"When his wife is abducted during their honeymoon in the Great Smoky Mountains, veteran Navy SEAL Earl Helmsly is determined to find her." Another Navy SEAL story! How original! 'Cos there sure aren't enough of those already and when there are enough of those, don't worry, because we'll still have the Air Force Special Tactics, the Army Green Berets, the Army Night Stalkers, the Army Rangers, the Navy SEALs Missions, the Navy SWCCs, the Marine MARSOC, the Marine RECON, and the Marine RECON Missions. Don't worry: we'll enver run out of unoriginal stories.
Sunday, July 4, 2021
Hot Property Sherryl Woods
"Molly DeWitt is looking for a fresh start... Too bad trouble seems to be looking for her! When a wealthy man is found with a knife in his back - Molly's knife - she'll have to race against detective Michael O'Hara to prove her innocence." No, that's not how it works! The prosecutor must prove guilt. Why Molly is racing around like she has something to hide, or worse, to cover up, is the real mystery here, and nobody cares anyway, because it's one more in a tedious line of cookie-cutter, utterly invariant, non-mysteries.
Partners in Crime by Elise Sax
"Peter is ready to give up his career as a spy and live a quiet life - until Piper walks out of the woods with no clothes or memory of what happened to her. When the two join forces to decipher Piper's dangerous past, can they manage to stay focused as their chemistry heats up?" Peter and Piper? Really? Retitle this "Piper at the Gates of Dumb" and I might recycle it rather than toss it straight into landfill waste. Barf.
The Force by Don Winslow
"Top NYPD detective Denny Malone has served his city for years" Oh look! A New York cop with an Irish name! How original. This ought to have been titled, "The farce". The force isn't with The Winslow Boy.
Just One Night by Kyra Davis
"Responsible Kasie succumbs to a night of passion with Robert in Las Vegas - only to later discover he's the powerful CEO she'll be working with" This plot has never been done before - if you don't count the million times it actually has. Yawn.
A Taste for Love by Jennifer Yen
Or is this A Yen for Love by Jennifer Taste?! We can never be sure! "When Liza agrees to help out with an annual competition at her mother's bakery, she soon realizes all of the contestants are young men her mom wants her to date. And she finds herself reluctantly drawn to infuriatingly handsome James" No wonder Kirkus thought this was great. An unoriginal story is "changed up" by substituting Asian characters and suddenly it's scrumptious? The dumbass 'infuriatingly handsome' line in the description has been overdone to the point where it's burned to a crisp. Throw it in the trash along with your cookie-cutter. Next please.
The Unteachables by Gordon Korman
"When disillusioned educator Mr Zachary Kermit is assigned to teach a group of misfit students, mayhem ensues - and a life-changing bond is formed." How utterly unoriginal and completely predictable! Let's make it into a sitcom with a laugh track. No wonder Kirkus loved it.
Dead Days of Summer by Carolyn Hart
When her husband is falsely accused of murder, mystery bookstore owner Annie must find the real killer on their South Carolina island - before her beloved winds up behind bars." Why? Are the South Carolina cops utterly incompetent? Does a bookstore owner have more resources than a police department when it comes to solving crimes? Seriously? Or are the laws different there, in that you have to prove your innocence, instead of the authorities having to prove your guilt?
The Misadventures of Catie Bloom by Brooke Stanton
"Catie needs a husband - before her little white lies blow up her glamorous career. But when Sam comes to her rescue, she might find more than she bargained for... A witty romantic comedy" How is it witty when it's been done a gazillion times before? This needs to be put into the witless protection program. It's dumb, tedious and unoriginal. And Catie needs to quit being a lying little shit. She's delusional. There's no such thing as a white lie; there are just lies, period.
Do It for the Prestige by Kaya LaSalle
Does this novel come with a guarantee that not a single word in it is truly original? I'm guessing not, but I'm also guessing it has little in the way of originality given that this same plot has been done to death a thousand times already. Barf. "Straitlaced Claire Evans is completely focused on her job as a PR strategist for the wealthy. She surprises herself when she has a one-night stand — and is even more surprised when the woman turns out to be her next client!" She's going to be more surprised still, when she discovers that she's contracted HPV from having unprotected sex with a stranger.
Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
"A #1 New York Times bestseller with over 118,000 five-star Goodreads ratings!" and yet it still has to be offered at rock bottom prices in a book flyer? "Simon Snow may be the Chosen One, but he sure doesn’t feel like it. At the Watford School of Magicks, Simon must grapple with adventures, hijinks, and his infuriating roommate, Baz" Any blurbn that talks of a relationship with an 'infuriating' other is an automatic pass for me. Barf. It's time to hire a new and original book description writer Rowell, because this one is over the Rainbow. he's drunk the Flavor Aid, and then some.
The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen
"Perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo...." Count me out then!
Peasants and Kings by Emma Slate
"While working at the luxurious Rex Hotel," Rex means king - get it? There's nothing like being hit sharply over the head with the patently obvious. I feel this novel is slated to fail. "Sterling Miller meets captivating billionaire Hadrian Rhys and can’t resist his commanding touch — nor his enticing offer to claim her" To claim her? Like she's lost property? Way to dis your own Gender, Slate. Another garbage 'women need to be owned' bullshit excuse for a novel. And there's nothing original here. Sterling is the silver medal and Hadrian is going to build a wall around her? Barf squared.
Vox by Christina Dalcher
“Intelligent, suspenseful, provocative, and intensely disturbing” (Lee Child) - remind me never to read anything Lee Child has ever written if he thinsk this is so good. It's time to put away Childish things. "In a near-future America, the government declares that women can only speak 100 words per day — but linguist Jean McClellan will stop at nothing to make sure her voice is heard." What kind of fucked-up shit is this? In what fucking universe would American women allow this to happen? Seriously? Way to dis your gender Dalcher.
In Case You Missed It by Lindsey Kelk
"After losing her dream job in the United States, Ros returns to her quiet British hometown - and discovers everyone has moved on. Could an accidental text to her ex be her ticket to a new beginning?" No, because unfortunately, her ex is a psychopath and he murders her, has a sex-change, and assumes her entire life. Very sad. Seriously? Hasn't this lousy, anti-feminist pathetic garbage story of an uninteresting loser-girl running back to her hometown and being rescued from her worthlessness by a guy already been told like ten billion times before already? Get a new shtick Kelk, for heaven's sake. Come up with something original for once in your life. Support your gender instead of trashign it with these sad excuses for tired, enbdlessly-reworked plots.
Saturday, July 3, 2021
Winter Cowboy by RJ Scott
What exactly is winter cowbioy? Do they round up snowflakes? Corral icicles? Go on snowdrift drives? This tells us that "Micah and Daniel loved each other - until a devastating tragedy tore them apart. But when they both return to Whisper Ridge, they gain a chance to heal old wounds..." Two guys on a mountain? Can you say Brokeback Ridge redux? How original.
Find Me by Francesca Riley
A typical YA paranormal romance. If the ridiculous title doesn't turn you off, the book description should: "When 17-year-old Skye returns to the seaside village where she grew up, she becomes captivated by Hunter, a gorgeous and mysterious swimmer." Hunter and Skye? Really? I think Hunter is maybe a merman since the cover shows the girl in the water. But if he's the hunter, why call her Skye? Why not call her Kipper - or Snapper? LOL! No thanks to this garbage.
Freed by EL James
Talking of garbage, here's what's hopefully the actual final instalment in the Fifty Shades of Tired series: "The final installment of the renowned Fifty Shades series from Christian's perspective!" which unfortunately doesn't say a thing about there not being any more of this trash. It's the series that made BDSM stand for boring, dumb, morose shit. What's the next trilogy? From the fly on the wall's perspective? From Anastasia's pussy's perspective? The blurb continues: "With a wedding on the horizon, will Christian's need for control tear him and Ana apart - or will their passion set him free?" Don't we already know the answer to this abusive and misleading relationship? Grey steel is what this is - cold and unappealing and dangerous when people try to emulate this without knowing what they're doing. It's yet another series that's fit to be tied.
No Flowers Required by Cari Quinn
"With her flower shop close to going under, Alexa could do with a distraction - and sexy handyman Dillon might be just what she needs." Why not just call him Dildo and be done with it? Business savvy is what this dipshit actually needs.
Tear Me Apart by JT Ellison
Here's a lesson: never buy a novel with a dumb-ass title like this. "After a tragic skiing accident, Mindy needs a stem cell transplant." Seriously? How the fuck do you end up needing a stem cell transplant due to a skiing accident? Did her eggs freeze?
Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage
"Suzette struggles to be a good mother - and she's about to learn the terrifying truth about her seven-year-old daughter." That she should have been born seven years ago, but Crap Suzette has purposefully kept her in the womb all this time to protect her, and now the poor kid is trying to eat her way out and claim her freedom? Sounds like a great plot for a novel!
Knockout by Mia Gold
Holly Hands is a pro at repossessing cars - but the unexpected discovery of a corpse inside a trunk" - does she normally expect to find a corpse in the trunk? "...isn't something she's prepared for." I imagine not. "She and her loyal dog, Lucky, will have to rely on their wits to stay alive." Why? Didn't she report the find to the cops?
Charm by JA Armitage
The only other novel I've read by this author was The Sorcery Trial which she co-wrote with Claire Luana. I did not like that because it was poor, and also too much of a rip-off of The Hunger Games. It seems like here we are again, this time ripping-off fairytales and I have to wonder why the author doesn't try to come up with something original. Normally I will not give these novels the time of day because they're all the same, but read on!
I made a mistake with this one, because I ended up misreading the book description and thinking it was something of a rival to my own Femarine because the princess is expected to pick a spouse and ends up choosing the last person anyone would expect. I'd misread pretty good though, and I thought she'd picked a woman, but she didn't! It was just that the guy she did pick was a kitchen helper who was improbably named Cynder. If I'd realized that small fact earlier I'd never have wanted to read the darned thing, but I was curious to see how it tackled a subject I've already tackled (so I thought), and I decided to give it a read. Bad mistake! It really was just like all the other novels of this genre, and in no significant way original or different at all.
The book description has it that (and I quote!) "Charm is the first in the Reverse Fairytale series by USA Today bestselling author J.A.Armitage. Take everything you think you know about fairytales and turn it on its head," but that's misleading because it didn't turn anything on its head at all except the gender reversal: that the princess falls for the help rather than the prince falling for the help. Other than that it's exactly what you'd expect in this sort of a story, and it's so, dare I say it, disenchanting to read and discover how uninventive and unimaginative it is.
Instead of telling the story from the PoV of Cynder, it's told from the princess's PoV, and while this seems superficially like a reversal, it really isn't, because all that does is turn it into a story about a princess in search of a groom like almost every other dumb-ass YA princess story that's ever been written. We get nothing about Cynder - not even why Charmaine would fall in love with him. It just magically happens, which ought to make Charmaine suspicious since Cynder has magic powers! But he's written out of the story pretty quickly (this is a trilogy which means the author doesn't know how to tell a story between only two covers and is in dire need of a good editor.
The story begins with Princess Charmaine, the second eldest daughter of King Aaron of Silverwood, who has grown up as a carefree tomboy, but her older sister, Grace, dies from an apparent heart defect. I suspect it's actually murder: I mean how can a royal have an undetected heart defect in this day and age? Do they never get medical assessments? So anyway Charmaine gets bumped to the position of heir apparent and has to step in for her sister in the upcoming ball where 100 eligible bachelors will arrive, one of whom she must pair up with.
I made it about a fifth of the way through before I couldn't stand to read any more of this. It's set in completely modern times, but the princess seems not to have a cell phone, nor any friends, and they seem not to have the Internet in this world because when the queen is telling her there will be a ton of bachelors at the ball, she adds that she's solicited photos of them all so Charmaine can see who's who. Apparently there's no online surfing to check these guys out. It was downright weird, and poorly thought-out. World-building sucked.
With it being a thoroughly modern story, the age of consent is eighteen, Charmaine's age, but to suggest that neither of these two younger daughters - the youngest, Elise, is 17, has ever met a male peer, let alone a potential mate, is quite simply ridiculous and fundamentally stupid. Is the author writing a novel or a fairytale? It seems like she can't tell the difference. In the former, one has to make it at least seem realistic. No attempt whatsoever was made in that direction here. It's written like it was aimed at a much younger age group, but unbelievably, it's not!
As soon as Grace dies, it seems that Charmaine becomes the biggest royal dumbass ever. She has never been considered the heir until now, granted, but you cannot spend eighteen years in a royal family and not have even the most basic knowledge of protocol and etiquette. It's bullshit to suggest otherwise, yet we're expected to believe that Charmaine needs extensive tutoring and dance lessons! This beggars belief and makes her look like the dumbest royal ever, who has never been involved even remotely in any sort of royal or public life.
