"Business is booming for paranormal investigator Jack Spirelli, and he could use a partner - but is a dragon the right candidate for the job?" Kudos for the dragon idea, but the main protagonist is another jack - the tiresomely brain-dead automatic go-to name for an adventurer. For fuck's sake can we have a different name for once in one of these stories? If there's a main character named jack, that's an automatic 'WARTY' in my scoring system. Bye!
Friday, July 2, 2021
Arnica, the Duck Princess by Ervin Lázár
"Struck by a witch's spell, kindly princess Arnica and her fiancé, Johnny, are each cursed to live part-time as a duck - unless they can find the fairy who holds the cure!" Okay, the duck idea is amusing, but can you say "Ladyhawke" rip-off?
Tempted by Ruin by Mia West
The title alone is enough to make this a non-starter. Why not just call it 'Restless Knights'? Or 'Sheath Your Sword'? "While on an unexpected mission, Gawain, one of King Arthur's warriors, is joined by none other than Palahmed - the mercenary he has long desired." Can you say "Brokeback Mountain"? Or someone's mounting, anyway. And Palahmed? Is that some sort of a muscle relaxing medication?! Just no. If you're going to wrote a serious LGBTQIA sotry, then go for it, but this has to be a joke.
Mageborn by Jessica Thorne
"When her friend becomes yet another mageborn taken to the dungeons, orphan soldier Grace seeks help from the dangerous Prince Bastien." I think any novel with 'mage' or 'born' in the title is going to have to automatically go into my DNR (do not read) list. This has both. And Prince Bastien? Really? The only thing dangerous about him is that he doesn't know how to ride a luck dragon safely. I can see where this is going, and it's nowhere original. No thanks.
Noumenon Infinity by Marina J Lostetter
"In this enthralling read, a space convoy must discover the secrets behind a mysterious alien structure surrounding a star." This is a Kirkus starred review which is enough to turn me off it for life. But wait - a space adventure gets a starred review? Does a fantasy get a bard review? Did Stephen King's Firestarter get a charred review? Why must these secrets be discovered? What's the urgency? Never mind, I don't care.
Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead
"Impossible to put down!" That's what happens when the book manufacturer puts too much glue on the cover.... Reject.
Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind by Ann B Ross
If Ann be Ross, who be Dooby Do? "When widow Miss Julia discovers her late husband had a son with another woman, her well-ordered life threatens to spiral out of control" she must be an extraordinarily weak woman if that's all it takes! Reject.
Falling for His Best Friend by Katee Robert
"Avery's biological clock starts ticking" I guess somebody must have wound her up.... "...and her annoyingly sexy best friend, Drew," See? Any time I read of someone who is 'annoyingly sexy' or 'infuruatungly handsome' I completely lose interest in readign any further. Book descriptionw riters: get a new shtick for fuck's sake. So Drew-not-a-blank "insists on being her donor. But when they decide to do things the old-fashioned way, their attraction quickly becomes too hot to handle." Seriously? What's with the clock starting? Did Avery just turn eleven? Does the author even know that Avery is the actual name of a watch manufacturer? He's her best friend and never once have these two numbnuts ever considered becoming a couple? Or just having sex? The truth is that this story is too laughable to handle! The clock is ticking on this tired bullshit.
The Bone Jar by SW Kane
"Two murders on the Thames...." Oh shit! The Thames! That's near London! How could I have missed it?! "...Lead detective Lew Kirby and his partner to an abandoned psychiatric hospital - and the possibility that a former patient may hold the key to their investigation." More murders on the Thames? I say old chap, that's just not cricket! Yawn.
The Bird House by Eric Deacon
"When a traumatized woman emerges from a river near London," A river near London? Well, let's see...The Seine is quite near London.... The River Annan is the most southerly river in Scotland - that's not so far away.... The Wye isn't far from London, either. That's in Wales.... "Her case appears to be connected to a mysterious series of disappearances. Police detective Helen Lake races to unravel the truth." She's just starting now? What's she been doing hitherto? Knitting? Wait a minute: Bird, Deacon, River, Lake? There's a secret code in there somewhere!
An American in Paris by Susan Kiernan-Lewis
"For widowed American expat Claire Baskerville, Paris is the perfect city to put her crime-solving skills to the test." Because god forbid there should be a novel without an American in it. And why is Paris the perfect city? Is it rife with murderers? Is the Paris gendarmerie utterly incompetent? Does her widowhood somehow magically qualify her to fight crime? Or is this just another interfering dipshit getting in the way?
