Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling

Rating: WORTHY!

The Prisoner of Azkaban represents the point in this series where Rowling really hit her stride. The novel was - in overall general terms - smart, tight and very active, and also very readable. Having said all that, it was still replete with plot holes and problems. None of that, though, prevented it from contributing to the run-away best-seller aura that Rowling was in process of creating, which would really take off after this edition came out. Again she shows us that you can have a Swiss cheese of a novel plot-wise if you write engagingly and offer enough freshness and action to keep young minds entertained. That and the fact that kids are far less critical and less demanding than are adults about things like this.

The Harry Potter movies recognized this sea-change in ways both intentional and unintentional. There was a major shift between the first two movies which very much had the look and feel of a Home Alone movie, and the third one (and those beyond that), which were far more serious and grown-up in their attitude, and significantly darker. I don't believe that the studio planned it this way, however! It was merely a change in director.

The three main actors were also allowed to be more themselves (while still the characters they portrayed, of course!). It was like the movies had a growth spurt and were now maturing fast. The change was even more marked because, in order to actually match the action in the novels, there had to be some major and very noticeable changes on the layout of Hogwarts grounds, particularly with regard to Hagrid's residence, and the location of the whomping willow.

The first issue here was that once again Harry inadvertently does magic - without a wand, and without the requisite vocalization of two Latin words. This is can a of worms which I'll open when I discuss Harry's learning of the patronus charm. The point for now is that Harry was never censured for this!

And yes, Rowling has an out - she explains it by having the minister of magic himself take charge, and presumably quash all complaints, but the problem with the writing is that none of this showed up. In other instances, there were repercussions almost immediately, with snotty letters from the ministry popping up, yet here, he has the time to go to his room, pack his trunk, drag it downstairs, have an altercation with his uncle and leave, and not a single letter arrives! Inconsistent at best.

The next incident follows immediately afterwards. While he's sitting moping and bemoaning what's to become of him, right before the Knight Bus arrives, he sees Sirius Black. The two of them are alone. This is before Harry comes to believe that Sirius has any beef with him. Sirius is in Padfoot form, but he could have quite simply transformed and told Harry everything right there, yet he did not. Why? Because if he had, that would have been the end of the story - or start of different story (and actually one which might have been more interesting).

Rowling was writing to a formula however, and she couldn't have that up-ended, so instead we get this gigantic failure. The interesting thing is that Rowling could have written this in a different way. She could have had Harry see the dog after he got onto the bus right before it zoomed off, or she could have left the dog out altogether. This was bad writing, and her audience was reaching the age, with this volume, where they would start to notice things like that.

There were several failures of magic in this volume. The first I noticed was when Harry and the Weasleys were clunking their trunks down the stairs of the Leaky Cauldron to head out to catch the train. Why? Why not use the locomotor spell to make them levitate? Another instance is when Harry gets his new Firebolt, courtesy of Sirius, and he has a broom care kit from Hermione. At one point he's left holding the polish for his broom in his hand after McGonagall confiscates the broom to check it for curses.

Let's not even get into the question of exactly how Sirius ordered it and paid for it, because a more interesting question is, why is he manually polishing it when he has magic? Maybe he's obsessed and prefers to do this by hand, but this excuse fails to deflate the bigger question as to why there are broom care kits at all when there's magic?

It makes no sense, but once again it does fit neatly into Rowling's world, where there's all sorts of magic, and wizards appear at a loss to understand the pedestrian ways of Muggles, yet they follow these very ways themselves with great faithfulness! It's not really a magical world, you see, not at its roots. That was simultaneously Rowling's biggest failing and her greatest guarantor of commercial success.

The next issue is on the Hogwarts Express where the three main characters find themselves removed to the very back of the train where the only empty berth is to be found - empty that is except for a shabbily dressed guy who's apparently sleeping. Again this is a world of magic, so why would anyone be shabbily dressed? This goes back to what I was saying about the Weasleys being poor. Why would a magical family be poor? OTOH, why would a magical family value gold when they have magic?

At school we discover that once again the Defense Against the Dark Arts class is in need of a teacher, and once again Snape does not get appointed to the post - for no reason whatsoever. It's going to be two more volumes before he gets the job and then, suddenly, he's the DAtDA teacher and that's it - no explanation for why, at that point after god knows how long, Snape is suddenly perfect for the job whereas he never was before?! Can you say nonsensical plot hole? But it did allow Rowling to introduce a new and interesting character for each volume. In one, it was Quirrell, who was a central character. In two, it was Lockhart, who offered comic relief. In three it was a werewolf. In four it was Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, in five, Dolores Umbridge.

The really interesting thing about these teachers is that not a single one of them - aside from Moody (who actually wasn't Moody!) - ever taught a single thing about actual defense against the dark arts! I don't think Rowling ever said what Quirrell taught specifically, but if she did, I'm guessing it didn't amount to much. Lockhart was useless as a wizard, and in the only lesson we read about where he teaches, it's about magical creatures, not about dark arts defense, but out of all the teachers, he is in the end the only one who started the dueling club so wizards and witches could actually learn defense against the dark arts! How ironic is that?!

This magical creature study is a trend which Lupin continues when he teaches about magical creatures, not about dark arts defense. Harry does get privileged lessons about the patronus charm which is, I think the sole time any student gets a lesson about dark arts defense in the entire seven volume series - that is until Harry himself starts teaching (in secret) in volume five, but this is a complete joke, because Hermione is far more qualified in spells than ever Harry is, and Ginny is a more powerful spell caster, but the girls are given a back seat yet again by a female author of a young adult novel! Shame on Rowling!

About that patronus charm! Lupin is hesitant to teach and doubtful of Harry's ability to learn because, as he keeps repeating, this is extraordinarily advanced magic! But how is it advanced? In what way? The only 'secret' to doing magic that we ever learn in Rowling's books is that you need two things: utter a very short Latin phrase, and give a twitch of a stick! What's to learn, exactly?

Now we are told that the swish and flick are important, as is the pronunciation, but the lie to this claim is given repeatedly. Even Harry, even before he had any magical training or even knowledge that he was a wizard, could work magic without saying Latin, and without waving a stick as we saw during his trip to the zoo in volume one, and at the beginning of this volume where he inflates his uncle's sister. For neither of those events did he get a reprimand from the ministry.

In the books, we see wizards repeatedly perform magic without a wand and without vocalization, so clearly neither of those two activities is important. You can argue that pronunciation and focus are important even when the spell is spoken in your own mind, but Harry's experience denies this. It makes it look like anyone can do magic - even a non-magical person - which is what Umbridge seems to be claiming in volume seven when she's examining a Muggle witch right before HRH break into the ministry.

So I don't get what's advanced about the patronus charm. Lupin fails to actually teach Harry anything. He just tells him the almost obligatory two Latin words, reminds him to think of a good memory (but fails to tell him it has to be really good) and doesn't even say a word about how to swish and flick! When Harry fails twice in a row he's ready to give up. He offers no further advice on technique or pronunciation or anything except to urge the need to find a good memory (which begs the question as to which one Lupin uses if he's so miserable).

So I really honestly don't get any idea at all from Rowling as to how this is supposed to be advanced. We're expected to take it on faith, which is poor writing. It's odd, because she does such am amazing job of writing in other regards: such as in setting an atmosphere and in bringing scenes to life, yet when it comes to the central theme of the series - that of magic - she fails utterly to develop her world.

Harry's monkey on the back for this volume is, of course the dementors, which I openly admit are a pretty cool invention and another great name (Dudley Demented is a great chapter title in volume five!). What I don't get is how Harry's fainting on the train got to be school-wide news and an endless source of joking, yet Draco's farcical injury from Buckbeak got to be a real tragedy. Obviously Rowling wrote it that way, but it made no sense and bordered on the usual caricature - too much black and white and nowhere near enough gray.

Who even told the story? The only people in the cabin (in the novel) with Harry were Lupin, Ginny, Neville, Ron, and Hermione. One of them must have blabbed the story in order for it to have got out, but I find it hard to believe that any of those people would do so. And once again neither Dumbledore nor any other teacher came to Harry's rescue by addressing just what the dementors could do and how they did it, and why it affected some people so badly - to head off teasing and bullying. Once again the school staff is bordering on being outright abusive toward its students.

Harry's rule-breaking and sneaking around again pays off as he gets some inside info, and learns that not only is Sirius his godfather, but he's also the man who betrayed his parents to Voldemort - so it's believed. Of course, a simple dose of veritaserum would have cleared all of this up a dozen years ago, yet no one thought to administer it? Sirius cared so little for his godson that he was willing to do ten years in Azkaban rather than fight to gain his freedom so he could take care of Harry? Poor writing, Rowling!

Yet again the stupidity of the wizard world is revealed as they hand down the verdict - Buckbeak must die! How weird is it that no one thought to use the time-turner to go back and witness what actually happened? Instead they have a court case where they give evidence? This was just plainly stupid, yet this is the kind of fly-trap you set up for yourself when you write about these topics, and when you create a world where anything is possible, including time-travel. If you're not extremely careful, it traps you more effectively than any Devil's Snare could do!