The novel is, as is usual for this YA garbage, unapologetically sexist and anti-feminist. Why female authors persistently write trash like this escapes me completely. I guess as long as LCD readers dominate the audience, then writers have no incentive to raise the bar do they? I disagree!
Here's one of the earliest sentences in the book: "With her stunning white blonde hair, two or three shades lighter than my own, and her darling face, she would make an excellent queen." Yes, it's in first person of course, and this is Charmaine's dumbass assessment of her kid sister. So that's all it takes to be queen? White blonde hair and darling looks? Charmaine is a fucking moron, period.
How does Charmaine rate in the 'looks' department - because this shallow piece of trash is all about appearances and skin-depth. In this world, nothing else is important: not heart, not integrity, not honesty, not experience, not dedication, not commitment, not decency, and not strength of character. Nope. None of the above, only shallow looks and pretty dresses. Charmaine is "A dirty blonde that nothing but the strongest hairspray and lots of pins could tame." Yet she gets a one-day makeover and she's suddenly gorgeous.
But here's the thing: there are magicians in this world - called magi. There are many of them who work at the palace, yet not a one of those was ever called in to tame Charmaine's hair? What is the fricking point exactly, of having magic in your story if it's never, ever, ever, ever used for anything, and your world proceeds entirely and solely by the rules we're familiar with in our own world, where no magic exists? Again, piss-poor writing, and despite the "magi" there is no magic to this novel.
The story is replete with inconsistency. Were told that mourning for Grace lasts two weeks and the royal household is wearing black, yet the very next day Charmaine is expected to wear a white dress for a bullshit interview on TV! But that's fine, because neither Charmaine nor her kid sister show any sort of grief over Grace's death! Maybe they murdered her? Who knows in this piece of crap?
Elise gets into raptures over Charmaine's make-over when she learns Charmaine has had her legs waxed because god forbid a single 'unnatural' hair should be found anywhere on the female body. How gross! How ugly! Burn the witch! Elise says, "Yeah, but you have nice smooth legs. I swear I'm turning into a gorilla." Way to diss every woman who has body hair, Armitage. Jesus fucking Christ is that how you view your fellow women who choose to be natural? They're gorillas? Because body hair is disgusting? It's unnatural? It's ugly and so are the woman who don't want to shave it? For fuck's sake get a clue, Armitage before you ever write another insulting word.
Here's the weird thing: these two girls are continually presented as sheltered, never having any contact with boys, yet they have these views of body hair? And nowhere in their royal life have they ever had any sort of royal treatment before? Again, piss-poor story-telling. Someone asks Charmaine, "Do you want to go into that ball not having a clue how to act," but she's been a royal for 18 years! Only a dedicated moron could live eighteen years in a royal family and have no clue how to act. Way to diss your main character, Armitage!
During her lessons on how to be a royal, Charmaine misses dinner, so the advice to her is: "You'll have to go down to the kitchen and ask the cook for something." Wait what? The princess and heir apparent has to go ask for food? There is a thousand people working in the place and she has no one she can call, no bell pull to ring, to get service? She has to go to the kitchen and beg for food? Again, piss-poor writing because this is the only way this author can think of to bring Charmaine into contact with the love of her life - a magi who uses his magic to wash dishes in the kitchen Apparently they have TVs, but no electric dishwasher in the palace.
Of course the creepy Cynder is overly familiar with the princess and ends up dancing with her - he can teach her but the best dance teacher in the country cannot? He has his hands all over her and kisses her on the cheek. Seriously? Again this is a dumbass rushed "love" story where these two characters are literally forced together by the author. They have to be forced because they're written so poorly and pushed together so ham-fistedly that the author has no choice but to force things. They sure as hell aren't going to happen naturally with this kind of story-telling, because they have zero chemistry and have a relationship that makes her look dumb and him look a creep. Again: it's lousy writing.
I've embarked on a few truly dumbass stories in my time, and this one is right down there with the worse of them. It's badly-written, stupidly-plotted and an insult to women everywhere. I'm done with this author permanently.
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
This was another depressing attempt at approaching one of the classics. I feel bad that Erin Bateman had to read this 800 page disaster - or however many pages it was in her edition. No, on second thought, I don't, because she really didn't read it well. Her voice and tone were so wrong for this, and at times it was irritating to listen to her. But even that would have been manageable if the novel were not so endlessly tedious, and rambling, and uninteresting in the extreme. And so completely illogical.