The Victim Killer by Simon King
"The great-granddaughter of an infamous serial killer, Sam has had to learn to control her sadistic impulses." Yeah, because serial killing runs in the genome. What a festering pile of horseshit! And the title? The Victim Killer? That's the best you got? Barf squared.
Saturday, June 12, 2021
The Shaytan Bride by Sumaiya Matin
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This is a horrible story, but I mean that in a good way. To know that Muslim women are treated badly is one thing, but to have it slapped in your face repeatedly as this story does, is a shattering experience.
Sumaiya Matin moved with her family from Dhaka, Bangladesh, to Thunder Bay, Ontario as a young child, and effectively grew-up Candian, but still Muslim of course. Her family ties ran deep though, and when she returns on what she thinks is merely a visit, she has no idea that her family plans to marry her off while she's back in Bangladesh.
In Canada, she'd met and fallen in love with a Sikh guy, but this was not her family's plan for her, and neither she nor Bhav, the guy she fell for, knew how their relationship might work. They knew only that they wanted it to. Trapped in Bangladesh, cut-off from friends, denied access to a phone, Sumaiya had to struggle against everyone to ensure that it was she, not they, who determined what her future would be. She proved to be stronger than they, but strong as she is,mstill she could not make everything come out all right. The story was educational, uncomfortable but necessary to read, and in many ways depressing.
In a similar vein, it was not all plain sailing for me, as a reader. I am not religious, so my mind is often boggled at what believers believe and what they bring upon themselves. I was unaware of how deep the fantastical beliefs of some cultures still run, even now in the 21st century. The stories of the Shayṭān Bride and the deep-seated beliefs in jinn were disturbing. It turns out that two-thirds to three-quarters of Bangladeshis believe in these spirits and in possession by such spirits, and women tend to believe more than men.
The story of the woman possessed by one such spirit was disturbing. I don't believe she was. It was doubtlessly a medical condition, but the story was quite moving and unsettling. There are also female jinn named jiniri, which I can no doubt have fun with in some future story I write!
In conclusion, This is a heart-breaking story of female subjugation, cruelty, and strength, of love and loss, and of one woman determined to be the author of her own destiny, and for that, I commend it.
The Untethered by SW Southwick
This story was crap almost from the off, and in some ways it seemed more like authorial wish fulfillment than anything else. The story begins with Roble Santos whose only ambition, it seems, is to build a private jet that can fly supersonic speeds. The seemingly impossible and illegal task he has to face is that it's purportedly illegal to fly such a jet. In which case why not move to a country where it is legal and build it there? It was a completely false challenge and had zero resonance.
None of these characters made sense, but the only other one I got any sort of an introduction to was Stock Brant who was an out and out criminal who I had zero interest in, and when, at 10% in, this third character, essentially threw herself at him, all the while convincing herself that she didn't want him - in essence, raping herself with him, I gave up on the book in complete disgust. It sucked, it was badly written, it was all over the place and it was trashier than a badly-written romance. I condemn it and I sure as hell wasn't about to read 600-plus pages of this shit.
The Making of Riley Paige by Blake Pierce
This book is in three volumes, and I believe I got the first one as a freebie - the intention being to lure you into to buying the other two, but that ain't gonna happen, not given how poorly-written this first volume ("Watching") was. This marks the third Blake Pierce I've read and they've all been bad.
The story is of a serial killer on a college campus, and this girl who is not named Riley Paige, but Riley Sweeney, is having insights into the killer's mind. There is another series by the same author about this same character, but later in her life, so I'm guessing this is a prequel, and in the later series, Riley apparently married this guy she met in college, whose last name is Paige. But as I said, the problem with the book is that it's badly-written. At one point in the story, Riley is talking with her roommate who is named Trudy, about a girl named Rhea, who was murdered in the dorm, but a couple of times in that conversation, the author mistakenly calls Trudy 'Rhea' - like Riley is talking with the dead girl! There are several other such gaffes, such as where the author says "a voice for the grave" rather than 'a voice from the grave'. The quality of the editing is non-existent. I know as authors we all screw uo now and then, but this one seems like they're not even trying.
The real problem with it is that it feels so amateur in how it's written, and in order to tell the story, the author is having Riley do stuff that makes her look like a dumb-ass at times. For example, there's a killer on the loose, preying on female students. He evidently has the gift of the gab, and is suave enough for them to feel safe inviting him back to their room, but at a party, Riley invites this one guy she barely knows to her room without even thinking for a minute he might be the killer. He isn't as it turns out, but that was a stupid thing for her to do. The guy tries to rape her, but since she recently learned some self-defense moves, she magically overpowers him despite him also being trained in self-defense - he was in her class - and being bigger and stronger than her! It's badly-written.