Thinking that Buckbeak has now joined the headless hunt, the three kids wander off, and arrive at the whomping willow in time for Ron to be grabbed by the dog and launched into the tunnel. Here again, the plot hole is astoundingly large. Why did Sirius do that? Why did he not simply pull a petrificus totalus on Scabbers and then explain everything? Because the drama has to be drawn out! Rowling is nowhere near done making Harry a victim, and making him suffer and feel threatened in this novel yet, but this is an enormous fault in the writing.

Even in the Shrieking Shack, Sirius still fails to identify who it is he's after. Despite having everything to prove Sirius innocent, they manage to still blow it, and Scabbers escapes. Not a one of them seems to be able to pull out the petrificus totalus spell for no other reason than that Rowling chose to write it this way. The same goes for failing to reuse the time-turner to go back and grab the Scab.

The time-travel was fun, though. It's always a good time when people have to avoid themselves. And once again, despite all the holes and problems, Rowling told a gripping story which drew in her audience and locked them in for another four volumes!

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling

Rating: WORTHY!

Volume two removes the contemporary Voldemort completely from the picture, but puts in his place a younger version so we can learn some of Voldemort's history. Plus it adds a pretty cool adventure and a kind of treasure hunt, which I think is why this was so successful. In addition to that, Rowling wisely introduces a host of new and cool ideas and characters, of whom I think Tom Riddle (nicely named!) is the most intriguing and interesting.

Dobby the house elf is a complete disaster in my book. To me he's the Jar-Jar Binks of the Harry Potter series. All he had to do was tell Harry that there's a high risk of a monster being unleashed at Hogwarts which can kill students, but no! I was not glad so much as relieved, I guess you'd say, when he was killed off! But here again is a plot hole. If elf magic is so powerful - as we're repeatedly reminded - how come Dobby died from a mere knife wound? He couldn't save himself? "Reparo" doesn't work on knife wounds?

Dobby is introduced in a way which dumps on poor Harry so Rowling can yet again try to tug on our heart strings. It makes no sense at all, though. Clearly the magic was done by the elf, yet Harry is censured for it? Is the ministry so stupid that it can't tell the difference between elf magic and wizard magic? Once again we have the idea that wizards and witches are really dumb reinforced: they're obviously so stupid that they can't see that Harry doesn't possess the ability to perform such a spell.

The flying car is one more example of how impulsive and stupid Ron and Harry are. They never seem to learn, which is as sad as it's ironic, given that they're students! Flying broomsticks outside of school, fine, flying cars not??? It's also an example of how contrived the plot ideas are. On the other hand, it does introduce yet another cool idea and gives them a bonding adventure, which is what appealed to the readers, especially when the car comes to the rescue of Ron and Harry after that idiot Hagrid yet again puts their lives in jeopardy by sending them to visit Aragog. And that name? It's a great test of your geek index if you can tell the difference between Aragog, Aragorn, and Eragon....

Gilderoy Lockhart was portrayed perfectly by Kenneth Branagh in the movie, but I have to wonder about the whole business hiring of him in the first place. Rowling excuses the choice in the book by telling us that no one wanted to apply for the position, so he was the only option, but this not only a lie, it serves to make Dumbledore look truly incompetent and stupid that he would hire someone who is clearly a poseur and a fraud, to teach such an important subject (and there's more on this particular topic in my review of volume three in this series). If Dumbledore didn't know Lockhart was a fraud, then Dumbledore is stupid and incompetent. If he did and still hired him, then he's incompetent and stupid!

The whole business of the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching post was a joke which was, in a way, amusing, but which was also a plot hole. There were two eminently qualified people for the job right there at Hogwarts: Dumbledore and Snape. I never saw it explained in any way why Snape wasn't the dark arts teacher. They could have easily hired someone else for potions as volume six proves.

If Dumbledore trusted Snape, as we're told repeatedly, then he was unquestionably the best person for the job. If Dumbledore didn't want Snape there for whatever reason, then why did he not get off his lazy ass and do some teaching himself?! Again, it made no sense whatsoever, but the story was written so amusingly, with so many interesting bits and pieces thrown into the mix that readers, even curmudgeonly ones like me, were drawn in and induced to forgive if not forget!

Soon we begin seeing paralyzed pupils and learn the dark history of Hogwarts. And we get another look at the dangerous if not deadly game of Quidditch. Kudos to Rowling for inventing a cool game (for twelve-year-old readers), but it makes no sense that a school which otherwise claims to have student welfare at heart, to have an inherently violent and dangerous sport for them to play. It's actually insupportable, but Rowling gets away with it because the excitement and danger appeal to the age for which she was writing.

What I resent most about these books is not actually the plot holes I'm detailing, but that we never learn more about how Rowling did it - how she came up with these ideas. I've never seen anything in which Rowling discusses how she even came up with all these characters and nifty items. That, to me, would have been truly interesting. Maybe she does so on Pottermore, to which I've never been, but somehow I doubt it. Maybe she doesn't even remember at this point, but to me, those kinds of things would have been really interesting to read about and very useful to others who want to write successful fiction.

I find it interesting that after screwing up Harry's broken arm, Lockhart pays no penalty. It does allow Harry to be in the right place at the right time to get some more information, of course, which is why this glaring lapse got through. Of course, Dobby, who could have solved the whole problem vanishes before he tells Harry anything of use, but then we get to discover that Colin Creevey has been paralyzed, too.

About that paralysis! It's termed 'petrified' in the novel, but this means, literally, turned to stone. If they cannot revivify a dead wizard using magic, how on Earth is it that they can revivify a stone and turn it back into a healthy, normal human with no harm? This made no sense, but once again it gets a bye because it's a cool kind of an idea and by the time the human petrifications begin, we're already wrapped up on the latest Harry quest. They do have a bit of an out in that none of the students (or the cat) is actually hit by the direct glare of the basilisk, but still, it's a stretch to believe their heart has literally stopped beating, and yet they're not dead and can be revived.

Once again Harry is thrown to the wolves as he speaks Parsel tongue during the duel. If it's so rare and so misunderstood, how come everyone instantly understands what it is and what Harry has done? And how come Dumbledore doesn't come clean with Harry? Well, it's to ramp-up the tension, of course, but it's still a failing, realistically. In fact, the inability of one character to communicate with another is both a problem and a characteristic of this series.

The problem here is that the attacks inexplicably stop. It's supposed to be because Tom Riddle has started focusing on Harry instead of trying to kill off the students, but this fails completely as an explanation. Harry doesn't find the diary immediately, yet the attacks stop. Of course Rowling has to stretch the story to cover the school year, but this is a big and unexplained gap. The diary, again, is a cool idea, though, especially given its importance in light of what we discover in volume six.

Hagrid is arrested as a suspect and sent to Azkaban without trial. No one seems to find this unacceptable! Bizarre. The idiot sends Harry and Ron to meet Aragog, the giant deadly spider who has no regard whatsoever for Hagrid's friends. Fortunately their car rescues them, which was pretty neat. Thus they're led to Moaning Myrtle and to the entrance to the chamber of secrets - a place which the greatest wizard in the world, Dumbledore, failed to find!

The incident with Ron's wand backfiring and rendering Lockhart into even more of a mindless dilettante than he was before is amusing, but the plot hole here is how Ron managed to make it through quite literally the entire school year with no working wand? It's unexplained! This business of the broken wand rendering the wizard useless is also unexplained, and becomes important in volume five where the six students consistently fail to disarm the death eaters and thereby get Sirius Black killed. But once again the result of the spell also leaves Harry alone to face the evil as he did in the previous book.

We learn that Tom Marvolo Riddle is an anagram for "I am Lord Voldemort". I don't get the power of this "Lord" business. It's such a huge trope that people never even think about it anymore. We see it not only in fantasy, but also in sci-fi. In the stories, Lords are always powerful and/or dangerous - and nothing like their real life counterparts, who are typically doddering and pretty much useless. Why did he take the name? Is this something Voldemort would do? Why not King Voldemort or Emperor Voldemort? We never did find out why he chose Voldemort as a name. Was it nothing more than simply using up the remaining letters after Rowling had created "I am Lord" from his name?! Pathetic. Or was it the other way around - "Voldemort" came from Tom Riddle as a childish nickname?

If all it took to reincarnate him was to suck the life out of Ginny, then why wasn't this the first thing he did? Why go through all the bullshit about killing off Muggles (which he did only half-heartedly at best). Obviously it was to create a dramatic climax, but it was perhaps the biggest plot hole in the entire seven novel series. Yet despite this Rowling kept the interest in her stories and got away with it, maintaining her series on an unstoppable roll.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling

Rating: WORTHY!

It occurred to me that, despite having read all seven of the Potter canon many years ago, that have never reviewed them in this blog! The thing is that it felt stupid reviewing a series of novels which pretty much everyone in the western world (and many a one in the east) has read or at least heard of, so I decided to do a different kind of review for this series.