I guess 'show, don't tell' wasn't a thing back in Henry's time, because he tells everything in extraordinarily mind-numbing detail. His main character, Isabel Archer, is, we're told, a smart, adventurous, engaging young woman, but what we're shown is a dull, clueless, and uninteresting woman. To me, it's a mystery - other than that she's 'hot' I guess - why any sane man would want a relationship with her, but it seems that everyone wants to marry her, while she on the other hand doesn't, we're told, want to marry anyone, because she wants to stretch her wings. Apparently marriage prevents this even for someone welre told is strong-willed and adventurous. But apparently lacking in imagination.
The problem is that she has no money for travel, and as soon as she does have money - through an inheritance - she marries the worst guy she can find. Despite turning down devoted and eligible men who would have been good for her and who proposed when she had nothing, because she wished to retain her freedom, we're told she jumps into a marriage on imprudently short notice with the worst guy there is. This story is a piece of garbage.
Before We Disappear by Shaun David Hutchinson
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
Be warned that this is going to be a more rambling review than usual because there are several aspects of this story that I need to address. Anyone who's read any of my 'non-reviews' will know that I have little respect for book descriptions which are trite, uninventive, and always playing to the lowest common denominator. More on this anon. In short though, they're written for idiots, frequently by someone who evidently has never even read the novel they're 'describing'. The blurbs are often dishonest and as I point out regularly, they have certain key words and phrases that ought to warn you away from the book that's being described.
So I have only myself to blame for the fact that I ignored my own advice with this book and I consequently paid the price of wasting my time on a novel that I should have turned my back on the instant that I read the description. The thing is that I was intrigued by what seemed like it might be a good LGBTQIA story - and set at the turn of last century, no less. It sounded too good to be true and it was.
I need to preface this by detouring slightly into talking about audiobooks and how you can have your phone read you an ebook as though it's an audiobook. I can't speak for Android phones, but for iPhones there's a technology called 'voice over' which is an assisted-use system that reads your screen to you, indicating buttons and other stuff on the screen. In order to make this work, you need to open your ebook to the place you want to begin reading, and ask Siri to turn on Voice Over. For those who don't already know, I'd like to share with you that Siri is ADHD, so it may take more than one request to get her to start it, and more than two requests to get her to stop, but once voice over is in play, simply tap on the first sentence you want to be read, then slide two fingers lightly down the screen from there to the bottom of the screen, and Voice Over will read your ebook to you!
Note that this is far from perfect. The voice is unnatural which is why I call it Robot Reader, and it's subject to disruption if the text contains images or has gaps in it (as Kindle frequently does, which is yet one more reason to avoid all things Amazon like the plague. But overall, it works pretty good, and I get through a lot of books this way. It's also amusing listening Robot Reader's quirky pronunciations, so there is some entertainment value from that, too.
I honestly do not understand why the big ebook publishers do not employ this. Google has similar technology. They could adapt it easily to read your ebooks to you - or to your kids. Apple has it. Kobo books could quite readily get their hands on it, as could Barnes and Noble. B&N has had their ass kicked to the curb by the despicable Amazon, so why they aren't fighting tooth and nail to get every edge they can, I do not know. I guess their management is simply incompetent.
All this to explain why I was impressed by Net Galley's audiobook technology employed on this novel. While far from perfect, this was the best yet, and it really has great potential. It was a synthesized voice, but it sounded real - not at all like my adorable Robot Reader. There were flaws. The voice sounded quite flat; it was lacking inflection and 'life' for want of a better term, but it read quite competently and sounded reasonably normal.
My issues with it were that the voice was completely wrong for the novel, which was supposedly being told in first person by not one, but two people who were in their teens. The Net Galley synthesized voice didn't remotely sound like a teenage boy. Obviously if they can synthesize the voice, they can synthesize a sixteen-year-old voice. Why they didn't I don't know. This made the novel rather tedious to listen to at times, but that's not all on the synthesizing. I'd love to get my crazed, inventive hands on this technology, rest assured!
As usual, the biggest problem was the novel itself. It was not at all well-written, and it was slow-moving and uninspiring. Plus, listening to it as an audiobook while driving is not the best way to take in this book. When I'm driving, my attention is of course on the driving, where it should be. This is especially true if it's a problematic drive, so the book loses my attention even if it's an interesting one. This book wasn't.