It gets worse though! She finds this pocket knife in the guy's pants, and she doesn't think for a second about taking it out and handling it, and when she hands it to the police, they have no problem handling it either! There's no concern at all about wearing gloves, or about fingerprints or contamination, or evidence bags or chain of custody! It's amateur!
Riley takes this guy Ryan to bed with her on their first date when she barely knows him, and there's no mention of sexual history or condom use let alone any concern on her part that he might be the killer. Yes, we know she's going to marry him because this is a prequel, but she doesn't know that! More on this ridiculous relationship later.
After her own roommate is murdered, Riley is taken by this FBI guy who is now on the case down to the police station to watch an interrogation of a suspect, so she can share her insights with the FBI about whether she thinks he did it! After that, despite her being in shock earlier, and despite it being her roommate who was murdered, and despite her having no place to go since her room is a crime scene, no one offers to drive her anywhere or asks her if she'll be okay. They just let her walk out without taking a statement from her or anything! The author obviously did this so this guy Ryan could come pick her up, but it's stupid, and very poorly written.
From the start, and since we know it wasn't Ryan, it looked to me like the killer is one of two college professors. I suspected this from early on, but it makes absolutely no sense. At one point Riley has this insight that the killer was hanging out outside the bar where Rhea was partying the night she was killed, Riley felt that this guy started talking to her and Rhea invited him back to her dorm room! If it had been a fellow student, no one would have given it a second thought, but to claim that no one noticed an older man - a college professor who would have been recognized - hanging outside the bar where students gather, and walking and talking with Rhea or going back to her dorm? It made zero sense!
When Riley finally, belatedly, gets onto the idea that it was a college professor (so much for her brilliant insights), she goes to the library to check on something she read in a book that one of these two professors had written about the criminal mind, and she sees one of her professors at a computer terminal in the library. He greets her not as Riley Sweeney but as "Riley Paige!"! LOL! Badly written. After consulting this book, she decides she should call that same professor she just saw, and talk to him about her thoughts. Never once does she think to check the computer terminal where she'd just seen him! It's like she forgot she'd seen him only minutes before, and she immediately goes to a payphone to call him where she finds him in his office! Again, badly-written.
The weird thing is that when she's seeking him out, she asks herself, "But who else did she have to talk to about this?" - well duhh! The FBI agent who's all but recruited you! Again, badly written. What I suspect happened here is that the professor she saw in the library was actually the other professor, and not the one she phones and later meets, who happens to be the murderer. Again it was a writing screw up.
The saddest thing about the purported genius Riley-with-the-magical-insights is that she continually and persistently gets it wrong who the murder is! We, the readers, have known virtually from the start because the story is so badly-written, but Riley doesn't learn until she's trapped in a locked room with him. Even then she's still on the wrong track and the professor has to declare hismelf as the killer! That's how bad she is - and she has to be rescued by the FBI agent who conveniently has been tailing her all day hoping she will lead him to the killer! What?! Because that's with the FBI does - follow a flaky girl around, hoping desperately for a break in the case instead of going steadily through the evidence and eliminating or adding suspects until they finally nail the right one. Yup!
Finally: how do we know Riley has been having unprotected sex with Ryan? Well, he gets her pregnant. Yet more evidence of how profoundly stupid this woman is. But what evidence is there that there's anything else to do in this to do in this town, but party? Riley almost never goes to any classes during this story. She never studies. She has no job. She has no hobbies or pursuits. She's a senior, and she does nothing but party and agonize over who the killer is.
Oh and finding out she's pregnant long before it would show - because she has nausea. Not because she has some feminine insight, but nausea. Yeah. This novel is nauseatingly bad. So when Ryan shows up out of the blue at her graduation - where she's still wearing a neck brace because this novel is mind bogglingly telescoped - and he essentially proposes marriage, she's all on board even though she barely knows him, and the last time she was with him, things went badly and they broke up. This novel is shit. Honestly. Garbage. I condemn it. I have no interest in reading any more about Riley Sweeney-Paige or anything else from this author. Three strikes and you're out Blake Pierce!
Thursday, June 10, 2021
On the Road to Tara by Aljean Harmetz
This is a large format print book replete with photographs from all stages of the production and all aspects of it. But it's not just a picture book. It has a lot of text describing aspects of the production from the acquisition of the rights to the novel, to the filming itself. If you're a big aficionado of the book or the movie, or are deeply interested in film-making, then this is a worthy read, but overall I have to say it wasn't worth my time. I found it interesting in parts, but it was too big, too full of fluff, and far too repetitive to be of great value.