I always maintain that a writer can get away with pretty much anything with me; as long as they write me a story that's engrossing and has interesting characters, I will overlook plot holes and even a goodly number of spelling or grammar errors. Just entertain me. So the plan here is to look at the plot holes and other problems with this Harry Potter launch vehicle, and later with the other six books. In doing this, we'll see that despite some pathetic problems and hellish holes, and despite her views on transgendered people being less than intelligent, she definitely got the job done with her writing here.

The main character is now so well-known as a heroic figure that it may well have escaped readers what a loser he is. Harry Potter is one of the most selfish, lazy, and stupid main characters ever created, which we shall see as I work through all seven volumes. He has very poor self control, few smarts, and no work ethic whatsoever. He's completely unmotivated and he blithely squanders pretty much every chance he's given.

He will not take advice, will not learn, and flatly refuses to take the golden opportunities to educate himself that are endlessly laid in his lap. He shows little curiosity about the world around him, even though it is quite literally magical. Everything is laid out for him on a platter, yet he does nothing save waste his time and indulge in self-obsessive meanderings. He refuses to follow rules and refuses to ask for help even when it's there for the taking. Yet Rowling turned this guy into a hero!

To be fair to him, he did start out life in one of the most lousy ways imaginable, and we can thank that other loser at Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, for that tragedy. Dumbledore and Hogwarts consistently failed students, and Harry in particular, by offering a lousy education which ill-prepared them for the dangers which came crashing down on the school in volumes six and seven.

The first problem with this book is Harry's personal circumstances, and this is two-fold. This whole thing with Harry and his survival is centered around the protection of love - the love of his parents for him, and in particular the love of his mom, to stand in front of Voldemort's wand and take the deadly curse herself. This never made any sense to me. Not that a parent wouldn't do whatever it takes to protect their child - that's a given for any even half-way decent parent. This is a problem in itself, but not one I'm discussing right here. So what is it then? And why am I asking you, when this is my thesis?!

The problem is that Harry was not the only child in the world, and Lily was not the only mom. The story indicates that scores, if not hundreds of parents and children were killed, yet Jo Rowling would have us believe that not a single one of those parents loved any of their children like Lily loved Harry, and therefore not one of those parents could put a protective 'spell' around their child like Lily did. I call bullshit on that one - a big stinking pile of it. It's highly insulting to parents and yet this is the most basic premise of the entire Potter septalogy! Shame on Rowling for her implicit assertion that all parents save Harry's are deadbeat parents.

The corollary to this is that Harry has to be ensconced with his caricature of an aunt and uncle, Vernon and Petunia Dursley, and with their even more caricatured and fat-shamed son, Dudley. Now remember, the core of the story here is the protective love of family, yet these three wretched people thoroughly hate and detest Harry, so where's the protection? And if the protection of these two surrogate parents - who loathe their nephew - is sufficient (because they're family) to provide protection, how come so many others do not get that same protection when Voldemort revivifies himself? Again, it makes no sense and it's insulting! It's insulting to parents and even to the very definition of love!

Rowling herself is rather abusive here in that she's very unkindly equating obesity with evil. Obesity is an evil, health-wise, but overweight people are not automatically cruel and hateful people. Again, it's insultingly bad writing: make the antagonist fat and then you don't have to do the work of writing a realistic villain! It also bespeaks badly for Dumbledore, who was the one who dumped Harry into this predicament. Was he not watching over Harry at all, or did he simply not care that Harry was hurting every single day? Dumbledore was a selfish, clueless and cruel man, and it's entirely understandable how he could treat his sister and the rest of his family in the way that he did because he treated Harry in exactly the same way! No surprises there in this series!

I can't help but draw parallels here between what Harry suffers in this seven-volume series, and what the fictional Job suffered in the misplaced Bible story - misplaced because the book of Job really doesn't belong in the Bible canon at all - and especially not if you want people to think kindly of the Biblical god!

But there are parallels. Harry was bereft of his loved ones, he suffered every day, and he got no reward whatsoever in recompense. And Dumbledore, his god, let him suffer. He never lifted a finger to do anything to ease Harry's suffering, not in the eleven years before he arrived at Hogwarts, nor in the six years he knew Harry as a student.

Actually, if we're drawing Biblical parallels, Harry is more like Jesus Christ, spending his forty days (or in Harry's case, a decade) in the wilderness before he begins his ministry at Hogwarts, leading to his sacrifice to the evil Voldemort, so that evil can be defeated and the people can find salvation in his resurrection. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, became Royalty: HRH!

I found it odd - through amusing - when the letters began arriving. Clearly whoever was sending them knew that Harry wasn't getting them because they kept coming, yet never once did a letter pop into existence in Harry's hands in the privacy of his cupboard under the stairs so he could read it. What was that all about?! This is the first indication we get of how profoundly stupid witches and wizards truly are in Rowling's world (the issue of their absolutely idiotic attempts at "dressing like muggles" I will address later.

Harry's demonstration of magic was also an issue and is a contradiction in the Potter series. The first problem is that Harry can clearly do magic without a wand, so why was a wand even necessary? More on this anon! The second problem is that despite the ministry's restriction on using under-age magic, Harry never once is censured for it before he begins attending Hogwarts. Afterwards, he's censured unreasonably, even psychotically for it, even when it's clearly not his magic - as when Dobby uses it in book two, for example, or when it's for his own defense, as it is in book five. None of this made any sense.

Now you can argue that kids are allowed to get away with it before they attend magic school, but not afterwards, but this makes just as little sense (as we shall see shortly). In the meantime, I have to ask: why is there no magical kindergarten? Why must a child wait until eleven? The answer to that question lies in the British education system.

In Britain there used to be a written exam called the eleven-plus. Each year, kids who had turned eleven in the previous twelve months were tested to determine if they would go to an academically-inclined grammar school, or a vocationally-inclined secondary school. Thankfully that barbaric system has changed now, but Rowling is old enough to have known the older system, and she obviously took it to heart with the launching of a child into a new school at a tender age.

The issue though, is how on Earth do they ever keep this magic from the muggles when kids are randomly performing largely-uncontrolled magical feats for the first decade of their life? Obviously the answer is that it served Rowling's writing and dramatic aims, of course, but rationally, it's a huge hole! Yes, you can try arguing that obliviators went out and fixed things, but seriously? On that scale, and all the time? It's not feasible.

This whole thing is a mess, because we're told that magic isn't allowed outside of Hogwarts, but we're also told how jealous Harry's aunt Petunia became when Harry's mom Lily would come home from school and demonstrate magic to her family. How come she was never censured? And how come magical broom riding was fine outside of school, even for under-aged wizards, yet magical car driving is cause for threats of expulsion?! Plot holes is how!

I have to say I loved Rowling's playfulness and inventiveness with her magical world, silly as it was at times. This is one of the great joys of her stories and what made them seem so inviting and, on a superficial level, so real. I loved her naming conventions in many ways, such as Ron's rat's name, Scabbers, and Sanguini the vampire, and also the names of some of the stores in Diagon Alley - and indeed the name of the alley itself. I especially loved Flourish and Blott's, which I thought was magical for the bookstore. Some of the names fell flat though, and were more like the character names from the Clue game (which used to be called Cluedo in Britain).

One of the first things Harry discovers in Diagon Alley is that he's rich. This sudden acquisition of wealth was weird, to me. First of all, how did James and Lily ever get all that gold in such a short lifetime? Honestly? It seemed like a remarkable amount, and Harry wasn't very generous with it, was he? Yes he bought a bunch of candy on the train that day he traveled with Ron (although a lot less in the book than in the movie), but when Ron had crappy robes for the Yule Ball, Harry never offered to buy him a new set.

Clearly this was done for amusement, and it was funny in a simplistic way, but it really made no sense. These people are wizards, yet neither Ron's family, nor Ron, nor Harry, nor Hermione could swish and flick his robes into something more acceptable? Not credible!

For that matter, this was a wizarding world, so how was it that Ron's family were poor at all? They could turn a rat into a drinking goblet, but not a rock into a golden galleon? How would anyone know? And even if the wizard world knew a real galleon from a transfigured one, no one in the Muggle world would. Why were there no wizards who were making money (literally!) hand over fist?!

In fact, if real gold had a special aura, what was to stop a wizard performing "Accio gold" and extracting the entire world's reserve of real gold from the Earth itself? Again, a huge hole (as indeed it would have been if all that gold were removed!) that everyone was willing to overlook (if they even noticed it) for the sake of enjoying the story. Rowling's novels are shot through with this kind of illogical juxtaposition, yet few questioned it because they were so absorbed in the stories. More credit to Rowling for pulling the wool over people's eyes so expertly!