I pay more attention to a story in the early morning when the roads are largely empty, than when I'm driving home during rush hour, so I missed portions of this, which isn't typically a problem, but in this case it lead to serious confusion because I didn't realize to begin with, that this was dual-first-person voice (DFPV). It is. And the switch between characters went undetected.
The thing is that when you do a DFPV, you have to identify at the start of the chapter who is speaking. The problem was exacerbated in this novel because the author pretentiously put the location and the date at the start of the chapter like it was some big important announcement. My eyes (or in this case, my ears) skate right over that crap because typically it's just annoying, irrfelevant, and so self-importantly pretentious in an already overly self-important first person story that it leaves me cold.
Normally, 1PoV is quite irritating enough, and it's exponentially worse when it's squared. DFPV is merely the author's cute way of admitting that they made a serious mistake in choosing first person voice to begin with. Typically, it's a grave mistake because it limits your story and your options; it makes the main character insufferably self-centered, and the voice is unnatural. No one but an imbecile narrates their own life as it's happening. No one but an eidetic can recall conversations and actions verbatim, and eidetics have their own raft of issues to deal with.
1PoV constantly tosses me right out of suspension of disbelief because it's so inauthentic and annoying: hey lookit me! This is what I'm doing now! Pay attention to meeee! Barf! It's worse when the author admits they screwed-up by having to add a second 1PoV or resort to third person for portions of the novel. It's laughable and I avoid these stories whenever I can. In this case I had no warning that it was first person or I would never have even started reading it. Such books should carry a warning like cigarette packs do. I actually did that on a parody novel I wrote!
So, let's look at the novel itself. The first warning ought to have been the title, which is a bit pretentious but not godawful. The next indication that this was to be fled from was the use of the words 'star-crossed' in the description. That's like a bio-hazard warning to me, and in this case, it's bullshit, but like an idiot, I ignored it. The second warning was that one of the main characters is called 'Jack' - the most tediously over-used go-to name in literary history for an action character. It shows a complete and utter lack of imagination on the part of the author, but like a dimwit, I ignored that because this wasn't an action adventure novel. More fool me!
The story is of two rival illusionists, one whom goes by the name of 'The Enchantress' for whom Jack Nevin works. He's a skilled thief, and he steals the secrets of other magicians and illusionists, which The Enchantress then incorporates into her own act. It's how she's stayed on top for so long. Her rival is Laszlo, who also has an assistant for whom Jack falls. That's the LGBTQIA part of the novel, but it played such a non-existent part in the story to the point where I could stand to hear no more of this (25% in) that the book may as well have been a cis novel.
Naturally you can't publish a novel in the USA unless it takes place in the US or at least has one important American in it. It's against the constitution, you know? Who cares about the rest of the world? As Donald Trump says, it's entirely unimportant. The US is the only nation worth considering or writing about. So despite starting out in Paris, the City of love, the novel quickly comes running home to mamma. Barf.
I honestly wish US authors had far more courage than they do. And were more inventive and original; especially YA authors. I would have loved for it to stay in Paris, but it ain't gonna happen. Not from an American author. At least not often. You can argue: well, they're only writing what people will buy, but is that really the truth? And is that really what should motivate us? Do authors have to bow down to the LCD that I mentioned earlier, tugging forelocks and kowtowing, or ought they instead to be leading their readership to greener, fresher pastures? If the readers are really such sheep, why not?!
So when things go south, The Enchantress and her crew head to Seattle. Why there, I have no idea, except that was an exposition going on, I guess so they thought they could score big there. Or is it just that this is where the author lives?! Anyway, that's when they run into Laszlo and his crew, and when Jack first gets to meet his love, who sadly isn't named Jill - or any masculine variant thereof! Jilhelm?
The thing about Lazslo is that his assistant, Wilhelm, really can do magic and Jack is at a loss to explain how it's done, thinking it's just another illusion. Wilhelm is a sort of BDSM slave to Lazslo, and not in any decent or fun way. He's outright abused. Frankly this part of the story turned me right off, and that, along with the tedium of the plodding pace, I lost all interest. I simply could not stand to listen to any more, so I DNF'd it. Life is far too short to spend it on stories that don't do it for ya. I can't commend this based on the portion I listened to, and for the reasons I've detailed above.
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