If there's one thing that runs through this book, it's the constant and monotonous drumbeat of producer David Selnick's obsessive-compulsive micromanagement and meddling. It's really more of a book about him than it is about the movie, come to think of it and frankly, it's tedious to read this much of that topic. Yes, his behavior was an important part of how the movie got made, and yes, once in a while it's interesting to hear about how interfering and uncontrollable he was, but to hear it in every other paragraph is truly irritating and belabors the point long past its sell-by date.
I felt the book seriously overdid that at the expense of other things it could have related, but apart from where it talks about Selznick's behavior, the book seems superficial, skimming over other important and interesting stuff until it gets to the next Selznick-o-thon. I can't commend it as a worthy read for this reason.
The Conscience of an Agnostic by Robert K Cooper
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This is a very short book, and frankly after reading it, I wasn't sure exactly what it was trying to do, but for me it failed if judged by what the book description declares is its aim.
The premise is supposedly that "it is simply impossible to determine, with any degree of confidence, as to whether there is a transcendent, creative being which is responsible for the existence of the universe. The conclusion that inevitably flows from this realization is that agnosticism is the most intellectually honest position to espouse" but the author seems like he's on a crusade to debunk the theistic arguments (which frankly isn't a difficult thing to do) without paying any attention to the atheistic ones, and so he fails to establish the very premise that he claims is the only rational position.
To the best of my knowledge, the atheist position doesn't declare there are no gods, but instead declares that there's no convincing evidence for any gods. As Richard Dawkins and others have put it, most people have no belief in most gods. Atheists just believe in fewer gods than do believers. But if the author's aim is to establish that agnosticism is the only intellectually honest position, then he doesn't make that case here. A quick glance at the chapter headers is enough to make that argument:
- What is Agnosticism?
- What is Religious Faith?
- Common Objections to the Bible
- The Random Cruelty of Life: Murderous Dictators
- The Random Cruelty of Life: 20th Century Disasters
- The Random Cruelty of Life: The Deadliest Natural Disasters
- The Random Cruelty of Life: Mass Shootings
You rather get the idea from this that the book is largely US-centric and targets almost exclusively the Christian faith - otherwise why have a chapter devoted to the Bible, but none devoted to the Koran, or the Vedas, or the Tri-piṭaka and so on? So while you can argue (if you like!) that it addresses the Christian faith, it fails to make any case at all for agnosticism with regard to other faiths. The assumption, also, is that the creator god we’re supposed to be agnostic about, is a loving one, and seeks - from the abundance of chapters on the topic - to dispel this notion by having almost half the book devoted to the random cruelty of life, but what if this creator god merely sets things in motion and doesn't have any interest in beneficence or otherwise? The book fails to engage that.
The book also completely fails to address the scientific perspective, with regard, for example, to how the universe came to be and the fact that there may be multiple universes. It fails to address the four billion years of life on the planet which existed nearly all of that time without any living thing (at least on Earth!) wondering if there were any gods. What was that all about, if there's supposed to be a benign creator? It also fails to address any of the philosophical arguments for or against gods.
The last couple of chapters are "Assorted Quotes and Humorous tidbits" and "Quotes from Yours Truly: More Humorous tidbits" neither of which make any argument for anything and seemed more like filler. Quoting someone saying something about a god isn't evidence for or against any position, and listing celebrities who are agnostics makes no more of an argument for agnosticism than does listing holocaust deniers make an argument that there was no holocaust.
I didn't get the point of this approach at all, and especially not the employment of so much space which fails to take on the premise of the book in any meaningful or useful way, and neither do I see the point of those last two frivolous chapters when the point of the book still has not been made. For me the book had no real focus or thrust; it seemed half-hearted and rambling, and I cannot commend it as a worthy read.
Rock 'n' Roll Heretic: The Life and Times of Rory Tharpe by Sikivu Hutchinson
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This author is a feminist writer who has several non-fiction books out there. I have not read any of those. This one appears to be her first foray into fiction, and I have to say right up front that I was not at all impressed by it. For me it was a mess. It was hard to follow, choppily-written, jumping back and forth in time with little warning, flooded with characters that were not well-defined and therefore largely interchangeable, it was tedious at times, and did nothing whatsoever to draw me in, to enable me to empathize with the main character, or to engage or entertain me. I DNF'd it at 25% (and some skimming of the other 75%) because I was bored to tears with it and thoroughly disappointed at such a wasted opportunity.