Now about those bwizard wands: we're told that the wand chooses the wizard, but we're never told how that works, why a wand is necessary, how the wand itself works, or what is the significance of the type of wood, the length of the wand, the flexibility (or otherwise of the wood), or the significance of the magical beast component which is inside it. If a unicorn hair carries the magic, for example, why not have one in your pocket and use that? Why must it be included inside a stick?! Despite the obsession with "wand lore" in volume seven, none of this is ever explained by Rowling - at least, not on the books anyway.

If a wand is necessary, how come some wizards can do magic without one? Some magical stories have got around this by simply saying the wand isn't necessary - it's just a beginner's tool to focus your attention until you can do it without the prop. This was not Rowling's approach, however. In Potter world, wands are important and are said to focus the wizard's spell, but it's really not until the last couple of volumes where Harry's wand becomes central to part of the story line, and even then it's rather overblown! Or just blown.

Apart from that last crucial story line, none of the wand business made sense, but everyone bought into it because it seemed to make sense within the wizardly world. This is actually the vital component, and readers accepted it because it just seemed right - a wizard has a wand - of course he does! Maybe the secret to a good magical story isn't to make sense, but to do just the opposite!

One thing which I actually hadn't registered until volume three, was that a pet or familiar was almost a requirement for wizardry, yet we never saw Hermione (nor any other wizard aside from Harry, Ron, Dumbledore, and Neville) with one until 'Prisoner of Azkaban' when Hermione bought Crookshanks, the cat which terrorized Scabbers. Clearly this was nothing more than a smart tool employed to focus attention on Scabbers. Crookshanks all but disappeared after volume three. But the value or utility of a familiar was never actually explained in any of the volumes despite Hagrid telling Harry that he had to have one, and even buying one for him as a birthday gift.

Platform 9¾ was another very cute and neat little device which made for a fun story by bringing the real world into the story so that kids could go there and imagine the magic going on unseen all around them. Practically, however, it made no sense. Why would the wizards gather at a very public and busy place and start walking through walls?! Why were they not given a port-key each? Why were older wizards not allowed to simply apparate to a point outside the Hogwarts grounds and be picked up from there?

The train never stopped on the way to Hogwarts. The only place it picked up passengers was London. The only place it stopped was Hogsmeade station, so did even those living in the north of Britain have to travel south just so they could travel north again? We were never told. Were there other means of travel, or is this yet another example of how stupid wizards and witches are? Plot hole!

Clearly the train was merely a rather ill-conceived if convenient device for furthering the story even as it made no sense in and of itself. In volume one, this purpose was to allow Harry and Ron to bond, and for Hermione and Malfoy to be introduced. And who doesn't enjoy a good train ride with a promise of something new and perhaps adventurous? I love trains, so this appealed directly to me as I am sure it did to others.

What I didn't get was why Malfoy wanted to befriend Harry Potter at the beginning, but then unaccountably became an implacable foe almost immediately afterwards. This took place on the train in the book, but on the stairs of Hogwarts in the movie, and it made no sense at all for me. I mean I understand the hatred. Malfoy was from a Death-Eater family which despised Potter for putting their leader, Voldemort, out of action. Why would their son even consider befriending him? Hole!

The sorting hat is a fun thing. I loved it the one time Harry went into Dumbledore's office and the hat said, "Bee in your bonnet Potter?" I thought that was choice. What I didn't get is the tolerance of Slytherin house at Hogwarts. It was legendary how evil that house was, yet it was permitted to exist and everyone in it was pretty much evil. This made no sense at all, rationally speaking. As a writing device, it did provide for the trope high-school conflict - not only for the quidditch games, but for rivalry between Harry and Draco, who stands in as a surrogate for Voldemort when neither Draco's dad nor Voldemort himself are there to present a threatening figure.

Another issue is Harry's scar. He has this lightning bolt on his forehead, of course, and it acts as a lightning rod for Voldemort, but this doesn't explain why Harry didn't get a jolt when he met Quirrell (another great name) in the Leaky Cauldron when he first came with Hagrid to Diagon Alley. You could argue that Voldemort was absent at the time, drinking unicorn blood in the Forbidden Forest, but if that's the case, why did Quirrell baulk at shaking hands with Harry?

This whole business of Voldemort hiding in Quirrell's head and getting away with it is a complete mystery. I find it hard to believe that Harry wasn't in agony from his scar every time he was anywhere near Quirrell, but his scar really didn't take its place (as almost another character!) until later in the series. For that matter how come Dumbledore, the purported greatest wizard ever, could not detect Voldemort - and neither could ex-Death-eater Snape? Snape (Professor Snape, Harry!) made no sense to me, but more on that anon.

If Dumbledore was sharp enough to detect that a robbery was going to take place at Gringotts and the Philosopher's stone was at risk, he surely ought to have detected Voldemort, but given that he had the "sorcerer's" stone, and knew it was at risk, there were two problems here.

First of all, why not remove the risk by destroying the stone? There was no problem with this later, so why delay? Assuming the delay was necessary, why were the protections which were put in place to safeguard the stone so pathetic that even a first year student could defeat them? Seriously? Obviously this had to be done so their royal highnesses Harry, Ron, and Hermione - could overcome them, but...plot hole! Plus, why could Voldemort not create his own? Wasn't he supposed to be a powerful wizard second only to Dumbledore? Why did Nicholas Flamel even need it to live to a ripe old age? He was a wizard! Could he not magically prolong his life?

The three-headed dog was a problem, I agree. I mean, how often do you run into one of those even if you're in the business? Yet not a single one of the other protective spells was an issue for any experienced wizard, dark or otherwise. Obviously for the sake of the children's story the protections had to be such that Harry, Ron, and Hermione between them could defeat them, but it was pretty sad and transparent!

Another rather clunky effort was when Harry and Ron go after Hermione when Quirrell sets a troll loose in the "dungeons" (how he ever got a fully-grown mountain troll into Hogwarts in the first place is conveniently glossed over, take note!). We can forgive the impropriety of two young kids running around - that's credible - but I don't get Hermione's confession afterwards. All she had to say was that she got stuck in the bathroom and the boys rescued her, which was the truth. I don't get why she came up with a complete lie - or why none of the teachers noticed she was missing from her classes! So much for magic!

And about that quidditch match where Quirrell tries to unseat Harry from his broom? None of that made any sense. Of all the opportunities Quirrell must have had to harm Harry, he availed himself of none of them and then he tries to hurt him in the most public place with scores and scores of wizards watching?! Plot hole!

The business of Voldemort inhabiting Quirrell, and Snape trying to prevent Quirrell getting the philosopher's sorcerer's stone is a complete mystery. Voldemort is right there. How can he possibly think that Snape is still working for him when Snape is defying Quirrell and saving Harry? This made absolutely no sense at all. Rowling herself realized this because she put a long and boring expository speech at the beginning of volume six, where Snape tries and fails to justify his insane and schizophrenic behavior to Bellatrix. Nonsense! Plot hole! You can't talk your way out of this with such cheap excuses! Voldemort killed people for far lesser offenses, yet somehow he fails to see all that Snape has done to protect Harry?

I don't get why Dumbledore chooses to return the invisibility cloak to Harry when he does. Does he not know that Harry will use it to break rules? Does he not care? Clearly it was a plot device to enable Harry to pursue Rowling's aims for the novel with impunity (and invisibility!), but it really made no sense to give an 11-year-old such a thing when he was in potential danger!

That's almost, but not quite, as irresponsible as sending first year students into the Forbidden Forest as detention punishment. How was this even countenanced?! And with Hagrid, too, who thought nothing of splitting up the group (although differently in the movie from in the book). Again this was a significant problem, but it served the writing and plot. I have to say I was never a fan of Hagrid. He was nothing short of a stupid and dangerous oaf.

Rowling never did explain how it was that Voldemort was reduced to an apparition after he turned Harry unintentionally into the seventh horcrux. Maybe seven is one too many? It's just one of many places where the fabric of the novel runs thin. On the other hand, it's also sad that the title of the novel was changed for the American edition because...what? Americans are too stupid to grasp what a philosopher's stone is? Shame on American publishers!

The problem with Rowling's characters is that she all too frequently overdid them and went straight into caricature - to say nothing of the fact that, while I admit she did not invent the trope, she is very much responsible for every novel that comes out these days where the magical orphan child is the main character. Ugh! Rip-off much? Authors are too afraid that if they stray from the path Rowling dictated their novel will fail? I'm sure Rowling didn't invent that path but she sure enshrined it.

You know one thing that I really don't get about Harry (actually there's a lot I don't get about him) is why he wears those eyeglasses. He's a wizard who lives in a wizarding world - yet there's no cure for short-sightedness? Hermione can repair his eyeglasses but not his eyesight? Madame Pomfrey can re-grow entire bones, but not fix short-sightedness - or for that matter, remove or at least disguise scars?! It makes no sense but once again, Rowling gets away with it.

