st half of the book was all about the ship that had clearly been used in at least a few previous adventures getting put out to pasture and Adam awating (and of course getting) a new assignment, so that part definitely was not great as a reader with no rooting interest in any of the people.

The upside is the author spent alot of time with historical analysis... talking about then end of the great age of naval battles and its impact on England... and its not often you get a look at England's attempt to fight the slave trade.

I'll definitely pick up others in the series if I come across them.

The Black Pages
Nnedi Okorafor, 2021

During their rampage in Timbouctou, Mali, al Qaeda forces burn down a library, and when one particular very ancient book catches fire it frees Faro, who assumes the appearance of woman draped in blue beads but who is something much more. Amidst the blaze, she sees a plain, unmarked black book that’s seemingly impervious to the flames, and she picks it up and flies out of the library. On that same day, Issaka, a grad student living the US, arrives in town to visit his family. When he finally makes his way home, he learns that his father and uncles have spirited away most of the actual valuable manuscripts from the library and hid them in his childhood bedroom. And then the next morning he wakes up and briefly sees a woman in blue beads sitting cross-legged on the floor who then disappears when he blinks his eyes. Not knowing what to make of it all, he starts rummaging through his backpack and finds a mysterious black book, with entirely black pages. Meanwhile, an odd icon that looks like a blue bead appears on his iPad screen. Over next few days, Issaka’s life gets turned completely upside down and enters a new phase that will, with Faro’s help, put him in touch with his ancestral past.
Another outstanding piece by Okorafor, which is only available on Amazon as an ebook. It's number 2 in a series of short stories called ‘Black Stars’ that features works by several notable Black authors. (I recently learned that I still have some gift card cash so I spent it on a few ebooks – the only thing I can afford to buy from Amazon in the US.)

Tales of the Thieftaker by D.B Jackson




I'm a big fan of the D.B Jackson's Thieftaker series. The series is historical fiction thriller filled with magic and political espionage. In Pre-American Revolution Boston, the life of Ethan Kaille as a thieftaker who makes his living solving crimes with a help of the use of magic gets thrusted into the political world and the things to come in American history. What makes Jackson's series so good is how detailed his knowledge of Boston's streets of 1765 are. From the dirt of the cobblestones to the people living and working from the docks to the government are fantastically weaved into a great world. Kaille as the antagonist has a great background and his life makes for personal demons and political sides comes into play. The Tales of the Thieftaker were the short stories Jackson wrote online on his website for sale, collected into one book. The highlight is the novella "The Ruby Blade" which such a great paced read about a big piece of Kaille's Thieftaker series.  

If you like historical fiction, I do recommend picking up this series. 

Genius, Animated: The Cartoon Art of Alex Toth by Dean Mullaney & Bruce Canwell (and Alex Toth)

The third book covering the life and work of the incomparable Alex Toth.  This one is really a pure art book covering Toth's time in animation.  It's jam packed with character designs, model sheets, storyboards and proposal drawings.  Toth was unquestionably one of the most important animators of the 60s and in to the 70s.  What we get here is a sampling of the huge impact he had on the Saturday mornings of those of us who grew up in those decades.  The genius behind Space Ghost, Birdman, The Herculoids, The Super Friends and so very much more.  This is just a gorgeous love-letter to Saturday mornings and an amazing artist who made them so much better.