The story is supposedly an homage to Rosetta Tharpe, but it feels more like an insult. The real-life Tharpe was truly a revolutionary who rose to popularity in the 1930s and 1940s, was an innovative musician and a huge influence on Blues, and helped bring Gospel into the mainstream, but this book doesn't seem to have any focus at all, and is music-light. By that I mean that, while an ebook (as opposed to an audio-book, for example) doesn't exactly lend itself to musical interludes, you can talk about music with passion and give it some character and life. Music was supposed to be a character in this novel in a very real sense, judged from the book description, but it was a complete no-show in that first 25%.
There was a lot of talk around music, but no talk, experience, or any sort of feel at all for music. So the book that was supposed to be about a musician turned her into a rather stereotypical shell - an echo of a musician rather then a working musician who purportedly was talented. Yes, we're told she was on the down-slide, and was a much imitated musician, but we were given no sort of sense of why she was imitated or what she had been before she hit the slope - not in the portion I read anyway.
To me, the novel felt like a fraud, like this was a band trying to break into the big time rather than a respected musician who'd had a series of bad breaks. Worse than that, it was all over the place and it lost me repeatedly as I tried to follow it and engage with it. I have to say it was also racist in some ways, in a warped mirror sort of way, which is the same distorted reflection that lets black comedians, for example tell racist white jokes on stage, but condemns white comedians who do the same about people of color.
You can't have it both ways. If racism is bad - and it is - you can't allow it for people of one color while denying it for others. It needs to be anathema for all, and this book didn't seem to get that. On the one hand it rightly sought to condemn racism, but it did it in such a back-handed and hamfisted manner that it became more like a parody than a paradigm. It became an exemplar of the very thing it was supposed to be deriding. For these reasons, I can't commend it based on what I read of it.
Saturday, June 5, 2021
Liars and Losers Like Us by Ami Allen-Vath
"As prom night looms on the horizon, 17-year-old Bree must navigate tragedy, secrets, and a difficult love triangle." Why? Why the love triangle? Shit or get off the pot, Bree. Another unoriginal plot starring a ditz who doesn't even have convictions, let alone the courage of them.
A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman
"In this sparkling mystery, wealthy American widow Frances Wynn arrives in Victorian London - but soon becomes a suspect in her late husband's murder." Because if there isn't an American in it, it's a waste of time reading it, right? Non-starter.
Murder Once Removed by SC Perkins
"When Texas genealogist Lucy Lancaster discovers a journal proving that billionaire Gus Halloran's great-great-grandfather was murdered in the 1840s - possibly by the ancestor of US Senator Daniel Applewhite - the ensuing accusation thrusts her into a dangerous web of small-town secrets!" Why would it? Who the fuck cares what happened almost 200 years ago? This is a definite non-starter for me.
The Lake House by Christie Barlow
"After moving to a new town, bistro waitress Ella catches a ride across the lake every day with Roman, the village water taxi driver. As she settles in and gets to know her charming neighbors, will Heartcross offer a second chance at life - and love?" The answer is yes. Why is it even a question anymore? And 'Roman'? Really? I find the story more appealing if the tax-driver's name was Visigoth or Vandal and the town's name was Starcross.
The Bookshop of Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson
Another book about a bookshop. Yawn. I'd turn this down just from the title, but the plot is a definite killer of interest: "When schoolteacher Miranda inherits her late uncle's run-down bookshop, she learns he's hidden a series of clues within the store - and begins unraveling a tragic family mystery." Why does her chickenshit uncle hide the clues instead of coming out with it? So the perp can get away with whatever it was they did?
Bennett's Bastards Bundle by Jennie Kew
"For these couples, no-strings-attached passion leads to unexpected..." diseases? Just a wild-ass guess.
Desecration by JF Penn
"DS Jamie Brooke enlists the help of clairvoyant Blake Daniel to follow a macabre trail of murder, grave robbery, and genetic modification..." and finds out she's a lying-ass fraud? Just a suggestion. Have you noticed the psychics in these stories (books and movies) never offer a damned thing that really helps - only the vaguest of clues so the author can spin the story on and on. It would be more of a challenge if the psychic nailed the perp down to name and address and the author still managed to find a good story. Why don't I do that? Maybe I will.
But no psychic ever solved a murder. Ever. Period. Cops do that. Not psychics. Not bakers. Not librarians. Not café owners. Not cupcake shop owners. Not ladies' knitting circles. Not bookshop owners. Cops. Hard-working cops. That's it.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)