I already mentioned that I was not a fan of Hagrid. He's a dunderhead who definitely shouldn't teach children, let alone be put in charge of them. Plus his history is bullshit. His wand was broken? Because there sure-as-hell isn't any way a wizard can ever get hold of a new wand is there now?! Not that wands are needed as we see repeatedly, and as Hagrid himself proved by using his umbrella - which was pretty much entirely forgotten after volume one.

Hagrid was supposedly expelled for the incident with the original opening of the chamber of secrets. The wizarding world has veritaserum available to it, yet they never used it on Hagrid? They never used it on Tom Riddle? They never used it on Sirius Black? Huge, huge plot holes. I guess the wizarding world isn't actually very much interested in the truth after all! Either that or once again they're abominably stupid people. This is the problem with magical stories. It's the same with time-travel stories! There is always an out and it leaves large holes in stories if they're not written really well.

Dumbledore is the biggest disaster ever. He tells Harry nothing, not even when he gets older and understands what needs to be done and deserves the truth. He lets Harry live for a decade with the most cruel and wretched people imaginable, because the protection of family supposedly works - with people who hate him? Bullshit! The torment doesn't end even when he gets to Hogwarts. Harry is bullied and abused my Malfoy (who wanted to be his friend?!), and is repeatedly the butt of jokes and taunts from other students, yet Dumbledore never once lifts even one finger to put an end to it or to help Harry out - and neither do the other teachers. And this is the same guy who gives a speech at the end of volume four about friendship and trust. Hypocrite!

Harry is inexplicably abused by Snape, who supposedly loved his mother, yet who clearly hates Harry and delights in bullying him every chance he gets, yet Dumbledore never once censures Snape (Professor Snape, Harry) or tries to protect Harry from him. On the contrary! He deliberately forces Harry to take occlumency lessons from Snape so he can be bullied more in volume five. Dumbledore is without question a bastard who is, in many ways, worse than Voldemort.

Draco is allowed to get away with abuse and bullying beyond anything which is even remotely tolerable in any decent school. He gets away with one thing after another, particularly where Harry is concerned, whereas Harry is brought crashing down for even minor or accidental infractions. None of this made sense, and was actually a solid example of really bad writing designed solely to pluck those heartstrings again. I came out of this seven volume series not liking Harry or Dumbledore.

So volume one rife with plot problems and holes and yet it became a run-away best seller. This just goes to show that if you write an engrossing story with endearing characters, you can get away with murder. It doesn't even have to be really original or make a whole lot of sense. A bit of invention, a bit of plotting, a few wild adventures and you'll get your audience. Rowling did and with huge success! Keep that in mind while writing your own stories!

The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser

Rating: WORTHY!

If you want a definitive biography of all six wives, as opposed to one of Henry himself, then this has to be up there at the top of any list. It is extensive and exhaustive, pulls no punches and skirts no detail. it begins with the early life of each wife - as least insofar as that life is known, and some of them are not, and continues right up until their divorce, execution, or death. The rule for the six queens is: divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.

It seems the secret is that if you do not want to lose your head, then do not lose your head: do not be flirtatious or vivacious, as were Anne Boleyn (pronounced 'Bullen') and Katherine Howard. If you want to be divorced, then be the daughter of an important foreign power such as Aragon or Cleves. If you do not want to simply die, then don't give birth to Henry's only son, as Jane Seymour did, and if you want to survive, then be Catherine with a 'C'!

I enjoyed reading this although for my purposes it was a little TMI at times, but you cannot argue it skimps on the story. overall I enjoyed this, learned a lot and I commend it as a worthy read.

Doctor Who The Vault by Marcus Hearn

Rating: WORTHY!

Kind of cheating to ask me to do a review of a Doctor Who "treasure vault" like this because I love the show in general. I have to admit though that I have some issues with the new writer who took over after Steven Moffat. I don't think he's capable of achieving the same high bar initiated by Russell Davis - one that was taken to even greater heights by Steven Moffat. And before anyone says anything, my position has nothing to do with the Doctor now being female. I think that's great. I just wish Jodi Whittaker had better scripts to work with, which brings me to my next point which is that the seasons are far too short.

In the old days, those of the original Doctor Who seasons, there was a show every week for half of the year, typically running to forty or more episodes (the stories were split into half-hour serialized episodes back then, a varying number of episodes making a story). Admittedly some of those scripts were duffers, but they were there because numerous writers were hired to write them. From season 8, that number was reduced by almost half and then further reduced to 20 episodes and finally dropped to 13 or 14 by Colin Baker's time (although the episodes were longer, rather mirroring the more recent seasons) and into Sylvester McCoy's era. It's hardly surprising that viewership dropped-off when there was nothing to view for much of the year, and the scripts were all-too-often lacking something.

This reduced schedule was resumed when the new series kicked-off in 2005 and despite the quality of both scripts and production rising significantly, for some reason the powers-that-befuddle chose not to increase the number of episodes (now each a full story). This annoys me because there are writers out there who could write great episodes if given the chance and the will was there from the BBC to produce them. But the show has gone in the other direction, with the episode numbers being reduced - and even missed entirely in two years within recent memory, and under Chibnall, the number of episodes has been dropped to ten. if they were longer or better that might not be so bad, but they're simply not.

While Chibnall's first season had quite high ratings due to Whittaker's presence, the ratings consistently dropped throughout the series from almost 11 million to less than 7, and in series 12, from 7 down to less than five. Chibnall is killing it in the worst way possible. He wrote or co-wrote 13 of these 20 shows and one report I read has it that six of season 12's shows are among the top ten least-watched in the entire Doctor Who canon. Way to go Chibnall.

But we have our books! This one is a lush hardback - or soft hardback since there is some cushioning which lends it a nice 'expensive' feel. The book is like a scrapbook and it leaves nothing of the first fifty years untouched, including the Peter Cushing movies, and the hilarious and star-studded Case of the Fatal Death comedy special for charity, which featured a female doctor in part - although the special was far from canon!

The book covers each of the years there have been shows from the early sixties to the early 20-teens, and gives a summary of the year supplemented by lots of photos. I commend this as a worthy read.

When Women Ruled the World by Kara Cooney

Rating: WORTHY!

Dr Cooney is a professor of Egyptian Art and Architecture at UCLA and she wrote this non-fiction book about six female kings of Egypt, who ruled in their own right or as the most powerful woman in the land, over various dynasties in Egypt, from the earliest to the last. Their names are: Merneith, Neferusobek, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Tausret, and the most infamous: Kleopatra. I was disappointed that all six were not mentioned in the book description, only the ones who are already quite well-known: Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, and Kleopatra (the 7th). it woudl have been nice had they all am mention by name.

I really enjoyed the book, which has a lot of detail, but it should be noted that some of it is speculative and some of it is potentially misleading. While ostensibly promoting female leaders and trying to overturn gender stereotypes, the author indulges in a little bit of her own, which takes away from her message somewhat. That aside, I learned a lot about these six female leaders, even if some of the speculation was hardly mainstream. I was particularly interested in the ones I did not know, and also in Nefertiti, since I had an idea for a novel about her - and that idea has been filled-out rather by the information I gleaned from listening to this audiobook, so it was time well spent for me.

The book goes in chronological order, and while these women weren't the only ones who had power of some sort in ancient Egypt, arguably they were ones who made the most use of it or rose highest through it. I think this is perhaps why the author chose these above any others. The book follows them chronologically and compares and contrasts their rise to power and their achievements while holding it. It goes into a lot of the politics and into why this patriarchal and patrilineal society tolerated and even welcomed a female ruler at critical times, even as it seemingly resented their power in retrospect and tried to erase the name of she who made the contribution. As I said, some of this is speculative and sometimes even sounds rather contradictory, but overall I enjoyed this book and I happily commend it as a worthy read.

Damn Straight by Elizabeth Sims

Rating: WORTHY!

This is one of a series known as the "Lillian Byrd Crime Stories" because of the protagonist, Lillian Byrd. Note that this is book 2 in the LGBTQIA series, and I have not read book 1. Also I traded an email or two with the author, and I do appreciate her kindness, so I'm not exactly unbiased here! But my review is true and honest - you have my word as a gentleman.

I'm not normally a fan of this kind of story, or of series in general, which is what made this one interesting to me, because Lillian is not your normal "sleuth." In fact I flatly refuse to read any amateur detective story that uses the word 'sleuth' in the book description, so this author was lucky in that regard! She also chose an amusing title which I appreciated.

Lillian is a lesbian and also a little older, I believe, than your usual amateur PI. She was happily (maybe not quite so happily) ensconced in Detroit, with her pet rabbit Todd (who was an amusing, endearing, off-beat and unexpected pet), until friend of hers called from California in a complete mess. I got the impression that her friend was a drama queen. Her name is Truby. It ought to have been Trouble, because I had to wonder how much of a friend she was when she virtually demanded, without offering any explanation, that Lillian drop everything and come running across the country.

When Lillian finally arrived after that frantic phone call, it turned out that this crisis was nothing more than Truby thinking she might be a lesbian. Personally I would have been pissed-off if a friend did that to me, but Lillian takes it all in stride and tries to pass on information that she thinks will be helpful in Truby's exploration of her sexuality. The impression I got is that Truby is bi and in denial!

But this was just to get Lillian across the country, because Truby has tickets to a soirée in celebration of the upcoming Dinah Shore women's golf tournament. It's there that Lillian meets the real subject of this story, in the shape of Genie Maychild. I'm a big believer in making the character's name fit the character in the context of the story, and this particular name is very à propos of that tenet. I liked it! It turns out that Genie is an ace golfer and is playing in the tournament, and expected to be up there with the leading contenders.

She also has a rivalry with an upstart prodigy golfer named Coco Nash - another name I liked. In fact I think I liked Coco best of all in this novel. While Lillian seemed to have a habit of alternately annoying and then intriguing me, I never was keen on Genie who was like this needy vacuum, sucking up all Lillian's attention. I didn't like Truby at all, who was seriously high-maintenance and evidently not too smart, but Coco I could have read a novel about, especially if she'd become involved with Lillian (maybe a future installment in the series - hint, hint!)! But I digress. Genie has a secret past and this is where all the mystery lies - along with Genie's current troubles.

The mystery was multi-faceted and kept me guessing. Although some red herrings were easily fished out of the mix and I fixed on the wrong perp, I did guess right that someone's motives were hardly spotless, but I'm not about to reveal who that was! Lillian is a Freelance journalist, so: amateur detective, and she's quite inventive and definitely dedicated. She's also a freaking angel when it comes to handling Genie who really didn't deserve her. But I liked the way Lillian thought and planned her moves, so for me, while I can't say that the story was exactly entrancing, I can say without fear of landing in the rough, that it was eminently readable and a satisfying whack down the fairway.

If I had a complaint, it would be two of them! One was the golf, which was a bit too much for me, who is not a golf fan, but obviously the story centers around golf and a golfer, so I couldn't really make a legitimate complaint about all the golf!

The other complaint is one I've made in many reviews, which in this case is that Lillian and Genie fall into bed far too quickly and without a word about sexual health, which to me is a problem in this day and age of rampant STIs. Naturally no writer wants to bring the story to a screeching halt with a lecture about sexual diseases, but there are ways it can be worked into the story naturally and organically, or at least touched-on in passing. That said, I did enjoy the story overall, and I consider it an eminently worthy read.

Archibald Lox and the Bridge Between Worlds by Darren Shan

Rating: WARTY!

I found the idea of this novel interesting because it was similar to an idea I'd had for a novel of my own and I was curious as to whether I'd have to ditch my own idea or whether I could still go ahead with it down the road. You can't copyright an idea of course, only a finished work, but nevertheless I wouldn't want to publish a novel that turned out to be quite similar to one someone else had already published. I wish the writers of YA trilogies would learn that lesson instead of endlessly trying to clone books like The Hunger Games, but I'm not that lucky!

Anyway, I decided to read this and see what's what. I didn't get very far. It's first person to begin with which is so unrealistic that it turned me off this novel, and the writing in general was not to my taste. It seemed rather amateur and Darren Shan, actually an Irish author by the name of Darren O'Shaughnessy, uses a lot of British expressions which may not be well understood by American readers. Plus the main character's age is difficult to guess. The book description claims he's young, but he seems to think and behave well beyond his years - more like, say, an author in this late forties?!

One day this "kid" is ditching school because he's depressed about his dead bother, and he sees a girl disappear into some paving stones on a bridge over the Thames in London. He finds that he can magically use the same escape route, so he ditches not only school, but his life and follows her down the rabbit hole so to speak. Archibald in Wonderland. Up until this point it had been quite interesting, if a little simplistic and maudlin, but from that time onward, it went downhill. Rather than find a magical or engrossing world, we found only boring tunnels and eventually an angry girl, who pulls a knife on the kid. His non-reaction to that is ridiculously not credible given what he's done so far. It's like we're dealing with a different boy altogether.

The author writes at this point, "I don't yelp or flinch, but I fall perfectly still," - given that the two people are elevated from the ground at this point, the choice to use 'fall' in place of 'become' or something like that, is a poor one! It's also silly given that this is in first person, and it makes no sense given that this is after this "kid" has voluntarily chosen to follow the girl down into the tunnels, has kept going into complete darkness despite not knowing if he'll ever get out, or if the tunnel will narrow down and trap or even strangle him. He's eventually tracked her down, and now he's terrified into paralysis? It made no sense, whatsoever. It was absurd given it was first person voice, and this is where I decided to ditch it at somewhat under 20% in. I can't commend this as a worthy read. Mine will be a better story! Trust me!

The Dragon Lady by Angelique S Anderson

Rating: WARTY!

This is supposedly a steampunk story, but quite literally the only steampunk element in it was goggles, and there was no reason whatsoever for main character Wylie to even wear them, let alone own them, since she did nothing with her life but muck-out stables for Lord Adrian.

He has zero appreciation for her as a person at all, despite purportedly being in love with her, and he supposedly harbors this love despite his knowing nothing about her or even spending any significant time with her - and despite being engaged to be married very soon to Lady Judith, Wylie's purported best friend. This tells me he's a spineless little weasel. Root for him and Wylie I cannot.

This for me was the biggest problem with this story. Even the ordinary affairs of life - like friendship and love, were of the most flimsy and shallow variety - the worst I've read in a long time. These are typical hallmarks of most YA stories, but they seemed a lot worse than usual in this case.

Another problem for me was that I suspected the author was not British because she used Americanisms where British cuss words or phrases ought to have appeared, and so I read a little about her and discovered I was right. At one point she writes, "Dad blammit it all, Wylie" which is not an English phrase. It's actually not even correct - there's an 'M' too many. Another one was "I'll be gol' darned" which again isn't an English phrase. Perhaps US readers will not notice this or not care, but it stands out like a sore thumb to English readers and spoils the authenticity.

On that score, the main two relationships were inauthentic too. Lady Judith is supposedly Wylie's best friend, but there's nothing shown to support this or to indicate how it even happened, and the two don't behave like best friends. Lady Judith is spoiled rotten and Wylie is living in a near-slum in poverty. Wouldn't Lady Judith have done something about this if she were friends - not even best friends, but just friendly with Wylie? Lord Adrian supposedly loves Wylie, but he does nothing about it either. Wylie has to walk miles to visit his stables each day to muck-out his horses and he's apparently fine with this. That's hardly the approach of someone who loves her.

The story is of Wyle learning that she's a special snowflake, inheriting the 'good dragon' device, which allows her to transmute into a white dragon and fly around doing good deeds. She will have to battle the evil dragon, because of course there always has to be a balance! Who the hell came up with that trope? I know it goes way back in religious fiction, but that doesn't mean we have to perpetuate it in modern fiction. But this novel follows it faithfully. My guess is that Lady Judith is the evil dragon, but I have no idea since I quit this novel at 60% in. It's a very short novel at 160 pages, but not short enough for me to want to read on. It is undoubtedly the start of a series, which I shall not follow.

The author says she hired a book editor on her first novel but was displeased and went into self-publishing. Good for her. Self-publishing brings its own trials and tribulations though, and some of them I list here. I read at one point, "Afar off, the lowing of cattle as they milled about frantically, afraid for their lives." That was the whole sentence, but it's not well formed, is it? And cattle lowing suggests calm. If they were panicked, something ought to have indicated it - like 'panicked lowing' or something to differentiate it from their ordinary noises.

There were other examples of sentences that seemed to have been changed from the original wording, but not quite changed enough, such as this one: "Judith tried her best comforted her when Nicolas Petford passed away." Another read: "Wylie stopped flying mid-hair" I think that should be mid-air, but I have to ask, where else would one stop flying?!

There was one issue regarding the passage of time which was not well thought out. I read, "The sun was once more beginning to set, just as Wylie was arriving." So she gets to the stable, and she spends some time bringing in the horse's feed, distributing it, and brushing one of them down, and then we read: "The day was rapidly turning to night." I have to say that this is one hell of a long sunset!

Of themselves, these were not story-killers for me. If the story had been entertaining enough I could easily have overlooked a few errors like that. These didn't help, but the real problem was that the story seemed so juvenile to me. Maybe there's an audience for this sort of story. For the author's sake I hope there is, but that audience doesn't include me, especially not for a series. I couldn't get with the shallow romance, or the likewise friendship, or the simplicity of the story-telling. I needed more, so while I wish this author all the best in her career, I will not be following it. I can't commend this one as a worthy read.

Dream of Me by Quinn Loftis

Rating: WARTY!

There were serious problems with this book. Naturally it's YA, and so naturally it has problems - like this is a: hot young special snowflake of a girl whose parents are not in the picture, but a much older less than savory guy is in the picture kind of a YA story.

Most YA books have problems - though thankfully not all. The biggest problem with this one was the antique Sandman, called Brudair in this novel, or Dair for short, and the eighteen-year-old he stalks, who is named Serenity. And yes, the author can joke about it and call it what she likes, but he is a stalker who spies on her in her bedroom, lusts after her, goes into shallow raptures over her beauty, talks to himself about 'making her his', and he is literally centuries old. It makes zero sense that he would be attracted to a teenager for anything other than pure carnal lust, because he really doesn't know her at all. It makes as much sense as a forty-year-old guy falling for a toddler.

His job is supposed to be bringing life-changing and guiding dreams to people on behalf of 'the creator' so yes, this is religious fiction, but it makes little sense the way it's told. It's like Serenity has no choice in how she lives her life. She wants to get out of this Podunk town and live a real life somewhere else, "But destiny has other plans, and it's the Sandman's job to make sure those plans are fulfilled."

In other words, she's screwed. She has no free will. She's being controlled by a much older guy - the "tall muscular Sandman." - like he isn't already threatening enough, dressed in black as he is and "wrapped in shadows." The unanswered question is, if the Sandman was "never meant to have a mate" how come he has such lusts? And for someone so young? How come he didn't plant these ambitions in Serenity when she was much younger? Because then it would be an even sicker story than it already is

The writing is a bit limp, not awfully bad, but hardly great. I read at one point, "Serenity had not come to the decision to leave easily," which really ought to be "Serenity had not come easily to the decision to leave," but things like this are quibbles that are easily ignored if the story is worth reading. This one isn't and I ditched it at maybe 10% in, and moved on to something much more worthy of my time. I can't commend this kind of writing as a worthy read.

One Summer Up North by John Owens

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a short and text-free story of the author's trip into the wilderness of the Boundary Waters area on the US-Canada border in Minnesota on the US side. Maybe now isn't the best time to release this given the Coronavirus lockdowns, but better early than never, right?

This review was embargoed until August 15th, and this is a day early, but since there have been reviews published on that execrable Goodreads indie-killer review aggregating site - the one owned by Amazon - since May this year I don't feel guilty cheating by 24 hours, especially since I'm going to be busy tomorrow. The story is very simple and tells in pure pictures about the arrival, the canoeing, the camping, and so on.

I have to say up front that this kind of thing isn't my cup of tea, so while I thought it might be interesting, what I was really looking for here was the artwork and how appealing the story made this trip appear. I know that for the author, it had to have been special, and wonderful and entrancing, otherwise why write a book about it? The problem is that for me, it never came across as that. I never felt any desire to go there, not during reading, nor after I'd read this.

When I sat and thought about it afterwards, it occurred to me that there were two reasons for that. The first was that nature was missing! I mean, yeah, it was there, but only in part. It seemed like a painted backdrop to the author's story rather than the author's story, and there were undoubtedly things that were missing, such black flies, mosquitos, ticks, horseflies, deer flies...and bears. Oh my! The wildlife shown was the cute and cuddly kind, nothing else. You know full-well there are biting flies up there unless you go very early (before May, when the weather might be the problem) or late in the season (again, weather!), but according to this telling, there were none. I don't buy it!

Obviously there's more to a vacation than the problems - there are also the joys, but this seemed dishonestly all joy and no penalty. That would be nice - thinking you could lie there and contemplate your navel, or the sky, or the babbling brook or rustling trees, or whatever, without any irritations - meditating pleasantly on the natural world, but it's not really like that, especially not if you have to keep packing up your camp site to move to the next one, and setting up and starting fires and maintaining fires and putting out fires and on and on. I guess it depends upon what trips your trigger - or in this case triggers your trips, but for me the appeal was missing.

The second problem I had was the artwork itself. It really didn't do anything for the location. It was flat and bland and for the longest time I could not figure out what the water lilies were. At first I thought they were maybe logs - that some logging was going on and these were the logs floating down the river, but that seemed a bit off. It took me a couple of pages and then a backtrack to realize they were water lilies! The perspective seemed all wrong in that first picture. The rest of the art was equally uninspiring.

I wish the author all the best in his career, but based on my reaction to this as it stands, I can't commend it as a worthy read.

vN by Madeline Ashby

Rating: WARTY!

Subtitled "The First Machine Dynasty" this book proved to be part of a series, which I didn't fully realize to begin with since there's nothing on the cover saying "WARNING: This is the first book in a series!" BEWARE!" The 'vN' is from (John) von Neumann, a Hungarian mathematician, and relates to the self-replicating robots which are the main characters in the novel. The two most important of these are Amy and Javier, both of whom are on the run. Javier is pregnant, which begs the unanswered question as to why there are genders with the robots and given that there are, why the males are having the babies. Apparently both genders can have babies, but no females do - at least in what I read, which was about fourth-fifths of this, before I gave up out of lack of interest and frustration with the story not making a whole lot of sense.

The robots are much more organic than we typically envision them, being able to consume plastics and use the materials to grow and when they have an abundance of this 'food' they can create a new, but smaller version of themselves in a sort of parthenogenesis. Amy is infamous for eating her own grandmother, but rather than make her pregnant, all this did was to incorporate her grandmother into Amy's psyche and not to any positive effect, so Amy effectively becomes schizophrenic. How this worked was never explained. Neither was it explained why she didnlt become pregnant from it.

A lot of stuff isn't explained, Amy has a human father but exactly how he was her father isn't gone into. There are areas like this just as there are areas in the text which lack a little something. At one point Javier is tickling Amy and she asks, "Can you try the back of my knee? My dad is ticklish there." But just a couple of lines later Javier is saying, "I can't really get the bottom of your feet if you're standing on 'em, can I?" - it's like the author forgot which part of her he was supposed to be tickling. Later I read "...Is she" followed on the next line by "No it's not that." which means there was zero punctuation at the end of that first time. I don't know of it was meant as an interruption - in which case there ought to have been ellipsis or a dash or something - or if the author simply forgot to add a question mark.

Those were very minor issues, but they didn't help when I was already disliking the novel for its rambling and disjointed approach to story-telling, and its lack of any explanations for how things worked or why they worked that way. It was like the author simply wanted to gloss over this stuff, and have us buy into this world without even offering a pretence of it making any sense, and it rendered the world incomplete and lacking authenticity as well as leaving problematic holes everywhere. I can't commend a book that's had so little attention given to its anatomy as this one has.

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Rating: WARTY!

In which my sorry attempt to embrace the classics continues rather unsuccessfully.

This was published in 1851 and was based in small part on a real house of seven gables where lived Hawthorne's cousin Susanna Ingersoll. The story supposedly has some supernatural and witchery elements to it, but I never made it that far. The novel has its moments and offers some sweet turns of phrase here and there (or should I say hither and thither?), but for the most part it was tediously rambling and just when I thought it might get interesting, when a new broom in the form of the main character's younger cousin showed up, it almost immediately went back to rambling on and on, and it bored the pants off me. I never did find out what happened to those pants.

A somewhat old maid, Hepzibah Pyncheon lives in the house and decides to open a little store in one part of the building, but she really has no idea how to go about it. Her cousin Phoebe shows up unexpectedly from out of town, and starts turning things around in the store while falling for another cousin named Clifford. The rather sleazy Judge Pyncheon sticks his nose in where it's unwanted, and that's about it for the first portion of the book. It wasn't holding my attention at all, and so based on what I read I cannot commend it.

The Alchemyst by Michael Scott

Rating: WORTHY!

This is the first of a series all of which I've read. Anyone who follows this blog (and I know there's one of you!) will know that I am down on series as opposed to down with series. They're almost universally disappointing, unimaginative, and downright boring, but once in a while one comes along that is different and has originality, and engages me throughout. This was one of those rarities. There are problems with it, but I enjoyed it despite those because it does have some interesting stories to tell and Michael Scott, for the most part, tells them well.

Sadly, he doesn't know what an archaeologist is, which is a problem since he likes to remind us that that the parents of the main two Characters, Sophie and Josh Newman, are archaeologists, when in fact they are paleontologists. Archaeologist don't go digging up fossils, which is what the parents do (so we're told in this novel). Paleontologists do that (among other things!).

The subtitle of the novel is "The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel," which has led some people to believe this novel is about him, but it's not. He's in it, but as the subtitle makes quite clear, it's about his secrets, not so much about him. So if you first learned of his name in Harry Potter, first of all, shame on you, and secondly, no, Michael Scott isn't Jo Rowling and this isn't Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. Don't expect it and you won't be disappointed. Besides, you're older now, and you should be demanding something more sophisticated! This book goes beyond that, into gods and goddesses from across the world, and as well as famous characters form history such as Flamel and Shakespeare, nearly all of whom seem to come from the same sort of historical era for some reason! There are osme form other time periods and not all of them make much sense, but this is fiction, remember?!

The basis of the novel is founded upon two things: a dangerous codex (note that it has to be a codex or a scroll - 'book' just doesn't have the oomph!) and twins with secret powers. Yes, Sophie and Josh are fraternal twins - why fraternal and not sororal? Pure genderism! But their twin-ness means they are important to the powers that be.

The main antagonist is John Dee, a charlatan and a scholar from the English Elizabethan era. This is a tired trope, but it's not too bad here. On Josh and Sophie's side is Nicholas Flamel, a seven hundred-year old Frenchman. He has charge of the codex, which can be used to end the world. Why he has not completely destroyed this book goes entirely unexplained. This kind of thing constitutes a huge weakness in this sort of a story. It's like Dr Strange hanging on to the time stone and claiming it's critical, but quite literally doing nothing with it (not after the first movie), and refusing to destroy it despite it being the thing which allows Thanos to destroy half the universe's living things (a flawed plan but let's not get into that). Of course, if this codex were destroyed, then the series would never have got off the ground, so that's really a poor position for a writer to put himself in.

Some might argue that Flamel needs the codex because he uses it to make gold from base metals, and to create a potion for himself and his wife Perenelle, which is what grants them immortality, but then you're arguing that after seven hundred years, he still hasn't memorized these 'recipes' - things he does once a month? For seven hundred years? You're arguing that he has never once thought of simply tearing out just those two pages, or copying them, and destroying the rest of the book?? This tells me that Flamel is a moron and every bit as evil as Dee is supposed to be.

The story begins with Sophie and Josh working for the summer in San Francisco, staying with their antiquated aunt, and working summer jobs down town while their "archaeologist" parents are off on a dig. Sophie works at a coffee shop which happens to be directly across the street from where her brother works - in a book store. Everything is fine until one day John Dee turns up with a couple of golems in tow, having finally tracked Flamel down (his mistake was to keep opening bookstores and using names like Nick Fleming!). Now Dee is demanding the codex. He gets his wish, but as Nick, Sophie, and Josh escape, Josh realizes that he has the last two pages of the codex, without which Dee cannot complete his sorcery. Really? But the chase is on!

Dee manages to capture Perenelle, and the other three resort to a friend of Nick's named Scathaich, a warrior woman who teaches martial arts. She's kick-ass, but she's in the story - and the series - far too little for my taste. The story pursues Dee and the codex and is very entertaining if you don't take it too seriously. I commend it.

The Magician by Michael Scott

Rating: WORTHY!

This is volume two of the series. In volume one, the two young heroes of the story, twins Josh and Sophie, traveled to France and met the aged Nicholas Flamel and his wife Perenelle (who was imprisoned by the bad guys in volume one and spends this entire volume on Alcatraz). This volume continues from there and in it, delving quite deeply into Norse mythology. Sophie begins to learn the use of fire magic, and Josh seems to have no magical powers at all, which affects her character throughout the volume.

Why the one has power - and that particular power - and the other none isn't really explained - not that I recall, but it's been a while since I read this so my recollection may be faulty. Josh does get a nifty stone sword later -which has its own power - and the gift of military knowledge. You can call 'sexism' on the girl getting the magic and the boy the martial gifts if you like, and you can certainly call out Josh for being a little whiny bitch in this volume. There are ways to make him consider going over to the other side without making him quite so obnoxious, but I guess the author didn't know that.

There's a lot more action in this volume since all the set-up has been completed in volume 1, and a lot of new characters show up including some Valkyries who have a grudge against Scathaich. I commend this as a worthy read.

The Sorceress by Michael Scott

Rating: WORTHY!

The title refers to Nicholas Flamel's wife Perenelle, who really comes into her own in this volume, which takes place largely in England, except the bits dealing with her escape - finally! - from Alcatraz, which seems not to be a tourist destination in this world. Josh loses his sword, Clarent, which Dee gets and unites it with his own sword, Excalibur, to create a new all-powerful weapon. Flamel and the twins meanwhile hook up with a Saracen named Palamedes which provides some military might.

More new characters are introduced, such as Gilgamesh of Epic fame, and meanwhile Niccolò Machiavelli teams up with Billy the kid of all people. That seems to be a serious mismatch. However, this story was also entertaining, so I commend it.

The Necromancer by Michael Scott

Rating: WORTHY!

Volume four brings Nicholas Flamel, his wife Perenelle, and the twins Sophie, and Josh back to San Francisco where the story of this world of gods and immortals began. It starts off in high spirits as we learn that Josh and Sophie aren't the only twins. Scathaich has one known as Aoife, who kidnaps Sophie, who goes with her mistakenly thinking it's Scathaich. Meanwhile Dee is fleeing the Dark Elders who balme hi for his failure to get the codex in its entirety.

Joan of Arc and Scathaich meanwhile are still stuck in the shadow lands and end up alongside the Comte de Saint-Germain, Palamedes and Shakespeare. The swordless Josh gets his chance at fire magic form the master of it: Prometheus of course. The problem is that he's still somewhat disaffected and falls under the spell of Dee. Again, another adventure-filled and entertaining volume.

The Warlock by Michael Scott

Rating: WORTHY!

This volume brings more characters into the story, most notably from Egyptian mythology, such as Anubis, Aten, Isis, and Osiris, but also Hel, Odin's daughter shows up and is nothing like the character from the Marvel movie.

Josh and Sophie and reunited and a terrible hoard of beasts is unleashed by Dee. Sophie gets yet more magical tuition, and learns the Magic of Earth, and also that all magic is really one thing - there are no branches or divisions. Duhh! Even I knew that! She learns all this from her aunt Agnes, who has been suspiciously quiet about her own magical skills. This felt a bit like a betrayal on the part of the author. I mean, really?!

But once again an entertaining and inventive read which I commend.

The Enchantress by Michael Scott

Rating: WORTHY!

The final book in the series takes off right at the end of volume five, and twins, Sophie and Josh Newman travel back in time to a fabled city of the past where they meet their real parents - so they're told - Isis and Osiris, but you should know by this point that nothing is what it seems in this series. It's a bit like an episode of Mission Impossible where people keep pulling their masks off to reveal that they're really someone else.

Sophie heads off to destroy the ancient city which is required in order for civilization to flourish, and Josh sits on a pyramid, which sounds painful - but which might explain his pissy attitude - and discovers that Clarent and Excalibur are actually part of a quartet, which includes Durendal and Joyeuse. Who knew? There are lots of battles, double-crosses, feints and reveals, and so much talk of silver and gold that I expected Burl Ives to show up singing his Christmas song, but he doesn't.

Overall I consider this entire series to be a worthy read.

Basil of Baker Street by Eve Titus

While this was cute and fun it wasn't something an adult can really derive much from except vicariously by reading it to a kid and seeing how they like it. Since it is aimed at kids, then on that basis, I consider it a worthy read. For me as a grown-up, not so much!

This audiobook is of the original story, first published in 1958, and it features Basil the mouse, who lives in the basement of 221B Baker Street where he learned his detecting craft from listening to Sherlock Holmes solve his cases. Starting out as what appears to be a simple case of missing children, things turn all around when an unruly mob trio threaten all resident mice in the Baker Street basement 'village'. Basil takes exception and resolves to cut the case off at the knees before the villains can make good their threat. He and his assistant Dawson don disguises and head north to run down the villains in their lair. They could of course have simply let the villains move in, then called the mouse police on them, but this seems never to have occurred to Basil.

Like I indicated, the story is simple and innocent, and at times amusing, and should delight young children. I consider it a worthy read for them.

Black No More by George S Schuyler

Rating: WORTHY!

This was an audiobook from a novel first published in 1931 by the author, whose name is pronounced 'Skyler'. The novel is sci-fi and has the odd premise that some guy (who is black) invents a process by which people of color can be made to look white. Due to the ill-treatment of such people. There's a flock of them wanting this process, which in turn causes all kinds of unexpected issues down the road.

Max Disher's advances are rejected on New Year's Eve by a racist white woman named Helen. The thing is that Max is racist too - he only wants to date white women, so these two are made for each other. Rather than dismiss her and look for a more friendly prospect, he obsesses on her and when he learns of this 'Black No More' process, he's front of the line volunteering as a test subject, and so he ends up white. He changes his name to Matthew Fisher and moves to Atlanta, where this woman lives. He discovers she's the daughter of a white supremacist who goes by Reverend Harry Givens, head of The Knights of Nordica.

Matthew passes himself off as an anthropologist who supports the reverend's aims and soon is an integral part of the organization, turning it around into a powerful and money-making society. He becomes rich as a result, and marries the unsuspecting Helen. Problems arise when she becomes pregnant though, because although for all intents and purposes Matthew is now white, his offspring will not be. Fortunately for him, Helen miscarries, but shortly becomes pregnant again and his problems begin multiplying.

Matthew quickly discovers his life does not become a bed of roses from being white, although he has the girl of his dreams and is now wealthy. He's even on track for setting-up the next president of the USA, but society around him is falling apart. Black businesses are suffering because most blacks are now turning white and adopting an upscale lifestyle. Neighborhoods are going to hell, and society itself is in trouble.

This book was hilarious, and Schuyler proves himself to be a funny and perceptive writer who really had a surprisingly modern take on things and a good handle on how society works - or fails. I fully commend this book - which is quite short - as an amazing, entertaining, and worthy read.